Opening Doorz

By Moody Marty | Opening Doorz Editorial | April 10, 2026

Years from now, when the IPL dust has settled, David Miller will be remembered more for refusing a common-sense single—the one that would have tied the match—than for his powerful display in New Delhi on April 8. 

In cricket, you can dominate for a major part, but history remembers the missed moments.

This match could have been tied. It should have been tied, but unfortunately, it was lost. Delhi Capitals, after coming so close, effectively said, “Aa Bail Mujhe Maar.” Meaning, you know there is a problem, you see the problem looming like a thunderhead on the horizon, and yet you stride purposefully towards it with the precision of a genius.

There was at least a tie in sight. The equation was simple, but the psychology was broken. David Miller refused an easy single. In that moment of hubris or perhaps a misplaced sense of duty, Kuldeep Yadav (a man who has held his own with the bat in the white-clothed rigours of Test cricket) was reduced to a mere watchman.

Match lost. It was a moment of individualism. It is a moment that will haunt Miller for the rest of his life, surfacing in the quiet hours of the night. It is a moment that will leave Kuldeep feeling like a mug for the rest of his life, standing there, then lunging, nay scampering for a non-existent single, only to be stumped.

Cricket is, at its marrow, a team game. These days, even a No. 11 can knock the ball out of the park. Gone are the days of the rabbit. Not every lower-order batsman is a Dilip Doshi, walking out with the sole intention of surviving three balls and getting back to the shade.

The Ravi Shastri-Maninder Singh Trust

To understand the gravity of Miller’s mistake, we must swing back almost 40 years to the sweltering humidity of Madras—now Chennai. The year was 1986. The stage was Chepauk.

The sun was an anvil, and the pitch was a spinning graveyard on Day 5. Greg Matthews was turning the ball on a dime, the red cherry spitting off the surface like a cobra. In the final over of that Tied Test, India needed 4 runs to win. Ravi Shastri, the man with the “over my dead body” resolve, was at the crease. He took a couple. Then, he took a single to tie the scores.

By taking that single, he left Maninder Singh, hardly a Bradman with the blade, to face the music with three balls remaining and just 1 run needed to win. The Aussies were swarming around his bat.

Maninder and India famously ran into the quick, outstretched, upward finger of umpire Vikram Raju.

The Test match was tied.

The point here is the philosophy of the act. Shastri took that single because there was a single in sight. He tied the match first. He trusted his partner to do the rest. What would have happened if Shastri had refused the single on the third ball, hoping to clear the fence with 2 runs needed for a win?

Well, Miller was not born then, or we could have said, “Shastri did a Miller!”

Instead, Shastri did what leaders do: he played the percentages and gave his team a chance to avoid losing.

Masters at Snatching Defeat from The Jaws of Victory

Speaking about that historic Tied Test, my mind goes back to the sheer fragility of that chase. Comfortably placed at one point, India collapsed, as was their wont during those days. We were the masters of the “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” art form. In most matches, there would be a long queue to the pavilion the moment one wicket fell.

“Gaslet ka line lag gaya” was the common refrain from frustrated cricket fans. In those days, outside ration shops in India, there would always be a long, weary queue to purchase kerosene; it was no different watching the Indian middle order.

When India slipped from 204/3 to a precarious 291/6, the “Gaslet line” was forming. But Shastri found a gritty partner in Chandrakant Pandit. They stitched together a crucial 40-run partnership that brought India to the doorstep of 331. After Pandit fell, and Chetan Sharma followed him in quick succession, the pressure was palpable.

Shastri continued the fight with the feisty Kiran More and the remaining tail.

It was during these tense, nerve-wracking moments, as I watched, heart in mouth, that I saw what has now become a global cricketing trademark: The Glove Punch.

Madras Birthed ‘The Global Glove Punch’

Every few balls, after a survival or a scampered run, Shastri would stride down the pitch. He would go up to his partner, whether it was Pandit, Sharma, or More, and deliver a punch to his partner’s gloves. I vividly remember the intensity of it. It wasn’t a casual, celebratory punch. It was fierce. It was punctuated with unbridled aggression. It was an almost silent, tribal language telling your partner, “Stay with me. Don’t blink. Let’s do this.”

That energy was palpable. It was transferred through the flickering television screens of the 80s directly into the living rooms of millions of Indians.

That simple act of physical contact, The Glove Punch, is what we have been seeing for decades. It has been adopted by every nation and every cricketer. Yet, few remember that it was this specific Indian rear-guard action, born in the furnace of the Madras heat, that birthed the trend.

It was the physical manifestation of trust. A trust that was clearly missing in Miller.

Yes, Miller, too, goes down in history. He will be the case study for “The Single Not Taken.” He’d do well to look back at the black-and-white footage of 1986. He’d do well to remember that sometimes you need to trust the man at the other end.

Jemimah Rodrigues Shows the Way

Contrast Miller’s moment with Jemimah Rodrigues. She stood at the non-striker’s end, calm and composed, watching Amanjot Kaur slice one past backward point for that famous win against the very same country, Australia, in a recent high-pressure Women’s World Cup Cricket encounter.

Jemimah, though having scored 127, didn’t need to be the one to hit the winning shot to feel the victory. “I cannot take credit for this win. This is a team effort,” said Jemimah afterwards.

Cricket indeed is a team game. It is a game of eleven parts moving as one. David Miller has learnt it the hard way, under the bright lights of New Delhi.

PS: Credit must be given here to Jos Butler, who rolled the ball to a nicety to drop the bails instead of taking a wild swing from behind the stumps!

[Moody Marty: Sometimes funny, sometimes informative, always downright forthright!]

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Why Colour Your Prejudice, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan? 

Indian Cricket: India Has a Brand, Not a Team!

Jemimah Rodrigues: Strength Forged in Fire!