***Official*** India in England

[Jungle Jumbo]

Brilliant stuff from Broad and Bopara. Both of them looked very solid apart from their first few overs against Chawla and Powar and I got the sense that once the runs required was under 50, we were well in control. Broad certainly has batting pretensions; how much time he'll get to improve I don't know - if he gets in the Test side he'll just remain a decent eight or nine.

Prior however has to go. He's now batted four times this series and got out in the same way four times, trying to swat at short balls outside the off stump. There was far too much hype about him in the middle of the summer, based on him lashing around a West Indies attack that wouldn't have fared well in county cricket. Now against semi-decent bowling, he's shown to be a poor player. England are trying so hard to find a Gilchrist at the top of the order and Prior clearly isn't that man. Smashing county attacks is one thing, but everything he's faced so far this series has been too good for him. There is no proper shot selection and I get the sense he doesn't have the ability to match his oversized ego and hard man image.

Time for Moores to forget his Sussex links and either get Mustard in the side to open or Davies to come in down the order. Or, with the amount of batting around now and Broad a more than capable number eight or nine, get a genuine gloveman in. Although if that means picking Chris Read again, forget it.

 

[Pup Clarke]

What is up with Flitnoff, I know Ashes 2005 was his purple patch batting-wise but seriously he's not this bad surely?

Nah, 03 v SA was his purple patch, he's never really been able to sustain his batting though.

 

[steds]

What is up with Flitnoff, I know Ashes 2005 was his purple patch batting-wise but seriously he's not this bad surely?

Don't reckon his head's there, atm. The wicket delivery was on middle and off, and when Flintoff's in form he hits that straight back over the bowler, but today he turned the bat and tried to squeeze it square of the wicket. He'd tried the same thing a few balls before too. If he'd tried the shot he'd usually play to a straight ball and got out you could say he was in bad form or hasn't had enough batting, but Flintoff not even trying to play Flintoff's shots suggests to me that he's not happy or confident with his batting right now.

 

[Jungle Jumbo]

Flintoff's been nowhere near his best since the start of 2006. At no point has he really looked very fluent and he only has the one fifty, 72* against New Zealand back in the Commonwealth Bank Series earlier this year. Injuries haven't helped, but at the moment I don't think he deserves to be batting ahead of Shah and Bopara like he did today.

Flintoff since 1-1-2006

 

[Pup Clarke]

Geez...

 

[Pup Clarke]

What's this allrounder rubbish that the commentators are going on about?. He's a bowling allrounder imo.

 

[Jungle Jumbo]

What's this allrounder rubbish that the commentators are going on about?. He's a bowling allrounder imo.

Always has been in Test cricket, maybe at his peak as a batsman from 2003-04, when he produced a couple of big scores against the West Indies and India, he could have merited a place purely as a batsman. There are very, very few genuine allrounders that have ever played international cricket if you're going to be that strict though.

EDIT: Flintoff's stats, 2003-04 That's some average for a player of his nature.

 

[silentstriker]

Always has been in Test cricket, maybe at his peak as a batsman from 2003-04, when he produced a couple of big scores against the West Indies and India, he could have merited a place purely as a batsman. There are very, very few genuine allrounders that have ever played international cricket if you're going to be that strict though.

EDIT: Flintoff's stats, 2003-04 That's some average for a player of his nature.

http://stats.cricinfo.com/guru?sdb=...edhigh=;csearch=;submit=1;.cgifields=viewtype

During that time, he also averaged 19 with the ball. 50 with the bat and 19 with the ball...quite good .

 

[aussie]

Ha, got to learn to have a little patience in the future. Left OT when the 7th wicket fell & now to my surprise England have won good stuff. Tendulkar looked like a million bucks today damn a definate century missed. Flintoff bloddy hell he looks like Freddie post 2001 with the blade again, no longer can he England #6 in test & ODI's if he keeps this up.

India needs to look at their balance they need a firing Sehwag back & either Pathan at his best again or another batsman in that middle order.

 

[Anil]

right now, england is a much better team and should win the series from here quite comfortably..

 

[pasag]

Left OT when the 7th wicket fell & now to my surprise England have won good stuff...

