Top Dour innings in Test Cricket

Test cricket is undisputedly and definitely the ultimate. One not only has to play well but play well for five days.

It is easier to play well when one’s team is doing well. However, it would be extremely difficult to summon unknown reserves of energy and resolve to play well and eke out a fighting draw when all seems lost.

Test cricket has given us several such instances where dour performances have resulted in fighting draws from positions of near defeat.

Faf du Plessis and AB De Villiers
Interestingly Faf was seen as a T20 Specialist. Injury to JP Duminy saw him make his debut. A debut in Australia against the tough Aussies is probably the ultimate challenge for a batsman.

Faf rose to the challenge. In the first innings he scored 78. However in the second it was an unreal effort.

South Africa were 77/4 and with Jacques Kallis injured it seemed only a matter of time before Australia wrapped up proceedings on the fifth day.

However tremendous application was seen from Faf who batted for over a day to score 110 runs in 466 balls. AB de Villers too played a memorable part with just 33 of 246 balls which helped SA save the Test in an extraordinary display of character.

Faf said later that before Adelaide he didn’t believe that he could bat for four sessions. Now, he has to believe.

Mike Atherton
He batted for 643 minutes and faced 492 balls to score 185 not out against a fiery South African attack led by Allan Donald.

This was one of the best Test innings played by any Captain. England saved the Test by scoring 351/5 in 165 overs. At the end of the fourth day England were already four wickets down and it seemed Donald, Shaun Pollock, Brian Macmillan and Meyrick Pringle would skittle them out.

Atherton had other ideas and with Robin Smith and Jack Russell played a masterclass act to take England to a famous battling draw.

Gautam Gambhir
If Faf batted for four sessions and Atherton for five, then Gambhir batted for seven. His stellar opening partner Virendra Sehwag was out at the end of third day. It was after India had been asked to follow on at Napier, New Zealand.

Gambhir says that he spoke to a friend at the end of the third day’s play and had said that he will bat for the next two days to save the Test. He did so, scoring 137 runs in 436 balls and batting for 643 minutes.

Gambhir recalls that during one tough period of play he had scored one run in one hour. He then told his batting partner Sachin that he was worried that runs drying up will not help the situation.

Sachin told him that here the team is benefiting and this could be his best innings for India. Gambler says that this helped him recover his concentration as otherwise he was trying to break the shackles which might have resulted in his losing his wicket. India batted for over 180 overs to score 476/4 and draw the Test.

Hanif Mohammed
Faf batted for four sessions, Atherton for five and Gambler for seven. However Hanif Mohammed outdid them all by batting for 970 minutes, which is over eight sessions to score an epic 337 on a deteriorating pitch.

The Test venue was Barbados which has seen many great batsmen failing to do well. In this Test, Conrad Hunte played a super knock of 142 on debut and Everton Weekes hit 197 with Collie Smith and Sobers chipping in with 50s to take a strong West Indies team to 579.

Pakistan then was shot out for 106 in the first knock with Roy Gilchrist taking four wickets. They had to survive three and half days to save the Test, which was a six day Test.

They did survive, helped by this epic knock which even today is the longest ever innings in the history of Test cricket. At the end of the fourth day Hanif was unbeaten on 61 with Pakistan 162/1.

He got a bedside note from his skipper Abdul Hafeez Kardar saying “You are our only hope”. The next day Hanif batted the entire day to score exactly 100 runs to remain unbeaten at 161.

At night he got another bedside note “You can do it”. Hanif finished the fifth day at 270 not out and Pakistan at 525/3.

The third note was “If you can bat until tea tomorrow, the match will be saved.Hanif was on 297 not out at lunch on the sixth day.

At tea time he was still there at 330 not out, keeping his skipper’s wish. After scoring 337 he was out. The match was saved. It was one of the greatest innings in the history of cricket.

I normally check my e-mail on Sundays. Sorry, Let me amend this sentence.  I normally check my e-mail on Sundays to mostly delete lots of e-mails without even reading them.  In my guestimate maybe i delete more than 90% of my e-mails.

This led me to think “”Is the e-mail dead or dying.?””

