Topic: Test Cricket Prediction and Discussion Thread [self - mod] - page 1082. (Read 151642 times)

I agree. Kohli has done an amazing job thus far and I don't really care about small stuff like follow on etc. He must have carefully thought about it which is why it is best to trust his judgement.

Do you guys actually think that West Indies can actually pull this off just like England? I don't get why people tend to focus on the pointless stuff like follow on etc when India has pretty much wrapped this up. My guess is that West Indies will wrap up their innings within 150.

Well was watching match live and Ishant -bumrah were looking uncomfortable. Bumrah went out when he got cramp and Ishant was taking fluid all the time with ice pack.

The bowling team bowled only 47.1 overs before the wrapping up the WI first innings LOL
This excuse also does not adds up :-P

I was expecting follow on too...

I still didn't check his press conference so I can make only educated guess, He might be thinking of giving seamers little more rest because it's hot and India playing with 3 seamers. 2 of them looked slightly uncomfortable in the first inning despite their short spells( Ishant due to heat and bumrah due to cramps) and by doing so giving batsmen another chance to get their forms back, which failed but they added 160+ runs on scoreboard. It ensures that India can't lose the game from here. Tiny chances for windies win.

India coming to bat again also means windies had to field for extra 50+ overs in heat, which is not easy deal considering the fact that they didn't get to rest much in this test match yet. In 3 days gameplay they spent max 3 hours in the dressing room.

There was no rain factor in his mind. And there was enough time to windies batsmen to comeback. There is always tiny possibility that some windies batsmen could fight back in case of follow on. Result tired bowlers leaking runs.

We are still in 4th day and I am expecting windies to show some resistance because pitch is becoming easy to bat on with little support for bowlers but they have 2 full day to get them out plus Indian seamers are fresh and got extra breathing time-out.

PS : ignore the typos using phone

Yeah, I did see your post the one you are talking about. But adding only 168 and then to declare did not make sense to me. Was he worried about not getting much time to all out WI 2nd innings, or he was worried that rain could interrupt the match?

If he was worried about rain interrupt then forcing WI for follow on was perfect decision since you know that they are not in good shape and you want to finish the match as early as you can without wasting time for your innings. If anything left then you always has chance to bat again.

If he was worried about not getting much time to all out WI 2nd innings then batting the 2nd innings before WI also does not make sense.

In cricketing common sense, it really did not make sense to me. It (the 2nd innings) was a wasted innings for India.

This WI team does not have the caliber but that's not the excuse. You can not under estimate your opponent. You can slip anytime if you run out of your options.

Historically Virat doesn't like to give follow on to opposition, guess you missed my post ? he done that atleast 5 times so it makes sense why he didn't opt for follow on.

Windies need 3 big innings to pull this off. If they win then will criticise virat Kohli's decision and more importantly every one will go gaga ( including me ) and say finally cricket won.

This did not make sense to me. Did Kohli think that they were only 168 runs short with the lead they had in the first innings? It seems like they wasted the 2nd innings. They could ask WI to follow on and can win the match from there. If needed then they could bat later but now it's impossible (assuming WI will not able to chase the run).

Imagine somehow WI managed to chase this run (Yeah, we all know it's not likely to happen but still)?

For a moment people thought that Kholi took a wrong decision and their batsmen may get out quickly in 2nd innings, but remember this is Indian team which have a strong batting line up. They scored 168 pretty easily and then declared. There is no way in the world West Indies weak batting line up can chase 400+ runs against strong Indian bowling.

Not applying the follow-on rule was not a right decision as they already had a lead of 300+ runs and they could have batted again in the last innings in case they had any runs to chase. Looking for improving batting stats doesn't make sense here so Virat took a wrong decision. Kohli himself got out for 0 then with the poor performance of Rahul and Agarwal.



He is talking about the 168 runs made in the second innings. Not the lead.

Firstly, Kohli usually places his team before himself just like Dhoni and the previous captains and India is going to win this one either way which is why the follow-on doesn't really matter in this case.

