So India lost. And pretty convincingly too.And I spent the entire night watching the game. And have been at the workplace all day today.
None of which upsets me.
What upsets me is the complete lack of game plan when approaching the chase. Winning the toss and opting to field first would have meant that the Indians had a figure in mind as to how much they would be comfortable chasing.
And when Australia reached 306, which may have been in excess of the figure the Indians had in mind, India's approach to the run chase belied belief.
The positive start followed by the downing of shutters followed by trying to accelerate while in a defensive frame of mind followed by the the absurd passage of play where Dhoni was trying to recreate his Lord's heroics.
Exactly what was India's game plan?
And can someone explain to me the logic behind bowling Yuvraj in overs 36, 38 and ....48! Or Sreesanth bowling 9 overs of his quota? Or Ramesh Powar bowling only 5 of his alloted 10 overs?
Or Zaheer bowling over #41 when he had 4 overs to go, Sreesanth had 5 and the remaining over needed to be bowled by someone else.
And finally, this. If "aggressive cricket" by the Aussies is what it takes to keep a lid on their player behavior and their pie holes, bring it on!
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
India v Australia Second ODI, Kochi
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10 comments:
Homer,
Hats off on the all-nighter. I couldn't do it. I had to teach at 11 AM. And I think I'm too old anyway! :) I'll wait for the tests before I indulge in such reckless behavior :)
Cheers,
Samir
lol Samir :)..
Well done homer... but seriously Sreesanth went for 67 in 9 overs...... im wondering why he bowled 9 overs.... not why he didn't bowl 10. He shouldn't have bowled after his first spell of 5 overs for 33.
fair point Kartikeya but the thing is this - Pathan did not complete his quota in the previous game and Powar and Sreesanth did the same in this one. And to think that these guys have been selected for thier bowling. And the support bowlers did not do much better either - both SRT and Yuvi went for more than 7 runs per over.
If the part timers had some success, it made sense for not bowling the regulars...But in this case, that was not true.
It was a calculation mistake from Dhoni--as simple as that. and I think we're burdening the kid too much.
Why on earth can't the BCCI find a coach for India who can formulate the simple game plans?
To be honest, I just couldn't understand what India's plan was. What was the plan against Haddin who had good success against us in the last match too? What was the plan against Hayden, or Symonds or any batsmen?
I didn't see India setting traps for aussies like they had done against our players??
It was the lost case, the moment Aussies lost just 2 wickets in the 1st 15 overs and kept on going at a good rate despite that. They had scored 307 even in the last ODI when they were 90/4 at one stage??
Why on earth could we not get over the ealy loss of wickets?
they could get over from early loss of wickets coz we bowled very badly in middle overs and they did not...
as simple as that...
had we had bowler who could have applied pressure when symonds came and then haddin the result could have been entirely different...
we have to seriously look at the potency of bowling in middle over and i believe india is already starting missing strike bowler like chawla...
as for powar i think he is feeling the pressure from the presence of Harbhajan otherwise how one can explain this noticeable dip in form despite having pitch of one liking...
also we must give credit to Aussies for the calculative gamble they took while spinners were on. most of sixes were tonked on first balls of over that made pressure on bowler from very start they had to forgot about flight and other variations and just concentrated on restrictive line thereby surrendering wicket taking capabilities...
and that was the difference in the end...
Chandan, straight point,
How much of the loss can be attributed to personnel versus the lack of a definite game plan?
Since post the World Cup 2003, India has been anchored in ODI cricket on the basis of superior individual performances. While in Test cricket, we see India getting more and more comfortable with playing hard as nails, attritional cricket, eschewing flair for grit, I have not seen any such leitmotif.
I had thought that Twenty20 would allow us to begin defining the way we want to approach the 50 over game ( and it might too) but on current evidence, there seems to be just a lot of drift with how we play the game.
The moment a partnership builds, there is a palpable decrease in intensity in our approach, both with bat and ball. Bowlers seem to run out of ideas, fielders suddenly stop backing them, everyone goes through the motions. Ditto with batting and the loss of a few wickets.
On a tangential note, is 3.5 hours on the cricket field a tad too long for our attention spans? Test cricket has sessions of 2 hrs each, Twenty20 is an hour and a half.
Cheers
I think you have o attack Brad Hogg.. He is the one who has been at your throat (in terms of sledging as well), and he is he one who has to GO.. so if you can' read him you are DEAD.. Learn to read Hogg and you get through the middle overs much better
Rahul,
The problem in the Kochi ODI was two fold
1. We had lost 4 wickets and Dhoni and Dravid were in between rebuilding the innings and attacking when Hogg came in.
2. The wicket spun ( with the spin getting bigger as the match progressed).
The only time someone like Clarke had any success as a spinner was in Mumbai in 2004 when he picked 6/9. And then he picks 2/35 in 10 overs in the Kochi ODI.
Cheers
i don't think any team loses as many matches as india by choosing to do the wrong thing after winning the toss
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