Michael Clarke is not equipped to open the innings in T20 cricket © Getty Images

Can experiments go wrong or does the very notion of an experiment essentially mean that there is no right or wrong, merely the testing of a theory or method? Is it just a matter of learning from the experiment with no blame or recriminations attached? Australia’s T20 team tonight was deemed “an experiment”; on that basis, what have we learned from it and will it result in any lessons learned? More importantly, will the lessons learned actually be put into practice?

Some would argue that one lesson which probably did not even need to be tested was whether Michael Clarke has a future as an opener in T20 cricket. When I saw him walk out to bat with Dave Warner, I knew then that this was not a game that Australia was necessarily desperate to win. It was more about trying to justify his selection, in a media atmosphere that has been questioning his credentials all week. For a game that relies so heavily on power hitting in the first six overs, to open with Clarke is just plain stupid. He has never been that sort of player, much more adept at using his feet to the spinners and using quick wrists to manipulate the ball into gaps and running cleverly.

And so it proved....his inability to hit the faster bowlers over the top put pressure on young Warner too, and created the domino effect that led to a comprehensive thrashing. It’s not necessarily about being a big strong hitter – the Sri Lankan top order are hardly big men but they know how to hit through the field, if not over it. To bat Clarke at the top seemed like a pointless experiment (or a desperate effort to justify his selection) because it was never likely to succeed, nor is it likely that it will be an experiment that will Australia would ever persist with if they were dead serious about winning T20 games.

Look at it this way; even if Clarke scored a few runs today, would we seriously see him opening the batting at the next T20 World Cup? If he retains his place in the team, it will be because he is captain, not because of his powerplay hitting. He might be more than useful in the middle of the innings against the slower bowlers, but even that is not assured in a style of game that simply doesn’t suit his repertoire. So why bother with the experiment at all? It made no sense. It’s almost as if they’re conceding that he doesn’t have the power game to muscle the ball over the fielders when the fielders are in the deep, so they’ll flirt with a slow start, wasting the powerplay, to compensate for that weakness. Surely a few net sessions with Clarke trying to smash the quick bowlers over the top would have sufficed to put this theory to bed?

Experiment # 2: if Australia is going to challenge in T20 cricket, they either need to stick with the quicks or play a different spinner. Steve Smith, admirable batsman and fielder that he is, cannot do what a genuine spinner must do to be worth four overs. Comparing Smith to say Suraj Randiv was like ....well .... well, no comparison really. Play him as a batsman if necessary, but Australia need either another genuine slow-bowling option, or five quicks. Picking a spinner for the sake of it makes no sense. Not when you’ve got David Hussey, Cameron White or Clarke himself who can fill in with a few overs of pretty much the same stuff that Smith is capable of serving up. Against good players of spin like the Sri Lankans, a token spinner gets treated pretty much like Smith was tonight – with disdain. Can we safely say we're done with that experiment now?

Usually, playing in Perth against an Asian side is a huge advantage to the home team. Except of course that this team contained no one with any real ‘home’ advantage factor! Picking a team full of Victorian and New South Wales players essentially evened up the odds against the Sri Lankans. In fact, if you didn’t know any better, you’d be forgiven for thinking the Sri Lankans were the team more accustomed to these conditions. In all disciplines, they looked so much more assured in these conditions. Who would’ve dared predict that some years ago at Fortress WACA?

Overall, as a spectator, I didn’t find too much to surprise me. Australia is a middling side in world cricket, going through a rebuilding phase, and without a genuine world class player in this format. Sri Lanka is an emerging force, playing intelligent cricket and led by a few canny and classy players who can execute plans. Fast, bouncy pitches are no longer a huge advantage to Australia in shortened games. And when Channel Nine hypes up something like this and cannot even bother showing it live to a Brisbane audience, it just goes to prove that T20 cricket is no more than another form of canned Sunday night TV entertainment, despite promotions and hyperbole to the contrary. If Australian cricket authorities and broadcasters continue to treat fair dinkum ‘internationals’ as experiments, they may well discover that some viewers may just switch channels. For a nation that is totally unaccustomed to playing sport with anything but a “must win” attitude, such experimentation will soon wear thin.

T20 cricket may well be the hottest new kid on the block but if you disrespect it too much, even this golden goose may stop laying eggs. It would be interesting to know whether viewer numbers in the major Eastern seaboard cities dropped off when it became apparent that the Sri Lankans were cruising towards an embarrassingly easy victory. At a time when the cricketing authorities are claiming that the future T20 franchises could be worth much more than some popular football teams in Australia, they won’t need to test this experiment again.

