Toss:- England
Teams
England - 1 Andrew Strauss, 2 Alastair Cook, 3 Michael Vaughan (capt), 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Paul Collingwood, 6 Ian Bell, 7 Matt Prior (wk), 8 Chris Tremlett, 9 Ryan Sidebottom, 10 James Anderson, 11 Monty Panesar
India - 1 Wasim Jaffer, 2 Dinesh Karthik, 3 Rahul Dravid (capt), 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 Sourav Ganguly, 6 VVS Laxman, 7 MS Dhoni (wk), 8 Anil Kumble, 9 Zaheer Khan, 10 RP Singh, 11 Sreesanth.
Session 1
14/0 in the 3rd over and it appears that the Indians are trying too much too early. Plenty of field changes, Sreesanth going over and round the wicket, no consistency in line and length.
40/0 in 5. Okay, so the Indians cant get thier lines right. But can we get a square leg in place please? Anything straight or on the legs is being dispatched with alarming regularity. And when we are bowling on and around off stump, we are bowling way too wide.
Over 8.3 Ravi Shastri got it right. Rhul Dravid has been reactive rather than proactive. And the Indians are bowling without a plan.
Over 12 - The Poms are controlling the pace and tempo of the game right now. And India are doing nothing to - either slow down the game or quicken the tempo. And of course, bowling tripe doesnt help the cause either.
Drinks - England 76/0 in 14.
WICKET! England 76-1 (Cook LBW b Ganguly 36) Sourav Ganguly is on for Sreesanth - and that's why! He beat Cook second ball and then trapped him LBW with the fourth, which nipped away and beat Cook's desperate defensive stroke. Hawk-Eye actually had it missing off stump but it looked out live, and it was beautifully bowled.
Lunch Day 1 - England 115/1 in 28 overs.England's session all the way. And India did not help its cause by dropping a catch and being all over the shop with the ball.
Pre lunch, India gave England gifts and England accepted them. Post lunch, India will have to be lss charitable. India needs to control the tempo of the game and if we can stem the flow of runs right after lunch for about half and hour or so, we will gain control of the game. Too many four balls in the first 3-4 overs after lunch and we can say good bye to getting anything from the days play.
12 comments:
The bowlers were not just bowling without a plan - they couldn't put six decent balls together.
Why put a square leg in the fifth over of the day in a Test match? Why can't the bowlers not drift on to the pads? Its why they average 30+ in tests.
The thing is, that bowlers get to return and redeem themselves as many times as they want during a Test match, batsmen get two chances....
The Indian bowlers do get it right occasionally - but they don't bowl well often enough. Contrast that with Kumble - of his 20 odd overs today, all twenty were consistently good, and on a good wicket he dismissed two batsmen... He didn't bowl a four ball every over..
Thats quality - you can't ignore that. Rahul Dravid or even God would look reactive if the bowlers drift on to leg-stump twice every over...
Its why Munaf Patel is so sorely missed and why he's so special - because he doesn't bowl too many bad ball. Even that effort in South Africa for which he got taken to the cleaners - he didn't get hit and he offered some semblance of control....
And I dont dispute anything you say Kartikeya.. We bowled tripe for the better part of the day and are lucky the scoreboard reads wht it reads.It could have been a LOT worse.
Cheers :)
With all due respect, Patel is crap. He is the lamest slacker I've seen playing for India. He ambles up, shuffling along like a lazy half-wit, bowls 125k deliveries for his opening over, takes forever to warm up, and can't stay fit (and don't get me started on his fielding, which resembles that of a spastic denied his mid-day medication). He is gone (hopefully). And good riddance. All that talk about his reverse-swing is based on one morning at Mohali. Since then, he has done precisely nothing.
Give me a Sreesanth any day; a young man, who for all his imperfections, at least looks like he knows he is playing for his country. Patel looks like he is bowling to his nephews in the backyard - trying his best not to hurt them.
Cheers,
Samir
I disagree that external demeanor is a valid measure of the effort that a bowler is putting in. I would encourage you to read up and find out about Munaf Patel's background, the sort of place he grew up in... and where he's reached. In the word's of an India player - "he's had a phenomenal journey something most other players who have made the Indian side couldn't possibly imagine".....
As for the quality of his bowling, in my opinion he's the best Indian fast bowler since Kapil Dev. As for the comparison with Sreesanth - he has proved himself to be superior to Sreesanth and far more consistent than Sreesanth in both Test and ODI cricket.
To say that Sreesanth is better than Munaf is like saying Ganguly is a better batsman and captain than Dravid...
Munaf tries as hard as Sreesanth does - anyone who thinks otherwise should really think again....
