Tuesday, May 22, 2007

No Pains !! No Gains !!

It was another half baked effort from the Indian team and when rain intervened for the most part, the damp squib became a foregone conclusion at Chittacong's 1st test. I am not sure, who had the brains to schedule a test at this city in the 1st place but whoever did, never took the buckets and sheets of rain, which comes around in these parts. India could have still forced the issue with some imaginative batting and more important some useful bowling but they looked like a bottom the barrel, plate group Ranji side at best.
There were the usual 100s and all but considering the quality of opposition and the nature of the pitch, they should have scored the same runs at 3/4th of the time (say at 5.5 an over or something there abouts). But, the worst was the horrendous bowling. All summer, Morteza has been threatening with his fireworks in match after match; but Indian think tank decided to press on a lackluster Powar and the ill directed shoddy stuff from VRV; the end result - B'desh should have been bundled under 100 but went on to score 200+.
When India batted the 2nd time around, they batted without a plan and kept loosing wickets..the same poor effort in the bowling front was repeated in the 2nd innings by India - the only difference being, they showed the world - how low they can go. All in all, another lost opportunity to engineer a result and another test victory chance abroad missed out due to complete lack of imagination and execution. So, can the 2nd test be any different - I doubt - India simply lacks the will and most important 'urgent push' and each player seems to be interested in his record books alone.

3 Comments:

Blogger PG said...

Far too many mistakes committed by the 11 individual players( I will not refer them as team until they start playing as one).

Jaffar was a big flop. With just one specalist opener everyone thought that Karthik will be the chap to struggle but to prove every one wrong it was Jaffar. This was not time he got out misjudging the ball outside the offstump. I guess this happened in SA as well as West Indies.

Karthik to me played very well. I guess his temperment is excellent. I am not very convinced with his technique though. He will struggle in england and Australia. His head was falling way too over and this makes him a candidate for LBWs. Good bowlers will most definitely exploit this area of his batting.

Dravid did a good job after Jaffar's first ball duck. He came out with an intent and made a clear statement with his stroke play. As always, after playing very well until his half century, he decided to pull the shutter down and created pressure for himself, there by getting out to a ball which he would have normally left.

Sachin, looked scratchy, though added one more to his kitty. But he wasn't convincing. Sourav, what a come back as an individual (I will talk a bit later about both SCG's as well as SRT's dismissal).

Dhoni was good both with the bat and with the gloves.

Bowling : ZAK - Spraying balls all round the wicket.
RPS - Simply not good but was getting wickets.
VRV - though pacy lack direction. I don't mind it. He will be effective once he croses the 95 MPH mark. If he can't then he should concentrate on line and length.
Powar - A piece of advice. Game has evolved so has Off Spin bowling. In the era of Murali you can't operate like Prasanna. Though looking beautiful, he wont be effective ever. He needs variations in his kitty to get wickets.
Kumble - I can't imaging Indian test team without him. This one looked awful.

Dravid's captaincy. Looked Ok but could have been a bit more imaginative with his rotation of bowlers.

SRT and SCG Dismissal. It looked to me as if they played on for a century and right after that they got out. Surprisingly in the same manner pulling a ball that should have been either left or should ahve been cut. That clearly showed that they were playing for records not for the team.

Prediction, barring some spart of individual brilliance we will struggle against a low rated Bangladesh.

Cheers
PG

7:02 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I love pg's first line...

"Far too many mistakes committed by the 11 individual players( I will not refer them as team until they start playing as one)."

Anyways...
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India v. Bangladesh Tour is available as LIVE Video and Video On Demand
on broadband at MediaZone Cricket: http://cricket.mediazone.com
MediaZone Cricket is a new broadband service with LIVE cricket, chat and
news. Check it out!

4:19 PM  
Blogger Crick_Love said...

PG,,Test matches are won today with brutal batting (Aussie style) or mowing them down type of bowling, with strike rates where any part of the batting order (like the SL way with Muralis' telling blows), can not wag its tail. You need to score fast, take wickets at amazing rates so that you can ovecome the loss of time. India never has the imaginatin even its areas of strengths. Take the 1st day's play for example..where a fair amount of play was possible..70+ overs..score should have been 350-400+, whereas India scored 270+ thanks to selfish centurions..

7:30 PM  

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