Last night late in the day a beautiful thing happened to the test match. With about 8 overs to go it practically stopped. All pressure left the series and the game expanded became fluffy and airy and drifted off for the rest of the day. If there’d been some pirates around with a bladder to stretch around the game it could have become a zeppelin. The game had become gas – lighter than air. India stopped trying to get Clarke out, the field spread to the boundary, everything yawned, Clarke picked off singles. Tendulkar came on to bowl long hops to Gillespie who was turning into pumice (after intense pressure molten rock flung into the lightness of the atmosphere – is that how pumice works?) or fairy floss. In a state of absolute relaxation Clarke edged a chance between the keeper and first slip for 4. It is not clear whether the ball went by because the gap between Patel & Dravid had yawned and spread with the rest of the field, or whether the ball actually passed through Patel who was struggling, like many of the other players, to prevent his organs from dispersing. He was disbanding, his physical presence was developing holes large enough for cricket balls.

This may have been a tactic by India to prevent the build up of pressure that created the wild atmospheric conditions that eventually brought the rain to Chennai. Today the weather will be fine, the only cloud will be the cricket – though its primed to get heavy again man.