Then, too, there is the fact that Test matches are played over four innings, which means, again, that the significance of individual contribution is further diluted. The emphasis in Test matches, therefore, is not for one person or two to step up and contribute, but for all the members of the team to stick together and pull in one direction for long enough, with more force, skill and perseverance than the other team.

What does it mean, then, when one talks of match-winning knocks in Test matches? If we were to construct a definition from the words themselves, it would seem that any innings that results in a team winning is a match-winning one. But in that case, every batsman in a Test-match winning team that has had an opportunity to bat can lay claims to having played a match-winning knock. After all, he has played an innings, and his team has won. Clearly, that won't do. So we come back to our question what exactly is a match-winning test innings?

The answer to that is very much a matter of perception. It seems to me that most of the test match innings that we remember as as 'match-winning' are second innings knocks. Consider: Laxman's 281, Lara's 153, Gilchrist's masterclass against Pakistan in his second Test; all of them were undoubtedly great exhibitions of batting, and all of them were played in the second innings.

To be sure, it's not surprising in itself that we come to see second innings centuries as match-winning. Because the second innings immediately precedes victory (or as the case might be, defeat), it seems to us that what transpires in the second innings is in some way more responsible for the eventual result. So understandably, we ascribe importance to the second-innings century: so much so that, in test matches at least, a match-winning knock must be a second innings knock. In all of this, where is the poor first innings?

Surely, if batting in the second innings is harder in some parts of the world, the reverse is also true in some parts? Batting on a first morning at Lords or Headingley is surely as hard as batting at the Wankhede on a fifth day pitch? Also, if closing out a game with runs in the second innings is important, so is setting up the game with runs in the first innings? Some might even argue that if you had to resort to getting runs in the second innings, it means you didn't do enough in the first. It looks to me, then, that in Test matches at least, a 'match-winning' knock holds little or no meaning. Any and all runs your batsmen make, irrespective of when they make it in the first or the second innings, are valuable; and whether your team wins or not is up to your bowlers and fielders.

All runs made by a batsman are equally important in a Test match irrespective of when he makes them, then where is the question of whether a particular batsman has ever played an innings of substance when the team needs it? Is it fair to criticize a batsman for not being match-winning if (like Tendulkar and Lara) he's played most of his career in teams with little or no bowling fire-power? I think not.