24.5.06

Cricket: India vs W.I. Third O.D.I.

The West Indies take a vital lead by winning back to back matches to lead the series 2-1. Indian have to do well to make sure the series isn’t decided before it is completed. The score-line like this is hard to believe for us the Indian fans. But as I have already blogged we have to give up our number crunching paranoia for the sake of the team.

West Indians carry the momentum.

Cricket is a funny game in more than one ways. The three runs out were the summary of things to come. Indians restricted themselves an opportunity to bat West Indies out of the game. The West Indians only had to bat the fifty overs and it might have been a cruise for them.

West Indies have a shaky start.

Irfan Pathan definitely looks out of boil. The conditions are not actually in his favour. He has to content with lots of left handers. He seems to be lacking control. He was again taken to task by Gayle. Sreesanth bough in first change and straight away claimed Samuels. Agarkar claimed Morton in the very next over. Sarwan walked in and looked in control.

Shame on selectors. Agarkar will be missing out on test.
The “youngsters” fund was bought in by Ganguly and Chappell only reiterated the fact. Ganguly fought hard for the team he wanted. He can be credited to bring in people like Yuvraj, Kaif, Sehwag, Nehra, Pathan, Parthiv and whole lot of others who seem to have been of the radar at least for now. But he stood by the players he wanted. He is perhaps paying the price now. Agarkar who has been the pick of bowlers at least in One Days has been excluded out of the Test. No reasons will ever be given for his exclusion. If the team is to be selected on merit which is based on performances then Agarkar was a surety in the Test team. His conclusion is a proof that good performances alone won’t fetch in the Test ticket. I would like to see him perform brilliantly in the upcoming One Day and make the selectors feel ashamed of his exclusion. Pathan is off the boil and Agarkar will do a team the world of good if he stays back.

Harbhajan again shows his class.

Harbhajan who was off the boil till, before the One Day series against England showed his class by dismissing the best players of any bowling, the ever mercurial Lara. Lara who walked in with no pressure to score runs was foxed by guile of Harbhajan. Harbhajan bowled a turning delivery pitched outside Lara’s leg stumped turning towards Rahul Dravid stationed at first slip. Lara turned to flick it fine and all he could do was to snick it and Dravid completed the formalities of the catch.

Chanderpaul makes it a cake walk for West Indies.
Chanderpaul is a complete opposite of Sarwan. He is awful to watch but has saved West Indies many a times from shameful lows. He has a brilliantly record against India and he will repeat his performances if the Indian bowlers don’t work him out. India could not get many inroads even after they managed to push the scoring rates beyond six an over. This shows that any team which has wickets in the end and can sustain pressures is bound to do well.
A few lessons to be learnt.
The Indian team and fans alike have to wake up to the fact that series against West Indies in West Indians is not a cake walk. They will be under pressure to do well in the next match. If they don’t do well then there series against Sri Lanka, Pakistan and England will be ruined. Is India remain a good One Day team or this tag is only applicable while playing at home? The answer to this question lies in the result of next few One Day games.

The third one day shifted out from Jamaica to Trinidad. The Indians took up batting first.

The Coach's curse.
Mr Chapell the things are good the way they are your job is not appreciation but extracting and maintaining a performance level an optimum level. Rahul Dravid seems to be going down the hill. I have enough confidence in him that he will come back. He was out in the first over.

Raina promoted, Kaif demoted, Yuvraj dumped.

Raina was promoted courtesy after Dravid was striked out early. He is a good player and I hope to see him open One Day. This will atleast prove that is he good enough to take a huge responsibility on young shoulders. The history of One Days suggest that a teenage protégé took up this responsibility more than a decades back and today his records is what Avogadro’s Number is to molecular chemistry. I think he can do it. Kaif was again given a raw deal. There was a noted slump in his form when he was dumped after scoring a match saving ninety against the English in Nagpur.
I am not convinced as to what is the rotation policy. Why was Yuvraj dropped? I am asking as I have not heart any news of a possible injury to Yuvraj? Why should a good finisher of a One Day game be dumped?

Sehwag tonks bad form.
Sehwag was lucky to be playing for this long without worthwhile scores for some time now. He played well and tonked his bad form with some innovative fanciful batting. I saw some cut shorts of his and they were all about power. His dismissal turned the match around for West Indies.

Middle order runs out.

The middle order batsmen chose “run out” as the preferred mode of dismissal. It was shocking to write it in simple terms. There was a huge collapse which saw Indians scoring just 60 runs of last nineteen over. The inexperience showed along with some poor team selection.

Bravo, Bravo.
Bravo looks good bowler and a very good lower order batsman. He impresses me and always seems to be in thick of the action. The West Indian bowling just exploded in the scene and Indian struggle to get past 250.

Gayle has a measure of Pathan. Agarkar looks in control.

Pathan struggling against Gayle and needs to do something early to make sure there is some success for him on what can be called helpful pitches. Ajit Agarkar is likely to get the berth for test as he has put in impressive bowling figures against his name.

The end of first edition.
India has to return favours to the West Indies if they have to win this one. The West Indies on the other hand would look to play out the fifty over and they will score the required 247. They have a decent middle order. It now looks a match between the Indian spinners and West Indies batting.

7 comments:

Sudeep said...

okk. this was a post-lunch and pre-loss analysis.
I was wondering how come u havent mentioned 'bout Sarwan..

but liked the simile betn Raina n Avogadro's no :)

Anonymous said...

middle order collapse was imortant in india's loss.Without yuvaj indian side look completely different.

y r right raina should open for india in odi.

Tarun said...

@ Sudeep: The simile was between Tendulkar and Avogadro's number.Yes will try to post an update post.
@ Nagraj:Yes they did.Run outs did not help the matters.

Dewaker Basnet said...

hey cric buff..how u doing? nice report mate:)

exasparater said...

worst match i ever seen...

Tarun said...

@ Dewaker: I am good.Thank u Dewaker.
@ Exas: May be worst is yet to come who knows?

Invincible said...

Looked like our team isnt really serious, they r still under hangover of past victories and r thinking west indies as minnows.