Caterina LeFave

Salil, I am not really criticising Dravid. I just felt the new ball shouldn’t have been taken at the stage as Sehwag was getting drify but those are just ifs and buts of the game. I am criticising the team selection though - I thought we were an experienced bowler short. On the umpires - decisions went against India too, some thing S. Rajesh mentioned in the cricinfo audio clip. What did hurt the Windies more were their bowlers missing.

On Lara - I think you are confusing issues here. Time wasting is a normal tactic which can be traced back many years. I don’t have qualms over it. However, Lara in the incident, snatched the ball from Rauf and did not respect the umpire on the field - the reason he should be criticised.

The man’s quite brilliant. Thirteen minutes were lost in that little row that he created. That equates to at least three overs.

Sharp Machiavellian thinking by him there, and poor thinking from Dhoni/Dravid, who really should have accepted it immediately and aimed to get back onto the field ASAP.

Fine performance by the Windies, although they never really should have gone down to the wire. Rauf had a poor final day, nuking Chanderpaul and Bradshaw with two very average calls - another wicket, and there could have been a lot of backlash over those two decisions.

But then, captaincy is so much about intuition and trial-error. I would not be as critical of him as others may be because he at least did not fall prey to ‘taking decisions for which you will face least criticism if things dont work out’. He followed his instincts, though they betrayed him rudely. But that is something Sourav Ganguly used to do without fear, and that is what made him a good captain… glad to see that Dravid is not far behind… after all the same people would have lauded him as a genius captian with incredible vision, had Sreesanth and Munaf patel managed to get a couple more wickets with the new ball.