Group E - England, India, New Zealand, South Africa

[manee]

lost as expected..

but we managed 200 which was actually a decent effort..

don't expect india to beat SAF though

Now, with India on 0.20 net run rate, it will be New Zealand who are supporting South Africa. I think it will be a close match and India will likely be reliant on Sehwag and Gambhir for the early start and the powerful hitters for the latter overs. The Yuvraj over won India the game, without it, they may not have won.

Poor Rohit Sharma, not getting a bat. Team selection is tough with Joginder failing today but he still has vital ability to hit with the bat. Joginder is certainly a military medium bowler, I do not think he has enough to cut it with the ball in international cricket.

India A Vs South Africa A: Day Two
India Vs South Africa: Twenty20

Who'd of thought:

 

[baburao]

Bring Chawla in the next match.

 

[manee]

I believe he is injured.

 

[Eddie]

he injured himself in the warm-up and was carried off..

 

[SaiSrini]

lost as expected..

but we managed 200 which was actually a decent effort..

don't expect india to beat SAF though

you said england could get bowled out well under 100 and they didnt. so not giving too much importance to your expectations on tomorrow's game.. kidding..

good win for india to keep them in the competition. yuvraj's blast turned out crucial in the end for india. had that not happened, india would have been out of the tournament along with england today. now it sets up a good match tomorrow though i am worried becoz SA is in great form.

its surprising but INDIA JUST NEED TO WIN TO ENTER THE SEMIFINALS. India are ahead of New Zealand now on net run rate with NZ having no more matches. So if India win, India and South Africa enter the semifinals with New Zealand being out. What a turnaround that would be for New Zealand who won both their games first up and were almost assured of a semifinal spot. I think both their close games against India and England have put them in this worrisome position.

Anyways, off now and ready for tomorrow. Dont mind India losing out but want to watch them fight and go down instead of giving up in a one sided match.

 

[manee]

you said england could get bowled out well under 100 and they didnt. so not giving too much importance to your expectations on tomorrow's game.. kidding..

good win for india to keep them in the competition. yuvraj's blast turned out crucial in the end for india. had that not happened, india would have been out of the tournament along with england today. now it sets up a good match tomorrow though i am worried becoz SA is in great form.

its surprising but INDIA JUST NEED TO WIN TO ENTER THE SEMIFINALS. India are ahead of New Zealand now on net run rate with NZ having no more matches. So if India win, India and South Africa enter the semifinals with New Zealand being out. What a turnaround that would be for New Zealand who won both their games first up and were almost assured of a semifinal spot. I think both their close games against India and England have put them in this worrisome position.

Anyways, off now and ready for tomorrow. Dont mind India losing out but want to watch them fight and go down instead of giving up in a one sided match.

With this team being impressive with the bat and overall, not too bad in the field, the Big Three may have to fight against Australia for their places in the ODI squad.

 

[SaiSrini]

Poor Rohit Sharma, not getting a bat. Team selection is tough with Joginder failing today but he still has vital ability to hit with the bat. Joginder is certainly a military medium bowler, I do not think he has enough to cut it with the ball in international cricket.

Which means he is a waste for the team. He is in purely because he is said to be an all rounder. We have way better batsmen than him in our country (even though i have not seen his batting). No difference today between Agarkar and Joginder. Joginder in fact went for more runs than Agarkar. Agarkar went at an overall rate of only 10 runs per over in his previous matches. Joginder gave away 4 extra runs every over.

Why do our players get injured in warm ups? Nonsense. Now we have to have Yousuf Pathan or we got to bring back Agarkar. I would go for Agarkar again in place of Joginder today. I felt Joginder was taken off for so many just because he was very raw and was playing for the first time in this match. Either bring in Yousuf Pathan or bring back Agarkar.

 

[manee]

With this team being impressive with the bat and overall, not too bad in the field, the Big Three may have to fight against Australia for their places in the ODI squad.

 

[Will_NA]

Whether it was 150 to win or 200 to win, England would have ended up needing 40 off 2. I didn't see the over but I presume Broad bowled length balls and Yuvraj capitalised. Top bowlers don't concede 36 in an over! Anyway, if England struggle to hit length balls, what will they hit?

 

[SaiSrini]

With this team being impressive with the bat and overall, not too bad in the field, the Big Three may have to fight against Australia for their places in the ODI squad.

Sehwag is making a good impression here. He has got scores of 40, 68 which should do his chances of coming back a world of good. Irfan was again fantastic today with 3 wickets and a few crackling overs which went for 3-4 runs only per over. Did he bowl with a good speed? How is his swing? It was a belter today so he must have been tested for sure.

RP had a good game too but he got those wickets when England were slogging. But still decent stuff. Sreesanth hasnt been disastrous but hasnt been effective too. Bhajji was OK today.

 

[manee]

I thought Bhaji was brilliant in keeping the runs down but I feel he will never be a wicket taking bowler in limited overs cricket.

