WALL'S COUNTERPUNCH

Tremendous knock. Brisk knock. A mindblowing knock in a situation when India needed it most. Mr reliable was at his very best in the most testing of circumstances. With India’s back to the wall, it was the wall that came to the fore. A 100 scored off just 158 balls, when the situation demanded that Dravid should consume at least 250 to 300 to reach the milestone, shows the true class of the man.

The best thing about this tremendous innings was that 68 off Dravid's first 100 runs were scored off cover and midwicket regions. Dravid patiently waited for the loose deliveries, and did not miss any scoring opportunity.

Dravid's statistics for his first 100 runs shows that only three came from fineleg+thirdman regions. In fact, not a single run came from thirdman region as he raced to his century. Despite the situation India were in, Dravid was not to be tricked into false shots.

It's not that Dravid played too fast as he played another memorable innings. In fact, there were over 110 dot balls as Dravid raced to his century. But big scoring shots took good care of Dravid's run-rate. Lankan's aggressive field placing, justified considering the situation they were in, finally did them in

16 fours and a six in Dravid's race towards 100 have put India in a situation where they can well and truly think of a score approaching 450-500. Dravid's tremendous knock has totally reversed the momentum in India's favour.

During tea break, I saw a stats on Neo showing just one loss in tests where Dravid has scored a century. By the time this test ends, and the way this innings may have hit the Lankans, that piece of stats is unlikely to change.