Justifying the Multan Declaration

Date 29th March'2004.
Hutch Cup. India vs Pakistan First Test
Multan.

Sachin was playing beautifully on his 194, Danish Kaneria was bowling when suddenly, there was a wave from the dressing room. It was Rahul Dravid, who was the captain of Indian team in absence of Ganguly. It was an unbelievable scene. The senior most player of the team, the GOD of Cricket was just 6 runs away from a historic double hundred, but the skipper decided to declare. The entire stadium was stunned. Sachin's face was ambiguous. It was hard to say whether he was angry or disappointed. He went into the dressing room and didn't utter a single word to Dravid the whole afternoon. Sachin deserved to be disappointed, what Dravid did was wrong. But it was wrong only to Sachin Tendulkar.



Jammy was under a lot of pressure. It was his first major match as a skipper and he lacked a lot of experience in that area. Unlike Ganguly, he was known for his calm and composed behaviour. It was a 3-match series and Dravid knew that they had to win this match, if they want to clinch the series. They were almost into the third day with 3 more innings to go. Sehwag rapid fire innings of 309 had already given India a gigantic total and the only thing left was to hand over the responsibilities to their bowlers. Dravid was well aware of this and he had to make a strong move if they wanted to win. Here are a few things that we all know.:-

- Its always noticeable that Sachin seems to be nervous when in the 90s. Even his fast paced innings comes to a halt when he approaches the 90s. Take for example the historic 200 against South Africa, when he took over 6-7overs to reach from 190 to 200.

-It is one of the reasons that he gets out so much in the 90s. Many a times, its hard luck but you can notice Sachin playing irresponsible shots when he is 90s.

- For his 100^th century, he took 138 balls, in an era when he could clearly smashed in less than 80 balls or so.

- In a match against Australia, when Sachin smashed 241, he played so slow that Australia was actually able to save the match which could have been easily won by India. That victory would have resulted in a 2-1 victory of India against Australia in Australia.

Dravid knew all this things, and that’s why he made to make probably the toughest decision of his life. He wanted the team to win. He was ready to face the criticism of billions of people, if it results in the victory of his nation. That’s how Selfless he is. He did what the team needed. And it resulted in a victory of an innings and around 80-90 runs. India went on to win the series 2-1, winning the hearts of billions of people of India.
Here is what Dravid says about being asked about the Multan Declaration,
“If I had a penny for every time someone asks me about the Multan Declaration, I would have been a billionaire by now.”