Even 20 minutes after his dismissal, Sourav Ganguly could be seen all padded up in the Indian dressing room. There was a bewildered look on his face, a shocked expression in his eye: clearly, this wasn’t the fairytale finish that he had been dreaming of over the last few weeks.

He walked in to bat for the last time at a delicate moment, with the match poised on a sharp edge. Virender Sehwag had given a rousing start to the second innings; but India suddenly lost three wickets and the Test was smacked open. Ganguly looked calm and regal, eager for the grand tryst with his destiny.

He was given a warm welcome, even by the Aussies, and he took guard confidently; Jason Krejza, who had stunned VVS Laxman with a particularly special delivery, wheeled in for his next one. Attacking the same rough outside off (leg for the left-hander), he managed to draw Sourav forward, luring him into the vacant on-side. But the ball suddenly dipped and the bat closed a split-dimension sooner.

Krejza dived forward and accepted the catch triumphantly. Ganguly stood there for a few agonizing seconds, soaking in the cruel irony: a century in his first innings; and a first-ball duck in the last one. Eventually, he had to begin his final journey back to the Indian dressing room.

As he walked away, he looked towards the skies (was it anger, was it gratitude?) and had one last conversation with his God; then, he ran his eyes all around the ground, took in the stunned silence in the stands which was soon replaced by a deafening burst, to freeze the image and sound in his mind forever.

One doesn’t know how long he sat there, with his pads on; but during those 20 minutes or so, India seemed to be losing the plot, almost hurtling towards another numbing last Test defeat. But luckily, Australia soon got caught in the slow overrate whirlpool and could only watch as India clawed back into the game.

In the end, India made 295 to set up an imposing 382-run target. They may or may not drive the final nail into Australia’s arrogance on Monday, but one thing is clear: they can't lose this Test from here; they may have lost something far more important during this series though: the confidence in Rahul Dravid.

The technically sound and highly effective No. 3 has had a horrendous series. To compound his misery, his worst Test in this tour had come in the backyard of his in-laws' home: a 0 followed by an equally wretched 3 in the second innings. Count his 51, 5, 39 DNB, 11, 11 and you are tempted to wonder if it is more than a temporary loss of form.

Like in the case of most out-of-form batsmen, Dravid has been enjoying a horrible run

with fate though: each time he has made a mistake, or indeed even half a mistake, it has turned out to be his last. He hasn't enjoyed missed chances, dropped catches or invisible edges at all: that is the way every good batsman crumbles.

No doubt, he is not waiting for the ball to come to him now; no doubt, he is poking and prodding at most of them; but he surely realizes his follies and it may just be a matter of time before everything falls into place.

It is too much of a coincidence, though, that his bad luck seems to have got accentuated once he gave up captaincy; after all, the entire purpose of forsaking it was to focus on his batting.

Now that the series is over, Dravid can go back and unwind a little; he can, and surely will, look at the videos and analyze what he is doing wrong. He might even want to regain his confidence and touch in the Ranji Trophy before the Tests against England dawn on him. The question is: can he retrieve himself? Or will the pressure and self-doubts consume him?