[Eddy]

The commentary is going from bad to worse. Manjrekar & Gavaskar together hit the nadir last night.

How I miss Nasser Hussain and Ian Chappel !

[PPS]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

but IMO a team that plays to the conditions is more difficult to beat than their known formula.

You've got it spot on!
One of the criticism of Dhoni has been that he is very rigid with his team selection. He will go in with the same combination irrespective of the conditions. Ideally he should have found a way to get Bhajji into the playing 11 but he prefers Pandya who is his current favourite ! He also prefers his part time spinners like Raina & Yuvraj than Bhajji but the problem sometimes is that extra over which he gives to part timers can prove costly & turn around the match.
Its still early days in the tournament yet, just because we have had 1 loss doesn't mean we are no longer favourites!

[Eddy]

If it's a toss up between Pandya and Harbhajan, I will also go with the former. Bhajji hasn't done anything of note in a long time now and Pandya is a big hitter, a role that nobody else is capable of doing at the moment.

[Santoshbhat]

It was funny listening to Laxman during the innings break. Harsha Bhogle was trying to suggest that it may not be easy playing spin on this pitch and Laxman was super confident of an easy Indian win saying that Indians are good players of spin. I told my dad at that very moment that except Kohli and Dhoni no one in the Indian team knows how to handle spin on helpful tracks and that this is going to be anything but easy.

Coming back to the match, the pitch really seemed to crumble towards the end. Sodhi and Santner were virtually unplayable. Now one thing you can be sure of , for the remaining India games the curators will be asked to prepare flat hard batting paradises after the think tank realises that our flat track bullies can't handle spin .

[carwatcher]

I remember reading an article on Cricinfo long time back where it was elaborately mentioned that how the telecast on DD was horrible (it actually was) as the DD didn't show replays and inserted as many ads as possible.
The title of the article was in the lines of 'Are Indian fans doomed to watch such a pathetic telecast' ?

Now I am reminded of the same listening to the commentary during the tournament.
The lesser said about the 'Mumbai circuit' commentators the better.

P.S. : I bet that Manish Pandey would have certainly made the difference by atleast reducing the margin of defeat due to his temperament but it seems Dhoni is too scared of Yuvi's Dad.

[NPV]

What a win for the "small" New Zealand team
Came across this article on yesterday's India vs New Zealand match - a good read - here

Though India were 'favourites' yesterday based on their recent form, statistics was against them, it was 0-4 in T20 internationals against NZ and now is it 0-5 after the loss yesterday!

[sanmish]

It was always going to be tough against a quality New Zealand side. They are one of the favorites for me in this tournament. What made the loss harder to bear was the approach of some of the batsmen against the NZ spinners. With a rather modest total in sight, i guess around 8 out of the 10 batsmen got dismissed trying to get to the ball rather than letting the ball come to them (as they should on slow pitches). They should have rather stuck to the basics and aimed at getting 4-5 runs an over for the first 12-13 overs while preserving wickets and then gone ahead with some big hitting.

Needless to say, it was frustrating viewing, especially after escaping office just to see the match

However, I am sure the team got a good talking from the captain and will perform much better in the remaining games.

[fiestarry]

Dhoni finds a way to answer every question with a tangential and foolish answer. He will justify a loss saying that there were 'positives' in the thrashing.
And every now and then he will hit a couple of sixes in inconsequential games and the Indian cricket fan goes gaga over him. Wish we could have been rid of this survivor along with N Srinivasan.

[DWind]

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

Coming back to the match, the pitch really seemed to crumble towards the end. Sodhi and Santner were virtually unplayable. Now one thing you can be sure of , for the remaining India games the curators will be asked to prepare flat hard batting paradises after the think tank realises that our flat track bullies can't handle spin .

I still thought the current Indian batting lineup could have managed to win this if they had just rejigged the batting order a bit. They should have sent Ashwin ahead of Pandya and Jadeja. Compared to others he looked more comfortable until he went chasing a very well flighted delivery from Ish Sodh to accelerate the scoring. He just had to consolidated and dry up the wickets for sometime and let New Zealand do some mistakes. It was not only the pitch that made the bowlers look unplayable but their confidence. All the spinners got wickets in the first few balls which only helped in their confidence. By the time the pacers came on India did not have enough wickets to capitalize.

[srishiva]

We have batsmen who cannot play fast bowling and spin bowling. Even in the test series played in India, the batsmen did not play all that great barring a couple of batsmen. The opposing teams made sure they lost it themselves.

The likes of Raina and Sharma dancing whenever the ball does anything other than keeping its line is hilarious to watch. We have great batsmen who can score big and score fast but when it comes to showing some patience and show some mental toughness they come a cropper. We still have to watch Mohd Amir making our batsmen look amateurish.

Commentary is going back to the days of DD's Hindi commentary team. Are they on radio and aren't we watch the match live?

[Oxy]

And now that Bangladesh have been thrashed by Pakistan, we are pretty much going to be knocked out if we don't beat Pakistan on Saturday.

Pakistan is a different beast when they play in India. All of a sudden all their batsmen came back into form, and they were rotating strike which was something totally missing from them in the Asia cup.

It really looks bleak for us. I can see our world cup streak against them ending here.

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by Oxy

And now that Bangladesh have been thrashed by Pakistan, we are pretty much going to be knocked out if we don't beat Pakistan on Saturday.

Pakistan is a different beast when they play in India. All of a sudden all their batsmen came back into form, and they were rotating strike which was something totally missing from them in the Asia cup.

It really looks bleak for us. I can see our world cup streak against them ending here.

Its tough for us now agreed. But, Bengaluru and Kolkata are flat decks and India have a good chance. Both our neighbours will have to perform exceptionally well to beat us there.
Its the Australia match in Mohali that we have to worry about now. If we win that, we will be through.
Else, the organisers will be more worried because of the reduced revenue for the remaining 3 matches

[NPV]

From the match against New Zealand..
Yuvraj was clearly out after lobbing a straight catch back to the bowler but he stayed put and waited for the 3rd umpire to declare him out Yes, it could have been a no ball that could have saved him but I don't believe he was suspecting that the ball went off the ground near his bat before the catch was taken! It was very obvious he lobbed it back. Also umpire Dharmasena did not have a clear view as the bowler was obstructing his view but still can't think that an experienced batsman like Yuvraj stayed put there.
Jadeja gets out to an excellent catch, goes back to the dug out, says something and gleefully smiles What's with the attitude of these guys ?

[h@r$h@l]

Hi,

Not sure if its the right thread. But i am in Melbourne and i dont have foxtel or any STB to watch the T20 world cup. Sadly they will only show the Australian games on free to air.

Can anyone pls suggest a website where i can watch the game? Really keen to see the India Pak tomorrow.

Thanks

[gsurya]

Originally Posted by h@r$h@l

Hi,

Not sure if its the right thread. But i am in Melbourne and i dont have foxtel or any STB to watch the T20 world cup. Sadly they will only show the Australian games on free to air.

Can anyone pls suggest a website where i can watch the game? Really keen to see the India Pak tomorrow.

Thanks

I used Willow TV when I was abroad, quite good

http://www.willow.tv/EventMgmt/willo...TVChannel.html