Sport Today

> Good on U Clarkie

> > Despite the despair and doom of defeat, Clarke gets my vote for fair play

> > when he did not indulge in any game-delaying tactics in I4 of T3.

> Ummm. First up, he did do a go-slow. Secondi, you do know about the

> compulsory 15 overs in the last hour don't you?

> > > Despite the despair and doom of defeat, Clarke gets my vote for fair play

> > > when he did not indulge in any game-delaying tactics in I4 of T3.

> > Ummm. First up, he did do a go-slow. Secondi, you do know about the

> > compulsory 15 overs in the last hour don't you?

> Yes, but Australia bowled 21 overs in 90 minutes prior to the last hour. That's a rate of 14 overs/hour, with the seamers doing most of the work. That's a very decent rate for pace bowlers.

> To achieve the day's quota of 98 overs, Australia only had to bowl 12 in the 90 minutes preceding the last hour! (That's because India, with 3 spinners, and especially Jadeja, who simply races through an over in under 2 minutes, bowled 69 overs in just 4 hours of play earlier!)

> Of course, if Clarke had bowled 12 overs in 90 minutes, it would've been obvious he was slowing things down to an absolute crawl. But he could've still gotten away with (say) 18 overs in those 90 minutes. That still wouldn't have been slow enough to secure a draw IMHO, but it would've certainly made things tighter for India, than bowling 21 overs in 90 minutes did.

> tapped the keyboard and brought forth:

> >-Samarth [ India's over-rate in the first two sessions won them the test match ].

> I'd have thought the wickets they took while bowling those overs had

> more of a bearing on it.

> tapped the keyboard and brought forth:

> >-Samarth [ India's over-rate in the first two sessions won them the test match ].

> I'd have thought the wickets they took while bowling those overs had

> more of a bearing on it.

> > tapped the keyboard and brought forth:

> > >-Samarth [ India's over-rate in the first two sessions won them the test match ].

> > I'd have thought the wickets they took while bowling those overs had

> > more of a bearing on it.

> I know you're being facetious, but the wickets were actually taken at a poor strike rate; the tail was allowed to wag too much. They actually *didn't* take wickets fast enough (in terms of overs). But the rapid over-rate ensured enough time was nevertheless left on the clock to knock off the target.

> And my main point is that taking wickets and scoring a lot of runs rapidly routinely contribute to test wins. Bowling a lot of sub-standard overs but at a lightning quick rate isn't normally associated with test wins.

> -Samarth.