Notwithstanding Sri Lanka’s fine performance, there was little else worth remembering. Is that really the golden future of T20 cricket that is apparently this multi-million dollar investment? T20 cricket is not much more than packaged entertainment, here today, forgotten tomorrow, but what other ‘entertainment’ experiments with paying consumers?

Tony Greig's 'made-with-fever' 103 in Calcutta will always be memorable © The Cricketer International

Back in 1997, I attended a Yankees-Red Sox game at Yankees Stadium with my friend Tom and his father (the pair are veteran Red Sox fans). Shortly after the game ended, as we made our way out to the car park, I posed a question about base-stealing and its relationship to pitch counts, which was handled rather expertly by Tom’s father. He then followed up with a query of his own, “I bet cricket is a pretty complicated game too?” And I replied, “Well, I’ve been following it seriously for 21 years now, and I keep learning things about it to this day.”

Later that night, when I got back home, I wondered why I had said I had been following the game for 21 years. The answer wasn’t hard to find:1976 was the year Tony Grieg’s MCC team toured India, and I count my relationship with that series as marking the start of my ‘serious’ love-affair with the game, a series in which I ‘came of age’ - as a cricket fan. I was dimly conscious of Tony Lewis’ outfit in 1972-73, and Clive Lloyd’s West Indians in 1974-75 (indeed, the reason Andy Roberts and Viv Richards loom so large in my mind is because they seemed to be the talk of the town in those days). But it was the ‘Winter of 1976’ that did it for me.

Like players then, fans mature too. From that series I learned about the concept of a draw (the fifth Test in Bombay; the only drawn Test of the series, and which might, ironically, have been the closest and most engaging), different bowling styles (the Indian spinners, John Lever et al), nightwatchmen, captains’ innings (Tony Greig’s ‘made with a fever’ 103 in Calcutta), the importance of close-in fielders (Yajurvindra Singh’s world-record equalling performance at Bangalore), ball-tampering (John Lever again) and so on. For the first time, I followed scores obsessively, tracked statistics, and started to become aware of the ebbs and flows of a Test. I consumed, rather rapaciously, the three forms of media coverage then available for cricket: newspapers, TV highlights and of course, radio commentary.

And because I was drawn into cricket’s present, I was drawn too, into its past: I became a serious reader of cricket’s history that year. I bought books, and my library card did yeoman’s work. The series being played that season demanded context, and I sought it. And in so doing, the game snapped ever more sharply into focus.

So my relationship with cricket changed in the 1976-77 season; I became aware of the game in a manner than enabled it to lay the foundation of a relationship that has endured. After that season, cricket became associated with Delhi winters (it didn’t matter that Bombay, Calcutta and Madras weren’t anything like Delhi in the winter; what mattered was that I was in Delhi, experiencing the cricket in my own way). If a winter evening is melancholic for me, it's because I came to associate it with the close of play in a Test match, as the light weakened, and the winds sharpened.

Of course, that series was only the start for with every game, every series that followed, there was more to learn and appreciate. Test cricket, of course, had a great deal to do with it, for it provided the best forum for a measured understanding of the game’s varied offerings. And I don’t think I can point to another series after the 1976-77 one and declaim, “And by that time, my development as a fan was complete.” Because while it is easy to point to the beginnings of one’s education, it is unwise to mark the end.

Owais Shah still looks like a richly-talented youngster with a bright future – except that he is now 32 and that future is largely behind him © Getty Images

It was a surprise when Middlesex announced that they were releasing Owais Shah at the end of the season.

A few days later I went to Lord's for my last sight of him as a Middlesex player, and he obliged with a typical Shah innings. Coming in with the team behind the rate in the chase, he put his foot on the accelerator and knocked some powerful boundaries to bring home a rare victory in the CB40, leading the teams off with 56 not out to his name. It was the sort of innings he has played many times for Middlesex as well as several times for England.

There was naturally much muttering from members to the effect that they couldn't understand why the county were getting rid of the side's best batsman, who had served the club loyally for eighteen years, never let the club down, etc. It turned out that the sticking point had been money, not form or performance – at least, not specifically. But when a club is prepared to offer a contract and the player thinks the money is insufficient there is a difference of opinion about how valuable the player is, which has to be a comment on form, performance or both.

Broadly speaking, I'm with the club on this. My admiration for Shah has been pretty limited for some years now.

