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***Official England in India***

Barney Rubble

International Coach
Diabolical from England today. No excuse for conceding 380 on any wicket, with any size boundaries, IMO. Worried about our top order's inability to get a start in ODI cricket, too.
 

Jungle Jumbo

International Vice-Captain
Haha, love the Indian presentation ceremonies. Yuvraj on a motorbike; Dhoni on a motorbike; blokes with aviators; oversized cardboard keys; people everywhere. Superb.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Harsh on Bopara for just a wrong call. It was in front of the wicket and Kevin also could say no. That was just a mixup. I think he should retain his place instead of Shah who looked completely clueless.
Pretty much what I was going to say.

Agreed with TT that his 50 doesn't prove a lot in the circumstances, but there are those who'd criticise him if he was out for single figures even at that stage of the game.

Can't avoid the conclusion that our top 3 are the worst from the proper test countries. By some distance.
 

biased indian

International Coach
Haha, love the Indian presentation ceremonies. Yuvraj on a motorbike; Dhoni on a motorbike; blokes with aviators; oversized cardboard keys; people everywhere. Superb.
Thtas what happen when you have too many sponsors

you have to watch the progrmmes in tv after the match is over..ther will be sponsor to show you everthing

seperate sponsor for runout,six, fours ,wickets ,catch,fifties hundreds...you name it and you will get a sponsors
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
The game was dead by the time I got up and we were 117-5. Pietersen would have had to have batted all the way to the end for it to have even been close.

I'd prefer Bopara to bat at three instead of Shah - I can only see one making a hundred at the moment.
Thing is that KP's been very public in his support for Shah and obv Bopara isn't his personal fave after today. I'm not overly thrilled about selection being dependent on the skipper's ego, but that's the way of things right now.
 

Precambrian

Banned
Thtas what happen when you have too many sponsors

you have to watch the progrmmes in tv after the match is over..ther will be sponsor to show you everthing

seperate sponsor for runout,six, fours ,wickets ,catch,fifties hundreds...you name it and you will get a sponsors
Ever since the Sydney test, they also have this "XXX(Sponsor name) Spirit of Cricket Award".:laugh:

Yuvraj was featured in that segment, two clips showing him hitting fours with a bad back. :wacko:
 

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
Here's a wrap for both sides after England's horrendous performance here.

Rajkot is not SCG, Lords or even Kingsmead or Basin Reserve. Performances here should be taken with a pinch of salt. The Indians were erroneously sent in to bat on what Indians would call a 'patta' wicket, or English fans would claim was ripped off the M5 Motorway. The small size of the ground and the proximity of the boundary ropes was another factor. Yes, the Indians gobbled up England's superior bowling attack, but come to another ground, and the result will be different.

Matt Prior is a walking wicket. He can't get you a good innings at the top of the order, unless a high of 14 in 17 deliveries is a good innings. He doesn't have the temperament, the strokes or the power to be anywhere above eight in the order. Alastair Cook missed out, and we wonder why. His early dismissal triggered several, and the match was over. Cook is clearly a far better batsman than any of the top three, and that should be thought about.

The Indians batted superbly to score 387, but the bowling was sub-par, and the way Dhoni handled the bowlers was questionable. Your top bowler gets only seven overs with three wickets, and at a time when they could have had crushed the lower order of England, they instead bowled Sehwag for nine overs. We don't know what he can achieve by this. Sehwag is a proven failure with the ball and shouldn't have got more than the three regulation overs for a part-timer in 50. He's bowled nine excessively costly overs, gave the English lower order a lifeline, and it remains to be seen if it will affect his batting. Look, he's struggling to keep a batting average over 40, and then you make a mockery of him by bowling him?

Flintoff bowled very well initially, and should have bowled out at a stretch. He was the only one keeping the rampaging Indian top order in check. He bowled fast, on the spot, and didn't look like wearing out. His batting, though, was a disappointment, but he got his chances. Samit Patel was used well as the partnership-breaker, getting rid of both the openers in quick succession, momentarily stalling the scoring rate. India could use someone like him, a batsman bowling a steady line to support, not a pies dished out by frontline batsmen that do nothing.

