England In India - October 2011/12

[ZoraxDoom]

MSD's awesome

 

[SaiSrini]

Nasser Hussain and Ian Botham are turning on the gas and trying the intimidatory tactics after seeing that Zak might not bowl much in this match. They must remember that they are not even Australia to try such kind of tactics, and they must also know that its treading on a knife's edge to try such bullish tactics against India. Not only does Sachin get more determined by such tactics, most of the Indian players get turned on by such tactics. Zaheer got injured after bowling very well in the first test in Australia (Brisbane 2003) and he didnt play the rest of that series. But we still drew the series 1-1 and had a real shot at winning that series 2-1 had it not been for some umpiring blunders and some over safety approach from Ganguly in declaring the Indian innings (in Steve Waugh's farewell test)

 

[angryangy]

Intimidatory commentary. Okay.

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Praveen Kumar, savior of the human race

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

What a wicket. Much needed. Hope to see a collapse

Praveen who bowled so well deserved this wicket

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Praveen gets the LBW with an inswinger. Good stuff.

 

[Themer]

Intimidatory commentary. Okay.

I was thinking the same. Very odd post.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

Praveen is really bowling good. Wish we had him in the first test of South Africa series. Harbhajan is being attacked and thats good to see as often people try and attack him and that gets best out of bhajji

 

[Themer]

Much prefer the third man on Sky's commentary being rotary. Allows them to make numerous points throughout the day rather than making three maximum and it stop them tying up someone I like commentating all day.

Harby hasn't started off too well this morning, looked rather defensive coming around the wicket so early and they're been able to sweep and knock into the legside with ease thus far.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

This is going to be tough. What great fielding change. Moves 2nd slip to leg slip. Nice to see good captaincy by Dhoni over and over

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Ooohhh...on a better day, Dravid might have held that. Very, very harsh to call that a drop, again.

Smart field placement.


And regarding Bhajji - around the wicket is a pretty attacking move for Bhajji, he likes bowling from there, but yea he's getting hit a bit. Hope he strikes back.

PK's bowled far, far better than his figures indicate.

 

[Sureshot]

Big decision that, I think for me the problem is the way his fingers splay as they hit the ground, you can't definitely say his fingers were under the ball.

Still, I think the Trott LBW could have easily gone the other way, so potato/tomato or however the saying goes.

Agreed on Kumar, Zorax, he's looked better today.

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Also I think this field placement is more Dravid's idea than MSD's...Dravid had a nice long chat with PK right before this over.

 

[Sureshot]

Yeah, England did the hard work and Strauss didn't make most of it.

I'd say it is about even, 2-3 early wickets and 150/4 or 150/5 won't look so clever. We won't know if it will get any easier to bat for a while. This could be far more interesting than the kind of flat tracks you too often get, batsmen having to earn their runs and bowlers and fielders having to make most of the conditions and take catches. What could England have been but for dropped catches?

No surprise Khan bowled well and did the damage, how long was he at Worcs? He's their best bowler by far, in this country (type conditions) certainly. I just hope our bowlers fire, the decision to have Broad in the side will be seriously tested if we score say 225-275 and need to pick up regular wickets. I hope he's not "told" to bang it in short and waste the ball and conditions, I remember India I think it must have been 2002 where we were bowling and they were 30 odd for 1 and the ball was doing a bit. Then England went mad on the short stuff and that was it, India put on 600+

3rd Test: England v India at Leeds, Aug 22-26, 2002 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

I think it was that one, fits the bill even if the cricinfo commentary is rather 'basic'. Conditions favouring the bowler need to be made most of, the side that does that well and whose batsmen don't throw their wickets away win the match rather than the side who gets best of the conditions/bats first

Conditions will be massive, there's still weather around for the rest of the game, so it could swing a little all match. Doesn't feel like it'll be 600 v 600 as we can get at Lord's. 400 would make me happy.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

this is tame stuff and I can't decide what's going to save it.

indian wickets so we at least get some less watchful batsmen in or KP and Bell to crawl to 250 so they can let loose.

 

[lewissaffin]

Beautiful sunny weather this morning in London and the Home Counties

Bell looks more willing to play a shot than Trott but no surprises there. If the rain doesn't come in later, we could be looking at 147 overs of the England innings batted by the end of the day so a score of around 400-450 may be on the cards if England keep batting sensibly.