The mystery of the ripped-out last page

MS Dhoni collects the Healthy Hearts Association's Man of the Year award for prudently having shielded millions of spectators and 22 players from the damage a tense last session could potentially have inflicted
© AFP





Dominica's first-ever Test match was an old-style twister, a game that wound and ground an undulating course towards a tense climax. With 15 overs remaining – more than 4% of a rain-interrupted match ‒ India were well set to press on for victory, to confirm their pre-eminence in the world game by ruthlessly completing a 2-0 series triumph, 86 runs required from 90 balls. Two greats of the game at the crease. Two World-Cup-winning batsmen still to come, plus a useful tail, but they would have to make those runs on a slow-scoring pitch against a defiant West Indies striving to suggest their latest improvements might have more longevity than other recent false dawns. All was in readiness for a rousing conclusion to an intriguing series, which had had a touch of the 1950s about it in terms of scoring rates, but which tested the batsmen throughout, and saw the welcome return to form of Ishant Sharma and Fidel Edwards. A titanic hour's cricket was imminent.

And then everyone just wandered off.

As anti-climaxes go, this was not quite as disappointing as it would have been had Hillary and Tensing reached 50 metres from the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, then simultaneously pulled hamstrings and decided not to risk aggravating their injuries by going any further, potentially ruling themselves out of mountaineering for between four and six months; nor as much of a let-down as when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin opened the door of their magic space rocket in 1969, took one look at the moon, and scuttled back inside muttering something about being scared of rocks. (Fortunately they were persuaded by Houston ground control to "have another go, or find your own way home".)

However, it was a dismal end to a cricket match, a wasteful, negative, dispiriting cop-out, using a needless and bone-headed loophole in the sport's regulations to chicken out of a potentially thrilling endgame. India were content not to run a miniscule risk of defeat in exchange for a highly possible victory. West Indies were content to have their brave batting rearguard of Chanderpaul and the Edwardses rewarded with a drawn match and a series defeat by an acceptable margin of just one Test to nil. Cricket was unquestionably the loser. And cricket should be asked some stroppy questions in its post-match press conference.