Australia's Tour Of India - 2008

[SaiSrini]

Heres a message for you Zaheer , worry about your own team first champ.

Just like how the Aussies worry about the opposition especially just before the start of a series

Its the same damn 'mind game' stuff. If you took it so seriously, its not Zaheer's problem.

saisrini80 added 6 Minutes and 44 Seconds later...

Bangaluru curse has been waved off by Indians thankfully and now action shifts to Mohali. Well Aussies again start favourites in my books to win this tie. The weather is great with tempratures at 24 C and morning sessions will be intresting with temp dipping below 20 C and overnight sweating under covers. All this makes for advantage to Aussie pacers.

Bret Lee and Katich have some knowledge of pitch having been home ground for Kings XI but that was diffrent time of year and tired and dead pitches. I doubt we will see any grass on wicket therfore I expect the first 3 days to be batting feast and after that the pitch looses its strength and becomes dead. Scoring becomes slow but its not difficilt to get out. Draw can be salvged by Indians if they believe they can still score runs in test match cricket.

These days, India wins on wickets that are good for the fast bowlers. So, I am pretty optimistic.We can play the pace well if its not aided by exaggerated sideways movement. I hope Mohali wont have too much sideways movement (even if it does have, Zaheer and Ishant will be more than a handful along with Munaf who will 100% be picked if we get such a wicket).

India have a history of winning after they escape from defeat. Examples are Trent Bridge 2002 when Dravid, Ganguly led India to a draw and then next game at Headingley on a fast bowler's wicket, we won the match. Again take to Lords 2007 where Dhoni, Sreesanth and the umpire staved off defeat, and next match we won at Trent Bridge with Zaheer taking 5 wickets (including that 'jelly beans' incident).

 

[Leggie]

I can almost guarantee that if Kumble gets 5 wickets next innings, Indian fans will be hailing him once again as one of the great spinners.

He is one of the the greatest spinners...Duh :

Just because you have one bad match, It doesn't mean you're not of the greatest spinners if you already are...

 

[manee]

I can almost guarantee that if Kumble gets 5 wickets next innings, Indian fans will be hailing him once again as one of the great spinners.

He is one of the great spinners and he might get 5 wickets in the next innings, the issue is that his slumps in form are getting too frequent - this is not to say that he can't still bowl good spells, but can we handle often form slumps in form at his age? This is especially an issue when we have a capable replacement in Amit Mishra, with Piyush Chawla as a developing talent who could theoretically bat seven in the future, allowing MS Dhoni to bat eight and captain without any threat to his place - but that is all off on a tangent and somewhat irrelevant.

 

[Will_NA]

Oh but one bad match means you're over the hill and should retire?

Indian fans are fickle. Simple as. One minute you're hero then you're a villain. Take Rahul Dravid for example. 'He'll bore them to death' one day but another 'He's one of India's greatest batsmen.'

 

[sohum]

Oh but one bad match means you're over the hill and should retire?

It's hardly one bad match. IIRC he was pretty useless in the Sri Lanka series as well. This is not the first time in the last few seasons that he has gone wicketless in an innings/match either. It's obvious that he is reaching the end of his career.

Indian fans are fickle. Simple as. One minute you're hero then you're a villain. Take Rahul Dravid for example. 'He'll bore them to death' one day but another 'He's one of India's greatest batsmen.'

You will find that most of the criticism for Dravid comes from non-Indian fans. As well as the fact that "He'll bore them to death" and "He's one of India's greatest batsmen" are not contradictory statements.

 

[manee]

Indian fans are fickle.

Well duh! Thanks for stating the obvious.:cool:

Indian fans are more fickle than other fans, but does that mean others aren't? I've heard numerous England fans suggest that Sidebottom should be dropped from the side, after all he has done for you. Perhaps not strict fickleness, but the same counsel of perfectionism in a slightly longer term.

It's hardly one bad match. IIRC he was pretty useless in the Sri Lanka series as well. This is not the first time in the last few seasons that he has gone wicketless in an innings/match either. It's obvious that he is reaching the end of his career.

Indeed

 

[Will_NA]

Maybe I should have said 'he'll bore us to death' Obviously you got the point but felt the need to be pedantic. Kumble may be in bad form but if he truly was one of the great spinners (which I believe he is) he would still play a vital role in the side. Just because he is out of form doesn't mean it is time for him to be discarded. What's the difference between him and Tendulkar? They're both in their twilight years.Only a few months ago, Indian fans were praising him for his solid start to captaincy which is why I pointed out the fickle nature of Indian fans.

As for Dravid, Indian fans had quite clearly voiced their criticisms about his age, lack of form and SR forgetting he's called 'The Wall' for a good reason.

@Manee. As for Sidebottom, it's not a question of him being dropped because of poor performances, it's whether or not we should accommodate Anderson AND Harmison who are both in form. We appreaciate Sidebottom has been our best bowler but he might not work in India. That's just my opinion. I can't speak for all England fans.

 

[Themer]

We appreaciate Sidebottom has been our best bowler but he might not work in India.

Might not work in India? He was our best bowler versus Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka where pitches are a bit similar, In fact if he hadn't had so many dropped off his bowling he would have had great figures.

 

[Will_NA]

Yes, but he was fully fit then. When he's not blowing full pelt, he's rather benign.

 

[SaiSrini]

Oh but one bad match means you're over the hill and should retire?

Indian fans are fickle. Simple as. One minute you're hero then you're a villain. Take Rahul Dravid for example. 'He'll bore them to death' one day but another 'He's one of India's greatest batsmen.'

We are not rating Kumble by one match. Off late, he has been completely off key. He has not been the same great bowler that he was. Right now, no one is denying that he is a legendary bowler for India. He is a great bowler. But the time has come for him to retire. because we have options in Chawla/Mishra, etc (even though our selectors brag on about how the spin cupboard is bare).

 

[aussie1st]

Clark under an injury cloud. http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,24499665-23212,00.html
Perfect time to bring on that 4th pacemen... If Clark is injured I wouldn't mind seeing both Siddle and Bollinger playing. Of course never going to happen but I can dream.

 

[WORLD CHAMPIONS]

Clark under an injury cloud. http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,24499665-23212,00.html
Perfect time to bring on that 4th pacemen... If Clark is injured I wouldn't mind seeing both Siddle and Bollinger playing. Of course never going to happen but I can dream.

Bring the Baldy boy now or Tait

 

[Leggie]

Oh but one bad match means you're over the hill and should retire?

Actually its been about 3 Series's where he's not been performing at his best.

 

[deerkick]

Kumble has been going downhill since after the Border-Gavaskar trophy in Aussie land. He averaged 60 with the ball against the Saffers and 55 against Sri lanka, not even decent if he's our spin spearhead. Also out of the 8 wickets against Lankans, 5 were against tailenders...this is from the whole series. So it's not just one bad match as you can see.

As for Tendulkar, he has only done badly in one series this year, and that's Sri Lanka series. He got 0 against Saffers (but he only played one innings where he was out for duck). Against Sri Lanka he averaged a measly 15 sadly. But before that he averaged 70 in Australia so I think he can bounce back.

Anyways I hope Kumble bounces back but I also kinda wanna try Amit Mishra, see how he does (averages 24 in FC) and he's also like 24 or 25 so now's the time for him to make his test debut. if Kumble doesn't retire for like 2 more years, then our middle aged spinners will make their debut very late. Not good.

 

[Jit]

Bring the Baldy boy now or Tait

I think they need Tait because he can clean up the tail fast cuz in the last test the tail made more runs than the top order batsman.