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Khaaduji, what happened with Kevin the other day was absolutely unfair too. Since nobody brought up that topic here I refrained from posting.

But today, just when I was about to think our team was filled with a bunch of over hyped loosing youngsters one man stood out of the crowd and played what could be one of the best innings of his life. Somehow, I had a feeling that Robin would do well in such situations, having seen him play for almost a decade now. It was just the way he likes it, gutsy, carefree innings. Just got a news that Sharan Uthappa (Robin's sister and my senior) was jumping with tears of joy, LITERALLY. She and her friends are planning a very big party on his return and there are also talks of a huge re-union of St.Joseph's, Bangalore to congratulate him on the wonderful win irrespective of the result at Lord's.

Today was quite emotional for me, mom was watching the match and won Robin scored the winning run and clamped his fists in the air she put her arm around my shoulder and said "I should have let you play with tears in her eyes". I am proud that Robin did well today. Hope he continues the brilliant show.

An equally good show by Ganguly & Sachin to setup that perfect platform. Good going India.

Extremely good match. Both teams threw whatever they had. I am happy that Team India gave more than 100%. Can't get better than this.
Its this Saturday @ 2:45PM. And why miss it :).

I too am glad that India won, and that Uthappa did well. Uthappa has passed one test with flying colours; he can handle pressure and has guts. But we already knew that. These were fairly benign conditions for batting and the English bowling attack was very weak, with no genuine pace bowler in it. Uthappa's big test will come when he faces an English attack containing the likes of Harmison, Hoggard and Flintoff in slightly less favourable conditions for batting.

I agree that Sachin and Saurav gave a fantastic start for India and set it up. Just why didn't they play like this in previous games? It seems like at least Sachin has transformed himself completely, as did Dravid. It is all in the mind for these guys, no one doubts their ability.

Let us see what happens in the final game. Flintoff should be back and that will give England a boost. And with Pietersen returning to form, we can expect a tough contest. A lot would depend on the toss and the pitch/weather conditions. I don't know why England are persisting with Cook. He should be dropped and Flintoff brought back. I suspect India will play the same team despite the clobbering that our part-time bowlers got in this match.

Rks, I believe Anderson & Broad are up there with the better bowlers that England has produced over the last couple of years. They have pace, I am not quite sure why you keep referring to the lack of genuine pace :confused: .

James Anderson has the best Strike Rate for any England bowler since 1976 who have bowled a minimum of 330 overs or more. Infact he is less expensive than the likes of Harmison, Hoggard doesn't even figure in the top 25. Flintoff is just 30 wickets better than him with a slightly better Economy Rate but has played almost twice as many matches. Anderson is the 5th highest wicket taker for England in one dayers. Flintoff is 3rd, Harmison is 9th, Collingwood is 11th, Hoggard is 30th.

Here are their One-day figures.

Anderson - 75 - 3777 - 3049 - 111 - 4/23 - 27.46 - 4.84 - 34.0.
Flintoff - 123 - 4847 - 3467 - 142 - 5/56 - 24.41 - 4.29 - 34.1.
Harmison - 46 - 2443 - 2057 - 67 - 5/33 - 30.70 - 5.05 - 36.4.
Hoggard - 26 - 1306 - 1152 - 32 - 5/49 - 36.00 - 5.29 - 40.8.
Collingwood - 130 - 3266 - 2750 - 67 - 6/31 - 41.04 - 5.05 - 48.7.
Above figures are in the order of:
matches - ba!!s - runs - wickets - best bowling - average - economy rate - strike rate.

So going by the figures Anderson is as good as it gets. Everybody believes Broad will be right up there with the best too. Collingwood is bowling as tight as it gets. Monty, England believe could turn out to be their spin sensation. I think this in itself is a quality attack. Do remember that even with the likes of Bret Lee, Warne, Gillespie, McGrath India took the Aussies to the cleaners a couple of times. So having the best bowling attack is useless unless they perform on that given day. So I really won't believe when you say England attack is weak.

How many of us really enjoyed MS winning title after another without a fight and then struggling for the last two seasons? Same applies here as well. People have their peaks and lows in their career. And you cannot expect a player to go out there and get runs every match.

This is exactly what i wanted too, but we were proved wrong, weren't we ?


Why were you banned from playing my friend ? Uthappa is a class act & i know his dad too, not directly, but through a friend. I was praying he would do well & he did.

What is dhoni's contribution in this series ??? will someone seriously look into that ?? he has a repuatation for something & he has definitely not lived up to that. why continue to have him in the team ?? The thought of being the future captain has already gotten into him, IMO.


Terrific win for India.....I am damn sure we will win the last match too.
cheers

Dhoni is out of form. He is trying but can't get the timing.
If Dhoni is the captain & he is out of form, not scoring well, he will be embarrassed.
Good that his batting hasn't affected his wicket keeping skill.
Didn't get this. What was proved wrong?

diabloo, my point is dhoni for the last year or more has been very very circumspect in his batting which is not why he is in the team, if he has to bat the way he is doing now, karthik is a better bet, IMO. :)

Dhoni thrives on the tag that he is a match winner, how many matches has he won or set up for india in the last 2 years ???
I thought that gambhir (not karthik) should be replaced by uthappa, so did you.

