VVS Laxman Stumped In Bizzare Fashion By Baugh!
A dismissal to Shivanarine Chanderpaul, under most circumstances, would invite ridicule for the batsmen. For a ‘bowler’, who had scalped a total of eight wickets in his career that has seen him feature in 132 Tests, it would be a surprise that he is even allowed to bowl, let alone pick up wickets.
But to get out in the manner that VVS Laxman did on the third day of the third Test match was probably a concoction of comic, ridiculous and blasphemy.
It was the 60th over of the innings and Laxman was well-set on his third successive half-century of the series. With West Indies going into the game with four frontline bowlers and losing one of them in the course of the game to illness, the West Indians had no option but to try out their part-timers.
Chanderpaul is not even a part-timer. The last time he bowled was in 2007, such has been his lack of intent. So, when he ambled up to send down his second over of the spell, the sense was that it was only a matter of allowing the three main West Indian bowlers a break.
Again, the ball that eventually got Laxman out, could have easily won the award for the category of "Most Innocuous Delivery in a Wicket-Taking Role". It was wide, it was short and it would have embarrassed a club bowler. Probably out of mercy or out of sheer surprise, Laxman allowed it to pass through to the wicket-keeper. Carlton Baugh collected it and had half his mind on throwing it back to the bowler, when he saw the batsman shuffle in his crease.
For that split half second, Laxman seemed to have thought that he was on a stroll on a beautiful moonlit night, which he realised he was not on, in the latter half second. Baugh, alert to the opportunity, needed the first half of that second to whip the bails off and the third umpire was called to adjudicate on the decision.
The replays showed that Laxman, at the exact moment that the bails had been dislodged by the ‘keeper, had lifted his foot up by not more than a centimetre and for not more than half a second. He saw the replay again, probably rubbed his eye in disbelief and had no hesitation in giving the batsman out.
Nor could Laxman believe what had happened!