I was very enthusiastic about the young Shah: in his late teens and early twenties, he looked to be a richly-talented player with a very bright future, quite likely as the mainstay of England's middle order for several years. But Shah has since become an object lesson in how far talent alone can take you – quite a long way, in fact – but also how much further you have to go to become a top-class player.

The big difference between the talented youngster and the accomplished senior professional is that the senior man makes far fewer mistakes. Over time, he has worked on his game and come up with methods of not getting out by making adjustments to his technique and solidifying his defence as well as developing his attacking strategies along with the actual shots. But in Shah's case, I can see very little evidence that much of that development has happened. He still looks like a richly-talented youngster with a bright future – except that he is now 32 and that future is largely behind him.

He never had much polishing to do on his attacking shots; he emerged from his teens almost fully-formed as a stroke-maker – which was why we were all so excited by him – but his shot selection has always been a little shaky. He has often got out playing the wrong shot from the wrong position, which is the sort of incident one is supposed to learn from so as not to do it again.

One can often get away with losing one's wicket stupidly in one-day cricket because it can just look like getting on with it and playing unselfishly, but in multi-day cricket it is rarely forgivable; because there seemed to be little progress on the eradication of such errors, I became increasingly disenchanted with Shah. I hoped that I was wrong after his sprightly 88 on Test debut against India, but it was not to be.

Relatively few players reach the heights that Shah has, despite constantly working on their games because they do not possess Shah's talent. Shah is by no means a failure, but yet I remain disappointed that he has not made more of his gifts. Which leaves me asking myself what right I have to criticise him for what he isn't rather than gladly appreciating what he is.

I have some inchoate thoughts about it being undesirable to have a player around a dressing room who manages to be a leading player despite setting a poor example to the up-and-coming players who then get the idea that they don't have to work hard on their games, but that is a matter for the captain and team management. Which brings us back to where we began: Middlesex are no longer prepared to pay top money to someone who does not display a whole-hearted commitment to excellence. In today's game, talent alone no longer suffices.

India celebrate their triumph but more fascinating challenges lie ahead © AFP

A couple of posts ago, I wrote of my anguish at having missed out on a type of Test finish I’d always wanted to see. In the Bangalore Test, I felt the opportunity had come for India to pull off another kind of Test win that I don’t normally associate with them: a close, aggressive chase on the last day. But I was pessimistic about this, because the business of taking the last three wickets was still unfinished. Would India be incisive enough to quickly wrap things up; would they chase hard, and not get flustered by early wickets if they fell? I still thought a draw could happen, and my cautiousness led me to pick this as the most likely result.

But, I didn’t want to miss out on the end, so the alarm was duly set for 5 AM, and I staggered out to settle down for what I thought would be a close-run final session. Well, all I got was another 30 minutes of action. Not only had India ripped through the tail, they had scored at over four runs an over, sent in a debutant at number three ahead of Rahul Dravid, and generally bossed things on their way to a 2-0 win. The end of this series was surprising in more ways than one. The Australians faded fast, and their feebleness contrasted with India’s aggression even more starkly as the day wore on. And so, this frustratingly short series drew to a close. My sleep patterns will be happy but the cricketing part of my brain won’t.

This was a series that can, and should be, used to showcase Test cricket: it is possible for a side to lose two Tests after winning tosses and scoring more than 400 runs in the first innings of each Test; games can be dead even after three days and then swing (almost) decisively one way on the fourth day; one delivery can mean all the difference in retrospect (Steven Smith’s throw, Billy Bowden’s finger could have meant that India could have walked into the Bangalore test 0-1 down); and so on. The daily swings in momentum, sometimes large, sometimes miniscule, were fascinating, as were the many little battles between individuals. (Virender Sehwag lost his against the Aussie bowlers; but still, one can’t be too displeased by the fact that India beat Australia without a significant contribution from him).

In both Tests, India surrendered the early advantage of the toss, fought to keep the opening days even, and then let the Australian lower order take the initiative again. In their responses the Indian batting line-up threatened each time to rack up huge leads, but then obligingly handed back the party ball to the Australians, almost as if taking a first-innings lead would have been unbecoming of the hosts. Sachin Tendulkar would have been justified at screaming with frustration at the lower order on the fourth day of the Bangalore Test; a potentially match-winning double-ton was in danger of turning into another one of those exhibits in the Indian Museum of How We Let Tendulkar Down and Let Him Be Accused of Not Playing Match-Winning Innings.

