India v England 2008

[Leicester Fox]

India will win this. We were never going to win it tbh.

Why wasn't Anderson bowled after his first 2 overs? Missed the first 8 of India's innings. Anyway I will watch this tomorrow, won't be going to school anyway, I'm dying.

 

[karnog]

England are still favourites but the big wicket is Gambhir. He can play very aggressive innings and if Dravid can scratch his way to 50-80 India can snatch it. Key for England is for Harmison and Anderson to click. Anderson has a number on Tendulkar and even Laxman. An in form Harmison is always dangerous. Flintoff and Swann can't bowl all day. Pietersen and Strauss are offies too right? Give them a shot.

 

[Adarsh]

Sehwag is probably as good as Swann at bowling. I sincerely believe that. He's very good.

 

[sohum]

I saw a comment on cricinfo criticising England's "defensive" batting approach, saying they should have been 400 ahead by tea.

Maybe if India weren't 10 overs behind with the over rate then England would have been 400 ahead by tea.

As for criticising their batting approach, slogging out and being dismissed with a lead of 350 runs and giving India one and a half days to get them would have just been undoing all the hard work of the first 3 days and letting India right back into the match.

I say Dhoni should be suspended for India's slack over rate, it was obviously being used as a tactic to give India more chance of saving the game and thus intentional, and as it was intentional he should be banned. I know a billion Indians and their stupid board will kick up a stink about it, but for once they should get over their own self interest and actually think about what is best for the game and not what is best for India.

Might as well ban Pietersen as well because he was far worse than Dhoni in terms of over-rate. What do you say now? Wouldn't be too much of a loss given the form he's been in, though.

Also, if you think England didn't bat defensively, you really must have been watching another game. As Colin said, England scored 2 boundaries in the middle session, when they should have been trying to up the tempo to get to 400 or more as quickly as possible and leaving enough time to bowl India out.

sohum added 2 Minutes and 6 Seconds later...

Totally agree with you about the runrate though - the ICC are usually toothless on this and especially when India are the offenders.

Colin, I take it you meant over rate. And I have to disagree with you trying to make this an "India is ICC's baby argument". I went on about it all through the Australia tour--Ponting was consistently in the 12-13 over range and he escaped with a warning in the final Test match and maybe a fine! Pietersen has been pretty poor. In fact, the best over-rate in this match in any given innings came in England's first innings (India bowling) where we bowled 14.4 overs an hour.

 

[aditya123]

Only England manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Not yet.There is a long way to go in this game.
A potentially crackerjack contest in the offing for tomorrow.Test cricket is not dead yet in India.A good crowd of 30,000 turned up today.Hoping for them to warm up for what should be a really exciting final day and turn up in huge numbers like today.

It would`ve been great if we had Sehwag unbeaten but that is getting a bit too greedy.What was disappointing for me was the way he got out and also the time of the day he got out! There were just 15 mins left in the days play! One big innings from here should put us on top but one good spell of bowling would win it for England. Test Cricket at its best! No one would be asking for more T20s if test matches went this way more often.

Let us hope the villanous Chennai weather does not turn up.

 

[karnog]

Yes and what a shame its only going to be 2 tests. Would've been a cracker series if there were at least 3.

 

[aditya123]

Sehwag is probably as good as Swann at bowling. I sincerely believe that. He's very good.

He actually is. He can turn it more than our `front-line offie` Harby.

aditya123 added 1 Minutes and 2 Seconds later...

Lol ........... :laugh

Curious but are you rooting for England here ?

aditya123 added 1 Minutes and 2 Seconds later...

Yes and what a shame its only going to be 2 tests. Would've been a cracker series if there were at least 3.

You beat me to that !:hpraise

 

[sohum]

This test match has had everything thus far--quality pace bowling (from Sharma and Flintoff), quality reverse swing (from ZaK), good old-fashioned test cricket (from Strauss and Collingwood), a blitzkrieg innings (from Sehwag) and even negative bowling (from Panesar). This is set up beautifully and I just hope that the weather doesn't play a part.

Only The Monk could have reintroduced an Indian win in place of a draw. This match is going to get a positive result, and the beauty is that it can go either way. It's going to be a great day of cricket tomorrow.

 

[nikhil_99]

So on final day India needs more 256 runs and 9 wickets,possible if they play sensibily...

 

[WORLD CHAMPIONS]

Curious but are you rooting for England here ?

You are dead right

 

[evertonfan]

Well we completely bottled that.

 

[aditya123]

You are dead right

But most Aussie fans would`nt be rooting for the England. That is why I was so curious.:
Maybe you are a very different kind of Aussie supporter or that you want the Poms to avenge the Aussie defeat for you.

 

[Adarsh]

I must say...this may sound controversial but in terms of what Sehwag brings to the team, and what he has done, he's probably a greater batsman than Sachin.

 

[aditya123]

Well we completely bottled that.

Evo,Keep the pessimism going.
In fact this is the clash of two of the most pessimistic set of supporters in world cricket.Only the ones who can hold on to their pesimmism under pressure will win !

 

[evertonfan]

It's not that controversial. If you gave me a choice over which batsman 'd have in my team out of Sachin and Sehwag it'd be Sehwag everytime.

evertonfan added 0 Minutes and 30 Seconds later...

I wasn't being pessimistic though; we absolutely bottled the chance to win this game.