India's tour of West Indies June 2011

[SaiSrini]

Didn't think India might have a lead in the first innings. This is superb. The great thing is Praveen and Ishant have done so well on a wicket that looks to be helping the spinners more now. Mighty pleased to see Ishant consistently ping 86-90mph. And he has the wickets in his booty too (3 wkts). Praveen would be an deadly weapon for England conditions where the ball tends to swing a lot (but other places, Praveen will have trouble unless he ups his pace and adds more variations). As rahulkhush said, an attack of Zaheer, Praveen, Ishant and Sreesanth (with Munaf as backup) for England now looks mighty impressive.

WI have batted badly so far. No one has counter attacked the way Harbhajan and Raina did last afternoon. Their overall run rate this innings is a very poor 2.48.

 

[Ahmad94]

Didn't think India might have a lead in the first innings. This is superb. The great thing is Praveen and Ishant have done so well on a wicket that looks to be helping the spinners more now. Mighty pleased to see Ishant consistently ping 86-90mph. And he has the wickets in his booty too (3 wkts). Praveen would be an deadly weapon for England conditions where the ball tends to swing a lot (but other places, Praveen will have trouble unless he ups his pace and adds more variations). As rahulkhush said, an attack of Zaheer, Praveen, Ishant and Sreesanth (with Munaf as backup) for England now looks mighty impressive.

WI have batted badly so far. No one has counter attacked the way Harbhajan and Raina did last afternoon. Their overall run rate this innings is a very poor 2.48.

Does look like a good line up against India. Nice of Harbajan to get Shiv out after under 600 balls.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

I will take that 73 run lead after being 85 for 6 at a stage in a match but harbhajan was a flop show. Thank god he got 2 wickets but other then his batting his bowling has been ████

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I don't but I have a strange feeling that if Mukund fails this inning, Parthiv will be opening the next match

 

[SaiSrini]

Will this match get over in 3 days? That ball to Vijay didn't bounce at all and kept so low.

Great lead for India, and all marks to Bhajji and Raina for that superb partnership that brought India back right into the game. With this pitch playing all sorts of a tricks, a 4th innings lead of 250 should be more than enough to cause all sorts of problems to this WI lineup.

P.s: For North American viewers, Willow is not letting us watch the game live on their website (says not available in your region) but their Samsung TV app is providing the live streaming of the game (watching the game on their Samsung TV app from my Samsung LCD HDTV). Wierd?? Feels great to be watching Dravid on that big screen in such good picture quality!

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I will take that 73 run lead after being 85 for 6 at a stage in a match but harbhajan was a flop show. Thank god he got 2 wickets but other then his batting his bowling has been ████

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I don't but I have a strange feeling that if Mukund fails this inning, Parthiv will be opening the next match

That would utter stupid if Dhoni does that, and I am a little confident that Dhoni won't do such a thing. They could have as well not picked Mukund at all. And they should drop Vijay than Mukund because Vijay has been a bigger flop in this test.

On Bhajji - as long as he gets the wickets and the team is performing, its enough. Lets not over analyse too much.

 

[cricket_icon]

roach out due to politics. windies are just digging a bigger hole each time. back to the match: this is a real sea-saw battle. sharma bowled pretty good but the windies batsmen seemed like school kids to me for large periods of time. wicket for rampaul. this good be a low scoring classic.

 

[SaiSrini]

Mukund looks very comfortable off the backfoot and against the short deliveries, but somehow he seems to have trouble with the fuller deliveries. Another wierd case of an Indian batsman having the reverse kind of trouble. But Mukund is showing temperament and patience to stay out there and bat long. Hope he does that this innings and makes a case for himself.

 

[AngryPixel]

Mukund is pretty strange batsman for a left hander. Generally lefties are fluent in driving the ball (Raina,Yuvi,Ganguly,Gambhir). Doesn't matter as long as he's scoring runs and is effective.

Ishant was brilliant. He was bowling fast and lets hope he stay fit. Zaheer,Ishant and Praveen would be a formiddable attack for English conditions. All of them very different trype of bowlers.

