England in India - Oct to Jan 2012/13

[MUFC1987]

Like an early Christmas present. Absolutely gift wrapped. Thanks Gautam.

 

[SaiSrini]

Gautam Gambhir is proving to be a chronic horrible runner.... He very frequently gets these "brain freezes" on the cricket pitch.

Hope Pujara shows the form that he is in right now. But today, I hope we don't rely entirely on him for the runs.

 

[aditya123]

Just can't wait to see the atmosphere @ the ground. Recalling AUS test their in 98 & 2001 & TVS Cup 2003 tri-national final win. England 1st odi in the 2002 series when Trescothick scored a century to name a few.

Again its foolish scheduling by the BCCI to start a test match in the middle of the week. Had it been on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, you would have had that vintage Eden Gardens crowd. Unfortunately, this being a working day I don`t expect any more than 20k fans at the stadium.

 

[SaiSrini]

What the crap did England appeal there for? The short leg is not even a fatso to not be able to look down to his foot... And Prior had good view of it from behind and yet he catches the ball off the ground rebound and appeals?

Hard luck to Pujara! Can't fault him much for this one failure. Would say "Well done Monty" for that wicket...

 

[SaiSrini]

I agree with Geoffrey Boycott there about the low and slow pitch. Prabir Mukherjee (the curator; old and unscrewed head guy) got into this tiff with Dhoni over the pitch and has prepared a low and slow pitch where batting will be very easy and where bowlers have to toil for wickets. One of today's wickets was a gift from Sehwag-Gambhir. If that didnt happen, India would have gone into lunch on no loss..... Dhoni wanted a turning pitch where the toss doesn't play a major role and where both teams have an equal chance. Mumbai offered that, England won despite losing the toss. And Dhoni inspite of losing that match asked again for a similar pitch.

In this issue, all respects to Dhoni for sticking to his stance of wanting a turning pitch. Prabir Mukherjee should just shove it up his a--. It seems he does this with Ganguly too when Ganguly was captain. BCCI should just throw this guy out... Here, actually Srinivasan should show his love for Dhoni's words and should get this Prabir guy chucked out.

 

[shravi]

Oh come on, not this again. Inventing imaginary figures to make Sachin look good. We get it. He's scored a lot of runs.

 

[Fenil]

I agree with Geoffrey Boycott there about the low and slow pitch. Prabir Mukherjee (the curator; old and unscrewed head guy) got into this tiff with Dhoni over the pitch and has prepared a low and slow pitch where batting will be very easy and where bowlers have to toil for wickets. out.

If you had read my last post, you would have known that the pitch was always going to be slow and low since mere one Ranji game has been played on it and its a new wicket and thus, even after a lot of tinkering in it, the nature of it can't be changed as not much cricket has been played on it so, all those talks about rank turner or pacer assisting pitch didn't hold water.

 

[playkid12]

Is it me or the commentary for this series been borderline awful on Sky Sports (Nasser Hussain and co.). They don't discuss half of the graphics that pop up for some reason.

 

[SaiSrini]

India keen on making this pitch look interesting. Gambhir despite his two 50+ scores has looked edgy, scratchy and everything else apart from looking confident, solid and good.... Sachin is battling his demons out there is barely surviving right now without scoring many runs. He looks like he is fighting his own battle within this game. Anything less than 450 and India should be disappointed.

Kohli again fails!! He had quite a few failures in Australia too before those two innings (one at WACA and one at Adelaide) got him some respect!!! But now it seems he has some chronic problems and needs to put on notice. Its been England's day today. Hope Sachin can redeem it with a special knock.

 

[barmyarmy]

Cook may have lost 5/5 in tests but apparently he's won more than half of his ODI tosses and is up overall.
Would be good to roll India for fewer than 300 on this pitch...

 

[Fenil]

Some interesting stat for India vs England test a Eden Gardens:

Matches Played: 9, Won By India: 3, Won By England: 1 Draw: 5

Last Match: January 1993. India won that game by 8 wickets.

And for the umpteenth time, this game is being played on a new pitch on which only one first class match has been played. Low bounce and slow turn was seen in that game which suits both Indian batters and spinners.

 

[cerande]

England's Day.This pitch is like a sportier version of Ahmedabad.I think 350 would be good.Don't reckon they will get there though.

 

[barmyarmy]

Significant that Anderson has 3 wickets. 300 could still be a decent score.

 

[Satan666]

The English bowlers have done well, the pitch seems a batsman paradise, if they can limit the Indians under 375 they will win!

 

[Owzat]

Significant that Anderson has 3 wickets. 300 could still be a decent score.

I agree re the decent score, far too often media, pundits and fans alike draw a conclusion about who is on top. Maybe it sounds better to say someone is on top, but frankly 273/7 is a decent score even if it may prove below par.

We won't know for sure how good it is until England have batted, but for a (bowling) side to be on top I'd suggest they'd have to have bowled the opposition out on the 1st day or you simply can't be overconfident.

Regardless of runs scored, and you to assume the runs scored will reflect the pitch, wickets tells you a fair bit. India have lost 7 wickets in a day's play, that's 1/5 of the match and it may get easier to bat, it may get worse.

I've always been an advocate of "anything we can do, they can do". Someone told me on the 97/98 windies tour that England were going to win, I guess it must have been the 2nd Test when England had a 23 run 1st innings lead and were 200 or so for four wickets. I said "anything we can do, they can do", we lost our last six wickets for just 30 runs and a lead of 250 with six wickets in hand turned into a target of 281 - the windies chased it down with three wickets in hand, despite being 124/5 at one stage.

Point is that England are 273 runs behind, whether those 273 runs can be knocked off at all let alone for how many wickets remains to be seen. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush, until we're closing in on their 1st innings total we're behind and batting last. How many runs is bowling last worth? I wouldn't say India are in pole position, but it's interestingly or evenly poised, a shame more games aren't as open as this one is shaping up to be.

All the reporting of the Finn situation didn't produce a performance of equal note, and I'm a bit surprised at the underuse of Swann. Considering Monty's early success I'm surprised Finn got 20 overs to take 0/69 while Swann bowled just 14 overs. Monty took two early scalps, surely you'd go with a spinner over a non-wicket taking seamer?!?!?

We need to finish them off early and trust our improved batting last Test wasn't just the solo contributions telling.