Tuesday, June 06, 2006

"Too little, Too late" feeling inspite of 215 by Jaffer

In my closing comment y'day, I certainly wanted Dravid to stay around till tea on 4th day and he almost did it but with enormous damage to his and India's cause. Dravid had taken about a complete session for every 20 runs he scored and in the end, such stone-walling left hardly anytime for taking 10 WI 2nd innings wickets IMHO. Rahul's self denial (and run denial) is perhaps due to lack of confidence in the rest of the batsmen and also his bowlers (I can understand the concern since they have been leaving him high and dry for match after match).
Jaffer's effort is impressive but he too could have accelerated. I am also not convinced about his ability to pierce well set fields. Over after over, he hit drives off Bradshaw straight to fielders and all this had a telling effect on the crawling scoring rate. In the end, Dhoni restored normalcy with some meaty punches but Kaif was a pain as usual and his inability to score even in ODIs is well documented.
I have a feeling that India can not repeat SL's y'day's act of taking 10 wickets off opposition in the 2nd inning. The crucial difference - India has no Murali or not even close to Murali's wicket taking ability (man !! 53rd 5 wicket haul !!!). Kumble can give it a go but the pitch looks too slow for his style and Gayle and Sarwan are in confident form, when they see Indians. This is heading for a tame finish unless WI committs the usual mistakes of the past.

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