[ntomer]

England are at last going to win a match. Helped by rain, inability of Indian spinners to grip the wet ball and inability of fielders to catch the ball cleanly.

Owais Shah (I hate him) is taking the Indian bowlers to cleaners after being dropped by Gambhir earlier.

At least this loss will force the team to focus again on Cricket. They were lulled into complacency by lack of competition.

\N

[BenjiRoss]

Can someone tell me how the D/L method inflated India's score to over 190??!!

[Aditya]

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

Can someone tell me how the D/L method inflated India's score to over 190??!!

It's a funny thing, that Duckworth Lewis method. How it exactly works is anybody's guess. I remember some implementations of D/L which ruined some pretty good matches.
The funniest incident of them all was the 1992 World Cup Semi Final:
England vs. South Africa - Brian McMillan and (I think) Dave Richardson at the crease.
SA required 22 runs of 13 balls. Rain interruption. New target: 22 required of 9 balls. Rain interruption again. New (and final target) 21 required of 1 ball.
What the hell?

[normally_crazy]

Originally Posted by ntomer

England are at last going to win a match.

Guess the Indian team read your comment in the rain break

In praising the captain and the coach, I think we are forgetting the real hero in the mix. For me the man of the team is Venkatesh Prasad - the bowling coach.

I mean the sheer improvement in the Indian fast bowling department is there for all to see. Our fast bowlers are the most improved in the team and they are bowling better than the spinners on spinner friendly / dead wickets.

take a bow - Venkatesh Prasad.

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

take a bow - Venkatesh Prasad.

Can we have a show of hands from all those experts who thought VP would achieve nothing with this lot and was useless to be appointed this post now ?

NC, the one change he has really done is educated the boys to make use of the slower delivery, deception by lack of pace as a weapon of attack that VP was so brilliant at. I don't think many others have stressed on this fact in Indian cricket before.

[kalpeshc]

NC, the one change he has really done is educated the boys to make use of the slower delivery, deception by lack of pace as a weapon of attack that VP was so brilliant at. I don't think many others have stressed on this fact in Indian cricket before.

I agree - yesterday's match was won entirely by the brilliant change of pace by all the three quickies. All of them have different variations of the slower ball and guess what, more often than not, they are accurate with their slower balls!

The one over that Zak bowled in the batting powerplay was amazing. Zak has improved by leaps after he came back from that injury.

[normally_crazy]

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

Can we have a show of hands from all those experts who thought VP would achieve nothing with this lot and was useless to be appointed this post now ?

I thought so too but I am glad I have to eat my words

[esteem_lover]

There was absolutely serious faces, faces of men not enjoying what they were doing.
For all the **** that we heap on Sachin, I think he was the only one that was enjoying his game out in the field. When all the youngsters including 'super uber' mr.cool, the captain himself was absolutely stressed out when Shah & flintoff were belting the ball around, sachin was the only one with a smile on his face. He was duly rewarded with a catch 2 deliveries later.

And full marks to Zaheer too for the way he spoke to the younger bowlers & encouraged them.

[mclaren1885]

John, I agree with you. I have seen instances when things are really not going our way and Sachin actually decides to liven things up by asking the guys to throw the ball with their left (wrong) hands to see who can throw the farthest and accurately. If you notice closely (not on tv), you will see this happening a lot on the ground.

Something I noticed is that the recent lot take playing cricket as a professional job, and go about doing stuff seriously, meticulously with only one aim "TO WIN". It gets worse when things aren't going your way on the field. However I still remember the older lot who always kept enjoying the game, laughed a little even when the chips were down.

I was passing by Chinnaswamy stadium yesterday just when the match was about to begin. I was surprised to see the roads empty without any jams. Even when I looked at the crowd it didn't look like the usual teenage lot in national colours, or the hep crowd who would come out with their cars and block the entire road. The whole crowd looked like those who had come from smaller parts of the city, mostly comprising of those people who live on the streets, work on small jobs etc. I mean has the "educated" crowd moved onto a different sport like golf, tennis, horse racing etc? I have been to almost every match held here, but the crowd is not the same anymore. Are people actually moving out of cricket to watch other sports?

[kalpeshc]

^ I seriously doubt that would be the case in India. Unfortunately, cricket is the only fact of life that traverses boundaries whether they are economic, religious or geographic.

No matter whether it's a daily wage labourer working on a site or the builder of that site, both will have their own opinion and advice about Indian cricket and would watch the match with equal enthusiasm ! It's a different story that one would be watching it from a VIP box in the stadium or his LCD whereas the other would be catching it on some roadside panwalla's radio !

[Eddy]

Dropping Gambhir is not a smart move me thinks. The guy is young and in form, should have kept him going. Zaheer and Ishant should be rested in the future.

[nemo]

How many of you think the coverage of the latest series by Neo Sports is downright pathetic ? For heaven's sake it is a pay channel and one would expect some kind of professionalism. They play way too many ads and most of them are obstructive and end up eating the main content -- the cricket. For instance, today the moment the ball was hit for a winning shot they switched to the advertisements and abruptly cut the coverage. Their coverage is worse than the world cup coverage by SET. Is there anyone taking notice of the explotation ?

[harry10]

Originally Posted by nemo

Their coverage is worse than the world cup coverage by SET. Is there anyone taking notice of the explotation ?

I am My friend. They are worse then Set max and Even doordarshan in cutting the coverage and showing ads. Sometimes i feel the ads should be banned during any match so we can atleast enjoy the match and not there crap ads.
Anyways we are 5-0 up and 7-0 is quiet near. Am glad we chased today 270 which shows we dont even defend targets well but chase as well too.
Time for Ishant and Zaheer to take a break along with Sehwag.

[Spitfire]

Series called off. The english are going home.

[mav2000]

As expected. this was the life line or excuse they were waiting for. No way they were going to continue here and get thrashed in the test series also.