Sehwag is making a good case for himself, he could have gone early but is thinking about his game now and will do well in ODIs since he was extremely comfortable hitting singles and running twos whilst waiting for the medium pacers to come on.

RP Singh, Sreesanth and Pathan were all good. I maintain that Sreesanth should not bowl at the death but should bowl his four straight through or two spells finished before the 17th over. RP Singh on the other hand is great at the death, he seems to be able to go for runs with the new ball.

Irfan Pathan was good today and is showing hints of Chaminda Vaas with his 125-135kph pace with the keeper standing back and consistant off cutters with the keeper standing up later on. He seems to have a head on his shoulders and that is ideal for twenty20. What he has lost in swing (which isn't much tbh), he has made up for in intelligence and guile.

Did he bowl with a good speed? How is his swing? It was a belter today so he must have been tested for sure.

His speed was from 80-84mph when he was bowling the seam up deliveries at the start.

His speed was from 70-75mph when he bowled off cutters and his effort ball with Dhoni standing up was 80mph.

He got no swing at all today due to the dew.

He used fantastic guile with his slower balls and again demonstrated good accuracy although the ball was sometimes too far outside off.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

England out of another World Cup. This is getting depressing and the Rugby team are sure to follow shortly. We really should've beaten New Zealand and S. Africa though!

 

[SaiSrini]

I thought Bhaji was brilliant in keeping the runs down but I feel he will never be a wicket taking bowler in limited overs cricket.

Cant agree. Harbhajan can be a good wicket taking bowler in the ODI's provided he tries to take wickets instead of bowling economical spells. He should attack occasionally and should be positive instead of trying to have good miserly figures.

Sehwag is making a good case for himself, he could have gone early but is thinking about his game now and will do well in ODIs since he was extremely comfortable hitting singles and running twos whilst waiting for the medium pacers to come on.

Didnt see, but I am impressed with whatever Sehwag has done in these two matches. I guess he didnt just slog it out but played proper cricketing shots. The hunger to score is there without the complacency, and that should be enough for Sehwag who is not as technically adept as many others in the team.

Irfan Pathan was good today and is showing hints of Chaminda Vaas with his 125-135kph pace with the keeper standing back and consistant off cutters with the keeper standing up later on. He seems to have a head on his shoulders and that is ideal for twenty20. What he has lost in swing (which isn't much tbh), he has made up for in intelligence and guile.

Good that he is bowling with good variation. He can still be a very useful bowler for India if he can do that. On helpful wickets, he can be a demon.

His speed was from 80-84mph when he was bowling the seam up deliveries at the start.

Yeah, may be that will be his average speed for the rest of his career (unless he tries to work on it more). I think it should work well. Zaheer bowls at that pace and is a very good bowler for India today.

With this team being impressive with the bat and overall, not too bad in the field, the Big Three may have to fight against Australia for their places in the ODI squad.

Unless the selectors decide to rest them (they are talking of rotation now), they will still be top draw. Its India buddy. I hope our performance so far gives the selectors some thought to have us field a younger team. First good step is to give the command of the team to Dhoni - Yuvraj. I feel Yuvraj is a future long term captain. Good that he has the vice captaincy. He can help Dhoni very well. Dhoni wont struggle much as a captain because he has a good support.

Felt sad for Rohit Sharma today. Only time he got picked and he didnt get to bat. Hope they dont drop him for tomorrow. Give him a chance again. If he gets a chance and scores, it will be a pleasant headache.

 

[irottev]

I'm going to be cheering on South Africa for the first time ever tonight. If India win they have a damned good hance at making the semis. I think we deserve our spot.

Havn't seen many of the game, but it appears Vettori has been amazing. Bond has been a little off in a few, but it's understandable. I don't think any quickies in the tournament hasn't been dealt to on occasions. Gillespie has been excellent though, which is good news.

Last nights game vs SA, I dunno why we used Nathan McCullum. Bad selection. Considering he didn't bowl, we took it close in the end but we should have posted more runs. McCullum and Vincent got us off to a great start. The top order (top 4) has let us down again. McMillan was exceptional again but has no support. Another 20 runs and I rekon we could have made a great game of that. Still decent effort, we wern't disgraced. Seems like Oram got some real tough calls against us and he had no luck when bowling. Maybe that could have swung it for us.

And wow at Yuvraj hitting 6 sixes. Brilliant. Not surprising it was against England. If they didn't conceed so many runs they could have won.

That M Morkel for SA is a damned good bowler. I think we made the mistake of not hitting the others for more, we picked the wrong guy to move back/try to hit against. He's been the find of the tournament IMO.

 

[SaiSrini]

Shastri says that whoever wins tomorrow goes through to the semis.
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/talk/content/multimedia/311707.html?view=transcript

Has he not yet seen the tables? Both teams would go through if India win tomorrow against South Africa. New Zealand can go through only if India lose because NZ are behind on the run rate.

I am happy that India have still kept themselves in the hunt going into the last match of the Super Eights. Quite happy! Want India to finish it off with a high. I know they can do it.