***Official*** Commonwealth Bank Tri-Series 2007-08

[ret]

Yeah well your point is valid too, but when in all the Odi games targets of 270+ get posted, then the game starts to become a bit predictable in the sense that its all about going hammer and tonks for the batsmen and in that scenario damage control is the only thing in the minds of the bowlers, though that could be fun too like it proved out to be the case tonight's game's but a few low-scoring games now and then [between two evenly matched sides} can also be exciting.

Yeah, we do need variety otherwise things can become unidimensional

cheers

 

[Cevno]

Symonds and ishant sharma have been both summoned by the match referee for their altercation.

 

[JBH001]

Oh what? Overblown surely.

Sharma does his little send off with the fingers which he has done often in this series, Symonds sees it and gives him some lip, and Sharma replies. Big deal. Let them sort it out - if there is anything to sort out.

 

[Jnr.]

Symonds and ishant sharma have been both summoned by the match referee for their altercation.

Are you sure about that? My understanding is that only Ishant has been summoned.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Uuugh. Hayden acting like a sledgehammer and a bully again. Not what cricket needs. FFS introduce some subtlety into ure game.

Yeah Haydos, leave a few so the purists can drool

 

[adharcric]

Someone has to do it. You can't play 14 players in a match and you can't select a squad of 11. They were brought over as part of the squad to cover for injuries. Again, someone has to do it, and I'm sure they'd have taken this opportunity over not coming at all.

No ****.

And before you quote the second sentence of this post and reply with a trademark adharcric "No ****" before suggesting a rotation policy, that'd make as much sense as dropping Ganguly for being a liability in the field and then picking Munaf Patel. Oh wait..

Don't really understand your analogy. Our batting unit has been crap all series with everybody but Gambhir and Dhoni struggling at times - with at least six matches, I don't understand how they couldn't give Raina or Chawla a go. Listen, I can understand that they may have wanted to give youngsters like Sharma and Uthappa a good run but why is Sehwag brought back again and again? If we're that desperate, Sharma and Tiwary (or Raina, almost) are good enough to fill his quota of part-time off-spin. You don't just let a golden opportunity of playing against quality opposition in Australia pass by like this. Even now, it's not too late. SL are getting thrashed by the Aussies again so even if they do somehow beat us, we'll get through 12-11. Besides, we're probably making our side stronger by making some of these changes.

 

[Son Of Coco]

So if symonds calls sharma a the c 4-letter word and he replies with monkey then it cannot be contrued as racism anyway.But if without provokation he calls him monkey then it can be taken as racism.
As for who started it being childish things,you know that even murder trials are decided on these things?

Ravi shastri saying that sharma did absolutely the right thing And saying that if you get something ,you should give it back twice.
Harsha bhogle also said it was ponring who standong next to daryl harper went and complained to harper.

That makes sense

 

[Burgey]

Yeah agreed. It's not fair for Australian fans to act all high and mighty and say Ishant should not have given Andrew Symonds that send off. If Ishant was the aggressor than that's a valid point, but when clearly Symonds was not smart enough or decent enough to realise that he didn't need to open his big mouth then Ishant never would've had to do what he did.

Ishant was clearly provoked by Symonds and did what he had to do. There was no racial undertones to it and Symonds shouldn't be somebody who is allowed to abuse opposition players and then cry wolf when gets some of his own medicine given back to him. As an Indian supporter, I was one of the few who were in Symonds' camp but for me he is losing credibility by the day.

AWTA, though in fairness, I don't think Symonds said anything to an umpire to make them go over to Ishant, it seems more like they just wanted to nip it in the bud.

Heard on the radio the commentators saying how Harbhajan and Ponting were standing at the other end having a chat (amicable, it should be said) about it. One of the commentators said "They're probably up there looking at it and saying "Ah, those silly young bucks, look at them. How silly are they?"".

Silly incident really - if you're Symonds, you've just been bowled, if you're the bowler, the guy you've just bowled has smashed 50 in no time.

Gambhir's knock was really, really good, same with Dhoni. Likewise, Harbhajan has been in top form with the bat this tour. That was some quality low order hitting from him.

Dilemma now for Australia is whether to leave Clark out once Johnson comes back, keep an unchanged side or do they drop one of either Hopes or Hogg for Johnson and have a pretty damn long tail?