 

[Jono]

Honestly, that is one of the more frustrating losses of a random ODI I've seen in a long time as an Indian fan. Absolutely embarassing.

Yeah they showed fight, which was encouraging, but they should have won that. It really irks me that they give you hope like that (I thought the game was dead when KP and Collingwood were going) and then just slap you in the fact with some uninspired bowling and fielding.

England were horrible with the bat, but Broad and Bopara were absolutely brilliant. They looked so comfortable. Really, India better bloody take note of what batting talent at 8 and 9 can do in a ODI.

Argh, not happy.

 

[Jono]

Ha, got to learn to have a little patience in the future. Left OT when the 7th wicket fell & now to my surprise England have won good stuff.

Poor form!

 

[biased indian]

i went to sleep at 114/7 hoping an easy win..got up early in the morning to check the news no electricity in the home..paper didnt come by the time i left home..reached office took cricinfo and .........................................

this match went a lot the way i predicted ..apart for the last thing.me and friend was watching the game yesterday at home i predicted almost everything expect for the last wicket partnership..but i did say umpires might have some say...was that chawla appeal out who was the umpire on at that time ??????

 

[adharcric]

Oh yeah, time to go back to four bowlers? Have a feeling Dravid is reluctant because Ganguly's back is acting up and he can't bowl regularly. Anyways, I don't really care which combination we go for in the next match - as long as it works. Uthappa and Sharma better get some playing time soon.

 

[R_D]

Honestly, that is one of the more frustrating losses of a random ODI I've seen in a long time as an Indian fan. Absolutely embarassing.

Yeah they showed fight, which was encouraging, but they should have won that. It really irks me that they give you hope like that (I thought the game was dead when KP and Collingwood were going) and then just slap you in the fact with some uninspired bowling and fielding.

England were horrible with the bat, but Broad and Bopara were absolutely brilliant. They looked so comfortable. Really, India better bloody take note of what batting talent at 8 and 9 can do in a ODI.

Argh, not happy.

but its typical thou... normally this happens with batting. They give you hope that they are going to win it but than somehow manage to win it. Bowling does this in test matches thou... runs through the top order and than struggles to take lower order wickets. But in ODI's its usually been a case of hit or miss.
At 7 down i thought it was good as over.
We only have another 10 ODI's to get dissappointed / maybe little be excited in over next month and half.
If india lose this series surely they'll make some changes.... neither of Tendulkar or Ganguly are likely to be next world cup so better to invest in some youth. Give Uthappa ago at top of the order and bring in someone in middle order as well.

 

[honestbharani]

Raghav must be jumping with joy....


And poor Turb must have locked in another Greigy here. It could end up 6-1 the other way...


Dunno how to take it, tbh. If someone had told me that we will in the test series if we can lose the ODI series, I would have said "yes please". But, I stayed up till 3 in the morning watching the match, even though I had to go to work by 8 in the morning hoping for an Indian win and instead I get a 2004 ICC Champions Trophy final revisited. No doubt that Broad and Bopara were awesome, but seriously, Broad had no clue against RPS initially and yet he was taken off. Surely, he could have been given another go against Broad, esp. when it was clear that Powar and Chawla were not as effective as Rahul must have hoped.


But the fielding is the biggest worry. The fact that they were poor even when they were so charged up shows that we have a HUGE problem in that regard.


SJS was quite severe putting Karthik among the hopeless ones, but we saw yesterday that a good chase and a good dive from him resulted in getting Pieterson out. If he had not saved that single (which is what almost every other fielder in that side would have done, IMO), Pieterson would not have been on strike the next ball... It is amazing how these small things matter so much. This is precisely why a good stop is almost as good as a good catch and the reason why I would always put Karthik above guys like Dravid or Sachin. He has a little too much enthusiasm at times and drops sitters like3 out of 10 times but to put him down like that was harsher than harsh, IMO....


But apart from him and Yuvraj (and trust me, Yuvraj is not as good as Kaif is in ground fielding) we have nothing. Even Yuvraj is not as good as people would have as believe. He is awesome in pulling off stunning catches, but he is not as quick as he used to be across the field and he is not a great diver in the sense that most of the times, he dives from where he stands instead of actually diving while in the process of moving towards a certain direction, which adds not only momentum but also a few yards to the dive so that you get there even if the ball is a little out of reach.... But the others are simply hopeless. Dravid had 6 or 7 guys in the circle and yet look at how many times Bopare and Broad took singles after playing the ball straight to those guys.... They were running everytime they played the ball unless the ball went to Yuvraj at point or Karthik at cover. We should be prepared for wallopings such as this one if this is the way we are gonna field.


