*** Official *** Pakistan in India

[Turbinator]

Mate, it didn't 'come out the wrong way.' If you hadn't meant to hurl a war insult you wouldn't have posted what you wrote. Yer excuse just made me chortle.

In any case, it's silly to blame Kumble for not declaring earlier.

Nah wasn't an excuse, and I didn't mean to hurl a war insult in the sense that my aim wasn't to offend/insult any Pakistanis out there, rather was there to offer an explanation for the type of posts Evermind was dishing out. And it came out the wrong way in the sense that, anyone reading that post would think I was directly hurling a war insult with an aim to offend a fellow Pakistani, but that wasn't the case. It was more of a "war-joke" than a "war insult", in other words, no malice in it.

 

[Sanz]

I can't believe there are still idiots around that are willing to hurl war insults over a cricket game. I'm specially disappointed in you Turb. I've lost a lot of respect for you today. Both posts reported.

Needless to say, I completly agree with your sentiment. I dont care how pathetic evermind has been but to bring india-pak war stuff in this kind of discussion is hitting the pinnacle of immaturity and stupidity.

Very very disappointed.

 

[silentstriker]

Or probably got spanked himself during Kargil.

Turbinator, there is no need for that.

 

[adharcric]

Nah wasn't an excuse, and I didn't mean to hurl a war insult in the sense that my aim wasn't to offend/insult any Pakistanis out there, rather was there to offer an explanation for the type of posts Evermind was dishing out. And it came out the wrong way in the sense that, anyone reading that post would think I was directly hurling a war insult with an aim to offend a fellow Pakistani, but that wasn't the case. It was more of a "war-joke" than a "war insult", in other words, no malice in it.

Don't joke about sensitive issues. Anyways, not a big deal IMO - clearly no malice intended.

 

[jeevan]

Accept that my remark was in bit of a poor taste, but the sanctimony on display!!

BTW Fusion, if you want to be serious about policing the thread, please also report Evermind's post as well. My remark was clearly a knee jerk reaction to his comments about genetic dispositions and martial weaknesses of Indians. The war joke/insult did not come out of nowhere. (to be clear, directed at one individual, not a whole country or race).
That such a response is puerile is a given, but a separate point to your duties.

 

[Anil]

I am not furious any more but I am amazed at how so many Indian fans have defended this action. It shows that a defensive mind set is built into our genes so we cant just blame Kumble for it.

no it just shows that we didn't have a good penetrative bowling attack outside of kumble...so he and the team decided on their priorities and rightly placed the series win at the top, what's the big deal about it? we dominated the series and deservedly won it...it's easy in hindsight to say he should've declared 10 overs earlier or 20 overs earlier or 30 runs earlier or whatever, there was no way to predict that pakistan would've collapsed like that...

 

[SJS]

Big difference SJS. When you think about the last 3-4 series calmly, why india were not able to force wins with greater margins in tests, the real reason lie in the fact that they were trying to rewrite history and in that process are willing to compromise on their test match wins for series wins.

1. West indies series win 1-0 after some 30 years approximately
2. England series win 1-0 after some 30 years approximately
3. Indias win against pakistan at home in tests and one-dayers after some 30 years approximately.

Iam pretty confident that in the next series against same opponents, Indian captains (new or old) are not going to make conservative decisions in winning the match and series.

I think this discussion has reached a stage where nothing more can be squeezed out of it. Clearly we have very different opinions.

I think Pakistan would have never even attempted 320 in 60 overs on this wicket let alone got them. Clearly there are those who think otherwise. I have more nothing to say to that.

 

[SJS]

no it just shows that we didn't have a good penetrative bowling attack outside of kumble...

there was no way to predict that pakistan would've collapsed like that...

Anil Kumble doesnt agree with you on that. I think you missed what Kumble said in explaining his decision to declare so late.

"We had a great opportunity and if the weather had held up, we would have finished off the game. I think 45 overs was enough (to bowl Pakistan out)."​

Source : NDTV​

The captain took 5-60 to end any remote hopes Pakistan may have had of snatching a famous win, but play was called off with 13 of the available 48 overs remaining.
"If the weather had held up we would have finished the game. 45 overs were enough," he said.​

Source : BBC Sport​

"And then, yes, we had a great opportunity and if the weather had stayed clear, we would have ended up winning the game. Forty-five [it was 48] overs was enough."​

Source : Hindustan Times​

 

[Evermind]

Accept that my remark was in bit of a poor taste, but the sanctimony on display!!

BTW Fusion, if you want to be serious about policing the thread, please also report Evermind's post as well. My remark was clearly a knee jerk reaction to his comments about genetic dispositions and martial weaknesses of Indians. The war joke/insult did not come out of nowhere. (to be clear, directed at one individual, not a whole country or race).
That such a response is puerile is a given, but a separate point to your duties.

