Have you watched the recently completed Test match between India and England at Rajkot? The whole match has been interesting as both the teams scored many runs on the board but the last day of the match looked quite interesting than the other days.

England team has played  really well with both bat and the ball. The visitors had set a target of 310 where there is a chance of bowling a minimum of 49 overs. As it is a Test match, it could be impossible to reach the target within 49 overs. So, Team India had to play slow and steady without losing wickets to turn out the match as Draw.

India lost their first wicket in the form of Gautam Gambhir in the second over. Chesteshwar Pujara joined Murali Vijay to build the score and set his team on safe hands. But Pujara, after scoring 18 runs was dismissed unexpectedly as LBW by Adil Rashid. Thus came Indian skipper Virat Kohli to stay at the crease until the end.

Psychological Game Play:

If you would have followed the game closely, you would have figured out that the game on the last session turned out to be more of a psychological warfare between the two teams than anything else. England skipper tried to play a psychological game by moving his fielders close to the batsmen and appealing every ball which hit the pads.

The fifth day’s play was supposed to end at 4:36 pm and a minimum of 50 overs were to be bowled in the Indian innings so as to complete the mandatory 90 overs play in the single day of a test match. If the daily quota of mandatory 90 overs of a day’s play is completed with some time left for the end of the day’s play (which was 4:36pm here), the umpires can extend the overs till the requisite time limit is attained. It is usually done on the last day of a test match so as to get the match results.

So, team India had to basically survive till 4:36pm. It was good going for INDIA until Ashwin’s wicket fell and Wriddhiman Saha followed him quickly. The score read 132/6 in 42.3 overs of Indian innings. Indian batsmen now had to survive till 4:36 pm and 7.3 overs were left of the minimum quota.

Now the Indians wanted that they will play only the requisite overs allotted for a day’s play and wanted to somehow waste the time so that by 4:36 pm only the requisite 50 overs can be bowled of Indian innings (making it 90 overs in days play) and no extra overs is added to the day’s play. Now what happens next is nothing short of a strategic masterpiece.

Sensing that the England has kept the fielders close, the Indian management team somehow managed to bring back all the ball boys standing at the boundary lines and then sent a water boy to put the message forward to the Indian batsmen in the middle (thereby wasting, even more, time). The very next over, Jadeja started to lift the balls towards the boundary.

Knowing that they cannot win the match ,why all of a sudden Jadeja started to look for boundaries???? Any ideas???

As the ball boys had been removed from the boundary line, the English players had to go to boundary line to retrieve the ball and as a result wasting much of the time. The England management sensing this, sent their reserve players to the boundary lines to retrieve the ball and send it in for play. When this play of Indian team was foiled, the batsmen in the middle started to go towards each other’s end for chit chat after every ball bowled, wasting much of the time.

This lead to some heated argument between Joe Root and Virat Kohli and Joe Root was seen complaining it to the on-field umpires about it. England managed to complete the daily quota of overs with still 5 minutes of the day’s play left. The play was extended. When the game went into the 52nd over and Kohli hit the ball for a single to get to his personal score of 49, Cook comes up to him to call for a draw.

Kohli had to comply as the day’s stipulated 90 overs had been already bowled and it was already past 4:36pm. He had no reason to keep the match going. Kohli was left stranded on 49 not out. Cook had been waiting for Kohli to reach 49 so that he could call for a draw and get a psychological advantage going into the next game. It was a lack of sportsmanship on the part of the two teams under the shroud of strategical gameplay. Indians called the ball boys and the English called for a draw with Kohli stranded on 49. Both had their share of psychological gameplay.

What do you say about this psychological gameplay? Did the Indian Team do anything wrong? Share your views with us in the comments section below.

Source: Quora