***Official*** England in India

[luckyeddie]

Hoggy gets a bike.

He's happily married to Sarah, so I don't think he wants a girlfriend.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Tendulkar (he should be dropped but he won't).

 

[Jamee999]

England Second Test:

AJ Strauss
AN Cook
IR Bell
KP Pietersen (If he's injured, OA Shah to swap positions with PD Collingwood)
A Flintoff*
PD Collingwood (If KP Pietersen's injured, bats at 4, OA Shah bats at 6)
GO Jones+
LE Plunkett
MJ Hoggard
SJ Harmison
MS Panesar

12th Man: ID Blackwell

EDIT: I'm an idiot.

 

[irfan]

A Habib??

 

[BoyBrumby]

England Second Test:

AJ Strauss
AN Cook
IR Bell
KP Pietersen (If he's injured, A Habib to swap positions with PD Collingwood)
A Flintoff*
PD Collingwood (If KP Pietersen's injured, bats at 4, A Habib bats at 6)
GO Jones+
LE Plunkett
MJ Hoggard
SJ Harmison
MS Panesar

12th Man: ID Blackwell

Big call. Must be 7 years since he played for us!

 

[honestbharani]

Harder said than done, but the Indian batsmen should bat as if it's the 1st innings until somewhere between lunch and tea ... say a RR of 3. If they have less than 3 wickets down at that point, they can consider accelerating and going for the win, especially if Dhoni and Pathan can be promoted.

dude, tell me the lottery numbers for this week...

 

[honestbharani]

Semi interesting fact 1:
The last 4 tests that have gone to a 4th innings played in India have seen a result.
The average 4th innings score in those 4 tests (vs pak and SL) is 234.(Scores ranging from 214 to 249).

Semi Interesting fact 2:
The average length of time in overs it has taken to dismiss those teams in the 4th innings has been 91.2 overs (ranging from 90 to 92.3 overs).

So if the trend continues, expect to see India scrape a draw ...probably with one wicket in hand.

lol, that is a solid reason why you shouldn't back on stats......


India basically would have lost only 1 or 2 real wickets, the rest of them were thrown because they were going for the target. (Basically, they were only giving England a scare, I NEVER seriously thought they could have won the match) But this is one of the most comfortable batting displays on a fifth day wicket in the fourth innings you will ever see, really. The pitch wasn't great for the bowlers alright, but still, they handled the pressure really well.

 

[Jono]

Yeah this, along with Australia's batting on the 5th day against South Africa in Sydney when Smith declared is the easiest batting I've seen on a 5th day wicket in a long time.

I think Swervy got a bit too excited and expected India to crumble. You can talk all you like about Dravid being the key (and he did play beautifully as always) but he at least gave a chance which Geraint dropped. Jaffer was as solid as a rock!

 

[Jono]

I'd go with

Jaffer, Sehwag, Dravid*, Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Pathan, Chawla, Kumble, Munaf/VRV, Sreesanth, Reserves: Laxman, Kaif, RP Singh, Harbhajan

Official squad has been announced. VR Singh and Raina are gone, Yuvraj and Munaf Patel are in.

Squad
Virender Sehwag, Wasim Jaffer, Rahul Dravid (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, VVS Laxman, Mohammad Kaif, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, Rudra Pratap Singh, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel, Piyush Chawla.

 

[BoyBrumby]

India basically would have lost only 1 or 2 real wickets, the rest of them were thrown because they were going for the target. (Basically, they were only giving England a scare, I NEVER seriously thought they could have won the match) But this is one of the most comfortable batting displays on a fifth day wicket in the fourth innings you will ever see, really. The pitch wasn't great for the bowlers alright, but still, they handled the pressure really well.

I bloody did!

Admittedly I am an incredible pessimist when it comes to sport, but when Pathan started to tee-off and again when Fred brought Blackwell back on (& what a genius masterstroke that was...) only for the big-boned twirler to disappear for 16 off the one over I was frankly bricking it.

