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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

On a "challenging" declaration

Ricky Ponting set South Africa 375 to win in the 4th innings in 116 overs. Cricinfo's headline for this reads "Ponting tempts SA to chase a miracle" - a non-headline headline if there ever was one. If Ponting tempted SA to chase a miracle by setting them 375 in 116, then Sri Lanka really dangled the carrot in front of Bangladesh by setting them 624 in 150 overs! They might have set them 800 in 90 overs and killed any chance of Bangladesh winning. Just over 10 years ago, Mohammad Azharuddin set Australia 348 to win in 107 overs, the same target that was set by Allan Border in the 1986 tied Test. Those were sporting declarations. Setting a side without its first choice opening batsman a total which has been achieved only 5 times in nearly 2000 Test Match in over 130 years, is hardly "challenging". When youre side has already lost the series, it doesn't really matter.

This business of chasing the number 1 spot, is deeply overrated in my view, because there is a series in South Africa in a month or so, where South Africa will get three more chances to either cement the number 1 spot, or let Australia return to the number 1 spot. Having seen how determined Australia were when they came to India in 2004-05 for "the final frontier", that will be a series to watch.

The view in the Channel 9 commentary box was that the declaration was a fine one (not surprisingly - with the Australian 12th man in that box). Ian Chappell is one who is always interested in sporting declarations. I decided to look up his record as captain in making declarations. I found 7 instances where Ian Chappell, as captain of Australia had the opportunity to make a declaration in the 3rd innings of the match. The targets he set the opposition were 451, 405, 400, 333, 319, 261 and 234. There were other occasions when Australia bowled 4th in a Test Match, but these were games where they were bowled out in the 3rd innings. There could be some instance among these, where there might have been an opportunity to declare earlier, but i haven't gone into that as this would be entirely speculative. Chappell captained Australia in 30 Tests in all.

Australia didn't win the Test at Nottingham where Chappell declared with a lead of 451. England batted out 148 overs to save the Test Match (Tony Greig ended with 36* (144)). Chappell set England 405 to win at Adelaide, a Test which Australia won by 163 runs. Dennis Lillee took 4/69 in the 4th innings. This was a dead rubber as Australia had already won the Ashes by the time the Adelaide Test came along. Chappell set England 400 to win late on Day 4 at Sydney during the 74-75 Ashes. Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson and Ashley Mallet bowled England out for 228. Chappell set England 333 very late on the 4th day of the 1st Test of the 74-75 Ashes. England were bowled out for 166 with Jeff Thomson taking 6/46. 

Chappell set the West Indies 319 on the 5th day at Port of Spain, Trinidad in the final Test of the 1972-73 Frank Worrell Trophy. Australia had already won the series 2-0, and yet, they made 72 runs on the 5th day before declaring 319 ahead. West Indies had 69 or so overs to survive and duly did so, losing 5 wickets in the process. In the first Test of that series at Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica, Chappell set the West Indies 261. This was a token declaration late on the 5th day. This was actually a fairly interesting Test Match. Chappell declared the Australian 1st innings closed a 7/428 (off 157 overs). The West Indies replied with 428 all out (124 overs). Australia then batted 82 overs to make 2/260, and the West Indies batted out 33 overs making 3/67. Australia began the 5th day at 0/96, so there does not appear to have been any great delay. In all 397 overs were played in that Test.

Chappell was able to make one more declaration at Bridgetown, Barbados during that 1972-73 series, again late on the 5th day when the game was pretty much dead. West Indies batted 19 overs in the 4th innings. Australia spent the 5th day going from 1/84 to 2/300, as Ian Chappell compiled his second century of the match.

Bear in mind, that between 1948 and 1970, a 4th innings chase in excess of 300 had been accomplished 3 times in 22 years, and a run chase of 250 or more to win had been accomplished 8 times in those 22 years.

There is no evidence of any sporting declaration made by Ian Chappell, where he gave the opposition a chance. Neither should we expect there to be. Test Matches are not to be gambled away with quixotic declarations. Gary Sobers learnt this the hard way at the Queen's Park Oval in Port Of Spain, Trinidad in 1968, when with the series deadlocked at 0-0, Sobers set England 215 to win in about 55 - 60 overs on the 5th day. England went on to win the Test and the series, and there were demonstrations in the streets against the West Indian hero.

It is no surprise then that we don't see Chappell setting any opposition line up 300 to win in 4 sessions, because that would be really sporting! 

This idea of a tempting declaration is a commentator's creation. The urge to gamble from the safety of the commentary box must be great. The only factor in a declaration is a captains assessment as to whether there are enough runs for his bowlers to bowl the opposition out on the 5th day. Sourav Ganguly showed us at Kolkata in 2001, that setting Australia 384 in 75 overs, and giving them almost no chance of going for the runs worked in his favor, because they had nobody who could knuckle down and block for a session (Hayden and Gilchrist were dismissed trying to sweep from the stumps on a 5th day pitch!). No captain is going to dangle carrots in front of the opposition unless he's reasonably sure that the opposition won't get the runs he sets them.

Im fairly certain that when Kevin Pietersen declared the England innings closed at 9/311 on that Chennai pitch, he felt he had more than enough runs to play with. That was not a sporting declaration by any means, and it was nearly identical to Ponting's declaration at Sydney. Indeed, the whole premise of a 3rd innings declaration, is that the side bowling 4th is well ahead in the game in the first three innings, and feels that the rest of the game is best spent playing the final  innings of the game, and would be wasted if spent in further developing the lead.

So what factors go into a declaration? A declaration is an indication of a captains assessment of the pitch, the opposition batting line up (their ability to score at a given pace), his own bowling line up, and the amount of time that he feels he will need to take 10 wickets on a 4th innings pitch. What has happened in the game upto that point in it, is also a useful indicator in predicting what might happen in the 4th innings. Thats why Perth and Chennai were such amazing results (Chennai more so than Perth in my opinion, because Perth was still a superb batting wicket on the 5th day, while Chennai was not. Perth was also a higher scoring game overall). Going by all the indicators listed above, the fielding captains - Pietersen and Ponting were proven emphatically wrong in those two games.

Ponting's declaration at Sydney is a measure of his view of his bowling attack more than anything else. He also obviously feels that 375 is many more than South Africa are capable off given the nature of the Sydney wicket. Australia have found it hard to take 20 wickets in this series, and have done especially poorly in the 2nd innings of game (SA have made 4/414 and 1/183 in 4th innings before this game). Might he have given his bowlers a cushion of 25 runs more? May be. But then again, might he have given his bowled 10 overs more to bowl in the 4th innings and set South Africa 330 instead of 375? An argument can be made for that as well. Australia have shown on Day 3 that they can shut down the scoring rate on this pitch by bowling straight - and that gives Ponting something to fall back on. At any rate, chasing 300+ on the final day is difficult, because it means making 100 runs or more in each session of the day. This has been achieved in 6 out of the 12 innings of play in the match so far.

Id say Ponting's made a fairly safe declaration. Whats more important is how far ahead in the game Australia were at Tea on Day 3, and how much leeway Ponting had in making his declaration. With only 9 wickets to get in all (Smith will bat, but basically bat one handed), it was an easy declaration to make.

But this is the wrong way to look at declarations. A declaration is the best indicator of what a captain thinks about the state of play. So the question is not whether or not the declaration was made at the right time. The question is what the timing of the declaration tells up about one captain's view of the state of play.