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3rd Test: Australia wins Sydney Test (scorecard), South Africa won Test Series 2-1.. T20 & ODI series follows.
Current Cricket Series : South Africa vs Australia, West Indies vs New Zealand. Coming Up : India in NZ 2009.

Filed under Cricket Controversies

It was 151st over of Indian second Innings against West Indies in Antigua test match and they were on the verge of declaring their innings...It was Mahendra Singh Dhoni's blistering batting that had made the declaration possible for the Indians... It was the fifth ball of that over from Dave Mohammed and............. it was the fourth consecutive ball that Indian wicket-keeper wanted to hit for a six..!!

It all started with a single by Mohammad Kaif off the first ball to give the strike back to Dhoni, who was more suited to make quick runs as Indians were trying to make fast runs to set a good enough target for the West Indian batsmen in the fourth Innings. Dhoni lifted the flighted ball from Dave Mohammed for a six over long on, and did the same off the third ball - the only difference being that this one went lot further..

Fouth ball was fired down the legs of Dhoni, who slogged it over the square leg. Result - 3rd consecutive six. Then came the Drama ball - Dhoni again slogged it for the fourth time, towards the mid wicket boundary where Derren Ganga was standing, holding his breath and praying it lands into his hands rather than going over him.. The ball finally got into his hands but the television camera's were not "conclusive" to prove that Ganga didn't touch the boundary after taking that catch of Dhoni..

Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Mohammad Kaif started to walk towards the pavilion as Dravid had already told them that that was the last over they were playing. And as Dhoni was out, they thought their captain has declared..

The confusion came in when Umpires - Asad Rauf and Simon Taufel started consulting that whether Derren Ganga has taken the catch cleanly of has touched the boundary. Both batsmen stopped. Waited for the umpires decision. And Umpires waited for Third Umpires decision. But as I said, the TV Replays were not conclusive that whether Ganga had touched the boundary or not, they kept on waiting. Result - 10 minutes or so passed by but umpires failed to made up their mind.

They finally decided that the benefit of doubt should go to the batsman and asked Dhoni to continue batting - which meant fourth six in a row for Dhoni. That didn't pleased West Indian Captain Brain Lara and he went over to Dhoni and Kaif to share some words. It was not a friendly talk to say the least and that made Rahul Dravid - who was watching all this from Indian balcony, upset.

Then Lara took umpire's decision, quite angrily and asked Dave Mohammed to bowl the last ball of that 151st over. And then the final twist came in when Indian captain called his batsman in and left the decision on umpires to decide whether it was a six or not. WE DECLARE..!!

Note :- Lara was upset because he saw Indian batsmen leaving in the first instance. He was convinced that Indians has declared. So what are they fighting for.... but as one more ball was remaining in that 151st over, and had that been a six, India would have got six more runs and one more ball from Dave Mohammed to Dhoni... that made Indians wait and Lara irritated.

Finally, Dhoni took Derren Ganga's words that he had caught the ball cleanly and was declared out for 69 off 52 ball with ONLY SIX SIXES.

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