[dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter winning the Antigua test by an innings and 93 runs hopes were very high that this Indian Team will go for a clean sweep in the four match Test series. Rain spoilt our hopes of an early finish on the penultimate day of the match. Further to that late declaration after seeing Rahane’s hundred we lost valuable time and the bowlers did not have sufficient time to finish off the game on the last day of the Test match. Virat Kohli’s late declaration and the slow batting of both Rahane and Wriddhiman Saha put paid our hopes. They occupied valuable time at the crease and that prevented us from going for an all-out effort for a win just like the first test. Again, the Indian pace bowlers could not make inroads on the final day and Blackwood was attacking the bowling as in the first innings. We should have included a left arm seamer for the series for providing variety to the attack. Chase helped out the cause and kept India waiting. Bad planning and pedestrian approach to batting all made the difference in the end. We should cultivate the habit of killer instinct if we wish to regain the number one spot in Test cricket.
After being subject to months of haggling and histrionics, the Goods & Services Tax (GST) finally was passed in Rajya Sabha to amend the Constitution, paving the way for what is popularly referred to as the concept of one nation, one tax. Barring the AIADMK, which staged a walkout on the plea that it violated federalism, all others, including the Congress, voted for the Bill. Congress, supported by members of some other parties, made a valiant effort to extract an assurance from Finance Minister that as and when he would introduce the subsequent legislation to operationalise the GST, it would be as finance rather than money bills. This was to ensure that they would also be voted in the Rajya Sabha. GST will have an impact in various sectors, most of them with a positive frame of mind. Nothing spectacular is going to change in the near future but for the fact that services will become dearer.
Calicut Krishnan
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