Thankfully, in each second innings, the Indian bowlers, that much-maligned component of Indian teams, grabbed the advantage. Nothing, bar nothing, gave me more pleasure than watching the Australian tail go quickly. Forget about the top and middle orders; Indian bowlers have gotten rid of those in the past. It’s the tail that always wags a little too much. But not this time.

In all of this, spare of a thought for the Australians. Despite their second-innings wobbles, they were not easily vanquished (and had managed to reduce India to 124-8 chasing 216 in Mohali). While everyone was busy congratulating the Bangalore crowd for rescuing Test cricket, no one bothered to wonder whether the presence of the Australians might not have had something to do with the large numbers that showed up. The Australians are still compelling, despite all their weaknesses.; they are, after all, an indispensable part of the famed India-Australia rivalry. Ricky Ponting, that much-maligned man, did not have his generosity in letting VVS Laxman have a runner in the first Test acknowledged by too many (and sadly, the Indian captain, MS Dhoni did not see fit to acknowledge the opposition in generous terms at the post-match ceremony; now that India are number one, they should show the loftiness of true champions and acknowledge the vanquished with grace). If the Australians can get their puzzling selections sorted out, they can still prove a mighty hard nut to crack for England.

This series is done, but fascinating challenges lie ahead for both its contenders. India will play New Zealand at home before they take on another perennial overseas challenge: the South Africans. Australia will try and regain the Ashes. And Test cricket, I’m pretty sure, will let everyone know what time it is.

The performance of openers like Sunil Gavaskar and Geoff Boycott doesn't dip in the fourth innings © AFP

My previous two posts have been focused on the theme of second-innings stalwarts, inspired of course by VVS Laxman's great knock a week ago. We looked at the eight most-prolific second-innings batsmen (minimum qualification: 2500 runs in the second innings) and tried to figure out some theories why. Nothing scientific, just cricket fans chewing the fat and doing what we love doing best - talking cricket with cyber friends from around the world!

In the last post, Satish made a very valid observation, that instead of counting the overall average of all second-innings runs for those eight players, perhaps a more meaningful comparison might be the breakdown between the third innings of a Test Match versus the fourth. Clearly, there are inherently different pressures when setting a target as opposed to chasing one and when you add the fact that the fourth innings is generally in the worst batting conditions of the match, Satish's point is worth exploring.

Here's what I discovered with those eight players who were on our original list.

Looks like Satish was 100% correct. Most batsmen clearly find it easier to score more heavily in the third innings of a Test. We know that pitch conditions are one factor and it would be safe to assume that the pressure of chasing a score (or saving a game) must also play it's part in bringing those fourth-innings numbers down.

The lower-middle order batsmen like Laxman and Allan Border have slightly lower averages in the fourth innings, presumably because the pitch is that much more unfriendly by the time they bat, quite often late into the fifth day. They're also likely to be facing more spinners at that stage of the game when the ball is likely to be turning out of the rough created by four-plus days of bowler's footmarks.

Interestingly, the only two batsmen who average more in the fourth innings are openers: Sunil Gavaskar and Geoff Boycott. Matthew Hayden's differential isn't much either, which perhaps lends credence to my original theory that opening batsmen were always likely to be the players who had the best averages in the second innings, mainly because I felt that they would often be disadvantaged by batting first on a fresh pitch, full of moisture and early seam movement on day one.

Clearly, Gavaskar and Boycott were also masters of absorbing pressure, as evidenced by the fact that they both averaged 10-plus more in the fourth innings. Perhaps their tight technique and risk-free style of batting lends itself to batting last on a 'tired' pitch. I can't remember watching them bat on TV so I can't offer comment on whether they played late or with soft hands or with short backlifts or any other technical adjustment that would help them to score so prolifically in the final innings. Perhaps some older bloggers who remember watching them bat can offer some insights into whether they changed their technique or approach in fourth-innings run chases.

In terms of centuries, Hayden seems to have the biggest difference, but this could be explained by the fact that in his era, Australia often had just a few runs to chase in the fourth innings to win matches and he did not have the opportunity to make big scores.

One final reason why Gavaskar and Boycott may be the only two on this list to average more in the fourth innings - they are both right-handers. Could this be attributed slightly to the fact that it must be a lot more difficult for left-handed batsmen late in the game because of the amount of rough outside their off stump? Generally speaking, there would be a lot more 'traffic' in the channel outside the left-handers off stump because of the right-arm over the wicket bowlers and this was bound to have resulted in a pretty scuffed up danger area for left handed batsmen. Just a thought ... it may be nothing more than coincidence but worth a debate anyway.

