Archive for the ‘Test match’ Category
Disapointed Aussie captain after losing the Ashes for the second time in England
England won the Ashes and Australia was pushed down the rankings from the first time since 2003. Australia has been such a dominant team for the past 15 years or so that this loss would have hurt their pride in more than one way. First thing is that Ponting losses both his English Ashes assignments in 2005 and 2009 and second thing is that the Aussies drop to number 4 in the rankings. But like the cricket Australia said all cannot be blamed on the captain. This situation was already predicted by few pundits earlier last year.
Australia had lost to India and South Africa last year and scraped through to victories against SL and WI. Australia is still quite a decent team but no way as intimidating or dominant as they used to be couple of years ago. To be frank both the teams in this series were pretty ordinary. Australia’s demise in the rankings was expected. No team can recover quickly when you lose players of the caliber of Warne, McGrath, Hayden, Gilchrist, Langer etc, in such a short span of time. The biggest loss for Australia has been for sure Shane Warne. Australia since his retirement has struggled to find a decent spinner to replace him.
The Problem for the Aussies was that Stuart McGill who was supposed to walk into the squad announced his retirement immediately after Shane did his. This put a great dampener on the Aussie plans. Since then they have tried Hogg, McGain, Hauritz and Krezja all with limited success. Their batting has been okay and has held its own most of the time in the recently concluded series but the bowling did struggle a bit. Even though the Aussie bowlers finished with better stats at the end of the series they came short at the crucial moments in the series.
The Aussie problems were compounded with the failures from their main batsmen namely Hussey and Hughes. Phil Hughes was immediately replaced by Shane Watson who even though did a good job, never kicked on to a big score. Hussey though was the biggest disappointment for the Aussies. He did score a hundred in the lost cause in the final innings of the series but it came a little bit too late for his team. The other major disappointment was the injury to their premier bowler Lee who could not play in a single game. In spite of him being in good form and fit the selectors resisted playing him in the final test.
They can’t be faulted as Clarke, Johnson, Hilfenhaus and Siddle combination did a great job at Headingly. Not playing Hauritz on a turning Oval pitch shows the complete lack of confidence of the skipper on his premier spinner on this tour. The way Marcus North was turning the ball square only made everyone think what would have happened if Warne was still playing for Australia. Even though the Aussies lost lots of great names in the last 2 years the biggest of them was Shane Warne. I guess the Aussies will do reasonably well with their pace attack in the coming few years but not having a decent spinner might work against them.
Well anyways the top three teams currently are South Africa, Sri Lanka and India (In the same order) followed by Australia and England forming the top 5. The Aussies will be disappointed by their showing in the Ashes and the English will be elated on regaining the urn. There will be lots for the Aussie captain to ponder about in coming days but he does not have too much time as the Champions Trophy begins in less than a month’s time. There are rumors of Ponting being replaced as the captain of Australian team by Clarke but that might not happen.
Anyways congrats to Strauss and England on regaining the Ashes and to the South African team who have reached the top of the test rankings with consistent performances over the past couple of years. The rankings are going to be interesting as I expect musical chairs at the top spot for the next couple of years as no team looks as dominant as the Aussies were couple of years back.
Collection of my thoughts
Posted on: February 19, 2009
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India crush Aussies to go one up
Posted on: October 24, 2008
India managed to achieve what they could not in Sydney earlier this year and managed to save the first test in Bangalore against the Aussies. The test match ended with a slight advantage to Australia as the dominated for the most of it. The Indians though would be happy that their batsmen got a good workout on the final day and almost everyone made some runs in the match.
The Australians would be dissapointed with their efforts in the Indian first innings where they allowed India to escape from a 232/7 to 360 reducing the lead to just 70. Australia’s major concern would be their spin department as Cameroon White did not pose any problems to the Indians on a wearing pitch. The Indians too would be worried about Kumble, who did not pick up a single wicket in this test match and has problems with his shoulder. Harbajan’s performance also was below par, even though he bowled well in the second innings.
India’s star this test match was undoubtedly Zaheer Khan with his gritty 57 in the first innings and picking up 6 wickets in the match on top of that. Zaheer deservedly won the man of the match award for his allround performance. The other top performer for the Indians was Ishant Sharma who constantly troubled the Australians to fininsh with 7 wickets in the match. The batting which failed to Impress in the first innings held their own in the second.
