***Official*** India in Pakistan

[Arumpnoo]

Not taking anything away from the Indian performance, but the Pakistani batting reeked of complacency. They may be ranked in the top three sides in the world, but that has clearly gone to their head like Pakistani sides of old. Just like Australia yesterday, conceding so many run outs showed that the batsmen were not in the right frame of mind and clearly underestimated the Indian fielding (which has to be given credit to). Examples of this are Mohammad Yousuf's and Shoaib Malik's diabolical run outs. M. Yousuf was just plain stupid to attempt two runs off a misfield, and Shoaib Malik obviously didn't believe that Sreesanth could attempt a half good throw. Similarly batsmen like Afridi and Razzaq just threw their wickets away. The bowling was just as pathetic with every bowler (possibly excepting Mohammed Asif) lacking a killer instinct, and the fielding supposed to be supporting it was comedic. As Bob Woolmer said today, everything went wrong. If Pakistan continue to show this complacency, their days at the top of the ICC rankings are severely numbered.

Agree with your post and Pakistan was thrashed yesterday. Full kudos to Indian team. It was spineless effort by Pakistan but I guess it was one of those days when everything went wrong. On the positive side, the series is turning into a live wire.

 

[Mecnun]

Well played India. Good performance by India top order today who all fired. Good bowling by pathan too. Pak did not hekp themselves with shoddy running. Every time Pak looked like getting a good total with settled batters they manage to get themselves run out but not to take anything away from India they kept it tight and outperformed Pak in all departments.

Series On!!

 

[Mecnun]

Arun Lal is a Tendulkar suck-up-sycophant. L. Siva-whatever is an idiot. Rameez is awful. And Waqar's British accented rotten english is horrible. So that leaves Holding and Dean Jones.

Do we have to listen to this amateurish drivel ? I'm afraid the more money that is poured into cricket the worse the commentators seem to get.

Couldnt agree more. This is the worst commentary team I have had the misfortune to listen to excepting Deano who is probably not that good either bu is made to look 'Axcellent' by the rest.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

What happened to the dark blue Indian unifroms rumoured to be coming back?

 

[pug]

What happened to the dark blue Indian unifroms rumoured to be coming back?

I thought that's only for use outside the subcontinent in colder climates.

 

[adharcric]

Rahul Dravid is as sporting as they come, It was a cheapshot by ignorant Inzi who happens to be one of my fav. player as well. And yes that's why his reactions leaves a sour taste.

Completely agree. Dravid is one of the true displays of class and professionalism in modern cricket. Inzamam is also a class act, which made his reaction all the more shocking. As for the Malik incident, I think Dravid did well to avoid controversy by not appealing if he wasn't sure.

 

[Sanz]

"To be honest I haven't seen the replays," Dravid said after the game. "From my fielding position, it didn't appear as if he had deliberately kicked the ball or obstructed the fielder. So I didn't think there was any need to appeal."

I'm pleased that the Indian captain isn't as confrontational as some of his supporters.

Well I just saw that in the news and there is no doubt that it was deliberate kicked by teh batsman. Those Indian players who saw it wanted to Appeal but somehow they restrained themselves(May be Dravid asked them to, but it wasn't clear from the news clip).

Not that I agree with Dravid's decision, but those who are questioning his spirit should take a hike.

 

[Sanz]

Completely agree. Dravid is one of the true displays of class and professionalism in modern cricket. Inzamam is also a class act, which made his reaction all the more shocking. As for the Malik incident, I think Dravid did well to avoid controversy by not appealing if he wasn't sure.

Exactly..Did you hear his comments on the crowds behaviour incident..Man I am so impressed by him. He is gem of a guy. Even today immidiately after the Malik incident Agarkar was attacked by the crowd and thwy just showed the missile to the umpire and continued with the game. In the first game they showed clippings of Irfan hit on the neck and it seemed like he was bleeding.

 

[honestbharani]

Exactly..Did you hear his comments on the crowds behaviour incident..Man I am so impressed by him. He is gem of a guy. Even today immidiately after the Malik incident Agarkar was attacked by the crowd and thwy just showed the missile to the umpire and continued with the game. In the first game they showed clippings of Irfan hit on the neck and it seemed like he was bleeding.

Irfan was actually hit by a lock thrown at him. IF Irfan is actually the next Flintoff, he would write a book about this 5 years later and say that "I didn't make a big deal out of it, but I probably should have, looking back....." But then again, this one ACTUALLY hit Pathan, unlike what happened with Flintoff...


Anyways, these isolated incidents aside, I think the crowds have been pretty good throughout this series. I still think they could have been better behaved, esp. those few idiots who keep throwing stuff at Indians along the boundary. This didn't happen AT ALL during the series in 2004. And Inzy whining was a shocker as well, I thought he was better than that.