Pitch conditions apart, we shouldn't discount the mental strength necessary to score so heavily in the fourth innings, under immense pressure no doubt. You can't read too much into this statistic though, because when it comes to the player with the biggest gap between third and fourth innings averages, Border heads this list. And one thing that was never in question was his mental toughness or courage under pressure. In fact, the tag of the biggest 'choker' must surely belong to The Don - he averages 130 in the third innings, dropping to a mere 73 in the fourth innings. Clearly an underperformer.

My seven-year-old son just read this piece and gave me a quizzical look that suggested I might consider more useful activities on a rainy day in Brisbane. Like bowling to him on the verandah for example where a cover drive that bisects the pot plants are worth two runs but a careless pull shot that hits the slumbering Labrador on the full is not only out but calls for a new ball for the fourth innings. The blank look on his face when I asked him about statistics reminded me of this old quote:

You're trying too hard to find a correlation here. You don't know these people, you don't know what they intended. You try to compile statistics and correlate them to a result that amounts to nothing more than speculation. - Marc Racicot

Sachin Tendulkar's masterpiece in Chennai © Getty Images

Okay, time for a little honesty: how many of you have talked in glowing terms about an innings that you haven’t seen a ball of? Everyone, right? Good. That lets me start on a story about my favorite Sachin Tendulkar innings. Why am I bringing this up now? For several reasons: an India-Australia series is on; we have been talking about the acknowledged Indian master of the second innings, VVS Laxman; and lastly, in my last post, I talked about the trials and travails of the expat fan, condemned to unfriendly time-zones. To top things off, this story wouldn’t have been possible without the generosity of an Australian cricket fan.

So here we are, back in 1998. I’m desperately struggling to finish my Ph.D. Funds and motivation are low; my landlord has been happy to extend the rent deadline a few times but I’m living on borrowed time (in a room in a third-floor walkup in Alphabet City in New York). But there is a silver lining on the horizon: Australia are touring India and there is hype aplenty in the air. As a significant part of my night-life consists of gazing enviously at those fortunate enough to spare greenbacks for grog, I can look forward to readymade entertainment to while away the midnight hours: Test match commentary.

But not your grandfather’s Test match commentary. This is the line-by-line output of Dougie (and his human operators), the Magic Cricket Scorer on #cricket, the Internet Relay Chat’s cricket channel (the commentary was on #cricket, the chat on #crickettalk). I have already significantly slowed down my doctoral pursuits by spending too many hours in this virtual lounge, and now, face the prospect of spending many more.

The hype builds; Tendulkar takes a double-ton off the Australians in the tour game against Mumbai; the Chennai test rolls around. And I do diligent duty on IRC. But, again, with a slight twist. For one, I am not on #crickettalk any more, but on #crickind, a private channel set up by fellow Indian fans who, like me, have become tired of the bickering and flame-wars on the main channel (yes, blog comment sections are not the first place to witness bad online behaviour). Secondly, my Australian friend, David, who lived two floors below me, has kindly loaned me his precious work machine, an Apple laptop, to aid me in my midnight toils. (I would dial in to the university network to set up a PPP connection and then run an IRC client).

The fourth day’s play is on. India start 29 runs ahead, and will have to get a move on if they are to force a result. When the second wicket falls at 115, India aren’t exactly getting a move on; they have already consumed 43 overs. Tendulkar walks in, the weight of a first-innings failure for 4, dismissed by Warne, hanging over him.

52 overs later, as Azharuddin declares at 418-4, India have gotten a move on. Tendulkar is not out on 155 off 191 balls with 14 fours and 4 sixes. And each and every single delivery faced by him seems to be clearly etched in my mind, though I didn’t see a single one. As each line of Dougie’s output flashed up on the screen, the virtual hooping and hollering on the IRC channel grew more and more unrestrained, the chat increasingly giddy, as we realized that India was doing what many of us did not think was possible: forcing the pace in a Test match with aggressive batting to put themselves in a winning position. Outside my window, the denizens of the East Village drank, made merry, and indulged in whatever pleasures they deemed fit; I stayed glued to the small glowing screen.

Twelve years on, it is worth remembering that Azhar declared on the fourth day, setting Australia a target of 348 runs in a little over 100 overs. With all due respect to Ganguly, Kumble, Dravid, and Dhoni, they would not dare make such a move. And the man who put India in this position in the first place was Tendulkar, playing the innings of a lifetime (yes, against a weakened Aussie attack, but a good one nevertheless).

