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March 22, 2006

Rejoice!

It has been a fascinating, fantastic and fitting climax to the series here in Mumbai. England won by 212 runs to level the series 1-1. In the morning India looked incredibly resilient, and Dravid was at his stonewalling best. He scored his first boundary in his 77th minute at the crease to double his score up to that point.

At lunch India needed 238 to win with seven wickets in hand, and it looked like all three results could be possible, especially as Sachin was beginning to look as fluent as he had all series.

The noise when he came in to bat and started scoring some runs was possibly the loudest I have ever heard anywhere or at anytime. I leant forward and tapped the shoulder of the Indian fan sitting in front of me and waved my notepad and pen at him. “What is the name of the new batsman?” I asked him. He looked absolutely horrified. “That is Sachin” he told me, as if he had just met the most ignorant visitor to the sub-continent that he had ever come across. Perhaps he had. Eventually, I realised he was joking.

After lunch England were incredible. They came out and took 7 wickets in rapid succession. India had gone from 75-3 at lunch to 100 all out, and Shaun Udal aged 37 and playing in his just his 4th test had taken four for fourteen. Prior to this match he had taken just three test wickets at an average of 92.23. It was a fantastic thing to witness, like the ending of a modern fairy tale. And the first of the four was the greatest prize of them all; Tendulkar himself, the greatest player of his generation, prodding forward and getting an inside edge to Ian Bell under the helmet.

Yesterday I sat in the stands and listened to other spectators berate and mock a long list of England off-spinners. Today Udal was the unexpected punchline to their joke and it was delivered beautifully.

The day also contained another surprise, the visit of Stephen Fry to the media enclosure, one of my heroes and a huge fan of the game. I was lucky enough to have a brief chat with him, which was delightfully punctuated by the wicket of Dravid. Fry leapt to his feet shouting “He’s got him, he’s got him” at an astonishing volume, before immediately apologising to all those around whose view he had obstructed. A gentleman, and an unexpected end to my tour.

Posted by Miles.Jupp at March 22, 2006 10:15 AM

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