Group A (Australia, India, Pakistan, WI)

[D0N]

Bad news Younas is not playing today bcoz of his finger injury but good news is that Shahid Afridi is the capton of Pakistan team :happy

 

[khalek]

Misbah should have been the captain since he was the vice captain of the team.

 

[Akash00]

Yuvraj suffers Injury

Yuvraj suffers finger injury | Cricket News | ICC Champions Trophy 2009 | Cricinfo.com

:doh

 

[aditya123]

If Yuvraj is out, I think we could kiss goodbye to our chances. We already have the much talked about bowling attack and now with a weakened batting lineup without our most influential batsmen in Yuvraj and Sehwag and the possibility of an unfit Gambhir, we are staring down the barrel. The problem with the squad is that we do not have any full batsmen in the squad outside the playing XI. All that you have as an option is Dinesh Karthik and Abhishek Nayar! Ridiculous selection in my opinion. Why did they not select someone like a Badrinath is beyond me. I do not rate Yusuf Pathan as an international cricketer as well. The sooner we show him the door the better. The onus is now purely on Tendulkar and Dravid to put up a face saving show.

We will need a miracle to do well in this event. Many might pounce on me for saying that but its a fact. It is not entirely our fault though. This is far from the side which has brought us to the No.1 ranking.

 

[shubhrayu]

If Yuvraj is out, I think we could kiss goodbye to our chances. We already have the much talked about bowling attack and now with a weakened batting lineup without our most influential batsmen in Yuvraj and Sehwag and the possibility of an unfit Gambhir, we are staring down the barrel. The problem with the squad is that we do not have any full batsmen in the squad outside the playing XI. All that you have as an option is Dinesh Karthik and Abhishek Nayar! Ridiculous selection in my opinion. Why did they not select someone like a Badrinath is beyond me. I do not rate Yusuf Pathan as an international cricketer as well. The sooner we show him the door the better. The onus is now purely on Tendulkar and Dravid to put up a face saving show.

We will need a miracle to do well in this event. Many might pounce on me for saying that but its a fact. It is not entirely our fault though. This is far from the side which has brought us to the No.1 ranking.

You're talking as if Yuvraj was the only batsman in our lineup!
WHat are Sachin,Dravid,Dhoni and co. for?

 

[SciD]

You're talking as if Yuvraj was the only batsman in our lineup!
WHat are Sachin,Dravid,Dhoni and co. for?

He bowls 6 overs also.

 

[SaiSrini]

I have lost my hopes now. Yuvraj is a big hitter and change the complexion of so many games especially when we need the power hitting to take us to a more than competitive total. Kohli is a good batsman but Yuvraj is the lynchpin of our sides in both ODI's and T20's. With him, our chances have almost disappeared (barring a special performance). Already the bowling is thin on form and the fielding is lacklustre. This was the last thing that we needed. DAMN IT!!! Not able to express my anger and disappointment at this news.

P.s: I actually wished for a bowler to get injured (e.g. Nehra) so that someone like Sreesanth or Tyagi or whoever can come in. But it seems god took me to task and made Yuvraj get injured.

 

[SciD]

Sachin's form is good but these are types of wickets where Yuvi bats best. In sub continent he gets out to even lolly pop spinners. Any mediocre bowler would have been put to sword by him and still can't forget the innings he played in Carribean. He just smashed sixes at will at one moment. :crying

P.s: I actually wished for a bowler to get injured (e.g. Nehra) so that someone like Sreesanth or Tyagi or whoever can come in. But it seems god took me to task and made Yuvraj get injured.

God has got old. He did not had his spectacles on when he said "this player get injured".

 

[aditya123]

Cannot express how frustrating these injuries have been for the side. However, here is the real big test for the side to put up a good show even without 3 players who have been instrumental in all those series wins over the past year and a half.

Yuvraj`s loss is the biggest of them all from the batting perspective. He is a bigger impact player than Tendulkar. If you notice Tendulkar`s previous 2 hundreds, the 163 against NZ and the 138 against SRL, it was the assurance of having Yuvraj at the crease which allowed Sachin to carry on at his pace rather than trying to force the pace too early himself. Dhoni is`nt the same aggressive player anymore but he will now have to step up.

I don`t expect much from Raina and Yusuf, to be honest. Yusuf looks so much ungainly at the international stage. Raina will get sorted out by the likes of Gul and Lee. Too much pressure on Tendulkar this time again but I can see him failing this time with having to do too much.

All I would do from now on is, just enjoy the contests.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

when you think about it, you could make a brilliant team from the guys not there.

Gayle, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Khan, Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Pietersen, Flintoff, Taylor, Edwards, Shakib Al Hasan (though wouldn't have been there in any circumstances)

Gibbs, Gambhir, murali, wright and Broad (who I am not re-assesing as a good test player, but he's handy in ODIs) are all a bit dodgey or just made it too.

 

[SaiSrini]

Hope Kohli is played and he takes up his chances. He needs a century or two and he can cement his spot in the team. That would keep Rohit Sharma out for quite sometime. Got to see the positives out of this. And the favorites tag has now completely removed off the back of our team. Getting to the semifinals would be a bonus from here.

Tendulkar
Gambhir
Dravid
Dhoni
Kohli
Raina
Nayar
Harbhajan
Mishra
Ishant
RP Singh

This would be better. Push Raina down so that he can take the big hitting responsibility. We need Nayar because Yusuf is so inconsistent and out of form with the bat.

 

[nikhil_99]

Yuvi is out of action for 6 weeks, a big blow for India....

 

[Mike23]

when you think about it, you could make a brilliant team from the guys not there.

Gayle, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Khan, Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Pietersen, Flintoff, Taylor, Edwards, Shakib Al Hasan (though wouldn't have been there in any circumstances)

Gibbs, Gambhir, murali, wright and Broad (who I am not re-assesing as a good test player, but he's handy in ODIs) are all a bit dodgey or just made it too.

That's a lot of stars missing in action.

Mike23 added 2 Minutes and 2 Seconds later...

Even with Yuvraj out i still fancy India reaching the semis.

 

[shirazu]

India is looking very thin at this point. Most of India's success in the last two years or so has been the opening partnership of sehwag-gambhir and greatly improved pace bowling. Now sehwag is out, gambhir is coming off an injury, the best fast bowler is hurt and the other one is out of form, they just brought back Rahul Dravid...this team reminds me of the Indian teams from the late 90's-early 2000's - 2 or 3 really good batsmen and 1 to 2 really good spin bowlers, but also some players on the team that aren't up to international standard at this point in their career or ever. And they've even brought back some of the players from that period!
It kind of seemed like Indian cricket was going to be unstoppable for a while but the future is not as bright nowadays with all these injuries. It's not like they're doomed though, I guess. And the odd part of it is that they had the entire summer off and just now most of the side is injured, and almost all the injuries took place in the IPL. Guess 20/20 cricket is tougher on the body than they say.

 

[Bluebagger]

Australia was giving much importance to Ashes na? Does they have enough practice?

Practice? Incase you haven't been paying attention Australia just finished a 7 match ODI series. If anything we have had too much cricket.