Pakistan in India

[m_vaughan]

Should be a simple win for India. Unless it rains or something.

 

[sohum]

I read your blog too, at least most of it... i think you are being silly and unnecessarily harsh on the indians... hey its just the end of the third day of a five day test.... maybe you are spoiled by australia but there used to be a time when test matches lasted well into the fifth day, and some even were equal after the fifth day! imagine that! it was called a "draw", if you must know...
anyways. india is 135 ahead with 4 wickets in hand and two full days of cricket to go.. unless there is rain coming, i would say india is in a great position, and i would say losing their heads and trying to keep up the scoring rate may have been the bad decision. they are playing a test match, not a ODI, and if you cant take the sessions where the scoring rate dips then you should stick to watching 20/20 cricket. i thought it was quite absorbing, and give some more credit to pakistan's limited bowling too. they did the best strategy they could with their "attack".

Thanks for the feedback--everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Appreciate the sarcasm and your ever-prevalent tone of mocking and superiority. Anyhow, this is the new generation of test cricket. The brand of cricket that Australia has supposedly spoiled me with is the brand of cricket that has attracted attention back to cricket. Devling into the hypothetical, it is possible that cricket would have shrunk to the main cricket playing nations if test cricket hadn't been revitalized. How often would you expect to see a full-packed cricket ground in Mohali four consecutive days.

Second--I am all for a draw that occurs with good cricket being played. Perhaps I feel frustrated because the few fragments of the game that I manage to watch are spoiled by excessively slow batting. And I do believe this excessively slow batting. Sure--you give respect to new bowlers and definitely to Kaneria. But are you for one moment suggesting that Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman do not possess even a fraction of the talent of Sehwag. Sehwag's style of game is definitely different but surely one will be able to knock around the ball and get singles.

I am not suggesting for one moment that the Indians should have manufactured shots--I was just suggesting that they play normal cricket. Indian batting over the years has always had one problem: the inability to push singles to take off pressure. That was very detrimental in the ODI game until Kaif and Yuvi came along. Even Dravid, you will notice, maintains a strike-rate of about 100 in an ODI game just by pushing singles around. It is a great way to relieve the pressure, and you would expect that our batting line-up can get more than an average of 2 every over. That is where the frustration is rooted.

The run-rate throughout the earlier part of the innings was spoiling--we were going at 4.5 an over. I did not expect them to sustain that for the whole of the innings. But surely you will notice an over-excessive drop if the next two sessions the run-rate is barely over 2. This huge difference is what makes me wary.

 

[SaiSrini]

Should be a simple win for India. Unless it rains or something.

Not so simple yet!! Lets see. 257 looks a lot to me after seeing them on 12/3!!!! Hopefully, India wins this one!!

 

[shahid6995]

Not so simple yet!! Lets see. 257 looks a lot to me after seeing them on 12/3!!!! Hopefully, India wins this one!!

Man, good to see you are so positive!

Appreciate the sarcasm and your ever-prevalent tone of mocking and superiority.

Dude, didnt you know I really AM God? Running the universe gets old after a while so I need the distraction.

 

[Insomniac]

Kamran and Abdul may be our heroes tonight

 

[sohum]

Yes, Razzaq and Akmal are really frustrating the Indians. And guess what? They may not be able to win because they do not have enough time! Who could foresee that happening? But all respect to Razzaq and Akmal--they are batting pretty well at the moment. Let's just hope someone can pull something out of the hat, for India.

 

[SaiSrini]

DISAPPOINTING!!!

India could not prise out Razzaq or Akmal today. This is a sure shot draw!! All efforts by Balaji would go to waste!! If we draw this match, the blame for not winning goes entirely to the batsmen for wasting that much time in the middle to get those runs!!! India had the best chance to win as Pakistan never looked winning at any part!!

 

[sohum]

the blame for not winning goes entirely to the batsmen for wasting that much time in the middle to get those runs!!!

Exactly. And I would venture as far as to claim that Ganguly was the one who started it. Oh well, let's hope that Kolkata and Bangalore can turn out better though I fear that Pakistan may have gained enough confidence to get a 1-1 or even a 1-0 win in this series.

 

[jazz]

zaheer khan should be dropped and replaced with harbhajan singh next match

 

[m_vaughan]

Yet another flat pitch. Runs coming so easily even into day5??

 

[sohum]

zaheer khan should be dropped and replaced with harbhajan singh next match

He definitely will. He bowled well in the first innings but was not lucky to pick up the wickets. In the second innings he was just a non-factor.

Yet another flat pitch. Runs coming so easily even into day5??

Yet another flat pitch? What's that supposed to mean? First we are criticized for creating bowler-friendly pitches and now for batsmen-friendly pitches. Haha, just kidding. But yeah it is a flat pitch and apart from that Kamran Akmal batted marvelously. I still feel the biggest factor in this match was the session of negative play that the Indians succumbed to in Day 3. Apart from that, it was India dominating the match for the first 4 days and Pakistan dominating the 5th day. And one must not forget the rain, too...about 50 overs were lost because of the rain.

At least the series is shaping up to look good. Just sad from an Indian supporters point of view.

 

[Insomniac]

Should be a simple win for India. Unless it rains or something.

not so simple? is it :P

heading for a draw right now

 

[Rangeela]

1st Test Result

Pakistan 1st Inning 312 (Inzi 57, Asim 91) (Balaji 5/46)
India 1st Inning 516 (Sehwag 173, Tendulkar 94, Dravid 50, Laxman 58) (Kaneria 6/150)
Pakistan 2nd Inning 496/9 declare (Inzi 86, Youhana 68, Akmal 109, Razzaq 71) (Balaji 4/95, Kumble 4/160)
India 2nd Inning 85/1

Result: Match Drawn

Man of the Match: Kamran Akmal

Series: 3-Test series level 0-0

Kamran Akmal celebrates his maiden Test century at Mohali

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Younis Khan got Sehwag out............

 

[sachinisgod]

it was a superb effort...congrats to Pakistan...may be the fans here wont agree but Inzy must be treating this result as a victory...very good batting indeed...

but the credit of the draw can rest a little bit on a few Indians' shoulders too...
1) Sachin - disappointed me and hundreds...but as I said, in our mythology Gods do falter...
2) Ganguly and Laxman - can't understand their method of running bet wickets...they could have ran harder with Sachin
3) what helped in the first innings backfired in the second...Zaheer became a liability overnight...

hope at Kolkata the usual Bhajji magic is on...coz otherwise this Pakistan team does resemble those draw loving Indo-Pak teams of yester years(justifiably so)...