Maybe bring in Uthappa for Chawla in the next game? It is obviously not worth playing 5 bowlers with this batting line up... Sachin and Yuvraj can contribute with the ball and even if the 5th bowler goes for runs, we have to bite the bullet and take that chance. It is a bigger risk playing with just 6 batters....


Also, look at what is being done to Karthik here. Here was a youngster who was, quite easily, the best wicket keeper among the guys who have been tried out since Mongia for the national team and yet he is not asked to keep. He is energetic and enthusiastic and so he dives a lot and stops some runs and we brand him a "brilliant" fielder and convert him into a batsman, which is all fine because he is genuinely talented as a batsman but that means we are losing out a really really good keeper at the moment and is that good? Dhoni has great temperament and a great attitude but he is not a great keeper and he will never be. At best, he will be tidy behind the stumps but he will have more off days than a good keeper and it might cost us, esp. since he is not at home playing in difficult conditions... He can hit a long ball, sure and he gives us some destructive power in the middle order which we have often lacked, but is that reason enough to keep playing him and make him captain/vice-captain? Won't it be worth a try to play these next few games with Karthik as the keeper? At least the next one? Dhoni is clearly struggling and a break for a couple of games might do him good, since he has bigger fish to fry in the Twenty20 WC, where he is gonna lead....


Ideally, India should play with 7 batsmen and I would still like to see Karthik keep... Maybe have Dhoni in the outfield instead of the Powars of the world... But as things stand, I am guessing that Karthik will be the one to miss out, even though he has only had two real failures in this ODI series, while Dhoni has basically failed in every game... Uthappa should come in and should ideally open with Sachin. It is obvious Sourav is strugglling to get the ball rolling at the top in ODIs since his return and he may serve India better at 3. DRavid or Yuvraj at 4 depending on the situation with the other guy taking up 5, Dhoni and Karthik to follow looks a lot more balanced. The real problem is the fact that Karthik, Uthappa and Dravid can't bowl, period.. So we only have 7 actual bowling options and again, that is never good in ODIs. Serious trouble for India here and I think anything less than 6-1 would be an achievement for us, esp. after yesterday's loss.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Also, look at what is being done to Karthik here. Here was a youngster who was, quite easily, the best wicket keeper among the guys who have been tried out since Mongia for the national team and yet he is not asked to keep. He is energetic and enthusiastic and so he dives a lot and stops some runs and we brand him a "brilliant" fielder and convert him into a batsman, which is all fine because he is genuinely talented as a batsman but that means we are losing out a really really good keeper at the moment and is that good? Dhoni has great temperament and a great attitude but he is not a great keeper and he will never be. At best, he will be tidy behind the stumps but he will have more off days than a good keeper and it might cost us, esp. since he is not at home playing in difficult conditions... He can hit a long ball, sure and he gives us some destructive power in the middle order which we have often lacked, but is that reason enough to keep playing him and make him captain/vice-captain? Won't it be worth a try to play these next few games with Karthik as the keeper? At least the next one? Dhoni is clearly struggling and a break for a couple of games might do him good, since he has bigger fish to fry in the Twenty20 WC, where he is gonna lead....

If you are going to play both Dhoni and Karthik in the side, then Dhoni should keep.

For England, I'd send Flintoff out to open, and give him a bit of a license. Just see the ball, and hit it.

 

[biased indian]

Sachin
Uthappa
Ganguly
Yuvraj
Dravid
Karthik/Sharma (sehwag would have been better)
Dhoni
Chawla
Agarakar
Zaheer
RP Singh

 

[pup11]

Well done India!!

You have to give some credit to team India for losing yesterday's match from where they did, i mean ok... Broad and Bopara batted well but there is no way India should have let England win from 117-7. India's standard of odi cricket has seriously gone down in the last year or so and them struggling against the English odi side is ample proof for that.