I don't mind. After all, Australia did have more rest then us (hehehehe), and have not had such a packed schedule in 07 have they now?
Just one match. Oh well.
We need to work on those extras and econs. Sreesanth needs to calm down.
My line ups
Tendulkar
Ganguly
Uthappa
Dravid
Yuvraj
Rohit Sharma
MS Dhoni
Irfan Pathan
Piyush (if fit) if not Harbajan
Zaheer
Sreesanth
Irfan and Zaheer with the new ball.
I just want to confirm the whole 35 over new ball thing. Is it a totally new ball or a ball of equivelent age?
It is a ball of equivalent age but a cleaner ball for ease of sight.
Watching the highlights, I have seen many things from India and not all of them are negatives. Zaheer Khan seems to utilise the bounce created by the hard new ball well as does he get the ball to wobble slightly, just enough to beat the bat or catch the edge. Sreesanth was interesting, all of his childish antics aside, the pace was down today and he seemed to get a lot of swing. However, I feel he is holding back when he bowls to avoid bowling too many wides and it is simply not the right approach to do as he is compromising because of errors in his action instead of solving them and it can create wides in itself and does lead to the ball floating their rather than zipping through the air or hitting the pitch.
Irfan Pathan bowled brilliantly - what's new.
His place in the middle overs is fantastic but I do not like Dhoni standing up to him, it makes no sense, what he gets in stumpings, I feel he loses in dropped catches. I also feel that with the movement Pathan gets, having the batsman leave their crease would not be the worst thing in the world. The swing he gets sometimes is mind boggling, that inswinger to Hayden was beautiful and it seemed that Hayden was late on it because it would not stop swinging and closing in on him.
The spinners was poor but I did not see much of them. The only point is that Harbhajan is a bit too predictable, he never chucks in a variation anymore, it is an over of 100kph and an over of 80kph, never any slight variations from him and clearly, fears over his action mean the doosra seems to happen once or so a series which is a shame since it is a brilliant way of stopping batsman advancing.
I did not like India's fielding too much, it was slow and sluggish, boy oh boy are the bowlers tight limbed after they bowl. I think they should work on it possibly with some yoga or flexability exercises because it is a bit of a problem for Pathan and Zaheer and to a lesser extent, Sreesanth. I still think that Rohit Sharma, Kaif, Raina or Badrinath or someone else who can field should maybe play, but in place of who is a bit of an issue.
As for the batsman, I feel many were outdone by brilliant bowling. Gambhir was done by one which was 145kph and cut in viciously off a good length, very hard to play. Tendulkar fell to an old weakness which was also a shame since he looked in good nick. Robin Uthappa was sublime, the fearlessness was awe inspiring, straight hook for six - wow. I really hope that India in the future have the steady middle order to allow him to play such a swashbuckling game more often because he is very good at it and has a technique (similar but not the same to Hayden's) in which he smothers the ball well.
Yuvraj Singh I was disappointed in but he has been one of the best in the world for three years so one failure is not too bad, twas a nice six though. Dravid was brilliant too but was unlucky to pick out the 2metre fielder who was on the boundary. And the rest, I do not expect much from with the bat although the Pathan run out was a bit disappointing though.
both Clark is impressive
he may play the 3rd match
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