India in England/Ireland/Scotland

[AbBh]

India won it quite comfortably. The scoreline implied that the game was close but after Bell got out England were never really in a position to win.

Yeah, India does have a tendency to make the match look close. Mascarenhas kept the game interesting but there was no doubt about the result.

 

[Eddie]

actually we had more chance of winning after bell was out..

no way would he have been able to score all those 4's and sixes..

if he batted to the end.. we'd have lost by 30

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Great effort by England, this is how we need to play in ODIs! What cost us the match was not playing Panesar, he doesn't usually go for many runs and I think he would've given us the control that the Indian spinners gave their team. I've never agreed with playing with an all-seam attack, as you have no variation if it doesn't go to plan and that was exactly what happened today. Mascheranas was excellent, does he bat like that on a regular basis for his county?

I have to say that I disagree with AbBh, I think we had a chance to grab an unlikely win. There were at least two deliveries that were so wide it was untrue, yet they weren't given and the way Broad was connecting in that final over, who knows? Also, we really should've gone after Agarkar more during his final overs.

Anyway, well done India on the win, it was the sort of game that no-one deserved to lose, a tie would've been the fairest result. It's going to be a great series!

The great thing is, England have now put together two good performances in ODIs consecutively, and that is a great improvement on what we saw at the World Cup.

 

[PhilD123]

I've criticised Mascarenhas in the past, calling him a bits and pieces player, however, after his tight bowling on Tuesday and his sensational display of six hitting tonight, I guess he should stay in the side for quite a while. Freddie bowled well for his 5-fer, hopefully his knee injury isn't too serious.

A good, exciting game of cricket and so I'm looking forward to Monday.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Don't you agree that bowlers should be told by their captains not to dive into the adboards, even if they believe they can stop the ball? Damaging your knee is a much bigger loss to the team than a couple of runs.

 

[PhilD123]

Don't you agree that bowlers should be told by their captains not to dive into the adboards, even if they believe they can stop the ball? Damaging your knee is a much bigger loss to the team than a couple of runs.

Hmmm..it's an interesting dilemma. On one hand I agree with you that the captains could have a word, especially if its someone with a past injury record of Fred. However, on the other hand, he's such a commited guy and he'll give his all for the team.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

True, when you put as much into it as Freddy does, you're bound to dive for everything. Tricky one...

 

[legspinner@fred]

If an injury prone rugby player with a weak ankle get's through a match every week be smacked about, Flintoff can dive to stop the ball, just put the boundary boards in a bit, the only reason they were quite far out may of been because of the temporary stands.
At Edgbaston it'll be differant.

 

[karnog]

India did great today and i'll eat my words on munaf. He began india's bowling momentum. If there is one negative aspect in india's game it was fielding. Too many drops but they can improve. More practice i guess. As for the vetrerans (dravid and tendi) they deserve a rounding applause. I haven't seen tendi bat like that since the 03 world cup.

Flintoff will be flintoff, has a huge heart but um not the greatest mind.

 

[.Mob]

Agarkar was shocking, somebody needs to whip him out of the team.

I'm sure someone will once Zaheer is fit again. To everyone getting excited about Mascarenhas; he wouldn't have cleared the boundary with most of those sixes on the average size of a one day ground, this ground was tiny!

Big well done to the selectors in bringing in two spinners and big well dones to all the bowlers except Agarkar. Tendulkar was class, so was Dravid.

 

[harishankar]

I didn't see the match yesterday. But looks like India have put in a lot better performance with the bat this time round.

I agree that Agarkar should be dropped. This guy is a permanent fixture in the team for no real good reason.

 

[angryangy]

To everyone getting excited about Mascarenhas; he wouldn't have cleared the boundary with most of those sixes on the average size of a one day ground, this ground was tiny!

On a little ground, the only way to tell is to watch each hit to see if it went right over the fielder or not. If the batsman is splitting fielders, then he'd be harder to get out on a bigger ground.

Interesting result. The shortness of India's batting was apparent, but at the same time they showed who really contributes to a big total. England opted against spin and it undid them; not only did India's inclusion of extra spin help them, but Tremlett's inclusion was superfluous and probably damaging if you consider that Monty could have bowled even so much as 1/50.

That said, England could still have won it with more dedicated batting. There were too many 20s and 30s, although perhaps credit is to the Indian bowlers.

England have showed they could get the hang of batting first, building a platform and launching. In this game they needed to show similar confidence, to carefully build partnerships while the RRR gets away from them. RRR management is by far the trickier skill, perhaps Bevan was the only true master of it. However, with no Bevans in any team, we still know that 80-100 is attainable in the last 10 overs, after all, England managed 2/90 in this game. Before getting to the death, any growing partnership can go from slow to furious in an over.

Next match will be doubly interesting. Both teams have shown winning game plans. Will one turn defensive or will we see an even more thrilling match?

 

[surendar]

Well, i always say, i have no trust in Indian bowlers We should have had Harbhajan as the only spinner in playing XI in ODIs. Pyiush needs to learn more varieties.

I missed the second part of the match... but managed to see the first part which is Indian batting. Regarding our batting, What a legend is Tendulkar. :hpraise Classic innings from him. The best thing i liked in his innings is, his reaction when umpire gave him out.. what a sarcastic smile it was! And his record of 3 90's in his last 5 innings should have made the Tendulkar criticizers to punch their nose even more hard Some of the shots were just spectacular.

Its to be noted that, Tendulkar and Jayasuriya were the only batsmen to get dismissed in 99 for three times. And i guess, Tendulkar tops the list too in getting dismissed > 90's < 100. Anyways, spectacular display Sachin :happy

@ Manee... hope you had enjoyed Tendulkar's dominating innings too.

And regarding Dravid's innings, i saw a flash news in one of the news channel, that, Dravid said, " This 90+ in 60+ balls is compensation for 12 from 96 balls in the test ". Interesting. The timing of his shots were superb though. Nice finishing touch to the innings.

Not a very good win but there is something to cheer about it :cool:

 

[sohum]

whar type of a batsmen is rohit sharma?, is he agressive, defensive, etc?

I think he has a domestic OD strike rate in the high 80s. To be honest I haven't watched him bat but have heard others say a lot of good things about him.

Well Tremlett contributed massively to the target set, if a spinner had played we probably would have not had those extra 9 runs to chase.

Great innings by Mascherano, and backed up by Broad, just a few too many runs.

...because Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Dhoni shudder at the prospect of facing spinners? And Yuvraj's old-fashioned slog-sweep against the slow left arm orthodox would have been very much on? I think England actually limited damage by not playing Panesar. It's not as easy as saying Indian spinners were successful hence Panesar would have been successful.

The slog sweep is a shot that exists, it is used, Flintoff can play it, had he hit it for six then he would of helped a big run chase, you don't get 150 off 20 overs in a 50 over game be taking quick singles.

You're probably more likely to get it with quick singles and twos than attempting to thwack every flighted delivery for six.

 

[legspinner@fred]

You imagine Flintoff taking quick singles and twos.