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I really miss being in England right now. I remember the last time India came to England, it was 2004 August and chatting with LA who was the only person in the group who followed cricket. Of course, now we have JF who also follows cricket and tries to convince people that a five day test is really interesting. When India played Pakistan I spent my day in the lab glued to the computer refreshing cricinfo every five minutes or attached speakers and listened to commentary. During that series people thought that I was some Indian weirdo with serious nationalistic issues and hating Pakistan but during the Ashes when I unashamedly had the commentary on in the lab rooting for england (as was everyone else in the world except the Aussies), I think people realised that I was mad! Of course, after the fateful smack on the eye I quickly acquired the label of "cricket representative" of the group.

Now, I get emails from LA saying the cricket is going badly. Oh if only I could have spent the day in the lab watching cricket once again,especially this series with India winning, my life would have been perfect.
Congratulations to Dravid and co. I woke up to watch the fourth days play and I remember thinking that I would have a bat and not enforced the follow-on for the same reasons that Dravid did. I agree with Andrew Miller's piece that endorses Dravid's decision to bat again and suggests that had he lost this test and in effect the series then the same fans who are pillorying him for his "cowardly" decision would be the ones that burnt effigies of him and called for his resignation.

In all likelihood we might have won the game if Dravid enforced the follow-on, but equally there was a risk considering India's last innings shenanigans we might have contrived to lose the game and I suspect memories of chasing 123 in Barbados in 1996 must have risen in Tendulkar's mind. In the long run nobody will remember this drawn test but will definitely remember the series win, just as few people today remember the exact sequence of Kapil's 1986 series win.

My only regret is that it isn't a five match series. We now have seven meaningless one-dayers which in my opinion are worthless compared to another couple of tests. For all I could care, we should eliminate one-dayers completely from the cricket schedule and have test series like these with sporting wickets like the ones prepared for this series. I am really looking forward to the Twenty-Twenty WC and see how that takes the Indian sub-continent's imagination as that will probably decide its fate on the international sporting calendar.

Other sporting news - Woods wins again and manages to avoid a major year drought, cycling needs to revamp their entire athlete list and rugby union had some great matches over the weekend. The All Blacks have still to have a warm up match while France,Wales, Ireland,England and Scotland have all had a couple already. No betting man would like to bet against the All Blacks reaching the finals of the WC and no betting man would like to bet on them winning it given their horrendous history in the WC. C'mon NZ for once, please win!