The Australians had a good match. Ricky Ponting finally scored runs in India with a superb hundred in the first innings. Hayden’s failure would be a worrying factor for the Aussies as he is their best in Indian conditions. Johnson bowled beautifully and troubled the Indians in the first innings taking 4 wickets in the process. Australia’s only worry would be their spin department.
All in all it was a gripping 5 days of test cricket. Both teams would be hoping to put up a better show in Mohali to go one up in the test series. Indian would be hoping that Anil Kumble recovers from the shoulder injury. Sachin would be hoping that he will reach the milestone in the next test match which he is currently behind by 13 runs.
Indians lose the plot
Posted on: April 7, 2008
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An inept batting performance by the Indians handed South Africa a 1-0 lead in the 3 match series in Ahmedabad. The Indians were shot out for 76 in the first innings which virtually ended their challenge in the second test match. The Indian batting was clueless against the South African pace bowlers with Dale Steyn living up to his pre series hype.
Steyn and Co bundled out the Indians in couple of sessions on the first day with none of the home team batsmen able to apply themselves on a good batting pitch. Agreed that there was some movement on the first morning but that doesnt justify a score of 76. This is exactly what I was worried about when we started getting those unnecessary statements from the young Indian stars after the Australian tour. The Indian team had no planning either in their batting or when they were on the field.
I guess the hype surrounding IPL is also for sure a reason for this debacle. The team members were seen dancing and enjoying themselves on their franchise launches before this series started and also inbetween the games. This shows that the seriousness required for a series which would have made this team undisputed number 2 in tests was not present. SA on the other hand have worked hard and they deserve this success. Their batting was great and their bowling was very effective on a good batting track.
I guess the youngsters in the Indian team have already been spoilt enough with so much of money through IPL that they are not that interested in tests anymore. This was my exact point when the IPL auctions were going on. The kind of rubbish statements made by the youngsters after the Australian series looks very immature now after this game. You can bet on your bottom dollar that Australia will never put up such a horrible performance anywhere, leave alone at home. Thats what makes them a champion team and they will continue to be there. India does not deserve the number 2 spot and that honour should rightly go to the proteas regardless of the outcome of the series.
I am not saying that based on this one performance but we lack the consistancy associated with the top two spots. Indians need to sort themselves out and get their priorities right. Teams are no more uncomfortable touring the subcontinent and India have to be at the top of their game to win a series at home. Having the IPL starting in 10 days time should not take away the focus from this test series in hand. Test cricket is still the medium through which a player’s greatness will be determined no matter how many IPL games they play. The players need to understand the reason why they got picked up the IPL franchise was due to their performances for their country.
If India wins the last test and squares the series 1-1, it still does not mean that the underlying problems are taken care of. I am sure that the players will come back swinging at the media saying that how they blasted them for losing one game and how they have been unfair to them and all but as far as I am concerned all the critisism towards the team was perfectly valid. I guess the only way the team can command respect from the true cricket lovers in India like myself is by performing well in the International stage. We dont care about the IPL’s and the ICL’s as its not the same as representing your country.
I was recently reading a great article on sledging by Harsha Bhogle and it got me thinking what does aggression on the cricket field mean. Aggression on a cricket field has been a hugely misunderstood concept.
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Five years ago when India won the Natwest finals against England, we had unearthed two batting stars in Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif. All of us thought that those two along with Virender Sehwag would form the crux of Indian batting line up in the future. Almost six years after the Natwest final, Kaif is no longer part of the Indian team, Yuvraj is still inconsistant and Sehwag’s one day average keeps diminishing with every innings he plays.
The Indian team though have found few batsmen for the future in Gambhir, Uthappa, Rohit and the captain himself Dhoni. India’s future after Sachin, Dravid, Sourav and Laxman looks really uncertain. Sachin who is still a part of the one day scheme of things is trying his best to help the youngsters in the team with his valuable inputs and that should do them a world of good. Yuvraj and Sehwag being the two most experianced members in the batting line up after Sachin, should take more responsibilty in guiding these youngsters and making sure that they dont fall out like a few have in the past few years.
When Kaif played that wonderful innings against England in the Natwest trophy he was considered to be a captaincy material and was expected to be a part of the team for a long time. Currently he is not even in the reckoning. The youngsters need to realise to be on the top, the performances need to be consistant over a period of time. I still remember Vijay Bharadwaj, who was man of the match in a series in kenya few years ago and suddenly dissapeared from the scene. We can see so many such instances in Indian cricket over the past few years.
