Rain spoils Kohli’s experiment drive

PORT OF SPAIN: The farcical wait for the fourth Test to resume finally ended with play called off in the first hour of the fifth day on Monday. India had already

PORT OF SPAIN: The farcical wait for the fourth Test to resume finally ended with play called off in the first hour of the fifth day on Monday. India had already piled misery on West Indies with a 2-0 series win but this time the hosts underwent another humiliation by failing to prepare a ground in four days despite little rain and enough sunshine.

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In its 125th year, Queen’s Park Cricket Club couldn’t have put out a worse advertisement for Test cricket — questionable drainage, lack of super soppers and overall sloppy work in terms of covering the ground at the Oval. Viv Richards was seething, broadcasters were frustrated while India were left wondering whether their six batsmen-four bowlers combination would have worked out well.

RANKING NO BIG DEAL

Virat Kohli’s next selection musical chair will now have to wait till September when New Zealand visit India. With it will start a season where India get considerable number of Tests to put themselves back at the top of the ICC rankings.

Getting to the top in the West Indies wouldn’t have mattered anyway, said Kohli during the press conference. “We didn’t play for ranking. It just happened. As a team we can assess ourselves at the end of the season, not one Test match at a time,” he said. Some boxes in the ‘to do’ list have been ticked though. “For me, the biggest positive was Saha getting runs in the lower order. Plus, Ashwin coming good at six. I think those were areas that were very important for us to solidify,” said Kohli.

“We lost a day of cricket in Jamaica. But let’s give credit to West Indies who showed resilience and played really good cricket on Day 5. That’s what you expect from a Test-playing nation,” he said.