With around 16 overs to go on the fourth day of the Chennai Test, a group of spectators suddenly stood up and ‘declared’ India’s innings closed. Soon another section of the crowd took up the chant, “Declare, declare.” Surely Indian skipper Virat Kohli was not delaying the declaration to allow Karun Nair to make a triple century only days after saying that this Indian team didn’t care for individual milestones, only team performances?
Perhaps, suggested another spectator, Ravichandran Ashwin had broken his finger while playing Jake Ball during the partnership with Nair. Since he was unlikely to bowl, went the argument, there was no way India could push for victory. And a young player might as well be given his opportunity. That sounded logical, and the buzz died down. Yes, that had to be the explanation.
And then came what was referred to as a “pity” declaration, a gesture to visitors who had been on the field for so long through a record-breaking and heart-breaking batting performance. It was southern hospitality, no more.
But when India came out to field, Ashwin was ready to bowl. As so often happens with beautiful theories, reality had ruined this one. “You know,” said the academic philosopher sitting beside me, “Inference to the best explanation does not guarantee truth.” Philosophers have such quaint ways of putting things.
The injury theory, it became clear, covered all facts except the basic one: Ashwin wasn’t injured. More, it failed to take into account the Indian captain’s supreme confidence in his team.
Mitigating factors
There were mitigating factors: India were already 3-0 up, they couldn’t lose the match, there was more international cricket coming up, the bowlers — if they believed there was nothing in the wicket for them — might have preferred to rest their tired bodies.
Personally, I thought Kohli ought to have declared when Nair reached 250, allowing his bowlers to have a go at the tired and demoralised English batsmen for a dozen overs. The only justification for a delayed declaration is victory, the great solvent which dissolves all mistakes. If you arrive at the right destination, then the wrong turns you took to get there are forgotten.
But this is an acknowledgement of a concept as dangerous in sport as in life: that the ends justify the means. Stretch it further, and you condone drug abuse at the Olympics, spiking an opponent’s drink in a friendly tennis match and much more.
It also skews all decisions and comes perilously close to justifying acts that are against the spirit of the game. It is the confusion between means and ends that allowed Diego Maradona to score a goal with his hand in a World Cup and credit it to the “Hand of God.”
It is right if you win, it is wrong if you don’t.: this is simplistic and deeply unsatisfying, a reductionist attitude, a value system confined to only black and white. Somehow a “right” declaration doesn’t sound right.
Victory as the great validation, not involving logic or indeed emotion fails to acknowledge something more fundamental. Perhaps the choice is between a declaration that is positive and contributes to the enjoyment of the game and one that can be termed “negative” and is geared towards avoidance of defeat.
Had England declared earlier in the first Test at Rajkot, would the story of the series have been different? We will never know, of course, but it’s a thought. Alastair Cook played it safe, understandably so in a series opener, but India lost six wickets in the end, and there is no telling how things might have turned out not just in that Test but in the series itself.
A declaration in cricket is unique. The captain weighs the variables and decides he has enough runs; “enough” is not an easy concept to define in sport, and subsequent events have often proved the captain wrong.
Garry Sobers once declared setting England a target of 215 in 165 minutes. That was nearly half a century ago, and when West Indies lost it was seen as a monumental blunder. But note the sequence: the blunder was established only after the result.
When Australia declared in Kohli’s first Test as captain, India went for the runs making for an exciting game. When challenge and response add to the game’s thrill, there can be few complaints. Sobers blundered then, but the game won. In Chennai, both India and the game won.
So Kohli was right after all, and all those who tried to send him a message on the fourth evening were wrong. Test cricket lives on because it is too large to be contained within the limits of one person’s imagination.
It was a declaration of faith by Kohli, and his team responded magnificently. How England managed to lose 10 wickets in two sessions on this track — most Ranji teams would have survived easily — remains a puzzle, however.
