When Bob Simpson was the captain and coach of the Australian teams he would often say, “I can understand if the opposition can out-bat and out-bowl us but we should never be out-fielded.”
At the end of fourth day’s play, when Mickey Arthur and co. sit down and try find the defining point that changed the course of the match, they should look no further than Ed Cowan’s dropped catch of Bhuvenshwar Kumar.
Moises Henriques had dismissed Harbhajan Singh and Kumar, the number 10, was facing only his fourth ball. He flicked one in the air that was dropped by Cowan fielding at short midwicket.
By modern day fielding standards it was a dolly. In the past Australia could afford to drop a catch or two because a new opportunity would present itself with Shane Warne and Glen McGrath at the helm, but when playing alien conditions as an underdog, Australia could ill afford to drop such an opportunity.
The lead at the time was only 26 and Dhoni was only on 121. They both went on to add 140 runs and virtually put Australia out of a winning position.
We can all speculate but if the lead could have been limited to within the vicinity of 50-odd, we still could have gripping Test match on our hands.
As it stands, thanks largely to the last wicket unbeaten partnership of 52, Australia’s lead is pushing up to 50 and the debutante Henriques should be admired for his efforts in the second innings.
At the conclusion of day’s play, Henriques refused to declare what would be a realistically decent total in the fourth innings.
“It’s hard to tell what’s a good total, I would have to say over a 100 or maybe even 150 but you do need a bit of luck to survive out there.”
In cricket sometimes you need to make your own luck and dropping catches isn’t the ideal way to go about it. Like the old saying goes, “catches can win you matches and also lose you some.”
Looking back over this Test, had Bob Simpson been the coach, perhaps the opportunity would have been taken and the Test match still alive.
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