 

[SaiSrini]

Damn, having stayed in there for so long, Mukund gave it all up to a spinner. But that was a good little innings that should keep him in the loop in the next test. Another flop from Laxman this game. But he is VVS, and this should not be put against him. Good thing is that, Rahul Dravid is batting very well in this test match and hope in this innings he goes beyond the 40's and makes a really big valuable score. Still maintain that a 250 lead on this wicket might be enough for India.

India continues to prove that they actually do better on wickets that provide help for the bowlers. Will the BCCI and the Indian groundsmen (along with our captain) ever think about it and make sure sporting wickets are prepared in India?

 

[shravi]

The Wall indeed.

Loved the battle between Kohli and Edwards.

 

[SaiSrini]

Good for Kohli to stay out there with Dravid. Is the wicket easing up, or are our batters batting better than how they did in the first innings?

 

[shravi]

Good for Kohli to stay out there with Dravid. Is the wicket easing up, or are our batters batting better than how they did in the first innings?

Still hard to bat on as we saw with Vijay's dismissal. Speaking of, it's time for Vijay to go. He's not cut out for International cricket and it's getting rather painful watching him bat now. Maybe he can come back in a season or two after he has reinvented himself like Gambhir did but right now he doesn't inspire confidence in even the most optimistic of fans.

There is unpredictable bounce. However, short pitched bowling will have little effect now as the ball slows up upon pitching so the batsmen have much more time to select their shots.

Dravid got a life but it was upto him to make it count and make West Indies pay for it. He is doing a good job of that so far but the job is far from done.

BTW, why was Pujara dropped from the test team? If Vijay can be persisted with after his tour of South Africa then so can Pujara.

 

[SaiSrini]

Still hard to bat on as we saw with Vijay's dismissal. Speaking of, it's time for Vijay to go. He's not cut out for International cricket and it's getting rather painful watching him bat now. Maybe he can come back in a season or two after he has reinvented himself like Gambhir did but right now he doesn't inspire confidence in even the most optimistic of fans.

There is unpredictable bounce. However, short pitched bowling will have little effect now as the ball slows up upon pitching so the batsmen have much more time to select their shots.

Dravid got a life but it was upto him to make it count and make West Indies pay for it. He is doing a good job of that so far but the job is far from done.

BTW, why was Pujara dropped from the test team? If Vijay can be persisted with after his tour of South Africa then so can Pujara.

Oh god dude, Pujara was not dropped. He was injured and the selectors decided not to take a risk with him.

I agree with Vijay. His technique is no great shakes, and his attitude has been going only downhill. Thinks of himself as a superstar. Wish Mukund continues to play in this series and plays quite a few good knocks to remove Vijay from the backup opener spot. Vijay can come back later, but only when he changes his attitude and fine tunes his technique.

I am willing to pay to watch Dravid bat tomorrow. Hope he doesn't disappoint me by getting out soon tomorrow. This is a typical Dravid test where he has looked real good but can't say the same of others.

 

[AngryPixel]

God i wish pujara was here. He looks so classy and matured at the crease. To think that he's just 23 Still remember his 70 Odd runs vs Aussies.
Future of indian middle order looks safe in the hands of Pujara,Kohli,Raina and Sharma.

 

[shravi]

God i wish pujara was here. He looks so classy and matured at the crease. To think that he's just 23 Still remember his 70 Odd runs vs Aussies.
Future of indian middle order looks safe in the hands of Pujara,Kohli,Raina and Sharma.

I hope that Raina can make the cut because I am a fan, but I'm not sure he's made for test cricket. Innings like the one he played in the first innings of this match and that one against Sri Lanka go some way to proving me wrong but it's just a gut feeling I have with him. I think he would be eaten alive in England, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

 

[AngryPixel]

I think he can play there too if he bats a bit more sensibly. The good thing for him is that straight after this series India is going to England. No more stupid ODI/T20 in between. So after 3 test matches here, he would have accustomed to leaving the good balls and playing proper cricket shots only.
I also believe that India should give Yuvraj one last try at Test cricket. He didnt do too badly last time he played. And his confidence would be high after the WC. He did showed immense maturity.