***Official*** England in India

[centurymaker]

if gambhir ran out a partner this time again, i'd
and he'd

 

[smash84]

He's fizzing at the bung hole due to an undiagnosed medical issue ftr.

hemorrhoid?

 

[Prince EWS]

hemorrhoid?

Yeah we reached a consensus on Chawla's bowling a few pages ago.

 

[Teja.]

Is this the best possible pitch if desperate for an Indian win?

Adelaide/Colombo flat would make it a draw, turning pitch has demonstrably been favoring an English win, Dinda and Sharma being our seamers, a green is out of the question.

I know it's a bad test wicket as such but is it the best possible wicket from an Indian POV?

 

[centurymaker]

Is this the best possible pitch if desperate for an Indian win?

Adelaide/Colombo flat would make it a draw, turning pitch has demonstrably been favoring an English win, Dinda and Sharma being our seamers, a green is out of the question.

I know it's a bad test wicket as such but is it the best possible wicket from an Indian POV?

wait till the end of the day's play tomorrow. i'm sure we will have found out by then.

does anyone think india made a serious mistake by going in with just ishant and not dinda as well? (dinda was next in line to be picked)

 

[Prince EWS]

Is this the best possible pitch if desperate for an Indian win?

Adelaide/Colombo flat would make it a draw, turning pitch has demonstrably been favoring an English win, Dinda and Sharma being our seamers, a green is out of the question.

I know it's a bad test wicket as such but is it the best possible wicket from an Indian POV?

Yeah you could definitely make that argument. It's certainly the most alien pitch from an England point of view. They prepared themselves for turners and you do get the odd turner in English county cricket (and presumably league cricket too, not that I've seen it), but this isn't something I reckon any of them would have had much exposure to at all. The pitch might as well be from Mars. Sehwag has made a career out of making these sort of pitches look like roads and the other batsmen (certainly Tendulkar, but probably all the other bats too barring perhaps Kohli) would have some experience on them too and an idea of how to build an innings, which gives India a real advantage that the others pitches didn't.

India do have a few problems - they lost the toss, they picked the wrong attack, the pitch will make the game progress at snail's pace and of course England just have a better side than them overall too - but if they wanted to give themselves the biggest chance of winning then you could definitely argue that preparing a dog track like this was in their best interests.

 

[harsh.ag]

Is this the best possible pitch if desperate for an Indian win?

Adelaide/Colombo flat would make it a draw, turning pitch has demonstrably been favoring an English win, Dinda and Sharma being our seamers, a green is out of the question.

I know it's a bad test wicket as such but is it the best possible wicket from an Indian POV?

I think so. I know that is a sad fact if true, but it might be true. This track does minimize the English bowling superiority, and emphasizes the Indian batting experience. Logic says that India should be able to build a huge score on this pitch, something like 450. But logic has a funny way of coming apart in test matches. If India's batting crumbles on this pitch, it will be a testament to how the best laid plans can go wrong, and also of how badly our batsman are out of form/depth.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Hope Bell has been told he has one innings left or he's out of the Test side. Been utterly pathetic. Not good enough to go into any tough series with him constantly giving his wicket away like a complete prick.

 

[marc71178]

And 3-1 could really result in the **** hitting the fan.

Kohli going to run into the crowd, Inzy-style?

 

[Cevno]

It's more the true bounce than Spin, that is troubling the Indian batsmen here who like to get on the front foot.

Don't get why Dhoni wanted Turn and bounce as he did IIRC. Uneven bounce/Crumbling wicket suits India best, failing which a low bounce wicket.

Should just shift the third test to Delhi, imo.

Slow, low crumbling wicket. Perfect.

Said this during the Mumbai test match.

Yeah, this track you could argue suits India but still need to see how much it deteriorates. Also more spin straight from the off would have been better, rather than making toss very important and also favoring the seamers during day 1.

 

[shankar]

Whether England can find some reverse swing here will be crucial. If they do, it'll be game over for India.

 

[Cevno]

Is this the best possible pitch if desperate for an Indian win?

Adelaide/Colombo flat would make it a draw, turning pitch has demonstrably been favoring an English win, Dinda and Sharma being our seamers, a green is out of the question.

I know it's a bad test wicket as such but is it the best possible wicket from an Indian POV?

Don't think so.... Was the true bounce alongside the turn which troubled India in Mumbai. Plus the spinners they picked weren't as suited as the quicker English bowlers in terms of bowling there.

 

[Viscount Tom]

Tbh Bell's not really scored all that often when the pressure is on tbh.

 

[Spikey]

Viscount Tom expressing a brave opinion

 

[Viscount Tom]

Not really the bloke since he returned to the England side in 09 has scored really nly 1 or 2 under pressure big knocks, against the Saffers in the start of 2010 aside from that I can't recall any.

Son of Coco had it kind of right when he said "...Bell plunders when anyone decent disappears" disagree with him in the Prior bit of the post he made though.

 

[Prince EWS]

 

[Howe_zat]

His innings at Trent Bridge last year was quite vital. It seems less important in hindsight because England smashed that game, but that was only after Bell had played that knock, before it we were struggling. In general you can say he was England's best batsman during our winning streak because of the number of different situations he got a ton from.

No doubt he's regressed hugely this year though. It's curious because before he was originally dropped in 09 he didn't seem to have a problem against spin or playing in Asia - at least he was no worse in that regard than with anything else. He was England's best batsman on the tour to Pakistan in 2005/6 and Sri Lanka in 2007/8.

 

[amanuensis]

His innings at Trent Bridge last year was quite vital. It seems less important in hindsight because England smashed that game, but that was only after Bell had played that knock, before it we were struggling. In general you can say he was England's best batsman during our winning streak because of the number of different situations he got a ton from.

No doubt he's regressed hugely this year though. It's curious because before he was originally dropped in 09 he didn't seem to have a problem against spin or playing in Asia - at least he was no worse in that regard than with anything else. He was England's best batsman on the tour to Pakistan in 2005/6 and Sri Lanka in 2007/8.

He's always struggled in India.

 

[Furball]

India isn't Asia.

 

[Viscount Tom]

India isn't Asia.

The problem with this post is that you genuinely think it isn't.