One strange argument coming out of the first Test was of Kevin Pietersen’s decision to declare in the first Test at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
KP had decided enough was enough when England were nine down and decided to let India do the chasing. At that time, 387 seemed a fair target to set given that no one has come close to successfully chasing such a total in the Indian sub continent.
But little did the England skipper realize that the untoward would happen and that India would scale the summit with the likes of Virender Sehwag setting the trail and Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh building enormously upon it!
As it turned out, a few people in cricketing circles seem to think that Pietersen made a wrong choice in deciding to declare when England could have collected a few more runs. While there would have been merit in that kind of logic on another wicket, on another day and in view of the runs set, this was not the situation. Had England plodded on, he would have been criticized for unnecessarily lengthening the innings.
Besides in this scenario, few would have given India a realistic chance to win, though chase they would. In the vein that Virender Sehwag was and the kind of grit shown by Sachin Tendulkar along with Yuvraj Singh, a few more runs were hardly going to stop this runaway train!381831