[Spitfire]

Originally Posted by amitoj

If it is not a personal attack, then what is the relevance of this question to the current scenario?

It was about experience of playing at a certain level of pro-cricket or any game. Playing with people who shouldn't be in the team in the first place.

And about the personal comment part its an addendum to every post I write these days. Folks here have got a bit touchy about them.

Have you heard of not giving up?

Is this a war?. Its a game. I accept the not giving up part but at what consequence? Prolong the agony for some more hours? Wait for some bouncer to hit you in the wrong spot or pull that muscle that's been a niggling problem?

Not interested in their off field life.

BCCI (or the bosses) makes a huge hue and cry about it. Just in-case you aren't aware.

Its only as fair as your question at the top

LOL!!!

Originally Posted by rock18

ruffled him up there, didn't duck, didn't sway out, played at it off the back foot with his eyes off the ball

swinging in and he's not sure whether to play forward or back, stays rooted to the crease and plants his bat out, is fortunate to get an inside edge onto his pads

Banged in short on the body and Unadkat looks to fend it into the off side, finds gully, didn't look too comfortable against the short one and it seemed it was only a matter of time

I have mentioned only the important parts here.

Now think this is top level of cricket. Here I am standing on a ground facing the fastest bowler on the planet from the second best team in the world. I am representing a country of a billion people where cricket is a religion.

Do I think I qualify for that? Can I uphold that?

If I was standing at the other end and watching the same antics by the batsmen at the other end trying to get himself out. I could have either first well... leave it too violent to post. And then walked over to the bosses and asked them to grow a spine. But since I love this game and I want to live to fight another day I will walk back to the pavilion when the circus is over.

This is cricket politics at the highest level. And one persons way of showing the displeasure.

"The length of South Africa's wait was going to be determined by Tendulkar's approach, and once he showed no intention of farming the strike, exposing Sreesanth and Jaidev Unadkat by taking singles, the home team knew Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn wouldn't make them field for too long."

They are feeding common public sentiment. This is professional cricket at the top level this was a lost cause.

[selfdrive]

It may also be that he was trying to shield an injury or avoid having one.

[e1t1bet]

If anyone's played any cricket at even high-school/univ/club level, then this isn't even a point of argument.
No one has EVER drawn a match, while batting with a number 11, by taking singles of the last ball. Even Laxman, Dravid (and every player in the world) do the same thing.
That is how Laxman (and all no. 6/7) always bats with the tail in fact.

How to bat with the tail?

The basic premise is that if the other guy (tail-ender) cannot face 5 balls, he won't last 90 overs anyways. The accepted way to do it is to make the tailender face a few balls to get his eye in the game, and his feet moving. Then shield him.

The "single off last ball" theory isn't followed normally. The problem with the last ball theory is that it becomes even more difficult to bat, for a tail-ender, if he is standing at the non-striker's end. You make him wait for 5 overs, the next ball, he'd get out. And it also unnecessarily adds a lot of pressure on the recognized batsman. The opposition would just bowl wide outside off to force him into making a mistake, while pushing for a single.
The only exception is when strike rates are crucial (limited overs). You need to get 17 off 7 balls and you are batting with the tail, you are going to take the single.

The guy some people are trying to advise (SRT), has no personal records to achieve anymore, and has played more than 20 years of test cricket. He knows what he is doing! The loss hurts him, and the other players, a lot more.

South Africa is very difficult to beat at home. Just accept it. They have great players who, I am afraid, our bowlers are not capable of troubling at home (SA).

The only mistakes we made in this test (other than the first innings disaster) have been:
(1) team selection: Seriously. This isn't the best combo from the squad. On current form, I'd personally drop Harbhajan, bring in Ashwin. Drop Raina for Pujara. And Get Umesh Yadav in place of either Ishant or Sree. Zak should be fit for the next test, and Unadkat won't play (hopefully)
(2) the 5th bowler: I am of the opinion that Dhoni seriously underbowls Sehwag.

