A sweet revenge on the cards for India

The two men from team India who were entitled to take the charge against South Africa viz V V S Laxman and Harbhajan Singh did exactly what they were expected to. Added to that was the captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni who unlike in his previous games that he played was found giving in more responsibility. May be because the pitch offerred assistance to batsmen that saw four Indian batsmen notching up centuries, with that of Sachin and Sehwag expected. The trump card for team India being the spin department and Harbhajan Singh riding high on his off spin, the Proteas had no other choice.

As expected, the Indian team lost Amit Mishra not before he scored 28 runs, given the caliber he faces regarding his batting abilities. Mishra had five hits to the fence and his innings lasted 38 balls at a strike of over 73. And from then onwards, the Indian innings never saw another wicket fall to the South African bowling whatsoever. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was found scoring at a rate of more than 4 runs per over and so was team India. Laxman and Dhoni were the only two batsmen available in the playing XI and were more than enough to find the Proteas run for cover.

Prior to that, India needed just four bowlers namely Zaheer, Harbhajan, Amit Mishra and Ishanth Sharma to uproot the South African batting line up. This was not the case even against Bangladesh when more than four bowlers were required to make things tough for the Bangladeshis. By putting up a score of 643 on the board, India not only sealed a position to level the series but also boasted to have scored the highest aggregate in the tournament surpassing the 556/6 dec the South Africa put up in the 1^st innings of the 1^st test at Nagpur. So, it was a total batting effort excluding Murali Vijay by India.

With this, India can be thought to have a sweet revenge on its cards, in case India manage to win this test by an innings. And if the play that has been done so far is considered,this can well be anticipated. However, one cannot reason out as to what made Dhoni declare when India could have posted a total of 700+ and V V S Laxman and Dhoni himself could have themselves posted double centuries? Laxman was just 7 runs short of scoring 150 and India 7 runs short of a 650 total. The present total of 643 is enough for India to grab a win but, not statistically speaking so. Is it because that Dhoni wanted to show the world that he has no place for such stats in his mind that he declared the innings with that question due to raise?