2nd Semi Final - Australia v India (26th March)

[cnerd123]

It was highly unlikely though. As good a finisher as Dhoni is, he needs someone to setup the chase, he can't do both. Once Dhawan, Kohli and Rohit got out, no one that had setup a chase before were left. Rahane proved not good enough.

That is not a ****ing excuse.

You don't walk out to bat, as captain of your Country, at a ****ing World Cup Semi Final in a difficult situation and go "beh **** it, too hard. Lets just play out the overs"

ITS A ****ING WORLD CUP SEMI FINAL

SHOW SOME FIGHT

zzz tired of everyone defending Dhoni here. You can't have any excuse for not trying. It's absolutely disgraceful.

 

[Prince EWS]

Yeah ***** knows all about the 'less embarrassing loss' fallacy as a Bangladesh fan. Kevin O'Brien single-handedly showed why associates should never think like that in WC games, let alone defending champions.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Ftr I just think Dhoni got the calculation wrong and left the slog too late because in his head he had zero faith in Ashwin and Jadeja. Terrible innings but I don't think it was a chanderpaul knock.

 

[Shri]

It looked like they were satisfied to be KO'd at the semis tbh. Like getting to that point was a victory in itself. The rest of us thought that way but he shouldn't have.

 

[cnerd123]

Yea I don't think there is any calculation error. MSD deliberately went at the pace he did and knew what the RRR was. If he had any intent or desire to win he would have started going hard earlier. It's not like he misread some D/L sheets or forgot someone had overs in hand or some **** like that. No way is letting the RRR balloon up to 15 a mistake. He just didn't try. He gave up.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Listen, I think he played to save his home from being pelted with stones.

He could have gone for the big shots, gotten dismissed for **** all, and the idiots at Times Now would have pilloried him for throwing it away.

 

[morgieb]

See Davey, you don't need to hit it in the air to score runs fast!

 

[morgieb]

I guess Warner earned the right to be aggressive.

 

[cnerd123]

You got the wrong thread

 

[morgieb]

You got the wrong thread

Whoops.

 

[Valer]

Yea I don't think there is any calculation error. MSD deliberately went at the pace he did and knew what the RRR was. If he had any intent or desire to win he would have started going hard earlier. It's not like he misread some D/L sheets or forgot someone had overs in hand or some **** like that. No way is letting the RRR balloon up to 15 a mistake. He just didn't try. He gave up.

Its not about not "trying". A more reasonable and certainly more charitable explanation is he felt his chances of going hard and surviving were lower than Australia choking. I feel like blaming MSD entirely for the balloon is not giving enough credit to the Australian bowling.

 

[cnerd123]

I'm not blaming MSD for the loss.

I am criticising his approach.

Aus bowled well but he did't try hard enough. He batted as though he was content with playing out the overs and taking the loss, or as though he genuinely felt he could somehow bash a 100 off the final 6 on his own.

 

[Valer]

I'm not blaming MSD for the loss.

I am criticising his approach.

Aus bowled well but he did't try hard enough. He batted as though he was content with playing out the overs and taking the loss, or as though he genuinely felt he could somehow bash a 100 off the final 6 on his own.

??? It's not about trying, its about optimal methods. I just suggested an alternate explanation, that is he thought it it was more likely that Australia would choke than he could get the runs by pushing hard.

 

[cnerd123]

Nah that's bizarre thinking too. India needed 8 RPO. They weren't going to make the Aussie bowlers panic by sitting back and nudging it about and letting them find their rhythm. You want to unsettle a bowling attack you go at them hard. You can only induce panic by playing it safe if you are chasing a low score.

 

[Swingpanzee]

Yeah i'm with ***** here. It might seem like a little thing and people may just say Dhoni wasn't likely to win it for India anyways but to me such efforts define you as a cricketer just as a much (perhaps a tad more) as the final results do. For example NZ had a poor game today but credit to them they still put in 100% while fielding. The way they saved the boundary in that penultimate over when 3 runs or so were needed really made me proud, showed that they weren't willing to give up and just let the ball roll on to the boundary.

MSD's innings was just really poor. No intent to even remotely try to win the game, just a mere effort to save face. His run-out was just sad, it was almost like he just wanted to get over with it. Not something you'd expect to see from the captain.

 

[anil1405]

Dhoni admitting that he had too much to do when he came in to bat was surely not right and neither was his approach in that innings.

Another thing that is pretty evident is we don't have depth in batting to do well against quality sides. Wondering who would be in line for ODIs if the management decide to make certain changes?

 

[Pratters]

That is not a ****ing excuse.

You don't walk out to bat, as captain of your Country, at a ****ing World Cup Semi Final in a difficult situation and go "beh **** it, too hard. Lets just play out the overs"

ITS A ****ING WORLD CUP SEMI FINAL

SHOW SOME FIGHT

zzz tired of everyone defending Dhoni here. You can't have any excuse for not trying. It's absolutely disgraceful.

But Dhoni didn't do that. He didn't say, oh, look we can't win, for sure. He timed the chase wrong. Left it too late. It shouldn't have happened, and the attack should have come earlier, but cricketing errors happen.

 

[Pratters]

Dhoni admitting that he had too much to do when he came in to bat was surely not right

I watched that press conference. He had a lot to do. That's a fact. This is just making a mountain out of a molehill, jeez.

 

[anil1405]

I watched that press conference. He had a lot to do. That's a fact. This is just making a mountain out of a molehill, jeez.

Making a mountain out of a molehill is blaming Anushka for the loss, or burning TV sets or #shameinSydney.

No one here is doing that. We are just pointing out some obvious facts that Dhoni could've tried and gone down rather than just falling flat. And neither did I like him admitting that he had too much to do in presentation as this usually isn't a sign of a fighting team.

 

[Pratters]

And neither did I like him admitting that he had too much to do in presentation as this usually isn't a sign of a fighting team.

He had a lot to do and he said that. That doesn't mean the team was not a fighting one. That's why it is a mountain out of a mole hill. You are equating his leaving it too late to lack of fighting, which isn't true. The Indian team has fought pretty well this whole tournament. Even in this game, to pull back Australia to less than 330 when they looked like they would make 360/370 was definitely what a fighting team would do.