Now that IPL has made sure that these youngsters have become overnight heroes. There is lots of money involved in the game these days and its easy to lose focus of the job in hand. When you consider Ishant Sharma who has had just few matches under his belt being auctioned at $950,000 at IPL, you cant help but wonder is this good for these youngsters. When you have players come into international cricket and have few successful games the hype in India is so much that they become overnight stars and dont know how to handle the same. The reason why Sachin, Dravid and Laxman have been so successful over a period of time is due to the fact that they have both their feet firmly grounded inspite of all the hype and hapoola surrounding the game these days.
With so much money involed in cricket these days its easy for these youngsters to lose focus on the game itself. Thats what we saw with Irfan, Sehwag, Yuvraj and few others who had to be dropped from the team to make them realise that you cant be in the team if you are not performing. I guess India has great talent coming through in both batting and bowling and we need to make sure that the IPL’s and the ICL’s dont ruin it for us. The players are currently made to believe that they are greater than what they are and it will be better for them to realise that what matters the most the their performances on the cricket field.
Ten years down, no one is going to remember how much you were auctioned for in IPL. The reason we kept getting great batsmen over a period of time was due to the fact that, playing cricket was their main focus. Now a days, you just need to be a part of one series win and you dont have to play cricket anymore. I will be very interested in seeing in couple years time, which of these youngsters make it through to become the next Sachin or Laxman or Dravid of Indian cricket.
I have been a fan of Indian cricket and I am very excited looking at these youngsters performing so well in Australia. I just hope that this continues and these youngsters go from strength to Strength rather than being weighed down by this recent media frenzy and the money involved. I want India to be a cricket team which is respected throughout the world for their performances on the cricket field rathen than being the financial powerhouse which they are right now. Cricket is India has become more of a business than a sport which was the case 10-15 years back. Hopefully the game survives and will be still be remembered for your exploits on the cricket ground.
A Wonderful Test Series
Posted on: January 28, 2008
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The Adelaide draw brings to end one of the most fascinating test series in the recent times. The Indians would be really pleased with the way the came back in the series after two defeats. This series also was the last on the Australian Soil for the big 5. Sachin, laxman and Kumble had a great series but Dravid and Sourav would be ruing missed opportunities.
In a way the last two test matches brought focus back on cricket after the chaotic Sydney game. Both the teams played hard and competitive cricket over the past one month and 1-1 would have been a fair result. Bad preparation cost India the Melbourne game, bad umpiring and some bad shots cost us the Sydney test match.
Australia in the end proved that they are still the number one team in the world but only by a little margin. The Indian team has again proved to the rest of the world that Australia can be beaten in its own den. Brett lee was the best bowler in the series with 20+ wickets and has improved leaps and bounds since India toured Australia in 2003/04. It seems like Australia have found an ideal replacement for Glenn McGrath. The Australians though are finding tough to replace Shane Warne as the experiment with Brad Hogg failed miserably in this series. The fact that both Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke out-bowled Brad Hogg is an able testimony for his failure in this series. Australia would be hoping that Stuart McGill recovers from his injury really quick to fill the void left by Shane Warne. Adam Gilchrist’s retirement also came as surprise as there were no indications of the same prior to this series.
Matthew Hayden was again their best batsman against the Indians as he was in the prior meetings between the two sides. Andrew “Lucky” Symonds played some important innings for his side in this test series and so did Micheal Hussey and Clarke. Stuart Clarke provided able support to Brett Lee in the fast bowling department and Mitchell Johnson was terribly inconsistent throughout the series. I have never seen a test bowler bowling so many wides as Johnson did in this series.
The Indian team again relied on Sachin Tendulkar for some big runs and to his credit the “Little Master” did not disappoint his captain. Dravid and Sourav had a very inconsistent series but as usual VVS Laxman had a great series against the Australians. Irfan Pathan, who I think should have played since the first test, gave a good account of himself by winning the man of match award contributing handsomely with both bat and ball in India’s win in Perth. Sehwag again one of the players who should have been in India’s playing X1 in both Melbourne and Sydney had a great end to this series by scoring a match saving 150 in the Adelaide test.
The inexperienced bowling attack performed very well against the strong Australian batting line up with Ishant Sharma being the find of the series for India. RP Singh bowled beautifully in the series in patches but lacked consistency. Kumble was once again the star performer for India in the bowling department as he captured 20+ wickets in this series. He captained the team really well during the difficult time after the second test and also made sure that he brought out the best from his team.
Overall India gave a good account of themselves in this test series. India remains the only team to have at least won one test match against Australia in every series they have played with them since the 2001/02 series.
