***Official*** England in India

[Barney Rubble]

35.0001%

Adding up to 135.0001%......

 

[cricketboy29]

I'd admire anyone who dareth maketh a call on this match, I'd say it's very very difficult to call. My gut says we'll do what we did, last time, defend for two sessions and then mayhap have a go in the last session.

A lot hinges on Dravid as always

 

[tooextracool]

He's bowled far better than his average suggests.

Let us not forget that the Indians are quite brilliant players of spin, even if they are out of form.

i dont think so to be honest. hes done a decent job in that hes generally managed to tie an end up but if anyone believes that he is test class, they're obviously just not watching. do you think that he would have taken more wickets bowling the way he did against other teams? i doubt it
further both giles and richard dawson came out with much better series averages last time around, and to be honest the pitches then were probably just as flat as the ones in this series.

 

[tooextracool]

That was brilliant. I personally feel Dravid should have opened.

why would you risk your best batsman on whom the entire game rests on tomorrow?

 

[Jono]

Sachin... shoulder injury? When the hell did this happen?

God damn it!

 

[RolledOver]

Sachin is now on his way out, i think he will struggle till the 2007, and will himself retire immidiately after the WC.

 

[maxpower]

Sachin is now on his way out, i think he will struggle till the 2007, and will himself retire immidiately after the WC.

He'd last a bit longer if he drops some weight, if not end is near. Also Shewag needs to drop some weight real fast.

 

[Sanz]

India win = 50% chance
England win = 50 % chance.

There wont be any draw today. It will be either 1-1 or 2-0, whatever be the case India gets to keep the trophy as the last winner of Ind-Eng test series

 

[tooextracool]

India win = 50% chance
England win = 50 % chance.

There wont be any draw today. It will be either 1-1 or 2-0, whatever be the case India gets to keep the trophy as the last winner of Ind-Eng test series

honestly i'd be extremely surprised if india went for the win today. firstly both tendulkar and sehwag arent going to be completely fit so they are going to be weary about that. Further it is a very slow wicket and runs are not going to be all that easy(at least based on what we saw yesterday), and lets not forget that with india 1-0 they dont really need the victory anyways, so they are quite unlikely to take the risk of playing aggresively.

 

[Autobahn]

The key batsmen for England to get out is Dravid, if they can get him out quickly and cheaply then england will have a real chance.

 

[Sanz]

It's not a question of whether they are going for win or not, If they survive 90 overs, they will win. I cant imagine a team which has 4-5 attacking batsmen in Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Jaffer playing to draw the game. They simple cant. Only person who can do that is Rahul and I dont think he can do it alone.

 

[alternative]

It's not a question of whether they are going for win or not, If they survive 90 overs, they will win. I cant imagine a team which has 4-5 attacking batsmen in Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Jaffer playing to draw the game. They simple cant. Only person who can do that is Rahul and I dont think he can do it alone.

anything can still happen, just having a all class batsmen is not going to get india anywhere.. if the survive the first session, i would expect india to win.. on that note, England will be upbeat about the early morning conditions.. so it all just depends, but sanz i must say india are favourites rite now..

 

[Autobahn]

It's not a question of whether they are going for win or not, If they survive 90 overs, they will win. I cant imagine a team which has 4-5 attacking batsmen in Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Jaffer playing to draw the game. They simple cant. Only person who can do that is Rahul and I dont think he can do it alone.

And that's a couple of quick early wickets will force India to defend with agressive players, which is always a challenge.

 

[tooextracool]

It's not a question of whether they are going for win or not, If they survive 90 overs, they will win. I cant imagine a team which has 4-5 attacking batsmen in Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Jaffer playing to draw the game. They simple cant. Only person who can do that is Rahul and I dont think he can do it alone.

i dont know if Jaffer is aggressive. thus far in his career, hes been scoring at the same rate as Dravid.
As i mentioned earlier, both Tendulkar and Sehwag are not just suffering from injuries but also form lack of form and hence its not only quite likely that tendulkar at least will try to block it and get in rather than score quickly, and also all the players around these 2 will know that they cant afford to take too many risks with such a fragile batting lineup. Most importantly however, one must remember that even Dhoni realised that he had to curb his aggressive instincts in the first innings if he wanted to score some runs, so i really doubt we'll see that him try to go after the bowling this time around. India dont have much to gain but everything to lose tomorrow.

 

[Sanz]

And if English bowlers get those early wickets, they will win.

 

[Sanz]

It's not about going after the bowling but playing your shots when you can which Dhoni, Yuvraj, Sachin, Jaffer and Sehwag will do and Dravid will not.

 

[aussie]

Happy birthday, Aussie.

How many candles on the loaf?

17 yesterday..

 

[tooextracool]

It's not about going after the bowling but playing your shots when you can which Dhoni, Yuvraj, Sachin, Jaffer and Sehwag will do and Dravid will not.

well all of them have failed to score quickly all series so i really dont see how thats going to change, especially when they dont need to win the game.

 

[alternative]

17 yesterday..

happy belated wishes..

 

[aussie]

god as a cricket fan i feel sorry for Tendulkar, i am not sure if we can say if he has lost it but if you look at his performances in tests & ODI's since 2002 he has been very inconsistent in test while being superb in ODI's:

Off my head:

2002: Tests: Starting from the tests in WI when Pedro Collins had him all sorts of trouble during the tests, he came over here & had an inconsistent test series i only remember that 186 he scored in one of the test. He was home to the WI & i remember him scoring a match-saving 170 odd in Kolkatta, but overall don't think he was that consistent.

ODI's: During the natwest series and the ODI in the caribbean he did fairly well & the CT in SRI, while he didn't play in the 7 ODI's vs WI.

2003, Tests: failed their along with most of the Indian bastmen except Sehwag
ODI, cant remember what happened but i'm guessing he didn't do much because i cant remember NZ came to India and i remember watching him score a boring 50 in Mohali & he went to Australia & failed pretty scoring that un-sachin like double in Sydney.

ODI's: Was superb in the WC, Superb during the TVS Cup.

2004, Tests: Incositent tour of Pakistan only that 194 in Multan, then he had that shoulder injury which messed him up when Australia were their, then he made his highest test score in Bangladesh

2004, ODI's: Had a decent VB series, did faily well in the ODI's in PAK, had a good Asia cup, i think he did well in the ODI's vs BAN but that irrelevant to an extent.

2005, Tests: Had a fair test series vs Pakistan, didn't do much when SA came to India, did fairly well in the test vs SRI i remember watching part of his innings in Chennai when he was hitting Mural & Vaas around.

2005, ODI's: Incosistent in the ODI i remember him scoring just a century as his only significant score, had a very good OD series vs SRI, but followed that up with a poor one vs SA.

2006, Test: Average test series vs PAK, poor vs ENG so far
2006, ODI's: Pretty good vs PAK

So we can see that he has really declined in his consistency has a batsman since 2002 in test while his ODI has still remained very good. So i dont know if he has really lost it totally but i dont think we will ever see the Sachin of before, especially the one that was so destructive vs Australia in 98 (now that was vintage Tendulkar word out).