Day Two and Sehwag continued playing Lone Hand Luke, notching a double hundred in the process. And Ajantha Mendis took 6 wickets to justify the hype.
215/5 chasing 329 leaves the game in the balance. Sri Lanka have Mahela Jayawardene ( avg 102.5 at Galle) and Prasanna Jayawardene at the crease. Lose one wicket quickly and it is Advantage India. Dig in and play attritional cricket and the momentum will shift Sri Lanka's way.
India has, in its ranks, a rejuvenated Harbhajan Singh. - bowling round the wicket to right handers.Extracting turn and bounce and generally looking like the guy who took 32 wickets in 3 Tests against the Australians.
Anil Kumble is yet to get amongst the wickets but I wont discount him - if the wicket keeps being up and down, Sri Lanka have to bat last on a wearing surface.
India's biggest worry right now is that Rahul Dravid no longer has the presence at the batting crease as he once did.
Bad form? Maybe, but the more I see Dravid, the more he looks like a batsman playing from memory - his 93 at Perth and 100 at Chennai notwithstanding.
And this has been evident from that scratchy 12 at the Oval.
If he cannot turn his form ( and mindset) around by the time this season is over, India will have to make the tough call on his career!
25 comments:
Sehwag is a genius. Its terrible that so many of his classic knocks have been wasted over the years. I hope this one isn't.
IT feels odd to say this...but Dravid seems to be first of the fab four to go. Something inconceivable until two years back! But, who knows, we may see a turnaround from him like the one with Collingwood!
Samir,
I have a pretty good feeling that we wont be squandering the advantage Sehwag has gained for us.
Cheers,
prabu,
I am inclined to believe that Dravid, as a batsman, hit a purple patch between 2002 and 2005 and is now on the decline.
His game was based on graft - how is he going to alter it now?
Cheers,
since he relinquished the captaincy something has died in him...he is just going thru motionw...looks aloof...
his is the case study...
but the point is not how and when dravid will regain his form but till when india can take the burden of walking wicket...
also amonst this hoopla certain SG is slipping scot free...
A little too much is being read into 3 successive bad innings from Dravid.. It is true that his form has slipped a bit from his halycon days from earlier this decade, but I would still take him over Yuvraj Singh.. Even Sachin's form has slipped from his peak in the 90s, but he is still better than anthing we have.. Think Dravid deserves a bit of slack atleast till the end of this season.. coz we will be facing the OZ and the POms..
The satisfying thing about this win was that the team played with the aggression that fans typifcal expect and blame the team of not having. Here was a game where our batsmen came out with intent and showed terrific aggression, took some gambles which paid off - starting from Gambhir all the way to Karthik (can't include Sehwag as he has always been one). Great team win one must say!
SP,
A team's best batsman bats at 3. Saurav Ganguly is not our #3.
I dont believe Saurav will go beyond this season - Australia, England, Pakistan and New Zealand with the IPL thrown in for good measure will ensure that.
But what of Rahul?
Cheers,
Pontings,
I would not have worried even if Rahul took the entire day and scored just 5 runs as long as I knew that he was in control of the forward defense - problem is, nowadays the bowlers seem to be in control rather than Dravid.
And with the team structured around Dravid ( as the fulcrum), it is a worry.
Yuvraj has blown his chances of being a test player - the best he can hope for is a place in the queue ( or in the selectors thoughts ) :).
Cheers,
Prabu,
A good win but the hard part lies ahead - there is a series to be won..
When pushed, the team responded.. Now, do they have the werewithal to win the big prize or are they going to be content with the status quo?
The Indian team is extremely conservative in its thinking - if they can get away without rocking the boat, thats what they will do..
I hope they change that - that this SL trip marks the beginning of an Indian team that is interested in winning it all rather than the status quo ( and wins rather than draws)
Cheers,
Sehwag continues to reiterate his importance to India's test success at home and abroad. I really wonder how this, which wasn't ever a secret, escaped the minds of Indian cricet for well over a year. It's a loss of at least 1500-2000 runs for India...the time he was out. Who knows, he might have blasted lara's record on the pitches Jaffer and Yuvraj made merry on.
And those runs would have been at almost run a ball placing India in excellent winning positions.
Soulberry,
The problem was the muddled thinking of linking his ODI failures to his test failures. Luckily the current selection committee is good at differentiating between ODI success / failure and test success/failure. It needs to be said however that the break was a good one for Sehwag, albeit an unnecessarily extended one. The guy was out of shape for some time and has really gotten into better shape in the last couple of years.
it seems that yo took my statement SG slipping scot free as me suggesting him at no. 3...
while i was trying to say amongst hoopla of failures of dravid, sachin vvs...nobody is talking about SG and he is going unnoticed...
I share Homer's worries about Dravid, he hasn't looked close to his best for more than a year now. It'll be interesting to see the outlines of India's line-up by the end of the year.
SP,
RD is India's best bat - or was, for a prolonged period .. Ganguly was never ever India's best bat or came close to that title..
Hence the worry ( and let us not forget the GC-KM years so fast )
Cheers,
Homer,
The perennial RD baiter speaks :)
Namya,
You or me ? :)
Cheers,
Homer,
you know xactly who
:)
Homer,
you know xactly who
:)
namya,
RD is considered India's best bat.. ahead of even Sachin Tendulkar...
surely we can expect more than what he is doing at the moment?
and surely any dip in form or mental strength is a cause for worry?
Cheers,
homer,
the way you have looked at him, has always been a pariah, pls rejoice in his fall, he'll rise again.. Amen!!
And Prabu u know wat,
watever small things I've done in my life, I'll never compare Collingwood to a R Dravid.. Please you are desecrating this guy's memory
by the looks of it sachin and saurav should be the first ones to go. Dravid is still fighting out there
K3,
Thanks for your comments and welcome to the blog.
Maybe you are right - SRT might be the one to exit left ahead of Dravid, although Sachin hasnt exactly looked out of sorts for the time he had been at the crease.
Cheers,
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