Yep. He did hang around today. The strike rate was good too. But he's been scratching around for runs this whole ODI series.

He did save us the first test though !

For me, the winning shot was the second last 4 at fine leg. That set it up. Monty was dropped back and long off had to be brought up. It opened up the straight drive for Robin. Fab innings, albeit with a lot of luck thrown in. That guy does have guts. I was mesmerised by his knock in last years' challenger trophy.

Life is full of ifs and buts. Post mortems are pointless. But I can't help wondering - whose bright idea was it to break up the Sachin-Sourav opening pair.

Not to sound pompous, but I am told by my coach back then that I could have been one of the youngest players to have played for an Indian U-18 state team had I agreed to play for Karnataka. I was just 10 yrs back then. I attended a coaching camp at St.Joseph's during the summer vacation under Roger Binny and was soon sent to another camp headed by none other than Umpire Jayprakash at the Palace grounds since they had much better facilities and a proper grass pitches to practice on. Only better fields back then were the Chinnaswamy stadium itself. I got selected to the state team they were sending to Bombay after a 50 on my debut against the strong side which had many of the U-18 team players playing.

Jayprakash, and the other couple of coaches requested my parents to let me go for the tournament saying I had talent to play with the best. They infact lured my dad into agreeing saying that they would give me free coaching throughout the year for as long as he was running a camp. 15 days into the camp, my studies started getting affected because of practices early morning and well into the late evenings. Though my coaches were showering in a lot of confidence in me and thought I had a very bright future I had to finally drop out of the camp & refuse to go to the U-18 tourny as my mother was insistent that I give up cricket and got back to studies.

3 years later, I got a call from one of my coaches saying that they would love to have me back in the team. And it was high time I really gave cricket a serious thought. By then I had already lost interest, didn't do so well in school cricket either. I went back to the summer camp and did well once again.

I was told that there was another lad who did equally well and his name was Robin Uthappa. And that it would be a tough fight between the two of us had I chosen to play on. I played a few friendly games. Eventually, I said no once school started because I didn't want to go against my mothers wish. I was approached 2 more times within the same year. But opted out. In the process I also got selected for the U-18 state football team and gave up on it too. Actually I wouldn't call it being banned from playing but opting out.

Though, I always looked forward to watch Robin play at Joseph's. And it was just a matter of time before he got selected to the national team and did well.

Even today when my parents meet up with the man who introduced me to Jayprakash, he tells my parents how wrong they were in holding me back. Well, thats enough of the rant I guess. Lets get back to topic.

See, this is what i meant. Uthappa is a far more resourceful batsman than gambhir any day. If only he had the chances that gambhir was given, he would have done better than what he did today. I am sure of that. :)

You should have chased your dream. I know, easy to say hard to do. Its really about having the guts isn't it. But the decision is easier when you are ten I feel, especially if you had such outstanding talent. But I am sure you know that dreams have a habit of getting chased down some unexpected, horrible turns. No shortage of talent in our country. But how many get the opportunity to play the kind of innings Uthappa played yesterday? Just how many stories do we hear of young prodigy kids in this country having their hopes raised only to be dashed in the future for no fault of theirs. Your folks probably had this in mind and I am sure they took a tough decision (only mentioning this because you had mentioned your folks in a response to one of my posts earlier as well).
On a tangent, we know the story is same for tens of thousands of kids in this country. Their fates controlled by some miserable idiots in the respective sports commitees who don't know a damn about the sport. Sports in this country would be a dream if the chain of command were put in some dictatorial hands.

But having made the decision to opt out, don't look back. Again, easy to say tough to do.

Mayank, I have never looked back from that day I turned them down for the last time. Infact, I totally stopped playing cricket throughout my high school days and concentrated on football, went to Joseph's but didn't go for the college team selections, then joined my Engineering College and decided to play for the class matches as we had a strong team. Captained the team for the two years I was there. Now after the change in college I have stopped playing cricket all together but never felt bad about it. Its like totally loosing interest.

I have never felt the need to look back and think I should have been stubborn and chased my dream. Some things are just not meant to be and this is one of them. So I moved on. Now, my mom has given me perm to go race for some reason lol: (this was almost a couple of yrs back). But motorsports is not the game for a person from a middle class family like mine.

I know of many kids whose parents have held them back from sports. Though, if I know any such people I do encourage them to help their children pursue what they are interested in and not what the parents want them to be. Not only sports, any field where I see my friends having a talent. Like fashion designing, singing etc.

Hey Mc, nice to know you are a good cricket & football player. But you should not only support established players (like Sachin, Saurav), but also encourage upcoming players (Karthik, Yuvraj, Dhoni).

Great win. We, particularly, Robin held his nerve at the end and played an audacious stroke to set it up for us. Well done.

As some one said - a good innings with a lot of luck as well, with inside and outside edges.

@ McL - finally our youngsters came good too but the performance of the English youngsters was better, more so with Mascarenhas and Wright.

All set for the FINALE. A couple of problems that need to be immediately tackled for India are,

1) The Bowling.
2) The Captaincy

Get, Set , Gooooooo.

So. we get to the final. Will we win or lose? Whats the general perception. And will Sachin deliver big again or live upto his track record at finals?