On the Dhoni keeping gloves thing, just not an issue afaic. He changed his gloves, that's it. No harm done.

Edit: I also reckon the games where there's a real contest between bat and ball are best, rahter than a rash of 300+ totals.

 

[sideshowtim]

Dhoni's slow, grafting knocks may have been useful in the last few games, but he really played the wrong role here. When your team needs around 8 an over, striking at 54 over 66 balls is pretty much unacceptable. Especially when everyone else who scored runs was scoring at a good rate with ease. He needs to learn how to manage these kind of innings better.

 

[Top_Cat]

Dhoni's Gloves Seized

 

[JBH001]

Dhoni's slow, grafting knocks may have been useful in the last few games, but he really played the wrong role here. When your team needs around 8 an over, striking at 54 over 66 balls is pretty much unacceptable. Especially when everyone else who scored runs was scoring at a good rate with ease. He needs to learn how to manage these kind of innings better.

Yeah. If ever there was a time for Dhoni to play a knock of old it was yesterday. Really, really surprised at his batting and his SR. Still cant complain too much, as it means SL is still in with an extremely unlikely shot.

 

[jeevan]

Yeah. If ever there was a time for Dhoni to play a knock of old it was yesterday. Really, really surprised at his batting and his SR. Still cant complain too much, as it means SL is still in with an extremely unlikely shot.

Dhoni of old was able to play those knocks he did because the team had solidity provided by Dravid and to a lesser extent by Kaif and more recently Ganguly. In the present team on the present tour, only Gambhir, Rohit Sharma and Irfan Pathan have been reliable and the biggest stars - Tendulkar and Yuvraj - have mostly failed with the bat on a very consistent basis including yesterday. Tough spot for him, recall he came in at 4-51 in this innings and pretty much similar story each time.

 

[Top_Cat]

Dhoni of old was able to play those knocks he did because the team had solidity provided by Dravid and to a lesser extent by Kaif and more recently Ganguly. In the present team on the present tour, only Gambhir, Rohit Sharma and Irfan Pathan have been reliable and the biggest stars - Tendulkar and Yuvraj - have mostly failed with the bat on a very consistent basis including yesterday. Tough spot for him, recall he came in at 4-51 in this innings and pretty much similar story each time.

Yeah exactly, good on him for being able to rein in the attacking instincts. Gilchrist, for example, hasn't done that for ages.

 

[JASON]

Will it be India or SL ? SL certainly does not deserve to progress based on their dire batting and extremely weak performances so far....It would be unfair if India failed to progress ....(this coming from a Sri Lankan fan)....

India have played good entertaining Cricket and only lost narrowly, while Sri Lanka have been repeatedly walloped...India has been the second best performer through out this series ...SL is pathetic and some of the old guys need to be dropped ...particularly Sanath.. Maharoof is of dubious value ...Perhaps Welagedera should be given a game against India...

 

[ret]

Ind should go through unless it plays some bad and stupid cricket while SL plays some out-standing cric in the next two games

This is going to be the last league game for Ind [and m hoping that it will be in the final], so it's imperative that it allows some of the guys struggling with the bat to spend more time in the middle. may be push up Rohit at 3, Yuvi at 4 & Uthappa at 5 .... it won't be a bad idea to try out Chawla and rest gambhir

Below is my preferred X1 for the game:

top order ----> tendulkar, sehwag & rohit
middle order ----> yuvi and uthappa
lower order ---- dhoni & pathan
bowlers ----> bhajji, ishant, chawla & munaf

cheers

 

[Prince EWS]

No ****.

Don't really understand your analogy. Our batting unit has been crap all series with everybody but Gambhir and Dhoni struggling at times - with at least six matches, I don't understand how they couldn't give Raina or Chawla a go. Listen, I can understand that they may have wanted to give youngsters like Sharma and Uthappa a good run but why is Sehwag brought back again and again? If we're that desperate, Sharma and Tiwary (or Raina, almost) are good enough to fill his quota of part-time off-spin. You don't just let a golden opportunity of playing against quality opposition in Australia pass by like this. Even now, it's not too late. SL are getting thrashed by the Aussies again so even if they do somehow beat us, we'll get through 12-11. Besides, we're probably making our side stronger by making some of these changes.

