India has won the first test match against Pakistan and VVS Laxman's partnership with MS Dhoni had much influence on the outcome. But, consider this - when Dhoni got out exposing the tail, Laxman had scored 49 runs off 89 balls. One would expect a specialist batsman in this situation to try and farm the strike as much as possible, facing at least 3 or 4 balls per over. But, by the time the innings wrapped up, Laxman had faced only a further 45 balls scoring 23 runs, while the tail enders had faced 89 balls to score 45 runs - that translates to just 2 balls per over being faced by Laxman! Its even more baffling if you consider when the tailenders got out - Harbhajan Singh takes a single off the last ball of the 75th over and gets out the first ball of over 76; Laxman takes a single off the 1st ball of over 79 and both Zaheer Khan & Munaf Patel get out the same over leaving Laxman stranded on 72!
Contrast that with the previous instance when a specialist Indian batsman batted with the tail through the end of the innings - when Dhoni did it in the first test match between India and England in July 2007. In that innings, after Laxman fell, Dhoni scored 39 runs off 71 balls with the tail scoring 9 off 49 balls - that translates to a much better 3.5 balls per over being faced by Dhoni.
It is probably not fair to judge Laxman based on one match, but it would be interesting to compare his career statistics when batting with the tail against other number 6 batsmen.
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