A cliff-hanger to remember

At a time when the longer version is struggling to draw fans to the grounds – and this phenomenon is not restricted to India – Test cricket needed this cliff-hanger to reiterate its primacy and provide further proof that there is no substitute for the numerous ebbs and flows that neither 50-over cricket nor the Twenty20 version can ever provide.

Australia and South Africa fought out two classics in South Africa earlier this month, to largely empty houses, Zimbabwe pushed New Zealand all the way in an incredible run-chase at home. Coming on the heels of those gripping games, the Wankhede tie did Test cricket’s image no harm at all as a match that was seemingly headed towards a drab finish sprang to life without warning.

That nearly 20,000 people turned up on the final afternoon as word spread that an Indian whitewash was on the cards, and that fans continued to drop in even with half an hour to go, was particularly refreshing. Indian cricket has largely been about individuals; for the supporters to stream in even after Sachin Tendulkar was dismissed revealed a maturity and passion that the Indian fan hasn’t always displayed.

There was tension in the stands, in the changing rooms – never mind that Virender Sehwag was lolling around on the massage table -- and on the field, manifesting itself in sub-par West Indian fielding. It was that kind of a finish. With six deliveries of the scheduled 2700 for the match left, all four results were possible. In the end, the match ended in a draw with the scores of both teams being equal, a situation that had arisen only once previously in 2018 Tests.

Through the tension and the panic, the nerves and the edginess, the calm of Ravichandran Ashwin stood out. India’s find of the series, an intelligent young man who thinks a lot about the game and feeds off his educational background, was cool as a cucumber. To the uninitiated, he could have been playing his 53rd Test and not just his third; his razor-sharp mind sussed up the constantly changing situation succinctly as he went from perfect foil for another impressive young man, Virat Kohli, to the lead actor alongside the tail.

Did Ashwin miss a trick by not turning down a single off the last delivery of the penultimate over in order to ensure that he had the strike at the start of the last over? Did he err by exposing debutant Varun Aaron to Fidel Edwards in the final over, which India began needing three for a famous win? Idle conjecture. Aaron is no mug with the bat, though watching him flail around on Saturday, you wouldn’t believe it. All the number ten had to do in the last over was put bat to ball and run. Instead, the misplaced intrepidness of youth compelled him to try to be a hero, resulting in three dot deliveries that heightened the tension.

A scrambled single later, Ashwin was on strike to the fifth delivery, two required. The first-innings centurion could have risked a big shot, but could have been dismissed as well, leaving Edwards with one crack at Pragyan Ojha. Ashwin calmly defended that delivery to the leg-side, ensuring that India could not lose. Was it being ultra-cautious, or super pragmatic? Was a Test defeat worth the risk, even with the series in the bag? No sir, definitely not.

Much has been said of Ashwin’s lack of intent in going for the second run off the last delivery which would have sealed victory. Yes, the 25-year-old could have scrambled madly and yes, he would have been run out by a half-length of the pitch, but then, he would have been seen to have tried. In an era where to be seen is more significant than to have tried, Ashwin chose not to play to the galleries; all told, a second run was most definitely not on.

Already, people have forgotten that he was under intense scrutiny after being picked ahead of Harbhajan Singh for this Test series. With 22 wickets, one hundred, two man of the match awards and the man of the series encomium, Ashwin has had quite the dream debut. Things wouldn’t go quite as swimmingly in future, but the engineer from Chennai is smart enough to realise that. And canny enough to work around it.