CRICKET: So the final say of a summer in which batsmen have prospered and bowlers sweated blood went not to Michael Vaughan or Rahul Dravid or the great Sachin Tendulkar. Instead torrential rain washed in, drowned the Oval and caused abandonment of Test and series at lunchtime.
Perhaps it was the right thing to happen for as the series has progressed, and in particular this fourth Test, the sides increasingly resembled a pair of boxers slugging each other to a standstill.
"No maas," as Roberto Duran once uttered famously. Enough is enough. Each side has been force-fed international competition over the past six to eight months and something had to give.
In this case, ultimately, it was the spirit, or willingness, to go on. Given England's utter dominance of the first Test and India's subsequent revival a drawn series was probably the just result. So India can return home - after the Champions Trophy of course - if not with the plaudits that might have come had they won their first series outside the subcontinent in 16 years, then at least with heads held high. Under Sourav Ganguly they are becoming a case-hardened team in the manner of the one-day unit Arjuna Ranatunga forged for Sri Lanka.
England, on the other hand, will take consolation in the fact that they are unbeaten in three Test series this year while recognising, one hopes, that in two of them - in New Zealand and against India - they had the upper hand yet failed to nail the opposition. They can impart spin to the facts but they cannot hide them.
Steve Waugh and his Australians will have been watching.
Guardian Service