They have one in Yusuf Pathan. We've seen him in action in domestic OD matches, and at the (more or less) top of the rung, in the Challenger series, he's looked a thinking bowler. He's been hard to score off and takes a few risks, but he's one bowler who'll play for the team- unlike the part-timers, who are so weak the team has to play for them. But instead, we find a hidden motive- the Indian captain doesn't rate Yusuf at all. After three overs went for over thirty with Pietersen running wild, he was taken off, but when he could recover later on with new batsmen at the crease, if not have the main bowlers back, Dhoni used the mediocre Sehwag again. And then we wonder how the Indians lose the plot when in a good spot.

Ravi Bopara, Ravi Bopara! He's done well to exploit the weakness of the Indian bowling unit, smashing a few sixes and running really hard between wickets. Unfortunately, this running between wickets is itself questionable, especially when he ran out the in-form Pietersen. Stuart Broad played a meaningful chunk at the bottom of the order, and that's something the Indians can think about- get runs out of their bottom five. As usual, he was clean, correct and a strong hitter. Otherwise, there was nothing special about a dreadful England performance.

Is this a return to form of Yuvraj Singh? Many believe so. He's hit so many sixes, one of them was actually a mis-cue that took an edge and went straight out. This time, he didn't concentrate on smashing out Chris Broad Jr (as payback again for Daddy Match Ref's actions?), but got after everyone. One look at his innings suggests this was a sensible one, reminiscent of his form before the ill-fated Australia tour. Then again, this is Rajkot, and Rajkot is not the whole world.

The unsung hero, and a more deserving MOM, was Zaheer Khan. On a pitch that isn't going to give anything to the bowlers, he kept it steady, though slow, and got three wickets. Nowhere did he bowl anything loose, and that got the edges off tentative strokes, which was not surprising, given a nearly impossible total for England to chase. He had good support from Munaf and RP Singh. The fielding was largely good, but it's shocking to see RP Singh's fielding regress so much- it's almost as bad as Munaf's!

The Indian team totally outclassed an England team that questioned their adaptability from Tests to ODIs, but have been found wanting in adapting to Indian conditions, and then big match conditions. However, they had it easy, and may have won it before England walked out to bat. Would they win if they were defending a total of 290? With this kind of bowling performance, no way!
 

Precambrian

Banned
I agree on the whole except with:

1. Sehwag being called mediocre - We saw him getting a test fifer not long ago, and while he's not the best finger-spinner going around, he is certainly good to bowl 10 overs in an ODI, and certainly better than what I saw of Yusuf Pathan. You said Rajkot was a small ground. Precisely why he was hit for s many runs, many of them cleared the boundary by miles, but some of them by just, and would have been catches in any other big ground.

2. A reason for Dhoni not resorting to his main bowlers was that the ball had become rough and the seam bowlers could not find the same movement as before. Secondly, the pitch was slowing up and the ball was also getting rough, and that stage, especially when the lower order English batsmen (purely by batting position, not by calibre), were hitting out, and giving some pace on it would have played into their hands. Obviously they are much better at hitting out off pacers than spinners.

3. While Zaheer did his share of stuff, I think he was letoff by an English top-order (again purely by batting position). They gave him too much respect, and completely looked happy with defending him or nudging him to fine leg and take a single. Noone dared to take out the faster bowlers, and I suspect had they, his figures would have surely looked worse. Munaf did a better job with line and length. Also Zaheer's scalp of Flintoff was a farce, as the ball pitched miles outside leg stump.

4. This could have been a batsmans paradise, however certainly not a 350+ wicket. And Yuvraj deserves every praise he gets due to hanging in there despite his back problem and then later cutting loose, and never letting the innings lose the momentum that the openers gave them. He might have mistimed some shots, but the others were pure delight and so crushing to the bowlers' egos. And also remember he didn't play the bowler, rather the ball, and showed that when Fred Flintoff came in for his final spell, and was carted for 34 runs in 2 overs as compared to 30odd he gave in 8 overs previous to it.

5. Pathan badly used by Dhoni? I disagree. Pathan was promoted ahead of Dhoni in the batting order which in itself is a huge encouragement, for it showed the faith of the captain in him, though he failed miserably. And in his first over he was carted for a six and gave 10 runs, but still was given another chance, which also failed. Pathan was introduced ahead of Bhajji also, which again shows the confidence in him. And despite the battering he got in early, he was again brought in at the end, when he got a wicket purely due to umpiring error.

6. One last point. Regarding RP Singh's bowling. He looked absolutely out of place in the Indian side there today. Completely lacking match practise, struggled to get his rhythm, line and length. Was carted. And was even worse in the field, where he misfielded atleast two boundaries. Guilty to a large extent of letting England get to a 200+ score.
 
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