So close yet so far for Rahul

Rohit Mahajan

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Tribune News Service

chennai, December 18

KL Rahul’s eyes, vacant and shocked as if he’d seen a ghost, exemplified cricket’s incongruity — even after putting his team in a  very strong position in the fifth Test, Rahul was suffering badly. There were 391 reasons for him to be very, very happy for his team; he had one reason to be very, very unhappy with himself. That one personal reason outweighed the 391 team reasons.

Rahul fell at 199 to Adil Rashid, off the third ball of the 83rd over of the third day. It was not a good ball — to be frank, it was a wretched ball. Rashid had tossed it up wide of the batsman. Rahul’s back foot was rooted inside the crease, his front foot just outside off-stump. This meant that to reach the ball, Rahul had to lunge and throw his bat out. He did that and made contact — but it was imperfect contact. The ball hit the bat’s top edge and looped to Jos Buttler at cover. Rahul was out. In the pavilion, Virat Kohli gasped and covered his mouth in anguish. A hush fell on the ground.

Rahul took it the worst — he simply slumped to the ground, to his haunches, staring into nothingness. His partner Karun Nair called out to him, shaking Rahul’s stupor off. Ben Stokes shook his hand and presumably spoke a word of compassion.  Then Rahul began the walk back to the dressing room.

England crushed

Mathematically, 199 is not too far from 200; in cricket, the two numbers are separated by a massive gulf. Cricket’s love for round, complete numbers makes 199 seem significantly less than 200. Rahul’s dismissal for 199 put the ground — and the 17,500-odd spectators in it — under a sombre shadow. It obscured the fact that India made 331 runs in 88 overs today to reach 391/4, and are now only 86 short of England’s 477. Rahul’s miss also made people forget that Rahul, Parthiv Patel (71) and Nair (71*) utterly crushed the spirit of England. A draw is the likeliest result from here; but if India get a lead, England could feel the pressure.

England’s players now know that after Rahul’s 199, they are very unlikely to get the win they desperately crave. The pitch is not doing anything. The whole day, the ball beat the bat perhaps three times, and only twice did the ball jump up and strike the batsman on the glove. England didn’t use their first DRS review until the 102nd over of the innings — this clearly shows that the batsmen were never troubled the whole innings.

The four wickets England got today were entirely down to some false strokes from the Indian batsmen — they got lucky with Parthiv Patel (leading edge of bat on ball when attacking Moeen Ali against the spin), Cheteshwar Pujara (horribly dabbed the ball to slip) and Virat Kohli (caught by the man placed at short cover for just that shot).

India on top

Rahul had two huge partnerships — 152 for the first wicket with Patel and 161 for the fourth with Nair, his Karnataka teammate, and friend since age 11. Nair, having completed his first Test half-century, will resume the innings tomorrow with Murali Vijay, who came at No. 6 because of the shoulder injury he suffered while fielding yesterday. Vijay has already scored two centuries in the series and, with the pitch playing true, he’ll go for another big score.

Rahul, who’s missed five of the nine Tests played by India this season due to various injuries, was very, very impressive on what he described as the best pitch of this series. India’s players and management have been talking about showing “intent”, and Rahul was full of intent, right from early today when he attacked Liam Dawson and struck him for two sixers. He was confident and decisive against the spinners, lofting them over the field and frequently reverse-sweeping them. Ali conceded runs at 4 an over, Rashid at 4.47 and Joe Root at six. Debutant Liam Dawson bowled 23 overs and gave 72 runs, but he didn’t pose a serious threat. The pacers weren’t a factor at all.

Rahul missing his double century by a run took some shine off India’s performance today, but that’s not the best way to look at it. Rahul, himself having given it a thought and recovered from the initial shock, said: “I’d go back home happy that I got 199 crucial runs for my team.”

Scoreboard

England 1st innings 477 

India 1st innings (Overnight 60/0) 

KL Rahul c Buttler b Rashid 199

P Patel c Buttler b Ali 71

C Pujara c Cook b Stokes 16

V Kohli c Jennings b Broad 15

K Nair not out 71

M Vijay not out 17

Extras: (LB 2) 2

Total: (4 wickets in 108 overs) 391

FOW: 1-152, 2-181, 3-211, 4-372

Bowling

C Broad 18-4-46-1

J Ball 15-1-50-0

M Ali 24-1-96-1

B Stokes 9-1-37-1

A Rashid 17-0-76-1

L Dawson 23-3-71-0

J Root 2-0-12-0