There is something ridiculous (and pointless) about playing the fifth Test of the series almost 300 days after the end of the fourth Test. Of course, the loss of some £30 million is small otherwise. The call of television is strong. Officials rarely care about the biological evolution of a chain; A match is a match A match is as subtle as it can be.
However, the trickier issue is how the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) was able to bowl an over on the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The BCCI began eagerly to leave the series as it is, a 2–1 decision in India’s favour, with the ‘fifth’ Test being considered one-sided. When India pulled out in September, ECB chief executive Tom Harrison said he expected any rearranged fixture to be a “standalone situation”.
lose the plot
It was a tough, hard-fought series, with fierce competition and moments of great heroism and extraordinary comebacks. Both teams threw their all into it, and at the end of the fourth Test, one team came out clearly better. This is what the Test series is about. It is not a collection of loose matches, but an opera that evolves while feeding on its emotions and finding new ways of expression. One time is just that; Without context, without any narrative construction.
The out-field result can be read in two ways: as a success of ECB diplomacy (or hand-twisting, which is the same thing) encouraged by the fact that India was on legally unstable ground, because The team was there for one to get the team out.”Fear of Covid” which, as any first year law student will tell you, is not Covid itself. Or it could be seen as the failure of the BCCI to carry its weight around and carve out its place in international cricket the way it has become accustomed in recent years.
The best way to look at it would be to see it as a favor England may have to return soon, when India needs it. Unless it was a way of saying ‘thank you’ by the BCCI for returning to England to play a Test match after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. This was a wonderful gesture from the British; Perhaps it can be seen by Indians as one, even if it is not that wonderful.
Apart from money, television and diplomacy, this isn’t really a Fifth Test. Imagine an athletics meet where something happens off the field and the 100-meter run is cut in half. It would be no one’s argument that when everything starts all over again after a week or a year only the last 50 meters run to decide the fastest man of the race. As I wrote in this column when this issue first cropped up, don’t artificially tag any Test two series. The tension of a developing chain is lost, construction ends, teams change. Playing the final Test next year is as ridiculous as deciding to play the fifth day of the first Test later.
Advantage England
From this distance, England is also maintaining the lead on the field. India will have to restart its preparation both physically and mentally. Both teams will struggle to rediscover the intensity that marked the first four-fifths of the series. India could have returned to play a white-ball series (which was not on the original itinerary), but it is strange to mix it with a red-ball match for the sake of continuity.
For the series that was abandoned in September 2021 after four out of five Test matches, to be restarted in July 2022, it shows that a team going on break goes into it with everything to lose and nothing to lose. not to achieve. England have the best chance of leveling the series after their diplomatic coup.
This means that there is no need for arbitration or the involvement of the International Cricket Council. India may have felt that they did not stand firmly on adequate legal grounds, and were thus susceptible to a settlement that did not give them much.
worst case
What was the worst case scenario? England being declared the winner without a ball being bowled? In that case a series score of 2–2 would always appear in the record books with an asterisk to indicate that a Test was not actually played on the field.
The only ‘positive’ from this (as the losing captain puts it in the interview at the end of the match) is that the BCCI can sometimes lose the odd argument. Maybe it’s good for cricket. We have to wait for payback time…
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