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*Official* Warm-up Matches Discussion

Manee

Cricketer Of The Year
Very interesting game. Yusuf Pathan's innings was valuable, he simply has to start in the first WC game. The Ashwin Vs Chawla dilemma is tougher though, Ashwin's runs were matchwinning, not as much so as Chawla's wickets, but still highly valuable. Munaf Patel - what an idiot, can he not be good just for a short period of time?

EDIT: Also, woo, we won and beat one of the tournament favourites.
 

fishyguy

U19 12th Man
Windies would have had a better chance in the WC if they left out Sammy who is absolutely useless. And another thing, stop playing Ravi Rampaul, that guy blows. Andre Russel's the man. he's 22 and he and Roach should form the new WI opening pair unless Jerome Taylor can be fit and get his form back. Also they should send out Pollard early on, I personally think he should open with Gayle and take advantage of the powerplays. My ODI lne up for Windies:

Gayle
Pollard
Barath
Darren Bravo
Sarwan (captain)
Chanderpaul
Bravo
Baugh
Benn
Russell
Roach

4 front line bowlers and Gayle and pollard to round off the 5th bowler.
 

howardj

International Coach
I would counsel against reading too much into warm up games. The players' mentality yesterday would have been - let's get a hit and let's get some overs under belt.

That said, without Hussey and without recognised slow bowlers, I have serious doubts as to our ability to win the tournament.
 

Burgey

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Paine to hurt his finger again, and Hussey to come in and be leading run scorer, Krejza to be leading wicket taker, Watto to own etc etc.
 

Spikey

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hauritz to make a heroic return and win us several matches after krejza gets hit over the head by ponting's bat more like.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
I would counsel against reading too much into warm up games. The players' mentality yesterday would have been - let's get a hit and let's get some overs under belt.

That said, without Hussey and without recognised slow bowlers, I have serious doubts as to our ability to win the tournament.
Definitely.

Honestly I have never been more bored watching an India vs. Australia match of any format in my life. Even when India have been thoroughly owned by Australia it has been far more entertaining than the first 25 overs I saw last night before I hit the bed.

There was just such a clear lack of intensity. White barely celebrated when he caught out Gambhir, who barely tried to get back into his crease in the 2nd ball of the day. Sehwag didn't want to waste any energy stretching his arms to get back into his crease either. And Kohli, what in God's name was he thinking.
 

pup11

International Coach
Its pretty easy to blame lack of intensity for Australia's poor performance, but the failure to finish an innings off with the ball and getting owned by spinners during the middle overs are problems that have been there for sometime now and yesterday was another example of it.

Good Australian sides were known for their ruthless attitude, once they were on top of the opposition they hardly gave them any breathing space but this Aussie side seems to lose steam at crucial junctures of a game. Even yesterday we allowed last two wickets to put up close to 100 runs and despite cruising towards the target at one point we completly lost it against the spinners, so there is no doubt we have some serious work to do in these areas if we are to entertain any thoughts of retaining the worldcup.
 

Top_Cat

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heh, love the arse-covering by the Aussie entourage, though.. In warm-ups, it's a universal truth that if you win, it's good prep but if you win, eh, they don't matter anyway. Fact is, they were cruising and lost to a team who they, provided they get that far, may be playing when it does matter in a final. If nothing else, that's not ideal. A decent example of how important an early win is occurred in '03; India, having only lost once (horribly) to Australia in '03 absolutely froze when they played them again in the final.

It doesn't matter in terms of points for the tournament but the Aussies missed an opportunity to get one over India here. They should have been going balls out to beat them, even if it is a warm-up.
 
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pup11

International Coach
heh, love the arse-covering by the Aussie entourage, though.. In warm-ups, it's a universal truth that if you win, it's good prep but if you win, eh, they don't matter anyway. Fact is, they were cruising and lost to a team who they, provided they get that far, may be playing when it does matter in a final. If nothing else, that's not ideal. A decent example of how important an early win is occurred in '03; India, having only lost once (horribly) to Australia in '03 absolutely froze when they played them again in the final.

It doesn't matter in terms of points for the tournament but the Aussies missed an opportunity to get one over India here. They should have been going balls out to beat them, even if it is a warm-up.
Exactly, but I don't think its was due to lack of trying. Australian middle order got owned by the conditions and the spinners, not one of them had the guts to step out of the crease and disrupt the rhythm of any of these spinners and if India meet Australia again at some point during the tournament then they would definitely fancy their chances against them no matter how far behind the 8-ball they might find themselves in that game, whereas if Aus would have crushed India in this game that would have severely dented their confidence for the rest of the tournament.

It appears that bitching and moaning about subcontinental pitches has already started from the usual suspects...
...And what exactly is wrong with that...!? It was only a warm-up game but still the pitch was poor and its basically behaved like a day 4 or 5 test pitch, the balls were jumping off the length and you certainly don't want wickets like those for LO cricket and that's something both the captains acknowledged.
 
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Spark

Global Moderator
It's not surprising though, quality spin was our major issue throughout 08/09 too. Botha had us in real problems. Quick footwork is all but non-existent in our lineup. It makes me chuckle when experts talk about players being good players of spin... based on bashing Shield spinners on home decks.
 

vcs

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I didn't think it was such a bad pitch.. it looked worse because India got their specialist spinners to bowl every over without any part-timer breaks. The pitch for the WC '03 semi was pretty similar as well.. 230 par score and plenty of assistance for spinners. I mean the Aus vs. SL semi, obviously.
 
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