[lloydofcochin]

Originally Posted by e1t1bet

If anyone's played any cricket at even high-school/univ/club level, then this isn't even a point of argument.
No one has EVER drawn a match, while batting with a number 11, by taking singles of the last ball. Even Laxman, Dravid (and every player in the world) do the same thing.
That is how Laxman (and all no. 6/7) always bats with the tail in fact.

How to bat with the tail?

The basic premise is that if the other guy (tail-ender) cannot face 5 balls, he won't last 90 overs anyways. The accepted way to do it is to make the tailender face a few balls to get his eye in the game, and his feet moving. Then shield him.

The "single off last ball" theory isn't followed normally. The problem with the last ball theory is that it becomes even more difficult to bat, for a tail-ender, if he is standing at the non-striker's end. You make him wait for 5 overs, the next ball, he'd get out. And it also unnecessarily adds a lot of pressure on the recognized batsman. The opposition would just bowl wide outside off to force him into making a mistake, while pushing for a single.
The only exception is when strike rates are crucial (limited overs). You need to get 17 off 7 balls and you are batting with the tail, you are going to take the single.

The guy some people are trying to advise (SRT), has no personal records to achieve anymore, and has played more than 20 years of test cricket. He knows what he is doing! The loss hurts him, and the other players, a lot more.

South Africa is very difficult to beat at home. Just accept it. They have great players who, I am afraid, our bowlers are not capable of troubling at home (SA).

The only mistakes we made in this test (other than the first innings disaster) have been:
(1) team selection: Seriously. This isn't the best combo from the squad. On current form, I'd personally drop Harbhajan, bring in Ashwin. Drop Raina for Pujara. And Get Umesh Yadav in place of either Ishant or Sree. Zak should be fit for the next test, and Unadkat won't play (hopefully)
(2) the 5th bowler: I am of the opinion that Dhoni seriously underbowls Sehwag.

110% I do agree with you

The criticism about Sachin not farming the strike is totally unwarranted. There are cynics who will find a fault with whatever he does, I really don't know what drives them!

Everyone who knows Cricket loves watching him play and loves his records too.

I'm glad and thankful to almighty that he was born as an Indian. I'm a die-hard Maradona fan and I strongly believe that god had sent him to Earth to play Football and likewise I do believe that God has sent Sachin to this World to just play Cricket

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by e1t1bet

The only mistakes we made in this test (other than the first innings disaster) have been:
(1) team selection: Seriously. This isn't the best combo from the squad. On current form, I'd personally drop Harbhajan, bring in Ashwin. Drop Raina for Pujara. And Get Umesh Yadav in place of either Ishant or Sree. Zak should be fit for the next test, and Unadkat won't play (hopefully)
(2) the 5th bowler: I am of the opinion that Dhoni seriously underbowls Sehwag.

I agree with ethe selection part. Harbhajan & Raina should certainly be replaced.
As for Sehwag, apparently he has a shoulder injury and therefore does not bowl much these days.
One important point - where are the practice matches?

[e1t1bet]

@selfdrive: Practices matches aren't something the management (coach, captain) can do anything about. It's the boards, who sadly seem particularly disinterested in test matches.
Is the Sehwag injury the same as the one which he was getting treated earlier this year? Darn! We need him to bowl in the WC.
On the fifth bowler issue though - 7 overs by Raina sent a very wrong message. 'Declaration bowling' isn't something that is expected at this level. But again, they had a pretty horrible match so I'll excuse them for now and hope they come back in Durban. That would be an amazing parallel (India won the Perth test, another ground which had been a nemesis for us)

@lloydofcochin: Glad you agree mate. Big Maradona fan here as well

[amitoj]

LOL. Criticising Sachin and Fiat evokes the same kind of responses everywhere.
With Sachin, its like "go play cricket first"
With Fiat, "go own one first"

No one is perfect, and same holds for Sachin as well.

