Much of the damage had been done over the last three days. All that was left for the ROI was to now complete the job they started so that more important opponents like Australia could be tackled next.
The Delhi team gave ROI barely the workout needed to strengthen them against Australia. With Virender Sehwag having already departed yesterday, both from the crease and from the pavilion, Delhi had little hope but to hold out for a couple more sessions. Even that seemed too much and only Gautam Gambhir was left to salvage something from the final day for the Ranji trophy champions.
Gambhir batted his way to ninety-one, a stark contrast to the rest of the scoring card that made for sorry figures. His holding out till nearly the end was the only saving grace as Delhi seemed in a hurry to oblige Rest of India the much anticipated victory. The spinners ran riot with Harbhajan Singh picking up four wickets and skipper Anil Kumble three, the same as Zaheer Khan, to finish polishing off Delhi’s middle and late batting order.
Delhi could only manage 190 of the 378 runs they were chasing for victory and it puts in perspective Gambhir’s contribution in the context of the game. Delhi lost six wickets for thirty-one runs and barely survived into a possible day after victory was snatched from them. Even worse they played two sessions in entirety trying to defend themselves against the ROI team that was uplifted by their own batting performance yesterday. The end could not have been sadder or more unfortunate given the amount of anticipation being generated for a domestic cricket match in an unusually rare affair.
The ROI will now pick Sehwag and Gambhir from the Delhi team along with Ishant Sharma for the preparatory camp ahead of facing the Australians even as Delhi are left to rue on what might have been had they capitalized on ROI’s uninspiring batting on day one. Hardly the contest that got the hype; hardly the contest that would prove the base to launch assault on the Australians. Few lessons learnt; time to move on to more serious matters – the lurking Australians.
