Indian tour of South Africa, December-January 2010/11

[SaiSrini]

You know what would truly be my moment of this test match, those 2 deliveries by Sreesanth. Makes you wonder why the guy can`t concentrate more on keeping it simple and bowl like this more often.

Sree bowled probably the best ball of the match, the one that got Kallis out today. It was a brute of a delivery that no batsmen could have probably avoided. He got better as the match progressed and his pace, line and length after that altercation with Smith was just perfect.

 

[Gaurav_7]

Tom jinxed himself. Good form buddy, a happy day for both English and Indian supporters.

 

[ajdude]

Jesus tweaking christ, that handshake was bordering on gay

 

[aditya123]

Waiting for Cape Town! I guess its more known to be a spinner's wicket. I am pretty sure that after this match, it wont be another green wicket

I think the Indian fans would be hoping for a green track, even more than the South African fans.

On another note, on behalf of all the Indian fans, sorry to all the others for the gloating but we can`t help it this time around. After all that we copped after the first test, we could see this coming but I guess whats wrong with some debate between the fans, for its the No.1 v No.2 test series.

 

[relentless_rock]

You know what would truly be my moment of this test match, those 2 deliveries by Sreesanth. Makes you wonder why the guy can`t concentrate more on keeping it simple and bowl like this more often.

He got the biggest 3 wickets. Smith, Amla, Kallis. Amla/Kallis are like 2 Laxmans for SA side. Either of them could have gone on to win the test for SA.

 

[aditya123]

Smith talks way too much. Wonder why noone picks on his arrogance. I remember him making some unwanted remarks about the Indian side before the first test at Jo`burg in 2006 which they lost. He did it again before this test and got the answer again.

 

[sami ullah khan]

Well done India . This bodes well for future of Indian Cricket. I hope they keep up the good work in the third test as well.

 

[Adarsh]

We may well get trounced in the last match, but now's the time to celebrate. Booyakasha South Africa ! What a nice way to answer the hordes of critics after the first match.

We are the ultimate lively track bullies . Add this to Adelaide, Headingley (bowler friendly) , Jo`burg (bowler friendly), ,Jamaica (bowler friendly), Nottingham (bowler friendly), Perth (bowler friendly) ,Hamilton, Galle (bowler friendly) and now Durban (bowler friendly). Don't give our crappy bowlers something to work with.

Come on trolls, now's the time for banter .

 

[Gurjot95]

Didn't expected win tbf but had some hopes after we all know india bouncing back ability after first Test loss and they have done it again and on a green tracks too which makes the win more great. Congrats and Let's enjoy, it our time now. Let the troller troll but remember we will be always here to prove you wrong.

 

[aditya123]

We may well get trounced in the last match, but now's the time to celebrate. Booyakasha South Africa ! What a nice way to answer the hordes of critics after the first match.

We are the ultimate lively track bullies . Add this to Adelaide, Headingley (bowler friendly) , Jo`burg (bowler friendly), ,Jamaica (bowler friendly), Nottingham (bowler friendly), Perth (bowler friendly) ,Hamilton, Galle (bowler friendly) and now Durban (bowler friendly). Don't give our crappy bowlers something to work with.

Come on trolls, now's the time for banter .

That summed it up perfectly. The difference between our attack and the opposition attacks does`nt get shown up on lively tracks.

Looking ahead to Cape Town, I would personally take a punt by blooding Umesh Yadav in for Ishant Sharma. Cape Town is likely not to have as much grass as Durban did. Yadav has that extra yard of pace and could bring a freshness to the attack.

Like we all know about our tendency to come back and win tests after a bad start overseas, we also know how we lose test matches after historic overseas wins. I hope we get rid of that jinx at Cape Town.

 

[icyman]

We have shown a tendency, of late to win , on pitches where we least expect our team to do so- Leeds, Perth and now Durban. Good win for India but a lot of work needs to be one before we go into the next one. For starters, the batting display, leaving out a few batsmen, was really shoddy.

Sehwag has perished in his usual fashion. Dravid has been,by far, the most disappointing of the lot. I don't see any batting changes taking place for the next game-only Gautam Gambhir would come in for Vijay.Pujara showed that he can bat well and should be persisted with fir the one in Cape Town as well.

On the bowling front, Ishant has not really done anything great in the last two Tests. Umesh Yadav making a debut there could be well worth a gamble.


Btw....Isn't this India's First ever victory on a Boxing Day Test ?

 

[Adarsh]

No way are they going to make any changes to this team, except bringing Gambhir back in place of Vijay. Our bowling in the second innings was in fact better than the first innings performance imo. Up until Smith's wicket South Africa were running away with the match, but after that everyone was on the money. A noticeable difference was in the pace of the bowlers. Ishanth and Sreesanth were consistently hitting 135-139 kph which makes a huge difference compared to 125-130 kph. In the first spell Zak was only at 125-130 too, but again later in the day with the reverse swinging older ball his pace was up, and he was swinging it both ways wonderfully.

I genuinely hope the pitch in Cape Town helps the bowlers again. That said, the Indian batting this match was actually quite poor. The top order failed in both innings, and the bowling hid the cracks. I hope that the batting stands up and plays to its potential.

From South Africa's point of view, their batting is really solid and I expect them to do well. If I was to criticize the SA team, I'd say that their bowling is too reliant on Steyn. Morkel is a good bowler when he's in rhythm, but he can often have bad spells. Anyway, Morkel and Steyn apart, their bowling is not at all threatening. They're pretty much a 2 man bowling attack, much like India most of the time. However in this test the whole Indian bowling stood up, whilst Steyn was the real stand out performer for SA. Tsotsobe, Kallis and Paul Harris are steady at best. I guess if you have a bowler like Steyn, then all you really want from the others is for them to be steady. They need a top spinner, someone like Bhajji in this test, or like what Swann's been doing for England in order for them to become a complete side.

The more I analyse teams, the more I see how utterly complete Australia were. In Lee/Kasprowicz, McGrath, Gillespie, Warne their bowling had no weak links. Their batting was excellent, and they were probably the best fielding team too.

 

[Gurjot95]

Fab 3 hasn't been consistent in all innings which is a bit disappointment. It was Sachin in 1st Test and Laxman in 2nd and now is it time for Dravid to show his batting performance in 3rd Test?

----------

Pic of the match. Sreesanth at it's best

 

[relentless_rock]

Looking ahead to Cape Town, I would personally take a punt by blooding Umesh Yadav in for Ishant Sharma. Cape Town is likely not to have as much grass as Durban did. Yadav has that extra yard of pace and could bring a freshness to the attack.

Why not replace Ishant with Ojha, if the conditions won't be as heavily tilted in favour of pacers. I won't bank on our pace bowling reserves. What I have come to like about left arm spinners, is they could be annoyingly difficult to score runs of, which will be very handy if SA come out aggressive with bat in 3rd Test.

 

[icyman]

Playing with two spinners does not seem to be a very good option in RSA. However, we can still go in for a 5 bowler attack which can be effected by dropping a batsman. But that is a tough call-very tough call.