I still think he did a bad job of protecting the tail. 4 overs was below par for someone with 21 years of international cricket experience.

"Sachin made it easy for us". That's what Smith said. Mind games aside, it is not expected from a world class batsman to make it "easy" for the opposition.

[Spitfire]

Originally Posted by amitoj

LOL. Criticising Sachin and Fiat evokes the same kind of responses everywhere.
With Sachin, its like "go play cricket first"
With Fiat, "go own one first"

So that's what armchair critics do. Then there is no limit to the opinions.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by Spitfire

So that's what armchair critics do. Then there is no limit to the opinions.

You can call it criticism and turn a blind eye.
I will call it objective outlook.

How one takes it decides how wise one is.

[srishiva]

Got to love the way Steyn bowled. He was trying to look in the eyes of Sreeshanth after every ball and laugh at him and Sree was ashamed to even look at him.

How difficult it is to use bowling machines and create similar conditions in India for practice? I wonder why we have not created a bowling arm robot which can mimic different bowlers to filter the awful ones in India itself? Use a hacked Kinect perhaps to read?

People have been using tennis balls to simulate the bounce and practice. But where is the fear in that?

[heelntoe]

Guys, does anyone here have or know where to get videos of old cricket matches?
Specifically the Ind Vs. Aus Border Gavaskar trophy of 2003 and the Ind Vs. Eng npower series from 2001.
Any help in locating these will be greatly appreciated, thanks.

-heelntoe

[normally_crazy]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Me and some friends from office were talking about Sreesanth just now over coffee. One of my friends mentioned an article that had done the stats analysis of Sreesanth before and after he got slapped. It seems his performance was good till the slap and post that, it just deteriorated. We agreed that Bhajji should have another go at him and it may improve his performance

And what happens if Bhajji has another go at him, and Sreesanth takes to bowling off spin ? And what if he does it better than Bhajji ?

[rock18]

Originally Posted by lloydofcochin

110% I do agree with you

The criticism about Sachin not farming the strike is totally unwarranted. There are cynics who will find a fault with whatever he does, I really don't know what drives them!

I was quite happy with india's fightback on day 4 and expected that a player of sachin's calibre will go and tear Steyn and Morkel into pieces and reduce the margin of defeat(Well if sachin can't then who can?). Just 30runs from this great man would have saved us from innings defeat.

Indica is a reliable and useful family car but we cannot expect it to do 0-60 in 4 secs and 300km/h topspeed.
But we all can expect a car like Bugatti Veyron to do that quite easily..If it does not then you will be disappointed.same case here.

I again reteirate that Sachin should have gone after the bowlers instead of taking unwanted singles and expose the tail.I still remember the innings where sachin scored 169 (i guess) in 2nd test during 1997 tour of SA. His wicket was the last one to fall..India scored 66 in the 1st innings and 100 in 2nd innings in the 1st test.Donald and Pollock was the key wicket takers.
It was heartening to see tendulkar tearing SA attack into pieces in the next test.
Just the last day blunder took some sheen out of his 50th century.

Even Graeme smith is quite surprised that India(read tendulkar) did not put up fight in the last day.
Source: Cricinfo.Read India's weird tactics.

Originally Posted by lloydofcochin

I'm glad and thankful to almighty that he was born as an Indian. I'm a die-hard Maradona fan and I strongly believe that god had sent him to Earth to play Football and likewise I do believe that God has sent Sachin to this World to just play Cricket

+1

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

And what happens if Bhajji has another go at him, and Sreesanth takes to bowling off spin ? And what if he does it better than Bhajji ?

Then we would have hit two birds with one stone. Bhajji would be kicked out of international cricket and we would have finally got a good spinner in the form of Sreesanth!

[vamsi.kona]

Indians on a rampage with 8 proteas wickets down. Very good comeback, should commend Zaheer. I think this match shall in all probability have a result unless some very bad weather disrupts the play.