[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by khaadu75

I love the way people pop in when India lose but vanish when india wins

And I would love to see what will all those who kept arguing and whining about our seniors not performing and leaving our youngsters an impossible task at hand have to say about this wonderful performance from England. Is it wrong to expect our youngsters to play such a wonderful game? Or are we just enjoy pointing fingers at others? We Indians are well known for that.

If India had won, everyone would have come out and said wah wah, what a wonderful bowling performance. Rather than saying what a dismal batting performance from the England top order and pointing out every fall of wicket and how foolishly the batsmen gave his wicket away (like they do the analysis in case of our batsmen). Same if India looses everybody will be out with swords trying to slice the throat of our batsmen rather than appreciating how well England bowled. Wah wah, true spirit..

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

...
If India had won, everyone would have come out and said wah wah, what a wonderful bowling performance. Rather than saying what a dismal batting performance from the England top order and pointing out every fall of wicket and how foolishly the batsmen gave his wicket away (like they do the analysis in case of our batsmen). Same if India looses everybody will be out with swords trying to slice the throat of our batsmen rather than appreciating how well England bowled. Wah wah, true spirit..

1. If India had won then their bowlers would taken all the 10 wickets and everybody would have complimented the bowlers.

2. England top order performance was pathetic. Cook got a good delivery. Prior played without getting the hang of the wicket. Bell got carried away and a made a fatal mis-judgement - he thought he was playing on a flat deck. Pietersen, Flintoff need to stay more at the wicket.

3. England won because of their all rounders, which is sadly missing in India. The fault is with the selectors. You can't expect bowlers (Piyush, Zaheer, RP Singh, Munaf, Powar) to suddenly acquire batting skills and finish the game.

4. Both England & Indian bowlers bowled well.

5. Compared to previous matches India's fielding was better, but not upto the mark. Powar needs to practice the basic fielding skills. He & Munaf needs to understand that their are playing Cricket, not Football & they can touch the ball with hand. However good their bowling they should be dropped because it brings down the team's morale.

6. England (and most other teams) can bat upto no 8. For India, batting stops at 5 or 6. So the job of 8 in other teams must be done by 6 in India. Hence the responsibility of each of these 6 increases.

PS: I didn't get why are you biased between:
1. Seniors & Juniors
2. Batsmen & Bowlers.
3. Their team & our team.
IMO, the only bias is good & bad performances. It can be either by seniors or juniors, batsmen or bowlers, our team or their team.

[normally_crazy]

Just woke up and I see that India lost !! I went to sleep when England lost their seventh wicket in the hope that we would pick up the last 3 wickets easy. But that did not happen.

Guess Broad and Bopara - played sensibly to get England home. Well done. After England lost their main players including Flintoff who played crazily and Bell who went hammer and tongs - I thought Collingwood would be there till the end. But when he went too - I thought this game is ours. But the 2 lesser known young batsmen put their hands up. Great.

Now we have to win 3 in a row as Khaadu says and we get the one day series as well.

It is a BIG lesson for the Indian team on how to apply oneself - batting or bowling. Lets hope they learn from this experience and come out stronger.

And what is Robin Singh doing ? Or should the players be blamed for consistently poor fielding throughout this series ?

[diabloo]

Hey man, Ganguly scored slow in high scoring. This was a low scoring match and so nothing wrong in Yuvi's strike rate.
Sachin being experienced failed to see that this pitch has something for bowlers and 230 would be good score. So if scores at the rate he was scoring, India would hev reached 230. But after his 50, he felt he has done his job and left the crease. Don't blame Yuvi for Sachin's dismissal.

Aussies can lose wickets and still bat beacuse they bat deep. India is top heavy. So all the work needs to be done at the top. But the top is not taking the required resposibility.

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

Yuvi just replayed Ganguly's innings from the other one-day and as expected didn't carry on till the end either. While Sachin was holding fort at one end he could have sped up. But because of his inability to score quickly other batsmen had to be pressurized to score quickly (and I feel he was partly responsible for Sachin's dismissal too) thus leading to a fall of quick wickets. Brilliant batting by Zaheer though. Makes me wonder why we are not like the Aussies. They inspite of loosing 4 wickets for under 50 always manage to keep a healthy run rate of over 4 or 5 and end up with generally big scores.


I agree with you on that one. I don't care what others think but some fail to notice the joy on Sachin's face everytime he snips a catch at slips or gets a wicket. Selfish or not he certainly seems to behave like a kid who gets his first wicket and that certainly doesn't seem so fake (or else we could give him an Oscar).

Also, it is impossible not to make a tactical mistake. With situations, your tactics will change too. Its how quickly and how well you can adapt to the change in strategy.

So how many players do we drop for the next match? Ganguly, Sachin, Dravid, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Karthik, Powar? IS that enough or shall we pull out some more names?

[diabloo]

India has its share of oldies who can't run beyond the inner circle. If young guns don't run, slide stop the ball or catch the ball, then SOS !!!