Moreover, if we hadn't have had a tiny element of doubt in our minds we wouldn't have been "scared" at all. A great counter-attacking effort from India which really livened up what appeared to be the dying embers of a draw.

 

[honestbharani]

sad, but kinda expected. Hopefully Chappell, DRavid and the seniors would have had a chat with both VRV and Raina to make sure they don't get too despondent. I heard that Chappell had a long talk with Gambhir after he was dropped. It might have helped him to understand his standing a bit better. He hit a 100 after that.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Big call. Must be 7 years since he played for us!

I'm not laughing at your post per se, just the fact that Aftab Habib once played for England.

(Unless it was more than once..... )

 

[Autobahn]

In the end things worked out pretty well for India, bulit up a strong base, used some pinch hitters and when they failed the light saw to it that they didn't have to face a tricky 11 over spell, and that will get their spirits up.

Basically they gambled and it nearly paid off.

England on the other hand seemed to lose concentration again on the last day and nearly lost it except for some very good bowling from Flintoff and Harmy. But overall good captaincy from Flintoff (i mean you can't blame him for blackwell's terrible bowling).

But it just shows how badly we miss Jones in the bowling department today since India where able to control the pace of the game.

 

[honestbharani]

England did what I expected them to do. They tried their best and they did better than most of these pessimistic English fans in CW expected them to do, but they didn't win. In fact, during the last session, the only team that COULD have won was India and that was what they tried to do. I still think it was a decision based on optimism and on the fact that it was least expected. Also, it was a good way to get some psychological mileage (if such a thing exists) going into the next test. India has batting worries, a few pleasant and a few not so pleasant, going into the next test. England have a straightforward decision to make... that of dropping Blackwell for Udal or Plunkett or even Anderson. Both teams have come out of this test with some gains, for it is not often that India have batted out the last day to save a test. And today's was no mean feat, even given the flat track... One just needs to look at the no. of last day collapses recently in tests to see why.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I'm not laughing at your post per se, just the fact that Aftab Habib once played for England.

(Unless it was more than once..... )

Twice I believe. Back when we were the worst test team in the world...

 

[Autobahn]

Twice I believe. Back when we were the worst test team in the world...

When we had no coach, Irani came in at 7 and our bowling attack consisted of Giddins, Caddick, Mullally and tuffers

Anyone know how the Mohali wicket plays?

 

[marc71178]

well i dont know about all that, but if you have seen a lot of Sehwag which i have since India were last here, you would have noticed that he has a weakness againts ball coming back into him.

Richard told us about this fault well after it occured...

It's not like the Hayden scenario...

 

[marc71178]

I repeat. Show me where I said street cricket = test cricket.

I showed how your logic is flawed. The example necessarily shows the flaw in your logic regarding Tendulkar just because he has played a lot of years. Players have played more than him, players have played less than him and have had the impact on their bodies. It is not necessary that player x will start under performing just because he has played x number of years. I will give you two other examples from the other end of the spectrum - B.C.Lara, Inzamam ul Haq.

Now if you do not understand it, you are just feigning not to I am afraid.

No you haven't done any of the sort.

All you've done is blindly defend a player by making up more and more bizarre reasons (such as around post 2185 where you attempt to equate the 2 completely different sets of circumstances to ask why a player who debuted 7 years after SRT hasn't had the same problem)

Oh and then a completely unrelated single incident involving a bowler.

 

[marc71178]

England don't need to ball all the 90 overs though as Sivaramakirshnan pointed out, if the time is up.

Actually in the 5th day they have to bowl the 90 regardless of finishing time unless a draw is agreed (7 overs from the end) or the elements end play.

 

[marc71178]

I would have done it a few overs earlier, maybe in the middle of the post lunch session going at a lower required run rate, which would mean taking less risks.

If they went for it with 3 hours to go then there would've been a far bigger danger of being dismissed.

Especially bearing in mind that the England bowlers would've been 2 hours fresher.