No more "Paper Tigers" abroad
Posted on: August 3, 2007
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For a long time since I have been watching cricket India has been labeled as poor visitors(Strictly on cricketing terms :)). The famous title given to the Indian team by the media was “Tigers at home and Paper Tigers abroad”. The Indian team in the past have struggled when they toured as they took too long to get acclimatized to the conditions. When they evetually get used to the conditions it would be too late. I remember watching India tour Australia in 1991/92 and later 1999/00, hoping that there will be some resistance from the team but got really dissapointed as we lost badly on both occasions.
In 2000 when Sachin resigned as the captain of the Indian cricket team following bad performaces by both the test and one-day squads. Sourav Ganguly got appointed as the captian of the Indian team in the later part of 2000. It was really a difficult time for all captains in the world due to the match fixing scandal. The game itself needed some faith reinstalled among the fans by the players around the world. India’s first overseas win abroad after 1993 came in Bangladesh when the defeated the home team by 9 wickets. The win in itself was not much to write home about as the team was expected to defeat the latest entrant to test cricket. The Indian team under Sourav did not have a great 2001 losing all the away test series which included a 2-1 loss to Srilanka.
The end of 2001 brought about one of the greatest test series I have ever witnessed on Indian soil when India took on Australia in a three match test series. India emerged victorious by a margin of 2-1. The series will always be remembered for Harbajan’s 32 wickets and also the great partnership between Dravid and Laxman in Eden Gardens where India came back to erase a 272 runs first innings deficit to eventually win the game. That series in India, kind of sparked a turnaround for cricket in India. Australians were the best team in the world and had come to India with a proud record of 15 straight test wins. After that series India had two new stars in Laxman and Harbajan. The Indian team went to Zimbabwe with the hope to win their first test series outside sub-continent for 16 years but lost the second game after the winning the first convincingly to return with a 1-1 draw. Similar fate followed when they toured WestIndies where they again sqandered 1-0 lead to eventually lose the series 2-1.
Even though we were losing all these series the one good thing about them all was that India were winning test matches abroad if not the series. Since I started watching cricket India have never won a test match outside home except for one series in Srilanka in 1993/94. India had good wins in WestIndies and Zimbabwe and had a great world cup in 2003 reaching the finals. I would attribute most of the success prior to worldcup to the Ganguly and Wright combination. The Indian team had a great tour to England where they won the one-day series and drew the test series 1-1. Ganguly was great with the youngsters in the team and he instilled an aggressive intent in team which was lacking when we toured in the past. The Indian team were no more a pushover and also started to believe that they can do more than just play a part. After the world cup India had a good year where they went to Australia and had a great time returning with a draw in the test series. Later in 2004 Ganguly’s team won both test and one-day series in Pakistan.
The Indian team was doing great with emergance of Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni,Zaheer and Pathan. The Indian team had few problems in 2005/06 with the exit of the coah John Wright and the Captain Sourav ganguly almost at the same time. Greg Chappel took over as the coach of the Indian team and Rahul Dravid was named as the captain of the team. The team had a bad 2006(Expect for their first series win abroad since 1986 when the defeated WI 1-0) which carried over in the world cup where they lost in the first round. Since then the team led by Rahul Dravid has been fighting to spark a turnaround with Zaheer returning into the team and the emergence of Sreesanth, Munaf and RP Singh. Greg Chappel resigned after the World Cup debacle but Rahul Dravid still carries on without a coach for the team.
As I write this article the Indian team is in England winning the second test in trent bridge leading the series 1-0 going into the third test in Oval to commence on Aug 9th. The Indian team would want to come home victorious by winning the test series in England which would be their first since 1986. The Indian team has won 16 test matches abroad since 2000, a record only bettered by Australia who are sitting pretty with 26 test wins. The tag of “Paper Tigers” was given by the media in the early and late 90’s and deservedly so as the team struggled to put up even a fighting performance overseas leave alone winning a test match. The tag has been lifted since the new millenieum due to efforts of John Wright, Sourav Ganguly and currently by Rahul Dravid who are making sure that when the seniors in the team retire the Indian team is one of the best in the world. Sachin, Sourav and Rahul derserve to be a part of a good team for their services in the last decade. I hope that this year turns out to be the stepping stone to the same. The Indian team’s first goal would be the series in England and then the home series against Pakistan before the take on the Australians later this year.
I sincerely hope that the Indian team emerges victorious in all their future series and keep adding to the tally of 16. Go India!
girisopinion
My Thoughts 