The Origin of E-Mail. Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith started Hotmail in 1996. Soon after, Yahoo Mail started in 1997. Later gmail became popular. E-mail quickly took over as a fast, easy and convenient method of communication. I am one of the early users of e-mail. Proof of that being that i do not need to use a . ( dot) or an _ ( underscore) or an year such as 2000 or 2016 etc with my name in my e-mail ID.

Increase in importance. E-mail quickly became an important part of day to day life and was extensively used for communication. Slowly, it’s importance increased more and more and it started replacing inland letters and postcards.

Why – Primarily because of faster and surer communication. It was also non-intrusive and extremely convenient. An e-mail will come and remain in your in-box and it is up to you to choose when to read it or not to read it.

Innovation . E-mail started being used in more and more innovative ways. Instead of writing a letter to a friend or relative in USA and it taking ages to reach, an e-mail can be sent which will be instantly delivered, read and replied back. Say, a birthday wish, or congratulations for a promotion, or best wishes for engagement or wedding. Earlier Cards used to be sent. But one is never sure if it is delivered or not. Hence e-mail cards and wishes were sent. Delivery guaranteed.

Increase in Business use. Thereafter from personal use came an important development and evolution in e-mail use. Business use increased.  E-mail started being used for commercial communications. Business proposals were sent on e-mail as attachments. Reports to bosses were sent. Companies started doing e-mail marketing more aggressively. Businesses started tracking their customers and kept them informed. Marketing concepts like customer retention, new product development and more.

E-Mail helped all these tremendously.

New Social Media Innovations Linkedin Started in 2003. 13 years later, LinkedIn has 2 new customers/members every second. It has over 128 million members in USA and the country with second largest members is India ( 35 Million), where it is fast growing. Worldwide it has 450 million members.

Facebook which Started in 2004 presently has over 1.7 Billion active users. It has started the concept of Business pages  and presently has over a million advertisers. USA has over 185 million FB members while the only other country with over 100 million members is India.

Twitter, an online social networking service which enables users to send short messages upto 140 characters, called tweets started in 2006. It currently has more than 500 milion users out of which 300 million are active users.

Whatsapp started in 2009. It too has taken the world by storm. The potential of whatsapp can be recognised with the staggering stats that FB acquired Whatsapp for 19 Billion $ even though the revenue generated by whatsapp was 10.2 Million $.

Why am i writing all this. Simply because these 4 are popular social media tools which in my opinion are posing an increasing threat to e-mail. Earlier we used to keep in touch with e-mail. Now we keep in touch through whatsapp and FB. In fact like inland letters and postcards were considered slow earlier, now sometimes e-mail is considered slow, when its more easy and faster to get in touch over whatsapp or FB.

There are other advantages too of social media. Say you want to organise an event. Organising it is easier and more efficient by forming a group in FB or whatsapp than by e-mailing repeatedly. In fact, let me share my own experience in this. 15 years back in our training batch of almost 200 officers we formed a yahoo e-group. 5 years back, we organised a batch get-together in which almost 60 officers participated and the primary method of communication was e-mail and of course SMS. Now, this year once again we organised a get-together and this time it was organised much more efficiently through whatsapp. In fact most of the officers said that they have not visited the yahoo e-group since ages. Some have even forgotten their passwords as they have shifted to g-mail. None of us could remember who the admin of the yahoo e-group was.

So Is the e-mail dead. I would still say NO. Yes, it needs improvements. Interestingly, the biggest threat to e-mail is e-mail. I read somewhere that in USA and India its legal to send e-mail till a customer opts out of it. Whereas in Europe a customer has to be asked whether he can be added to mailing list. If so maybe the European Model can be adopted.

To conclude, i would state that the business use of e-mail will always remain. In fact organisations now are having specific official e-mail ID’s where official mails are compulsorily required to be sent.  ( on a lighter vein, Hilary Clinton i am sure now knows a lot about this ) The personal use of e-mail, though decreased will also remain. Response to a tweet, or a blog post, people will/may still prefer to be informed through e-mail. The growing use of e-mail on cell phone is ensuring its relevance too, as even deleting messages takes seconds. E-mail is also relevant and important as many personal messages are not suited to the public exposure of a social network. It offers privacy and space. It offers option to write peacefully and in detail, outlining the thoughts and reasons behind the message. Therefore, it will remain alive and healthy, but in a modified Way.