I stayed up all night, as Australia stumbled to 31-3 by the close. Then, later in the morning, I walked down to David’s apartment to return his machine so that he could get back to work on his thesis. He sleepily opened the door and asked how it went. “Great day’s cricket, absolutely smashing”, said I, as I handed back my connection to Chennai, to a day whose description in staccato bursts of text seemed as vivid as a crystal clear telecast. And no, I still haven’t seen this innings on video (fellow #crickind'ers, if you remember this night, do drop me a line sometime).

Jacques Kallis: doughty and dependable © Associated Press

In my most recent post, I 'fluked' the Laxman prediction and it opened up some dialogue that deserves a follow-up piece. The raison d'etre behind writing the original story wasn't really meant to be a prediction; rather, it was intended to explore the unusual phenomenon of batsmen who buck the overwhelming trend and average more in the second innings of Test cricket. The sheer luck involved in predicting Laxman's great innings was almost accidental. A few tongue-in-cheek comments suggested I must be part of the match-fixing mafia and I smiled at the suggestion, all the more since this was one of the few times I had no wager riding on it!

Today's article is about following up on my promise to a few bloggers who were keen to explore the question of which great batsmen average more in the second innings than the first. More importantly, can we suggest any reasons why that may be the case? Thankfully, S Rajesh, in his customary style, ended up doing my homework for me by writing an insightful piece which listed the top 8 batsmen of all time in that category. So let's check that list out again.

My initial hypothesis was that I figured a few of the players in this list were likely to be opening batsmen, especially players who played a lot of cricket on pitches that would have been difficult to bat on the first day of a Test match, thereby creating a situation where their second innings average, on slightly flatter, drier surfaces, was likely to be inflated in comparison. I think it may be fair to extend that to include openers and No. 3 batsmen because they tend to be in pretty early on 'fresh' pitches that need enough moisture to last five days. Looking at those eight players listed, most of them batted in the top 3, even Laxman at the start of his career. So that theory may have some substance to it then?

What strikes me as curious though is that the two greatest batting allrounders of the game are right at the top of that list. Yes, Jacques Kallis has batted at 3 for most of his Test career so that is in line with my first theory, but when you consider that both Kallis and Garry Sobers would already have done some bowling in the match (and in Kumar Sangakkara’s case, wicketkeeping), their improved performances in the second innings is a great credit to their fitness levels.

Kallis, especially, is worthy of mention because he so often gets unfairly shaded when compared to the peerless Sobers. Looking at Kallis' numbers in all aspects of the game, including ODIs, I think we'll look back on his career and retrospectively realise that he was one of the genuine 'greats' of the game. I just hope that the cricketing world, not just the South Africans, savour the twilight of his career because I doubt we'll see a player of his calibre (and durability) again in the modern era.

Back to the original theme, it seems then that Kallis' place at the top of that list can be attributed in part to his resilient and unflinching style of batting, rarely flamboyant, but utterly dependable and risk-free. Well, in Test cricket anyway. He can shift gears seamlessly when necessary but I think it is a fair comment to say that his game is built around a rock-solid foundation of eliminating risk. I never saw Sobers bat but the legend around him paints a picture of a very different kind of batsman, much more carefree and flowing. For those who remember his batting, was that really the case or are they over-romanticising the aura around the great man?

No surprises that Allan Border is somewhere in that list. His entire reputation (perhaps unfairly) was built around his tenacity and courage with his back to the wall, and with a fair bit of his career played in a relatively weak Australian team, it's no surprise that rearguard efforts in second innings have boosted his average. What may surprise some people, though, is that AB was a fabulous attacking player in his own right. I played club cricket with him at Valleys CC in Brisbane for many years and at that level, free of the burden of responsibility (and not having to deal with Ambrose, Walsh, Holding, Marshall etc), AB's ferocity in attack was awesome to watch. Had he played in the modern era, behind a dominant top order, we might have seen another dimension to his batting. He was that good!

Matthew Hayden's inclusion on that list just proves that you don't need to be the traditional style of opening batsman to feature in this analysis of second-innings champions. Both Sunil Gavaskar and Geoff Boycott were from a different era and a different tempo, much less Haydenesque in technique and strike-rate. Boycott certainly would have batted on many pitches that were 'unfriendly' on the first morning of a Test match, hence it is no surprise that he cashed in heavily when he got a second chance. Gavaskar would probably have played many back-to-the-wall innings for India early in his career, again creating opportunity for long second innings that might even have left him carrying his bat. Again, while my boyhood memories of Gavaskar were those of a brave and courageous grafter, friends of mine who played with him at the Ranji level speak in awe at his ability to rip into attacks with savage intent.

