Panesar just beat a batsman with flight as well. Odd day.Monty taking a catch, Shah getting Dravid - it all makes Dimitri's five sixes seem positively routine.
India seem to think that nymber three spot is absolutely the most irrelevant in one day cricket.I mean comeon Dravid can easily come at 3 take his time settle down at the crease and then control the game from there.
His decision to bat at 5 would make sense if there would have been a suitable bloke to bat a 3, but thats not the case with India.
I don't know why he's on at this stage - he doens't need to now that Shah's contributed a few overs. And now Anderson won't get to bowl all his 10. I know his first spell went for almost 9 an over, but that was to SRT & Ganguly batting like deities.Panesar takes the pressure off with yet another crap delivery.
Dhoni needs to understand that big hitting is about free swing of the bat like all the big hitters of the game Afridi, Klustener, Cairns, Kapil, Gilchrist, Hayden take your pick. But Mr Dhoni is so taken up by his own inventive strokes where their is no free swing but in fact the swing is checked and even reversed in an amazing way to lend some kind of of Dhoni-signature to the shot. He has been doing it at the beginning of all his innings and starts slowly looking to be unable to get the ball off the square from what look like strokes with great effort put in them. Then if he stays long enough he will start playing those 'golf-drives' and the ball flies away to and over the fence as it was always meant to.For India to win Dhoni needs to come into his elements.
I have noticed it as well. For someone known for his power and his free scoring, Dhoni seems to have no power or timing at all unless he goes aerial. He seems preoccupied with the wristy flick he does which prevents any follow-through.Dhoni needs to understand that big hitting is about free swing of the bat like all the big hitters of the game Afridi, Klustener, Cairns, Kapil, Gilchrist, Hayden take your pick. But Mr Dhoni is so taken up by his own inventive strokes where their is no free swing but in fact the swing is checked and even reversed in an amazing way to lend some kind of of Dhoni-signature to the shot. He has been doing it at the beginning of all his innings and starts slowly looking to be unable to get the ball off the square from what look like strokes with great effort put in them. Then if he stays long enough he will start playing those 'golf-drives' and the ball flies away to and over the fence as it was always meant to.
I am amazed and terribly disappointed that no one seems to talk about it at all.