Oct. 5: He had every reason not to come out to bat. The rational thinking would have been for him to put his feet up, nurse his injured back, and possibly thumb a paperback in the pavilion.
Better still, he could have made a quick trip back home for treatment and readied himself for the second Test in Bengaluru. But as the Australian pacers went about tearing through the rest of the able-bodied side late on Day Four, Laxman wasn’t going to remain a spectator on the final day — injury or not.
Laxman cringed after every shot, and clutched his back as he made his way to square leg after getting off strike. But between all this, he produced a knock so heroic that even the gutsy Australian batsman of the 70’s — Rick McCosker — would have sat up and took notice.
His jaw snapped in half by a Bob Willis bouncer on the first day of the Centenary Test at Melbourne in 1976-77, McCosker famously came out to bat at No. 10 later in the game with his head enveloped in bandages and jaw wired shut. He made 25 and was involved in a 54-run partnership with Rodney Marsh that set up Australia’s 25-run win.
More than thirty years later, Laxman along with a Ishant Sharma did the same for India. “I had told the boys that if there was one player we had to be careful of, it was Laxman. With India in this kind of position last night, you just knew, he’ll bat out of his skin on Tuesday. And that’s what happened,” Ricky Ponting said.