So you'd have declared at either stumps today or 10 overs before.
I don't really think there's too much difference to be honest.
If anything they'll have a few more runs, but potentially 2-3 more wickets down which is more of a concern for dressing room moral.
I do understand your stance though, very much Ricky Ponting + Steve Waugh like.
I reckon Tugga would have stewed em for sure. Who knows what Ponting would have done? Don't rate his captaincy at all.
In the end as I've said consistently I don't think it will end up making a huge difference to the result. We've been even money to win since tea yesterday. I do think we've just made it a little harder for ourselves than we needed to and given India a tiny sniff.
The big difference though is that if Clarke had been able to get to the 400 it wouldn't have just been some meaningless record. I do think it would have been an absolutely huge boost to the team and how they're seen. Hayden's 380 was pretty meh, because we were clearly no.1 then and it was against Zimbabwe. Clarke taking the world record against India though would have been absolutely huge and in a way that 329* simply isn't. It was still a fair way off, and maybe the game would have required a declaration short anyway if Clarke couldn't up his scoring rate. But I do believe there were more than enough good reasons to justify batting on no matter who was in, so it was very much worth having a red hot crack.
