*Official* First Test at Lord's

[Teja.]

Haha, people are excited and not completely unbiased on their personal social networking page shocker.

 

[honestbharani]

Ah, I was too oblique. What I was trying to say is "don't bring Facebook conversations onto CW".

yeah.. fair enough. But my point was on the lines of "this is how they must have posted here, so it will be interesting to read them near the end of the series." But yeah, won't bring in the facebook messages anymore.

 

[honestbharani]

Haha, people are excited and not completely unbiased on their personal social networking page shocker.

well, depends on how view it. My messages were there to read for everyone too.. Anyways, Sparky has asked us to cut out this conversation. Gotta obey

 

[CricAddict]

Was having problems posting messages yesterday.
Well played England!!! Truly outplayed the Indian team. But true to their form, hoping for the Indians to come back strongly in the next 3 tests. The team would look doubly tough when Sehwag comes in the 3rd and 4th test.

 

[Cevno]

Tbf, to HB he is right in assuming what he is. Reminds me of the last Australian tour and how Tait was supposed to blow us away at Perth after Bucknorgate.

Also after the first test in the recent South Africa tour,though there were less SA supporters around and it was mostly Indian fans turning pessimistic/trying to play to the galleries.

 

[Furball]

Well.. for one, it is the fb messages of posters from here. And secondly, I am assuming (and not without justification, IMO) that their posts here would have been of a similar kind..

Well don't assume and stop trying to **** stir. It's not helpful.

 

[keeper]

Sounds like I do the right thing in not using facebook.

What do people make of England's fielding? Not like this team and I suspect and hope that Flower will be putting them through the hard miles this week in training as a consequence.

 

[Howe_zat]

This sounds weird, but the ground fielding was actually as good a standard as we've come to expect. It was just the shelled chances that were the problem. Obviously it wasn't good enough, but I'm not going to become concerned until it becomes a regular thing.

 

[Daemon]

This sounds weird, but the ground fielding was actually as good a standard as we've come to expect. It was just the shelled chances that were the problem. Obviously it wasn't good enough, but I'm not going to become concerned until it becomes a regular thing.

 

[keeper]

Was also thinking of 2 (I think) overthrows for four?

Having said that, with work and playing I haven't seen enough to pass judgement overall on the ground fielding.

Guess if you're going to have a bad day (or days) the best to do it during a winning Test.

Still, it will effect the course of the series if repeated I feel.

Like you say, probably one of those things...

 

[wpdavid]

This sounds weird, but the ground fielding was actually as good a standard as we've come to expect. It was just the shelled chances that were the problem. Obviously it wasn't good enough, but I'm not going to become concerned until it becomes a regular thing.

It worries me that Strauss dropped two. We'll see how it goes, I suppose.

 

[Spark]

Was also thinking of 2 (I think) overthrows for four?

Having said that, with work and playing I haven't seen enough to pass judgement overall on the ground fielding.

Guess if you're going to have a bad day (or days) the best to do it during a winning Test.

Still, it will effect the course of the series if repeated I feel.

Like you say, probably one of those things...

One of those was KP to be completely fair. He does these things. The ground fielding was mostly excellent, I can't recall too many shockers aside from the overthrows.

 

[Jono]

Day 5 was incredible. The line when I arrived at 8:40am was absolutely massive. Weird too because people who arrived at 11:30am still got a ticket anyway haha, but everyone was so eager to make sure they got a ticket they didn't want to take any risks. Only being £20 obviously brought in the crowd!

It was a terrific atmosphere, with many Indian cricket fans there as well as many English. Was a nice split. Basically everyone I spoke to, no matter who they supported, wanted a Sachin century. Incredible. If there is one thing I've learned, the English cricket fans in general are the most sporting in the world. Loved chatting to heaps of them who were sitting around me, and on many occasions I saw dads telling their kids to stand up and cheer Dravid or Tendulkar because it was the right thing to do. Truly a different cricket culture, at Lord's anyway. That being said, the atmosphere on days 4 and 5 were so incredibly different to day 1, which was very posh and restrained. Found that quite interesting.

