COWAN’S DROP THE TURNING POINT

Ed Cowan dropped catch the game changer

When Bob Simpson was the captain and coach of the Australian teams he would often say “I can understand if the opposition can out bat and out bowl us but we should never be out fielded “

At the end of fourth day’s play when Mike Arthur and co sit down and try find the defining point that changed the course of the match, they should look no further than the dropped catch by Ed Cowan of Bhuvenshwar Kumar. 

 

The lead at the time was only 26 and Dhoni was only on 121. They both went on to add 140 runs and virtually put Australia out of a winning position.We can all speculate but if the lead could have been limited to within the vicinity of 50 odd we still could have gripping test match on our hands.

As it stands thanks largely to the last wicket unbeaten partnership of 52, the lead is pushing up to 50 and the debutant should be admired for his efforts in second innings. At the conclusion of day’s play, Henriques refuse to declare what would be a realistically a decent total in the 4^th innings.

“It’s hard to tell what’s a good total, I would have to say over a 100 or maybe even 150 but you do need a bit of luck to survive out there” 

In cricket sometimes you need to make your own luck and dropping catches isn’t the ideal way to go about it.  Like the old saying goes “catches can win you matches and also lose you some”. Look back over this test had Bob Simpson been the coach perhaps the opportunity would have been taken and the test match still alive.