1) You clearly can't read properly: I said absolutely nothing about "genetic dispositions" in this thread. That was SJS.
2) The martial defensiveness of India is a "can of worms" I didn't want to open. I was making a speculation that it may be connected with India's athletic history.
3) My post was neutral in tone, not meant to be hate-speech, unlike the knee-jerk invective of yours.

In keeping with a spirit of positivity, I promise to tone down my criticisms of India - I would be as happy as anyone to see them perform well.

 

[Jono]

SJS, our only bowler who even looked like taking wickets was Kumble, and he had to resort to bowling seam-up in order to achieve this.

Harbhajan was outbowled by Yuvraj, and our pacers were doing nothing on that pitch.

How can anyone honestly plan to win that match, when the greater good (the series) was clearly the main priority? What if Kumble's bowling of seam-up bombed, and he got tonked around the park?

Kumble the captain couldn't rely on his bowling alone, especially of a type he has not done in many years, to achieve a test victory. He played it safe, and India won the series.

Simple.

 

[Anil]

Anil Kumble doesnt agree with you on that. I think you missed what Kumble said in explaining his decision to declare so late.

"We had a great opportunity and if the weather had held up, we would have finished off the game. I think 45 overs was enough (to bowl Pakistan out)."​

Source : NDTV​

The captain took 5-60 to end any remote hopes Pakistan may have had of snatching a famous win, but play was called off with 13 of the available 48 overs remaining.
"If the weather had held up we would have finished the game. 45 overs were enough," he said.​

Source : BBC Sport​

"And then, yes, we had a great opportunity and if the weather had stayed clear, we would have ended up winning the game. Forty-five [it was 48] overs was enough."​

Source : Hindustan Times​

kumble also said "on this wicket the only option to get wickets was when the ball kept low, which meant that you needed 10 balls to keep low and that could happen in 40 overs or in 150 overs! i think whenever I declared was the right decision"

as well as this "In hindsight, i probably should have bowled medium pace in the first innings. we had to get to a situation where we could absolutely ensure a series victory,"

doesn't sound like he was absolutely sure of being able to do it, does it? it shows that they wanted to try for a victory but only after having closed off the remotest possibility of a pakistan victory....after pakistan collapsed, of course he and the team would think/conclude that given another 5-8 overs, they could've cleaned it up and all those other statements you quoted were obviously based on the end result...again, yuvraj's couple of surprise wickets notwithstanding, kumble was really the only bowler who made inroads into the pakistan lineup, harb had not been bowling particularly well all series and the rest were either inexperienced or unpenetrative or both...

 

[jeevan]

1) You clearly can't read properly: I said absolutely nothing about "genetic dispositions" in this thread. That was SJS.
2) The martial defensiveness of India is a "can of worms" I didn't want to open. I was making a speculation that it may be connected with India's athletic history.
3) My post was neutral in tone, not meant to be hate-speech, unlike the knee-jerk invective of yours.

In keeping with a spirit of positivity, I promise to tone down my criticisms of India - I would be as happy as anyone to see them perform well.

Clarification: Hate speech needs to be directed at a class of people based on race or ethnicity or nationality.

The ill will in my post was just for you, poorly done or not.

 

[SJS]

SJS, our only bowler who even looked like taking wickets was Kumble, and he had to resort to bowling seam-up in order to achieve this.

Harbhajan was outbowled by Yuvraj, and our pacers were doing nothing on that pitch.

How can anyone honestly plan to win that match, when the greater good (the series) was clearly the main priority? What if Kumble's bowling of seam-up bombed, and he got tonked around the park?

Kumble the captain couldn't rely on his bowling alone, especially of a type he has not done in many years, to achieve a test victory. He played it safe, and India won the series.

Simple.

I understand that Jono.

I also understand that a lot of this debate started because of my bold and big letters in red which I explained was because I was enraged.

But it is my opinion, maybe different from yours and others on this forum, that India would not have lost the game had they left over five runs per over for Pakistan to get. Not on this wicket.

I do understand that India need not have taken any risk of losing but my opinion, again its mine, is that there was none(risk of losing that is). And this is not hindsight. I felt that way as India was batting on although there is no way I can prove that.

If India had declared at the end of the 66th over of their innings with the score at 242 for 5, it would have left Pakistan with 332 to get in 59 overs at 5.6 per over. This is not a joke on any wicket. On this kotla wicket it was as close to being impossible as not to make a difference.

No team has ever scored 300 runs in a test match to win at this scoring rate in the history of the game. If we are to think that this would have been done on this wicket would make majority of the declarations in the penultimate innings of a test match seem like too big a risk.

Hence my opinion, my opinion mind you, is not as far fetched as it is being made to sound by some.

I have quoted others like Gavaskar, Sambit Bal etc only to show that there are others who have a similar opinion. Doesn't make my opinion the only one possible but surely its not as ludicrous as some would make it appear.

