Regarding Sachin and his style of play, one thing people should understand is that he is not as good as he was.... He has always depended a lot on his technique (esp. his excellent footwork) to play well, unlike say someone like Lara, who depended more on his natural talent and just worked out a technique of his own which suited him really well but may not work for others. Now, perhaps due to age or maybe a bit of fatigue after 18 years of cricket, his feet are definitely moving slower than how they used to. He is getting behind the ball quite late compared to how he used to bat previously. And it is also a case in point because his decline has been more in test cricket than in ODI cricket. If you look at the few adjustments he always makes between tests and ODIs, one of the main things you will see is that he is more willing to hit through the line of the ball with minimal feet movement in ODIs when compared to tests, when he plays his shots with better technical correctness.
Given that now, obviously, he is going to be limited in his stroke-making, I don't think it is such a bad idea for him to bat slowly like this... I know I was also amongst the number of guys who criticized him for batting slowly a couple of years or so ago, but since then, it has become increasingly obvious that whenever he has tried to play positively and play big shots, he is getting out or at least looking like getting out because his footwork is letting him down, BIG TIME. He is still able to defend well, esp. on flatter wickets because the chances of getting out only increase when you drive or cut away from your body than defend. It will also explain why he gets beaten so many times nowadays. Given that he simply cannot score quickly nowadays the way he used to because of this glitch, I don't think we should criticize for trying to score his runs in whichever way he can best do it. No, I still don't think his innings against BD were good (I actually think they were below average) because then the pitches were genuinely flat and the bowling wasn't that good and there was no way he would have been risking as much as he would be if he played positively here, for instance. But as Sanz said, maybe he was just playing himself into form and maybe he talked to the management about it and got their permission, in which case, it won't be so bad, although I am still skeptical of how anyone can regain their form through singles and twos and just generally manufacturing a century, instead of playing and getting one. Confidence? yes but form? I am not too sure.
But having said all that, I still think what he did yesterday was very good stuff. Come on, guys, how do you think he can score when they were deliberately bowling down the leg side, when the only option for a shot was a clip and they had a fielder ready right there and also one on the boundary in case it went past the former... There was absolutely no percentage for success there and with Prior being what he is as a keeper, it perhaps made more sense for Sachin to just leave them alone. It is one thing to bowl short and quick and get the ball to lift with a forward and backward short leg but if Vaughan genuinely believed that he could just ask his bowlers to bowl fullish, down the leg side and get Sachin to clip it straight to the leg slip, it was just silly. He may get out the very same way tomm. morning but it will still be silly. Good players will never bother playing balls down the leg side and after a while, u will see him move across and start flicking them around for ones and twos. Bowling bad balls intentionally and setting a field for them and hoping the batsman would fall for it may work once or twice, but to use it as a consistent tactic against an important batsman of the opposition batting order is just plain silly.
I will still find a fault with him when he deliberately goes slow on a flat track against not-so-good bowling if others around him are also struggling but yesterday, he had the buffer that the other batsmen were playing positively and he COULD take his time, which is what he did. How many times have the likes of Dravid and Sourav and Azhar benefitted from how quickly Sachin scored and how many times would it have helped them to just take their time and get a score in (which would have equally vital for the team, just like how Sachin's efforts yesterday would be)... Maybe now the roles have just changed. Sachin can't play the way he did in the past, he is not good enough to do that anymore, let's just accept that. Someone like Dravid though, has constantly improved and by the looks of it, I think he COULD take Sachin's role of being the guy who sets the pace. He has the technique, the talent and temperament to do that. Plus, my gut feeling is, he is gonna play quite a bit more positively today and do well.
Hope India can get 500+ here, otherwise, England would still be in with a very good chance of even winning this game. But their batters have to come to the party big time. Can't hide behind KP and Vaughan all the time. The time is right for the likes of Bell and Colly to come good.
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