Sangakkara's presence in the list is another surprise to me, only because I would have expected a wicketkeeper to be fatigued by the time he bats in the second innings. The only valid reason I can come up with is that he must have had a good look at the bounce and movement off the pitch by the time he batted in the second dig and this must surely have helped, along with lashings of talent!

Another theory I had for this second innings phenomenon was that it might feature players who batted a lot in venues that are traditionally tougher to bat on first thing in the morning, hence the second innings was likely to be more productive because it could happen at any time of the day. The dew in Sri Lanka is a known factor, Brisbane (and many Australian pitches) are notoriously hard work until lunch on the first day and I'm assuming South Africa is very similar to explain Kallis' average. I suppose, even in India, going back to Gavaskar's days, the new ball on a fresh pitch might have been the biggest threat, especially for someone like Gavaskar who was a fabulous player of spin bowling.

Enough guessing – I am keen to hear your opinions on these theories. What would also be interesting would be to see what the comparison of second innings aggregates and centuries are for these batsmen. Is their average inflated slightly by not-outs in the second innings (less likely in the first innings for obvious reasons) or have they genuinely churned out big runs batting last? Not that it's meant to be a criticism. It's hardly Laxman's fault that his last 7 second-innings efforts have been 124*, 61, 51*, 69*, 69, 103*, and 73*. Perhaps we can convince Rajesh to do his magic on Statsguru and give us another brilliant insight into this fascinating picture.

As for the greatest batsman of all time, Sir Donald Bradman? He did not make the list since he narrowly missed the 2500 runs cut-off but, for the record, he probably has the biggest gap between first and second innings averages of all. 97.85 in the first dig, 104.50 in the second. So that lays waste to any suggestion that the truly great players score heavily in the first innings, setting up the victory. Mind you, an average of 97 in the first innings is always a handy start!

There is nothing quite like the thrill of close-fought win © AFP

So near and yet so far. What a crushing disappointment to flirt with a long-held dream, only to have it cruelly denied. I speak not of Australia’s failure to win the Mohali test, nor of Ricky Ponting’s inability to win a test in India as captain. I speak, rather of my failure to watch India win a test by one wicket. I’ve dreamed and dreamed of a day when I would be watching a finish like this go down to the wire (don’t ask why I would want to condemn myself to such painful suspense), and last night, I was cruelly denied by a combination of factors. Yes, I know this is a self-indulgent post, but please, indulge me, for I have hopes that my story will resonate with some.

So, as Monday night drew close to midnight on the east coast of the US, I faced a crucial decision. In terms of fandom and the competing calls made on one’s time, this was about as critical as it gets. Should I stay up late and watch the match through to the end, or should I just wait for the highlights? Tuesday is a bad day at work for me. My first class meets at 9:30 in the morning, and my third at 6:30 in the evening. The time in-between involves meetings and an hour-long subway commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan. The telecast was scheduled to begin precisely at midnight, and there was little chance I would be able to pull off my usual “rise-at-5AM-to-watch-the-post-tea session” trick for games played in India. The game would be over, one way or the other, by then.

But I’m not a spring chicken any more, and all-nighters don’t come easily - not that they ever did. And the thought of teaching Buddhism on only two hours of sleep filled me with something akin to the unease the young Siddartha might have felt on first being confronted by the sight of infirmity. On the other hand, I did know of an office on campus that I could sneak into for a quick nap during the afternoon. Should I risk it? Stay up till 5, grab two hours of sleep, fuel up on a couple of Americanos and then after powering through the Four Noble Truths, and then Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion at 11, hit the couch for a power nap?

Yes, why not? Tendulkar was still there, Laxman would bat for sure, hope sprang eternal and all that. Perhaps an Indian test win would sustain body and soul through a sleepless day.

So, I bit the bullet, grabbed my laptop, and moved to the kitchen to try and find a bootleg video stream. And that’s where my troubles began. For one little detail that I have left out thus far, one considerably complicating detail, was that my live cricket provider had inexplicably failed to secure the rights for this series, and had thus relegated me to feeding off the scraps of illicit video streams, pockmarked with commercials, and marred by poor video quality. I had dealt with these irritations with some equanimity in my early morning sessions, fuelled as I was by six hours of sleep, and some coffee.

