1st Semi Final - India v New Zealand

[trundler]

How good that Santner was brought in out of nowhere almost exactly 4 years ago, has been allowed to play through basically an entire WC cycle and is now coming up trumps exactly when you’d want him to. Almost feels like good planning.

Howsie to comment

 

[wrongun]

great they're gonna change the 2023 format so the semi finals are best out of 3

Brilliant. We would watch Kohli fail twice then?

 

[Spikey]

old man ian smith trying to blame the youth when it's the old indian players that ****ed it up

 

[Contra]

Oh btw can we find whoever it was that said the weather was suppose to be worse today than it was yesterday? I haven't used my bat in a long long time...

 

[slippy888]

Why so bad batting display today Kuldeep

 

[King Pietersen]

Eww, eww, eww. What was that shot from Dhoni? Bolt upright waving his arms at it into the off-side. So ugly, hate watching him bat.

 

[Jezroy]

Well well well. This is so good. Still got some work to do, but gee I’m glad I stuck up for Ross and Kane. This is unbelievable.

 

[Uppercut]

Yeah with Ferguson and Boult still in the stands and only the tail behind you, you couldn't just let them bowl at you. It's not ideal but then neither is being 5/90.

True but they probably should have pushed a few more down the ground before then. Not enough 1s and 2s.

 

[_Ed_]

Where did CM Punk go?

 

[stephen]

The thing I'm loving is everyone who was complaining about Williamson and Taylor's innings yesterday is now tasting it hard.

 

[Meridio]

Hmmm why we taking Santa off

 

[Jezroy]

Where did CM Punk go?

He’ll come back if New Zealand lose.

 

[Jezroy]

The thing I'm loving is everyone who was complaining about Williamson and Taylor's innings yesterday is now tasting it hard.

This feels so good.

 

[cnerd123]

India HAS THE PLAYERS, they just need to be smart about how they approach things and BE FLEXIBLE as KOHLI HIMSELF keeps saying.

India has attacking players batting time and guys who bat time coming in with the RR high. Such a situation will lead to the kind of situations India has routinely found themselves in for a LONG TIME. We need a guy like McCulllum or Jason Roy at the top of we don't have Dhawan. Also the way they have used Jadeja's batting is something I've bad a problem with for a long long time. The man can be used as a pinch hitter at the top of the order! He's not as good lower down the order as a Pandya, should have been allowed to bat slighly up the order.

India really need to sit down and be flexible with their batting line up, if the top order doesn't fire we're pretty much losing every time as the skills of the players don't match the situation of the time they come into bat. It's sad but it is what it is.

The side needs more experience winning without Kohli, Rohit and MSD doing all the work too

We came into a WC game relying on Lokesh Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Dinesh Karthik and Hardik Pandya to rebuild from losing Rohit and Kohli inside the first 3 overs. Do these three have the skills, or more importantly, the experience to do this? Lokesh nicked off not long after, so it's down to three players who did not feature in India's ODI middle-order plans leading up to this tournament. We had Rayudu in the middle order for the last 4 years and he's not in the country. Jadhav rebuilt when we lost early wickets vs Afghanistan, but he's not in the XI. It's just terrible team management.

Add to that MSD, the most experience man in the team, hiding down at 7 instead of walking in at 4 to marshall the chase. By the time he's come in, the game is basically done.

We've seen all this and complained about this all the time, and it's fitting that this is how the side goes out of the tournament. Rohit and Kohli nick off in a low run chase, and we have no-one left to see it off. TBF Karthik was out to a stunning catch, and Pant and Pandya tried their best, but you're not going to be World Champions if your batting relies on 2 men to win a runchase.

 

[trundler]

Neesham also making me taste it.

 

[Flem274*]

skygo cant handle this

 

[veganbob]

Dhoni will have to play his best ever innings to win this hope not!!!

 

[slippy888]

Jaddu wow

 

[trundler]

That's ****ing incredible. Love it.

 

[cnerd123]

That's what got the Pant wicket. 3 straight ones and the 4th one wide and going away. Desperate slog and voila.

isn't fingerspin beautiful?