400+ lead is a mediocre score against a bowling lineup comprising of bowlers like Bumrah? Hilarious. West Indies have already lost 2 wickets and India is going to win this by a considerable margin.

I don't think if he cares about records much and surpassing Sachin's record is just a matter of time for him. I didn't see the press conference. So not aware what Virat said about not going with follow on, but I am sure the reason would be more or less same " enough rest for bowlers" we shouldn't disregard that India is playing with only 4 bowlers and in the test match every team wants to eliminate every possible scenario of losing a game first.  

2 full days left in the game, the odds are against Windies but imagine for a sec, If they win the Test match. This win can transform windies cricket for good. Chances are dim, but Again Cricket can hit you on guts sometimes.


Fairy tale!! and it changed the Indian cricket tbh. Winning Test against the Mighty Australian team and ending their winning streak of 16 games.

That match between AUS and IND was an exceptional case, just like the last test match between AUS vs ENG, almost nobody thought that ENG would win that match yet they managed to win. Any team with right mind should enforce follow-on, unless there are external factors of concern like weather, pitch deterioration etc. Enforcing a follow-on will put immense pressure on the opponent, whose batting morale will be low considering that they didn't score much in the 1st innings.  But if you give them a chance to bowl, the morale might increase if they were able to restrict them to a meagre score. And defeating a team with lesser morale is easier than a team boosting in confidence.

In cricket is can be terribly wrong to underestimate your opponents. Indians probably wanted to enhance their batting stats and that may be the reason why they didn't enforced the follow on. But in test cricket, a win is the ultimate aim. You can't lower your chances for a win, just because you want to enhance your individual stats.

And whenever a team gets arrogant and overestimates itself, it suffers setback. At one point of time, India was struggling at 57/4, before half centuries from Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari rescued them. Still they ended up with a mediocre score and it took almost 55 overs to score that many runs. had they enforced the follow on, then the match would have been over by now.

I think now days most captains are scared to enforce the follow-on after what happened to Australia when they enforced the follow-on against India and then India dominated the Australian bowlers and ended up winning the match. Since then there hasn't been many follow-on enforced by teams as they never know if the team following on bats well. We have seen in the past that teams chasing anything near 500 runs is almost impossible to win the match which is also why most captains decide to bat again.

They don't have Stokes, Smith to score 100+ runs on their own nor Bumrah who can take wickets. They fail both in bowling and batting. Even with Pollard and Gayle they wouldn't manage but would atleast not perform so badly.

Rain can save them now but it should rain for atleast 1.5 days then it would end in a draw. :-P

Yeah, I would definitely love that I will pray for a draw atleast. Stupid decisions like this have to be taught a lesson.

Out of 8, Virat didn't ask for follow on 5 times, well, I think he always wants to bat and have some scored besides his name  so that he can get enough chance to chase S. Tendulkar.
I was expecting a follow on yesterday when WI was 79/7.

ROFL...

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
If turnips were bayonets, I'd wear one by my side.. (William Camden 1551–1623).

There is no Ben Stokes in the West Indies team, but they had players such as Russel and Pollard. But unfortunately they are more interested participating the T20 leagues around the world than representing the national side. So for now, West Indies can humbly take whatever thrashing they receive from India and use the TV revenues from this series to build grass-roots cricket.

And then you wake up from the dream and see India won by 300+ Runs.   

There is no Ben strokes in WI team who can do this miracle.

I don't think it's related to gambling or commercial, India has a history to avoid follow- on numerous times be it home or away test matches. The only logical argument in this test match, Virat can give is net practice for Indian batsmen and resting Seamers.

• 275 vs NZ Ahmedabad 1999  S. Tendulkar
• 231 vs Aus SCG 2003/04       Sourav Ganguly
• 319 vs Eng Oval 2007           Rahul Dravid
• 258 vs NZ Indore 2016         Virat
• 309 vs SL Galle 2017            Virat
• 299 vs Ban Hyderabad 2017  Virat
• 292 vs Aus MCG 2018/19      Virat
• 299 vs WI Kingston 2019 *    Virat