Sehwag's in the team ahead of other batsmen not only to bowl his offies, but also to add some much needed experience to the top order. He's done the typical Sehwag thing of looking pretty good at the top of the ODI order and then getting out, but given the absolutely paper-thin nature of the batting lineup, filling it with even more youngsters probably isn't the move, nor is dropping the youngsters selected originally after so few games.

To put it bluntly, teams selecting less than their best team deliberately really pisses me off. I tried really hard to close my eyes and buy into the fact that Ganguly and Dravid were dropped because their replacements were deemed to add more to the team as a whole with their fielding, and not because of their age, but when Munaf Patel makes the team, all consistency is lost. Once you start rotating the farcically selected team as well, that's just a bit much, isn't it? If we're going to be real here, Tiwary and Raina shouldn't even really be in the squad at all, so I'm sure they'll gladly take their opportunities to be part of the team setup, do a bit of fielding and be ready waiting to get a farcical ODI cap if someone goes down or looks completely out of sorts.

For all the talk of Twenty20 being a massive threat to ODIs, I think they are their own biggest enemy. There are far too many of them and the ongoing belief that none of them matter except the World Cup has been passed on from selectors' actions to fans' realisations themselves. The games should be used as more than giving player X an opportunity or blooding player Y and the fact that they really aren't is going to hurt what is actually a semi-decent format.

Oh, and I apologise for being slightly aggressive/sarcastic in my post yesterday; I was in a really ****ty mood and all my posts ended up a bit like that, whether I intended them to be or not.

 

[JBH001]

Dhoni of old was able to play those knocks he did because the team had solidity provided by Dravid and to a lesser extent by Kaif and more recently Ganguly. In the present team on the present tour, only Gambhir, Rohit Sharma and Irfan Pathan have been reliable and the biggest stars - Tendulkar and Yuvraj - have mostly failed with the bat on a very consistent basis including yesterday. Tough spot for him, recall he came in at 4-51 in this innings and pretty much similar story each time.

I see your point, but I dont completely agree. Yes he did come in at a tricky point in the game, and played a key role in a near 100 run partnership with Gambhir (who had no trouble, I might add, in going at a good rate of knots). But his SR for his 36 was 54 (out of 66 balls) which is not even close to being good enough given the context of the match and the target being chased. Hence my point that while some leeway can be given for the situation of the match and a concomitant reining in of attacking instinct, too much leeway can not and should not be given for a shoddy SR like that - especially as it is arguably one of the contributing factors behind India's loss (even if not the major one).

 

[ret]

honestly, i don't see that Dravid and Ganguly's inclusion would hv made a big difference. Just see their record over the past yr

Ind has been constantly losing ODI series overseas and after that forgettable WC07, it was time to move on. Fielding is one of the reasons given to exclude them, i guess. it's like when you try to sell someone something and he can't say no, he politely says that 'i want to think abt it'

And by making Dravid and Ganguly focus on tests, may be the board is prolonging their international careers by a few yrs. with the amt of cricket being played and considering their fitness levels, if we are going to field the the top guys in every game that Ind plays, i guess, their careers would be over in less than 2 yrs

Dravid in ODIs in last 12 mts

Ganguly in ODIs in the last 12 mts

i know that they hv helped Ind win a few games but hv been below par in most of the games .... Ganguly's avg looks good but we know how he got most of those runs

It's time to move on from them in ODIs / 20T and wish them all the best for their test careers

cheers

 

[Top_Cat]

If we're going to be real here, Tiwary and Raina shouldn't even really be in the squad at all, so I'm sure they'll gladly take their opportunities to be part of the team setup, do a bit of fielding and be ready waiting to get a farcical ODI cap if someone goes down or looks completely out of sorts.

Didn't Tiwary get selected on the basis of realy strong domestic form, though?

But yeah, I agree not picking the best hurts India in the end. Ganguly's non-selection in particular has been a bit weird. But then, Gambhir's selection has been an absolute boon with two tons this series and has batted well in other knocks too. He's one of the few Indians in the line-up who plays the pull/hook with any consistency and success, the other bloke who does remaining unselected (Dravid).

 

[Prince EWS]

Didn't Tiwary get selected on the basis of realy strong domestic form, though?.

Yeah, no-one is saying he's a bad player or that his selection is completely random - merely that he's not really in their best 14 or so players yet, as good as he might end up.