Dont agree with you Karthikeya. Munaf patel has often been found laidback. In the world cup, he was preffered over Santh and in all the 3 games, he didnt manage to pick up wkts. Though he kept runs flow in check, but thats not you need from a bowler supposed to be a spearhead.
Agree with Samir, he s gone for good. What is the use of a bowler who is a liability and been forced to carry like a baggage when he is unable to complete any tour w.o injuries.
About the humble background, most of the indian players have come from similar backgrounds. harbhajan singh, Irfan Pathan are glarring examples. The passion is visible in this players for playing for the country. I dont remember Munaf displaying the guiles of a fast bowler any time in his India career.
And if you might remember this man was picked in the team for Nagpur Test for his 9 wkt haul against the English side in the tour game at Baroda. That was a wrecking Munaf Patel, bowling fast and bowling yorkers. Since then what happened ?
Faded out and should be for good unless he works out on his attitude and fitness
I don't see how you can comment about someones attitude with hardly any evidence...
You could make an observation about his style of bowling - but you can't realistically offer a well concieved opinion about his attitude as an individual.
As for his bowling, that is precisely where his class and quality lies - his ability to control proceedings.
I predict that Munaf will be back..... sooner than you think. I wish him well.
Have you seen Munaf running in hard and bending his back. Have you seen him sprint on the field stopping runs or with normal fielding standards, let alone like Yuvraj or Kaif.
Munaf has been reprimanded by Sunil Gavaskar too for his lackasidical approach and casual one when he kept his t-shirt (india colors)out of the pants and that summed it up all.
When he goes down to his bowling mark and begins running, the walk suggests as if some one is forcing him to play and his mind is somewhere else.
We dont need this kind of laidback players. Srinath was also laidback in his fast bowling guiles, in the way he dint swear anyone or abuse anyone, but he did pump aggression to his bowling and was a great exponent in both forms of the game.
What do you count of his 3rd Test match breakdown in Capetown early this year when he wasnt fit fully and yet he played. is that ethical ? He went to world cup without 100% fitness and we saw the results.
He was supposed to be the spearhead, not a support caste like RPSingh. Spearheads aren't laidback guns or dumbs.
I would suggest that these assessments based on body language (which is cultivated over a very long period of time by an individual) are slippery.
We need players who can bowl. What good is an angry young man who ends up delivery two leg stump half volleys an over and can't bowl to his field?
A similar folly is made by people comparing Ganguly to Dravid in the captaincy area - Dravid has the better record in Tests as well as ODI's as captain, arguably with a squad that consists of a few players in decline, a few players experiencing mid-career blues and a few other new ones making their way... unlike Ganguly who enjoyed the greatest Indian batting middle order in history in their prime....
But Ganguly was expressive and wore his emotions on his sleeve on the field... while Dravid is measured and calm.
The bottom line about Munaf Patel is that he can really bowl - and he has shown it look through the the scorecards and commentary sheets of his last 10-15 ODI games and compare Munaf's efforts to those of the other quick men. Look at the Cape town Test if you will - even a substandard Munaf exerted more control than other bowlers who were fully fit.
I value that kind of quality. He started out as a tearaway quick bowler who has since realized the value of accuracy and of finding a difficult line and length to a batsman....
It all depends on what you look for - if you think someone who's "pumped up" is necessarily better than someone who's measured (how about Pollock v Nel as a comparison here?)
Munaf has the potential to be as good as Pollock in my view.
Homer
to me our team in general has the history of non sense cricket...
with some common sense (and barring nagpur pitch) we could have avoided australia's final frontier which was acknowledged by ganguly himself later on...
with some common sense cricket we could have won in SA last time in which we had upper hands in almost all test matched only to let slip away with one bad sessions...
here in lords also common sense would have been that look england have thinnest possible bowling lineup and if we can start well and grab first session we have more than enough opportunity to defy history...
but of course the "common sense" which is so rare , oh uncommon to our team india...and its to whole team not limited to individual...
how often we see the collective brain failure on IMPORTANT OCCASIONS...actually we are the BIGGEST CHOKERS game will ever see...other wise how one can explain warming-up-to-the-tour-as-time-goes by syndrome...
coz then there's nothing left to lose. and even if we win first up on some occasions we get afraid of "backlash" only to surrender meekly thereafter...
Hi, I'm new here, but I enjoy reading this blog and the links to other wonderful blogs enclosed.
India is in familiar straits as Day Five is about to commence - the bowlers have yet again kept India with chance, can Kaarthick, Ganguly and Laxman do it with the rest?
The Indian bowlers have made amends for their earlier poor performance, now the batsmen must do the same.
I'll keep the faith till it isn't required any longer.
Soulberry,
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the kind words :).
Cheers,
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