philcas wrote:I am a bit disapointed &confused about todays draw& the aussies captains after match comments . He seemed to contridict himself with words &actions. He decided to declare with a score 380 ahead with two session's for india to bat.
first he said that the pitch &ball wer doing some tricks early in the day therefore our batting didnt push to hard so to get a decent lead . Then said that we didnt have enough time to get them out. He also mentioned that the most important thing was to win the series .
We needed to push early get a lead of 330-350 halfway through the morning session. Give india a small sniff to keep them interested also giving ourselves more time to get India out. I am sure the missed chances didnt help, but you cant totally blame that. We had an opportunity to force a win but we didnt read the game &conditions well enough to realise that 300 would have been plenty we needed enough time to take 10 wickets on a pitch that wasnt breaking up enough to cause any real issues for top order batsmen but if we got India to take more risks even at 3 down the result could have been differant
Not taking some risks in a test match leads to the inevitable draw
we have won the series... So he was spot on.
Why did we need to take any risks?
Like i said in a earlier post. If Smith declared earlier and they run down the total, he would cop flak for leaving India in the series. Do what he did and cops flak. Cant win. Hindsight is a wonderful thing