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Of all cricket’s arcane secrets, the hardest to explain to my girlfriend has been why I can never give an answer when she asks who is winning.
It’s especially difficult to explain during this first Test in India. Moises Henriques and a No. 11 are all that’s left of the Australian batting, with a lead of just 40, and a full team of Indian batsmen in wait.
Of course India are winning, right? Well… they’re likely to win. Which doesn’t necessarily mean they’re winning.
It’s not that my girlfriend is unreceptive, bless her. To the contrary, she’s the embodiment of patience when it comes to my peculiar sporting obsession.
She listens to me explain straight drives and bowling back of a length as though it’s actually interesting. She voices no complaint when Jim and Kerry come to life with the ignition.
She sits under a tree with a book while I compile a gritty innings of six on a Clifton Hill turner. She tries to appreciate my excitement at a wicket-keeper’s double hundred, or a century ninth-wicket stand. She’s thoroughly supportive of my man-crush on Kumar Sangakkara.
This isn’t one of those columns to say “Ha ha, aren’t women wacky, sometimes they don’t understand sport! And also, you should come and see my new stand-up routine in which I incisively observe that sometimes, guys are all like, ‘Beef jerky jet-skis, blah blah blah’, but then chicks are all like ‘Boop-doopy-doo, I have a Chia Pet,’ am I right fellers?”
If I ever do write that column, rope a cinder block to my chest and lay me down in a horse trough.
What I am trying to say is that cricket is a freaking bizarre, convoluted, complicated game, and the gulf of understanding between the devotees and the Rest of the World is large enough to house several sanction-enforcing aircraft carriers.
So when someone wanders in while you’re couch-bound in Test mode and casually asks, “Who’s winning?”, there’s really not much you can say.
Football codes are easy – it’s whoever has a higher score at a given time. Unless it’s extremely close, the limited time means at some stage, one team is guaranteed the victory.
But football contests are simultaneous. Cricket is call and response. No matter how well or poorly a side has done in one innings, they still have to reply. Then hear a riposte. Then make their final rebuttal. In any of these stanzas, anything could happen. A cricket team is never really winning, until it has won.
Say a side has made 344, and their opponent has 2/160. Who’s winning? The team batting first made a solid score, but the opponents are in a good position.
With a couple of century partnerships through the middle order, and some application by the tail, they could make 435 and score a handy lead. But two quick wickets just before lunch and they could subside to 258 all out.
Nor does that consider the context. Is it an Antigua featherbed that should have yielded 550, or a minefield on which 300 was a miracle? Does team two have a seasoned middle order in red-hot form or an awkwardly assembled team of novices? Does team one have a vicious bowling attack or a bunch of trundlers?
Even when the advantage is more clear, it doesn’t equate to winning. If a team is rumbled for 181, the other side is in a strong position. That doesn’t mean they won’t be done themselves for 160. The side that makes 550 can give up 600 with the ball.
At 406/8 on day three, you expected India to be wrapped up for perhaps 420, nothing more than a handy lead on Australia’s 380, which would have made for an evenly poised match.
Instead, Dhoni played his best Test innings, India put on 140 for the ninth wicket, then 26 for the last, taking them to 572. While the partnerships were exceptional, they were never implausible. There was always the chance that would happen, as it has happened before.
There’s also the much-maligned draw, which far from being the bore that many make it out to be, is responsible for keeping a lot of otherwise dead matches breathing.
In any other time-restricted sport, the competitor behind when the match is closed will lose. In Test cricket, that competitor can save the match. It’s up to the winner to win. There is something at stake for both sides until the very end.
Three quick wickets can turn any ‘inevitable’ draw into a possible loss, and bring the bored drawl of the commentators right back up to the twanging pitch of tension. On a cricket ground, three quick wickets are always a distinct possibility.
Which is where we come back to Moises Henriques.
When he came to the wicket yesterday, his side was still 71 runs behind, and five wickets down. His captain departed ten runs later.
Nonetheless, he shepherded the tail, wore down the deficit, notched a new high score of 75 not out for himself, and got Australia in front.
He will take guard later today with the match in that position, and only the modest batting talents of Nathan Lyon to help him improve it.
But the vagaries of cricket mean a lot of things are possible. It’s perfectly plausible that Henriques will edge the first ball of the day to slip, India will chase 40, and that will be that.
It’s even more likely that one batsman or other will fall in the first few overs as they try to re-set their batting minds, leaving India an easy 50 or 60 to knock off.
But it’s also possible that Henriques will dig in again, marshal the strike, score a few boundaries, and maybe even get to a century on debut. It’s not impossible that Lyon, who has a top score of 40 not out, could support him for quite some time yet.
It’s not impossible that they could put together a really substantial partnership, like Dhoni did with Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Lyon and Henriques already put on 57 last night.
And if they set India 80, or 100, or 130, it’s likely that India will come out and knock them off with no trouble. Or it’s possible that India will lose three early wickets and start to panic. Or it’s possible that Henriques could bat into the next session and make India nervous enough about the chase to consider the draw.
In Test match cricket, from time to time, someone comes out with the performance of his life, changing the course of a match or a series.
Dhoni did it on day three. Ajit Agarkar did it with his 6/41 in Adelaide in 2003. Henriques and Lyon might do it today. Or, they might not. But this is what keeps us in thrall to Test cricket: the knowledge that the truly exceptional could be just around the corner.
So who’s winning, as day five begins in Chennai? All I can say is that India looks to be on top.