BackFootPunch
International 12th Man
Why is having someone else playing a good/great knock alongside not seen as a positive thing? I mean I understand why you'd highly rate someone who genuinely plays a lone hand and does it all on their own. But building a partnership with someone else is just as impressive.It just misses the cut, even with a big bonus for being a unique follow-on to victory ton. The biggest reason is that he had great support from Dravid, and even though the Aussie bowling looks amazing, it was in 2001 when only McGrath was near his peak.
His 167 comes in at #53 instead.
You said we may not be talking about that Lara knock if someone else had batted along with him but we definitely wouldn't be talking about Laxman if Dravid hadn't been there also. There's skill involved in building a partnership and dragging your team back from the brink together. Equally, whoever the other guy is, he's not the one scoring your runs. Doesn't matter who you've got down the other end, you've still got to score them all. So I don't get why Laxman's 281 is devalued, at all, by Dravid's presence. It was an immense innings.