I agree with most guys here that Shoaib Malik seemed to do that pretty intentionally but it could not have been proved clear cut even by the replays, so I think Rahul was right in letting it slide. Great performance by India. Thoroughly outplayed Pakistan in all departments. The bowling performance on that flat track was esp. heartening. The ball did swing for the first half hour, but Pak only lost one wicket in that period. Their batters need to take a good hard look at themselves. Woolmer seems to have gotten it wrong, saying that they should have chased. Having been 40/1 in the first half hour with a very deep batting line up, they should have posted 300+ quite easily, esp. since India were playing with only 4 specialist bowlers, none of whom are all that threatening.

 

[Mecnun]

Sorry guys but I disagree that it was intentional. At best it looked 50-50. Shoaib's face was turned away from the ball and Zaheer was crashing into back of his legs at the time. I saw it live and am not convinced it was an intentional kick.

 

[aussie]

well Akhtar is out of the series disappoiting that was looking foward to seeing him run at the Sehwag & Tendulkar..

 

[Arjun]

Let Ramesh Powar be a full member of the XI. They can play a fifth bowler, and they won't need a stupid-sub, unless they play a specialist batsman as a sub for one of the specialist bowlers. This bizarre rule is most effective when used least.

 

[Jono]

Akhtar out of the series is a huge blow for Pakistan. Especially considering India have dominated with the bat in the past 2 games.

Rana must bowl well in today's game.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Sorry if this has been asked already, as I haven't been following this thread closely, but why is Sreesanth playing for India? Is he a whole lot better than his atrocious List-A (and thus far ODI) record suggests? Cricinfo has him listed as a medium-pacer too. Is he really at the top of the Indian medium-pacer pile?

 

[Jono]

He's not an absolute tear away, but he's not a medium pacer either. He's faster than Pathan, Zaheer, AA and RP Singh. I think the selectors see him as a young but raw talent who is worth pursuing with. He bowled very well in the 2nd ODI, though his figures probably don't show it. His pace is overrated though, he generally bowls around 135-138 km/h but if you read some of the comments on this board you'd think he'd be around 145 km/h. I guess compared to Pathan, AA and the rest 138 km/h is really quick.

What I want to know is why the hell is RP Singh not playing? His ODI record is superb so far with 11 wickets at 22.81 at an economy rate of 4.34. If the selectors want to pursue with Sreesanth that's fine, but then RP Singh should be there ahead of Zaheer or Agarkar based on form. RP Singh was absolutely brilliant against SL, and decent against SA though he didn't scalp any wickets. Should definitely be playing IMO.

 

[adharcric]

He's not an absolute tear away, but he's not a medium pacer either. He's faster than Pathan, Zaheer, AA and RP Singh. I think the selectors see him as a young but raw talent who is worth pursuing with. He bowled very well in the 2nd ODI, though his figures probably don't show it. His pace is overrated though, he generally bowls around 135-138 km/h but if you read some of the comments on this board you'd think he'd be around 145 km/h. I guess compared to Pathan, AA and the rest 138 km/h is really quick.

What I want to know is why the hell is RP Singh not playing? His ODI record is superb so far with 11 wickets at 22.81 at an economy rate of 4.34. If the selectors want to pursue with Sreesanth that's fine, but then RP Singh should be there ahead of Zaheer or Agarkar based on form. RP Singh was absolutely brilliant against SL, and decent against SA though he didn't scalp any wickets. Should definitely be playing IMO.

RP Singh should definitely be in there. Sreesanth is the only Indian bowler (in the squad) who is consistently quicker than 85 mph and he has looked good so far despite having bad figures. My team for the third match:

S Tendulkar
G Gambhir
M Kaif
R Dravid
Y Singh
S Raina
I Pathan
MS Dhoni
A Agarkar
RP Singh
Sreesanth
Supersub: R Powar

 

[Jono]

Yeah its disappointing to see Sehwag out with that shoulder injury after he hit that awesome six, but its just a precautionary move. It gives Gambhir a good opportunity though.

 

[Arumpnoo]

Sami is called back in the Pakistani squad. Don't know if he is going to play today but I am sure he will play the last two matches.

 

[adharcric]

Umar Gul hasn't looked too dangerous and I'm not sure if he's really good enough on pitches that don't offer support, unlike Shoaib, Asif and Rana to an extent. Arafat should be tried first, if he doesn't do a good job then back to Sami. Maybe he'll do better now that his place isn't secure.

 

[adharcric]

This is ridiculous. Had India batted first, they would've had 5 specialist seamers while bowling. How often does that happen? Now that they'll be fielding first, we won't get to see all 5 on display, but at least RP Singh will still get his opportunity.