But the midnight hours are very different; the body doesn’t hold up so well late at night. To make things worse, the network gremlins decided to come to roost in my home. For the nerdy amongst us, my wireless router has persistent DNS problems. Thus, not only was I dealing with a low quality feed, I was dealing with one that was intermittent at best. For two hours, as India moved from 55-4 to 156-8 at lunch, I dealt with it as best as I could, reloading pages, restarting browsers, and restraining myself from slitting my wrists with a butter knife.

But at two in the morning, I gave up. I was tired, I was sleepy, I was worn out. I would not be able to make it through the lunch interval. And the thought of dealing with a full day’s teaching on very little sleep, even if supplemented with a short nap, suddenly took on a terrifying hue. Reluctantly, like a boxer agreeing to let his seconds throw in the white towel, I put the machine to sleep and slunk away to bed. My dreams tormented me: I saw green-capped men hugging each other, roaring triumphantly at empty stands, and handing out quick handshakes to crestfallen men with blue caps.

In the morning, I awoke, staggered into the kitchen, and gingerly touched the space bar on the sleeping machine, dreading the result, whatever it was. If Australia had won, a test was a lost. If India had won, I had missed out on watching a close win.

As the result sprang into view, my disappointment that a golden opportunity had been lost, possibly never to be repeated, was tinged with sweet relief. A sportsman that has always commanded my admiration had come through yet again, and in the grander scheme of things, if I had to make a choice, I would always have picked the second option above. So, thank you, Test cricket, for reminding me all over again, why you are the supreme game, bar none.

Please could we have another game like this? But in a better time-zone for me?

VVS Laxman's second-innings average is better than his first - a rarity for batsmen © AFP

With a fascinating final day's cricket in prospect in Mohali, it will be hugely interesting to see if India can defy the law of averages and chase down this target of 216. History suggests that chasing runs in India is not the easiest proposition, even with the greatest batsman of our time still at the crease and looking very solid. You'd think that if there was one batsman in the world who might be able to achieve this feat, Sachin Tendulkar might be the first name that springs to mind. Yet, intriguingly, if batting average is meant to be any sort of guide, India's salvation may be on the back (literally) of one of the few players I can think of whose second innings average is actually superior to his first innings one - VVS Laxman.

Tendulkar, like just about every other stellar batsman in Test cricket, has a significantly higher average in the first innings. Encouragingly for India, his recent performances in the second innings have been much improved, so this may provide some comfort for nervous Indian fans this afternoon. More encouragingly, Laxman is actually one of the very few players in history who has a higher batting average in second-innings digs so if his back spasms can be managed effectively, India can still dream of glory. And to make matters better, MS Dhoni's numbers show no significant variation between first and second-innings averages so that too augurs well. (Click here for first-innings averages for Indian batsmen who've played 40 Tests or more. Click here for second-innings averages.)

Clearly, throughout history, there has been obviously a massive advantage for batsmen in the first innings of a Test match. In the subcontinent where heat and dust and soil conditions generally result in more uneven bounce and increased 'rough', thereby assisting the slow bowlers, one can understand why this may be the case. What surprises me, though, is that elsewhere in the world, particularly in say Australia, New Zealand and England, this trend continues to manifest itself. I would have thought, perhaps, that in some countries, green, seaming decks that dry out and become better for batting would help reverse this trend.

Perhaps opening batsmen would be among those most likely to see a trend reversal between first and second-innings performances. They often have to bat first on a pitch that needs to have enough moisture in it to last five days and this must surely balance out the times when the pitch is at its best on the first day. Looking at Sehwag's numbers, though, this theory doesn't hold out at all. His average almost doubles when you compare first innings averages to second innings ones.

I haven't had time to sift through Statsguru and try to find batsmen, especially openers, who can match the Laxman phenomenon. If any reader can name some exceptions, it would then be fascinating to figure out where they played most of their cricket and whether this can be attributed to my (unproven) theory that it must be as difficult to bat on some first day pitches as it is to bat on fourth or fifth day decks. If we come up with any names, I'll take a guess that these batsmen will most probably come from places like England, New Zealand, maybe even places like Brisbane and Colombo where the morning dew might make it really tough for batsmen on a fresh pitch which flattens out as the game progresses.

Must dash now and watch the cricket to see if Tendulkar, Laxman or Dhoni can turn this game around. Looking forward to some blogger responses, especially anyone who can take us back a few decades, to see if we can identify any clear patterns for players who have performed significantly better in the second innings. Surely Laxman can't be that much of a freak, can he?