Originally Posted by msdivy

5. Compared to previous matches India's fielding was better, but not upto the mark. Powar needs to practice the basic fielding skills. He & Munaf needs to understand that their are playing Cricket, not Football & they can touch the ball with hand. However good their bowling they should be dropped because it brings down the team's morale.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

Just woke up and I see that India lost !! I went to sleep when England lost their seventh wicket in the hope that we would pick up the last 3 wickets easy. But that did not happen.

You did the right thing. I was a fool & watched the match till the end. Zaheer' s fitness(lack of) really hampered dravid from going for the kill. BUt a far better match to watch compared to our famous batting debacles. Bopara & Broad played with a lot of sense & application.

[rks]

Bopara and Broad showed tha there was no devil in this pitch. Indian top-order batting was again disappointing. I believe that they get into a negative mental state in conditions like these and fail to capitalize on the scoring opportunities. I did not watch much of the Indian innnings, but it seemed Sachin played a tired shot and got out when India should have got 4 or 6 from such a rank bad delivery. These things matter a lot in the end and Sachin should have had more than one option to safely despatch that delivery to the boundary.

India's lower order peformed creditably on this pitch and the last 12 overs produced 72 runs. Powar and Yuvraj added a useful 31 runs but both Agarkar and Powar just gave it away playing bad shots. Dhoni got an unplayable delivery from Panesar and Yuvraj also got a good one. Piyush Chawla and Zaheer Khan got India to a defendable total on this pitch, but the top order should have got more runs in the bag.

Regarding Dravid's captaincy, some of the commentators were saying that he should have been less defensive and placed one more close-in fielder. The ball did fly off the edge in the slips region a few times, but this is always a tough call for a captain defending a small total. I am wondering why RP Singh got only 6 overs. When you have 5 bowlers you should capitalize and in my opinion, Dravid should not have tried Yuvraj. It was OK to experiment with Sachin for 1 over, but Yuvi's 2 overs should have gone to RP, who is more likely to take a wicket under these conditions. Overall Indians bowled well, especially Zaheer, Agarkar and Powar.

[khaadu75]

Zaheer' s fitness(lack of) really hampered dravid from going for the kill.

I wonder what makes you use the statement ' LACK OF ' ... do you even know why he was limping towards the end ???

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by khaadu75

I wonder what makes you use the statement ' LACK OF ' ... do you even know why he was limping towards the end ???

I am sorry, i don't know anything about cricket. seems like you are the authority & would not like to be told otherwise. Please refrain from such un-intelligent insinuations just to start an unhealthy argument.

Being hurt in the ankle is not being fit to bowl at full steam, as far as my understanding goes. Maybe you are the team physio & know better than that.

[benbsb29]

There is a history that when i watch an Indian cricket match, they go on to lose. So, blame me guys. After all, our cricket heroes are demi-gods, so we can never blame them.

[khaadu75]

My point here is .... how would you refer to it as ' lack of fitness ' when the injury happened in the game ????? And did I mention anything about being a team physio -- I don't think so !

And what makes you say Im starting an unhealthy discussion ....

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by benbsb29

There is a history that when i watch an Indian cricket match, they go on to lose. So, blame me guys. After all, our cricket heroes are demi-gods, so we can never blame them.

That means you have been watching most of the matches recently. Please contribute your might to the ageing indian cricket team by going to sleep next time.

[MC Mayank]

The balance in the side seems to be a real issue. I would still like to see India play 7 batsmen coz thats how they have performed in the past. Our bowling/fielding has been a miserable story for the past 20 yrs. It won't change overnight. If we are a country of batsmen and stroke makers, we should put in our sena of boundary hitters. But that would be possible only if Sehwag somehow gets back to fill the void of 5-6 overs in the middle.

Fielding for me is the biggest concern at the moment. It seems to have become worst in the last 6 months if nothing else. Leave alone the oldies, even guys like Chawla and Kartick were making stupid errors yesterday. Nasser was right at the start of the chase. We easily gifted 30-40 runs in the field.

Unfortunately the 'fire in the belly' was all too evident yesterday, but as a team we just did not have the skill set to match that of England's. England's composition looks like a dream at the moment. Prior is their only concern.

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by msdivy

PS: I didn't get why are you biased between:

For that you will have to go through the trend of this thread over the past 4 pages or so.

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

And what is Robin Singh doing ? Or should the players be blamed for consistently poor fielding throughout this series ?

This blaming game is taking us nowhere. NC, its not like Robin Singh is fielding out there, when he did he was brilliant at it. I am pretty sure he is doing the right thing while coaching. But if our guys cannot apply it on the field whose to be blamed? The coach? Let us just forget about the oldies for a minute, they are pathetic except in the slips as it is. Look at the fielding mistakes done by Karthik, Powar, Munaf, and Yuvraj. Perhaps, Yuvi is the most over rated fielder in our side. He almost never hits the stumps and most often than not ends up diving unnecessarily to make it look spectacular. The zeal to field should come from within, its not something you can teach. In that respect I really appreciate Kaif. He fields cleanly without any nakhra.

