7.1 A ODI bowling rundown
Bowling is a mixed affair. On the one hand, it was good to see a longer contest, on the other, I found the AI still isn't putting up much of a fight.
The pitch was dusty so I was expecting the quicks to have little effect.
in the third over, mcgrath gets first blood, sehwag lofting a square drive straight to point and ganguly awkwardly pushing at a ball that ends up
going comfortably to third slip.
yuvraj singh is the next to go, trying to belt gillespie over the covers, but caught on the dive at cover point.
kaif narrowly survives his first ball, edging through the gully to third man.
india are 3/20 after 6 overs
laxman gives a high edge to mcgrath but like kaif is safe as the ball makes it to third man. he doesnt hang around much longer however, lofting a back-foot cover drive, again to cover point
india are 4/27 after 8 overs
india stabilise somewhat at 4/43 after 10 overs as kasprowicz comes on replacing mcgrath
it doesnt take kasper long to strike, dravid tries to drive a good one just wide of off and gilchrist takes it
india are 5/50 after 12 overs
another catch at cover point, this one a pretty good shot but the fielder gets it, karthik out for a duck
young cameron white on now for a crack at the lower order
india are 6/54 after 15 overs
things have stabilised a lot, kaif operating smoothly and agarkar is holding it
together at the other end, but australia have them under control
india are 6/65 after 20 overs
kasprowicz strikes again! drops the pace, just outside off and straightening, kaif tries to launch it straight but is clean bowled
mcgrath comes back into the attack replacing kasprowicz
white is continually beating the batsmen but to no effect, finally, he shortens his length and gets harbhajan singh bat-pad (actually, was quite funny to watch, the fielder didn't catch this till he was already on the ground)
india 8/71 after 25 overs
india 8/78 after 30 overs
mcgrath finishes his overs with 2/40, white soon after with 1/11
andy symonds is the new bowler followed by simon katich at the other end
agarkar charges symonds on a shorter one and is stumped!
india 9/93 after 35 overs
katich replaced by gillespie
india 9/112 after 40 overs
symonds replaced by clarke
finally! pathan lofts gillespie to backward point, though i wonder if cover point
wouldnt have got to it if he wasnt there.
india all out after 43 overs for 115
If you have a look at the Manhattan, India lost the first six wickets in the first 15 overs but held the tail for about 28 overs. This is stupid.
I was happy though that there were plenty of chances that didnt go to hand, as in reality. With the better pacing, the final four wickets were very thrilling to take. Definitely a step in the right direction. I've also tried out Gold639's changes to 7.0 beta, but that was all out for 82 after 37 overs on a hard pitch. The trouble is, the top order doesn't ever look like hanging around after the first few overs.
I know this is already a hideously long post but a few things i noted; there were a stack of catches in the cover point region, I don't know if its just accidental or what but I thought it was suspicious. The other thing is that something weird is happening to the spinners. The computer was trying to pull and cut and drive them, but about 90% of the time the ball just dropped straight to the ground. This makes them much more defensive and perhaps it was just because they were bowling to tailenders, but on a dusty pitch white bowled his full 10 overs against the last four for 1/11.
Thanks for reading, I think I'll leave a batting review to someone who can bat decently