With regards to the cricket, England were just at India all the time. Laxman's wicket was just unbelievably disappointing, but you've come to expect that from him unfortunately. Sachin was bogged down so it was only a matter of time before he went. All of England's bowlers were relentless, and so India couldn't afford to play any loose shots really, and they just played too many. Dravid, Laxman, Dhoni and Harbhajan (obviously) just threw it away with loose pokes or pulls.

Thought Raina was quite good actually. Looked very solid and was scoring freely. Really made Sachin (who tbf had a fever) look quite amateur, as he struggled to rotate the strike whereas Raina was pinching singles very easily.

All up attended 3 days of the test match. Obviously would have rathered a better performance from India, but it was a good test I thought. Even at tea the draw was still a possibility. Dhoni's wicket was just massive really, and so it was exciting until around after tea, which is all you can ask for.

Next stop: attending day 1 of Trent Bridge on Friday.

 

[social]

India were very disappointing as they had by far the best of the conditions for batting and bowling yet barely threatened

I picked 2-1 to Eng before the series with India getting a consolation victory at the end

I still think that there will be 3 results but cannot see India winning a test based on what we saw at Lords

 

[hazsa19]

nope swann. without swann the pacers won't be able to sustain their high bowling standard as they'll have to bowl alot more overs.
swann can basically tie up an end and pick up wickets.

I actually agree generally, but it depends on the situation.

If anyone of Swann, Jimmy, Broad or Tremlett had been injured on thursday morning in thise conditions, I would still have backed them to take 5+ wickets on that day.

 

[smash84]

India were very disappointing as they had by far the best of the conditions for batting and bowling yet barely threatened

I picked 2-1 to Eng before the series with India getting a consolation victory at the end

I still think that there will be 3 results but cannot see India winning a test based on what we saw at Lords

Can't help but agree with this.

India seemed to lack firepower in both batting and bowling

 

[four_or_six]

Day 5 was incredible. The line when I arrived at 8:40am was absolutely massive. Weird too because people who arrived at 11:30am still got a ticket anyway haha, but everyone was so eager to make sure they got a ticket they didn't want to take any risks. Only being £20 obviously brought in the crowd!

It was a terrific atmosphere, with many Indian cricket fans there as well as many English. Was a nice split. Basically everyone I spoke to, no matter who they supported, wanted a Sachin century. Incredible. If there is one thing I've learned, the English cricket fans in general are the most sporting in the world. Loved chatting to heaps of them who were sitting around me, and on many occasions I saw dads telling their kids to stand up and cheer Dravid or Tendulkar because it was the right thing to do. Truly a different cricket culture, at Lord's anyway. That being said, the atmosphere on days 4 and 5 were so incredibly different to day 1, which was very posh and restrained. Found that quite interesting.

With regards to the cricket, England were just at India all the time. Laxman's wicket was just unbelievably disappointing, but you've come to expect that from him unfortunately. Sachin was bogged down so it was only a matter of time before he went. All of England's bowlers were relentless, and so India couldn't afford to play any loose shots really, and they just played too many. Dravid, Laxman, Dhoni and Harbhajan (obviously) just threw it away with loose pokes or pulls.

Thought Raina was quite good actually. Looked very solid and was scoring freely. Really made Sachin (who tbf had a fever) look quite amateur, as he struggled to rotate the strike whereas Raina was pinching singles very easily.

All up attended 3 days of the test match. Obviously would have rathered a better performance from India, but it was a good test I thought. Even at tea the draw was still a possibility. Dhoni's wicket was just massive really, and so it was exciting until around after tea, which is all you can ask for.

Next stop: attending day 1 of Trent Bridge on Friday.

Was an awesome match, I managed to get there on Sunday, and that was also a fantastic atmosphere and really exciting cricket. I hope that the whole series is going to be like this!

 

[hazsa19]

Day 5 was incredible. The line when I arrived at 8:40am was absolutely massive. Weird too because people who arrived at 11:30am still got a ticket anyway haha, but everyone was so eager to make sure they got a ticket they didn't want to take any risks. Only being £20 obviously brought in the crowd!

