There have been only four instances when a follow-on team has won a Test match. This is four out of nearly 2500 Tests in 149 years.And yet, when one talks about such a third instance in the history of the game, it is not just about the statistics, not the player’s profile, not the centuries scored or the wickets taken. It is about ‘atonement’ which removes the feeling of ‘guilt’.
It’s about a cowardly determination with a bull running at its neck, a David telling a Goliath that “the last word will never be said”.It is like Marlowe in Joseph Conrad’s ‘Lord Jim’, who makes a deep philosophical exposition on the desire to triumph over ambiguity, limitations and the near impossibility of reaching a final conclusion ‘until the last ball is thrown’!To continue with the Conradian analogy, the Garden of Eden test was, in more ways than one, a battle between compassion and judgment. Self and others.Sitting in the press box on the upper level of the BC Roy clubhouse for five days, the imagery floated through a stream of consciousness — after being bowled out for exactly the same total in the first innings, poetic justice was surely added to a 171-run win!
It’s a match that remains firmly in the memory – as much for the drama as it was for the drama: Indian captain Sourav Ganguly infamously waiting for the toss to his Australian counterpart Steve Waugh. And Waugh ‘reacted’ with an open offside field when Bengal’s southpaw came in to bat.Given Ganguly’s penchant for offside stroke play, Waugh threw down the gauntlet by daring to play to his strengths, trusting his own credentials to stop the enemy after winning 16 Tests.After a 10-wicket defeat in Mumbai a few days ago, India were once again looking at the wrong end of the barrel by the third afternoon at the Eden Gardens.Bitter memories of the 1996 India-Sri Lanka World Cup semi-final and the 1999 India-Pakistan Test quickly came to the fore – making one wonder if ‘blood, bottle and buster’ would once again rain down on Golgotha (a news magazine headline for its cover story).On both these occasions, the crowd’s anxiety over an imminent Indian defeat saw all hell break loose at Pooja Eden.But on the banks of the Hooghly in 2001, destiny had something else in store.For once, instead of throwing things from the stands in frustration, Eden Gardens saw 80,000-strong fans pelt their empty plastic water bottles at Calypso as Ganguly’s men headed for an improbable victory.For once, ‘redemption’ for the home fans and their team came through the heroics of two soft-spoken but never-say-die crusaders.when Rahul Dravid And VVS Laxman Traded their caps for Indian caps.Dravid, who had been suffering from a bad patch until then, did not show up at the post-match press conference, going on to act as a complete failure for an Indian captain who urged the media to ask questions of hat-tricker Harbhajan Singh “only in English”, leaving the off-spinner at his wits’ end and dividing the writers.Minutes later, as a composed Waugh came in for the presser, it was ‘peace of mind, all passion spent’.Cricket justice at its cathartic best.