Finally, I did make the comment about genes which draws such a passionate response from my Indian friends. Its amazing how some of us (I have every right to say us when referring to Indians and it is correct in language as well as spirit) have a chip on the shoulder about criticism of India and Indians in a public forum. I dont. I dont because I am a proud Indian who is confident enough to be able to take criticism and handle it. I am also proud and confident enough to criticize India and Indians myself. I do not see it (or attempt by others to do so) as unpatriotic or an attempt to ingratiate with the enemy as it were. This hasn't been suggested in this context but has been done in the past. As if only those who say good things about their country are deserving to carry the chip of 'patriotism' on their shoulders. I do not give too much importance to such opinion but it does hurt when those whom one has come to consider as friends start reading in your posts what was never meant or intended.

I am here to talk of cricket and discuss it as a lover of the game who understands just a little bit of it - even if I say it myself. I have no reason to believe others dont know much more. And I discuss about the game without any reference to my own emotions about Indian cricket (I always want them to win), about my favourite cricketers (I would like Sachin to score a double century in every innings if possible) and my dislike for some other cricketers. I have discussed cricket here without any bias (not to be confused with my opinions since the line can be thin) and most should be able to see that.

I am always pained to see how badly criticism of India is taken by some Indian fans hence my comments about 'genes'. Of curse, that sounds like I am condemneing all Indians but anyone who writes will know that you exaggerate at times to stress a point as I was doing then.

Read my article called "Wake Up India", for which so many of you kndly wrote to me, and you will find many such intances. This is normal when one is trying to highlight something or attempting to lace a comment with sarcasm. To take that comment about 'genes' as a kind of slur on Indians only proves what I am saying about our (I can still say our) ultra-sensitiveness to anything remotely 'negative' that is said of India and Indians.

If this is how Indians are going to take any comment about India from another Indians, this particular Indian may find it more convenient to stop commenting here altogether rather than risk any comment being dragged into this kind of a debate.

Is this what we want here?

 

[Jono]

SJS, it is my opinion, and others (though I don't speak for them) that people aren't really confused or upset with your belief that India should have declared earlier. They probably should have.

Its the matter in which how angry you, and some others, reacted to Kumble's late declaration. It seemed like an overreaction to a decision, which whilst you may disagree, was perfectly justified. It may have showed caution or weakness, and yes even fear, but it still made sense.

 

[Evermind]

Clarification: Hate speech needs to be directed at a class of people based on race or ethnicity or nationality.

The ill will in my post was just for you, poorly done or not.

That's total nonsense, seeing how you brought the whole Kargil matter into it.

In any case, SJS has written a long post - a pretty objective one - addressed to rabid fans such as yourself. After you've wiped all the froth around your mouth, you might wanna check it out.

 

[Dasa]

SJS, it is my opinion, and others (though I don't speak for them) that people aren't really confused or upset with your belief that India should have declared earlier. They probably should have.

Its the matter in which how angry you, and some others, reacted to Kumble's late declaration. It seemed like an overreaction to a decision, which whilst you may disagree, was perfectly justified. It may have showed caution or weakness, and yes even fear, but it still made sense.

Pretty much my thoughts, although I'll also add that what has particularly irked me is the insinuations and accusations about Indian fans (note, I say Indian fans and not Indians, one does not necessarily mean the other), and that it comes from a misinformed or less-worthy place merely because it's a different opinion.

 

[SJS]

Here's to hoping that in the next series they act a little bolder and seize the chances.

Amen

 

[honestbharani]

That's total nonsense, seeing how you brought the whole Kargil matter into it.

In any case, SJS has written a long post - a pretty objective one - addressed to rabid fans such as yourself. After you've wiped all the froth around your mouth, you might wanna check it out.

No need for that....


So tempting to respond with garbage of similar nature... *stops himself*

 

[honestbharani]

The point abt the declaration is... India played it safe. It is well known that you don't win much unless u take a few risks but there are places where one wants to avoid even 1% chance of failing and maybe for Kumble, this was one of those... It may NOT be the decision we wanted him to take, but at the end of the day, it didn't cost his team much as 1-0 and 2-0 still mean the same series win... There is no way can it be called a "bad" move or anything... Even I don't think Pak would have even tried to get 320 in 60 overs but I do think they may have played a little better at saving the game than they did towards the end. It may well have been a bit of complacency that could have crept into them given how few overs were only remaining in the day and that might have played its part in the collapse, for all we know... Speculation never takes us to any concrete destinations. It may not have been the best move by Kumble, but no way can it be called "bad". That's my two cents on this issue.

 

[Sanz]

The thing is HB, had India lost(or came close to losing) the Banglore test, same people would have chastised Kumble for not securing the series first.Also some people have very short memory, on this very ground 2005, Pakistan had scored 260+ in 50 overs.