If Rahul Dravid had waited until the last possible moment before taking the biggest decision of his career, he would have have won glory. What he won instead was the series - jolly good and all that - and a reputation as a risk-averse, penny-pinching, fun-spoiler. However, the key point here is deeper than Dravid's natural conservatism: India missed out on a precious away-win because of the way in which the team takes decisions.
By the time Monty was out, Dravid knew that the fourth day was going to be a bowler's day. If he had waited until that moment even a risk-averse Dravid would have enforced the follow-on and probably bowled England out by stumps on the fourth day.
But by then the decision to bat again had already been taken. By the team think tank. Which had met the previous night.
It's not that the think tank is stupid. Or even stupidly conservative. They made a perfectly good decision with the available information. That's the trouble with think tanks. The world moves too fast. By the time a think tank's decisions reach the real world, their assumptions no longer hold.
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