Originally Posted by diabloo

Hey man, Ganguly scored slow in high scoring. This was a low scoring match and so nothing wrong in Yuvi's strike rate.

Come on yaar, the pitch was a fabulous one to bat on, at the same time it kept the bowlers in too. The ball was hitting the bat so sweetly. Its the lack of application from our batsmen that lead to the downfall. India could have easily scored 30-40 runs extra.

Don't blame Yuvi for Sachin's dismissal.

Why not? Since some people here were outrightly blaming Ganguly responsible for the dismissal of the others due to his slow scoring the other day. Its this parity that is sounding absurd now. Go on finding fault with the senior players and almost let the youngsters escape saying "Oh, seniors didn't play. Why should youngsters play"? That is the most stupid logic I have come across ever.

But after his 50, he felt he has done his job and left the crease.

So now you guys can read minds too? I bet Flintoff got out thinking he had done the job of scoring 5 runs since the end target was small. Or else no way he could have spooned such a sitter. From where I see it he didn't time the rank hop ball well. Had it hit the sweet spot of the bat it could have cleared the boundary easily. But that can happen to the best. Yes, even after being on 194. Btw, why did Yuvi get out without carrying on to score a 100? If Sachin was selfish he would have got a 100 of every match he wanted and certainly not tried to play a risky shot to a bouncer and get out on 99.

John, I really do not know what you saw. But in his first spell Zaheer was FIT and bowling incredibly well and probably was the best fielder in the outfield by a long margin. Strains can happen during a match. And I am surprised no one mentioned all this when Yuvraj started acting once he saw all the wickets fell around him and used it as an excuse to get out in the previous match.

Originally Posted by rks

Bopara and Broad showed tha there was no devil in this pitch.

Looks like you didn't see much of the match. There was a devil in the pitch. Look at the way Broad played and missed. The ball was still bouncing fairly, spinning viciously and was swinging even in the end overs. They just made it look easily by applying themselves and not going after the run chase but waited for the bad ***** to score off. This is the point I was making, if you apply yourself in and play. Wasting a couple of overs wont hurt at all. Its not always that you need to have a strike rate of 80+. It depends from situation to situation. Something we don't understand I suppose.

Sachin played a tired shot and got out when India should have got 4 or 6 from such a rank bad delivery.

Lots of world class in form batsmen how actually got out to such bad ***** for ages now. Its not a crime. Thats the beauty of the game.

Just to reiterate some facts, stop blaming others for their bad performances. They know what to do and you blaming them certainly wont make them change the way they play. It only shows how bad we are at understanding the game. Since in a GAME nothing goes as planned. Which is why its called a game.

Its sad to notice that the blame game still revolves around our seniors and not enough being said over the failure of youngsters. Has our hatred (no I will not accept your denials saying they were my idols once upon a time too) for the fab 4 made us so blind that we cannot see the mistakes by the others? It certainly seems so. Specially after seeing Bopara and Broad play I would have surely given some stick to Yuvi, Karthik, Powar, Dhoni asking them to learn something.

If they cannot apply themselves and play while the seniors fail I don't think why they should be in the team either. Drop them all. Let us send in our fresh, young blooded under 18 team to go up against all these teams. Since one is of the opinion here that youngsters are only not doing well only because of our seniors. Lets ditch them all together.

And another thing I noticed is the lack of changing the pace from our quickies. Prasad was brilliant at bowling slower deliveries and foxing the batsmen with his leg cutters. I am surprised the quickies are not using this in their armour well enough.

Btw, how come no one blamed Rahul for making the wrong decision at the toss? As I can see on such a pitch it is always better to chase. Since you will know what your end target is rather than not knowing at all what sort of a target would be defendable. Look how wonderfully the English batsmen thought it all out.

End Result: It was a brave attempt by Sachin, Yuvi, Zaheer and Piyush to get India to where they did. Hats off to Broad, James, Freddy for the brilliant bowling.

Wonderful bowling by Zaheer and Ajit in the first spells. Its been a long time sitting on the edge of the seats not knowing what would happen next. But the performance by Broad & Bopara stole the show.

All I am asking is let us stop digging out poor performances, appreciate the good ones and enjoy the game irrespective of who wins. But that seems too hard for some people here who seem to have no other job than go on criticizing people sitting on their cozy chairs pretending to be know it all.

As pointless as it may seem, this would really be the last time I will debate on this topic. Its about time this thread is locked. So whose starting a thread on Real Madrid and the terrible show after signing up 11 Sachin Tendulkars? Rks, NC, your critics are very much needed on this topic.

[shuvc]

Well at least we managed to make a match of it to an extent.

The only thing that bugged me towards the end was the number of extras / wides.

Btw, anyone watched Sania vs Granville ? She reminds me of the Indian Cricket Team. Brilliant yet inconsistent. Hope she cross the Anna hurdle in the 3rd round.