Sri Lankas Mahela Jayawardene was declared man of the match for his monumental 275 against India in the first test at Ahmadabad played during 16th November 2009 to 20th November 2009.  The decision to award Jayawardene Man of the Match would have justified in most of the cases as scoring 275 is a Test Match innings is no mean achievement.  However if you look at things form a different angle 3 other players deserved the award more than Jayawardene.

Rahul Dravid's counter attaching 177 in first innings:-At one stage India were reeling at 32 for 4.  Rahul Dravid who usually is given more credit than what he actually deserves played one of the best innings of his career if not the best.  Counter attacking has never been Dravid's forte as he is more known for wearing down bowlers, but the situation demanded him to counter attack and he did it brilliantly.  His partnerships with Yuvraj and Dhoni ensured that India were relatively safe with a first innings score of 400 plus.

Gautam Gambhirs 114:- Indians were expected to safe having scored 426 in the first innings  but Sri Lankans first innings of 760 gave a twist to the test match.  Sri Lankans huge first  innings meant that India trailed by a huge 334 runs and had to bat out about 130 overs to save the Test Match.  Even if there is nothing in the pitch for bowlers, the batsmen had a physiological barrier to conquer in the form of erasing the huge deficit and lasting out overs.  Gautam Gambhir played his part to perfection building up partnerships with Sehwag and Sachin before getting out at 114 with the score on 275.

Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 100:- When Gautam Gambhir was the fourth batsman to get out at 114 with the score on 275 after 80 overs, India  still had to a deficit of 59 runs to erase, but more importantly had to bat another 50 overs to save the Test Match with the top order back in the pavilion.  Sachin Tendulkar with the help of V V S Lakshman ensured that India batted out the overs and saved the Test Match.

Jayawardene though aggregated more runs than any of the above three in the Test match was never under any pressure in his innings as he strode on the wicket with the Sri Lanka comfortably placed at  189 for 2 in 43.1 overs.  Jayawardene thanks to Dilshan's brilliance at the top of the order  did not have to worry about the stabilizing innings or stepping up run rate as he enjoyed the comfort of both prior to him taking guard at the wicket.

Apart from individual performances of a player situation of the match under which the player had to perform should be taken into consideration before declaring Man of the Match

Regards

Satish