Ravi Shastri, a former Indian cricketer, has recommended India to declare 100 runs behind South Africa’s first innings total in order to set up a probable win in the second Test of the upcoming two-match series. On the second day of the Test, the hosts trailed by 480 runs at Stumps.
His comments came following the conclusion of the second day’s play. The former head coach believes that even matching the Proteas’ score of 489 may take longer than planned, which may not benefit the Indian side, which is down in the series after losing the series opener in Kolkata.
“Tactically, India will have to take a call tomorrow. See how they get through the new ball, then take the game forward and force a win. They’ll have to call the shots, which means you might even want to declare behind, then try to bowl out the opposition quickly in the second innings. You’ve got to take those chances. You can’t wait to bat past 489 — that’ll take too long. They might have to declare 80, 90, even 100 runs behind and see how it pans out,” stated Shastri during an interaction on Star Sports.
There have been 33 occasions of teams declaring while trailing in Test cricket. However, only three of those decisions have paid off, resulting in victories. India has made four such declarations.
Their lone defeat while doing so occurred in 1948 against Australia in Melbourne, when they declared while losing by 103 runs. All three previous encounters — trailing Pakistan by 41 runs in Faisalabad (1978), trailing England by 1 run in Kanpur (1982), and trailing England by 4 runs in Nagpur (2012) — concluded with both sides sharing the victory.
Only time will tell whether standby skipper Rishabh Pant and his coaching staff believe it is appropriate to declare early if they approach South Africa’s total. At the end of the second day, India were 9/0 in 6.1 overs, with Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul at the crease.
