Who needs singles?

S Rajesh

INDIA v WEST INDIES, 5th ODI, Vadodara

In the end, the firepower of the West Indian batsmen was enough to win them the day. They played 16 more dot balls and scored 22 less singles than the Indians, but that hardly mattered. Who’d want to labour singles if they can blitz boundaries? Out of the 275 runs scored with the bat by West Indies, 160 came in boundaries, courtesy 25 fours and 10 sixes. By contrast, India managed 29 fours and only one six – that’s 122 out of 270 bat-runs they scored.

VVS Laxman’s 71 held the middle order together, but his ordinary strike rate – he took 100 balls to score his runs – meant that India fell about 20 runs short. Laxman scored only 16 runs in boundaries, and that, coupled with his 50 dot balls, allowed West Indies to claw back after Virender Sehwag had blazed away at the start.

Rahul Dravid scored only 33, but he put forth a classy example, again, of how to pace a one-day innings. He struck only three fours, and yet scored at a rate of 92%. Dravid allowed only 14 deliveries to go scoreless, easily the lowest dot-ball percentage among all batsmen. Laxman’s bane was his inability to get the good-length deliveries away for runs – from 50 such deliveries, he managed just 28, a scoring rate of just 56%. On such a plumb batting pitch, it was a luxury India could ill afford.

S Rajesh is sub editor of Wisden.com in India.

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