It was a terrific atmosphere, with many Indian cricket fans there as well as many English. Was a nice split. Basically everyone I spoke to, no matter who they supported, wanted a Sachin century. Incredible. If there is one thing I've learned, the English cricket fans in general are the most sporting in the world. Loved chatting to heaps of them who were sitting around me, and on many occasions I saw dads telling their kids to stand up and cheer Dravid or Tendulkar because it was the right thing to do. Truly a different cricket culture, at Lord's anyway. That being said, the atmosphere on days 4 and 5 were so incredibly different to day 1, which was very posh and restrained. Found that quite interesting.

With regards to the cricket, England were just at India all the time. Laxman's wicket was just unbelievably disappointing, but you've come to expect that from him unfortunately. Sachin was bogged down so it was only a matter of time before he went. All of England's bowlers were relentless, and so India couldn't afford to play any loose shots really, and they just played too many. Dravid, Laxman, Dhoni and Harbhajan (obviously) just threw it away with loose pokes or pulls.

Thought Raina was quite good actually. Looked very solid and was scoring freely. Really made Sachin (who tbf had a fever) look quite amateur, as he struggled to rotate the strike whereas Raina was pinching singles very easily.

All up attended 3 days of the test match. Obviously would have rathered a better performance from India, but it was a good test I thought. Even at tea the draw was still a possibility. Dhoni's wicket was just massive really, and so it was exciting until around after tea, which is all you can ask for.

Next stop: attending day 1 of Trent Bridge on Friday.

Lol i got there at 10.30 and was in by 11.15. Great to see the enthusiasm for Test Cricket.

It was a wonderful day, atmosphere was unique. Large cheers for both teams and plent of appreciation for good cricket.

I'll admit now that I didn't 'want' a Sachin century. If India were going to draw I wanted it to be because of a Sachin hundred, not Dravid or Laxman or Raina. When we got his wicket that was the biggest cheer of the day. He also rightly got the two largest ovations of the day.

About half an hour after the end of play, me and my mate got stuck in a bit of a melee behind the pavillion, because Sachin was 'apparently' due to come out. In the 20 minutes it took for us to get through he never appeared. It was crazy. I suddenly realised the sort of pressure and expectation he has to deal with every day, and this was in England! The whole concept was completely foreign to me.

 

[hazsa19]

It worries me that Strauss dropped two. We'll see how it goes, I suppose.

Apart from the dropped catches we were at our usual standard imo, which is streets ahead of the Indians.

The KP overthrow would have been tight if he'd hit, Broads reaction was unnecessary.

 

[GIMH]

It was great to see our bowlers hunting as a pack once more - probably for the first time this summer. Maybe those early wickets got Jimmy's confidence up & running again. Who knows. But he was the best he's been since the Ashes. Obviously Broad's performance was a huge plus. Let's hope it represents a genuine step up rather than another occasional like the Oval and Durban in 2009.

A word of warning. This was the 6th time since 1979 that India have lost the first test over here. On the other five, that was the only test that they lost in the series, so there's a fair bit of previous in terms of improving after a poor start. Bring on Trent Bridge though.

On the other hand though, when did we last go on to lose a series that we led? Can't remember.

We've drawn a few, obviously.

Again, if the bolded part of my post is what gave you that idea, you might wanna invest in said dictionaries..

Celebrating a victory and labelling your team the best in the world does not fit those definitions.

It was a terrific atmosphere, with many Indian cricket fans there as well as many English. Was a nice split. Basically everyone I spoke to, no matter who they supported, wanted a Sachin century. Incredible. If there is one thing I've learned, the English cricket fans in general are the most sporting in the world. Loved chatting to heaps of them who were sitting around me, and on many occasions I saw dads telling their kids to stand up and cheer Dravid or Tendulkar because it was the right thing to do. Truly a different cricket culture, at Lord's anyway. That being said, the atmosphere on days 4 and 5 were so incredibly different to day 1, which was very posh and restrained. Found that quite interesting.

Awful parenting. I'd ground my kids for a year if they so much as applauded a shot from those ****s