The Day 5 gameplan

What I would like to see happen

India bat for 38 overs, score at a rate of 5 rpo ( irrespective of wickets lost), push the total up to 270 and declare. This will give Australia 270 runs to chase in 50 overs on a Day 5 wicket.

What is likely to happen

Australia will throw everything at their disposal at India in the first hour. If they dont make a serious enough dent ( a wicket or two), both teams will resign themselves to the draw. And we will see Australia get their over rate right for the first time in the series ( courtesy the extra work done by the spinners).

Rahul Dravid will get some valuable time in the middle and Gautam Gambhir will consolidate his claims for Man of the Series.

And the Australians will get an additional day of working on their tans.

From left field

India bat at 3-4 runs/over till tea. That pushes the score to 250-270. And then India declares. This will give Australia 30 overs to play for the draw.

And gives India the opportunity to pull the Australians down just a notch ( or two). Or the opportunity to think of the what might have beens if we get 5 odd wickets.

Ridiculous!

In a move to curb the presence of the ICL in Bangladesh, the Information Ministry of Bangladesh has issued a notification to their official broadcaster Diganta TV against providing live feed of the Dhaka Warriors' matches.

The Hindustan Times has a copy of the letter (dated October 19) sent by AKM Hanif, Executive Director of Diganta TV to Tuhin Barua, the CEO of the channel, asking him to take necessary steps to curtail the telecast.

180 overs to go....

Australia 338/4,chasing India's 613/7 decl.

From an Indian standpoint ( make that purely my own!), I would break the game down into 3 parts ( factoring in overs lost for change of innings).

60 overs to get the remaining 6 Australian wickets.
45 overs to bat and set a target
70 overs to bowl at Australia in the second innings

Assuming that Australia maintain their current run rate of 3.21, they will add an additional 193 runs to their total in the 60 overs mentioned above. Which takes their score to 531.

And amounts to a lead of 82.

If India bats at a run rate of 4 runs/over, we are looking at a score of 260 or thereabouts for the Australians to chase in the 70 overs - an effective run rate of 3.74.

A 5th day wicket ( with all its attendant charms), 70 overs to see out for a draw, or 420 balls to seal a win,fielders buzzing, a Sunday crowd at its vocal best...

Whoever said Test cricket was boring.. or dying?

No problem, Gautam

Sit out the last Test of the series. Or better yet, play for Delhi in the Ranji Trophy. That should keep you match fit.And ready for the English.

Because, in their ranks, the Poms have Stuart Broad. Who just happens to be the son of Chris Broad.

And he will be a worthy target of your wrath.For pointers, just ask Yuvraj Singh.

And if Mr Broad jr opens his mouth, you can always tell him - "Did your daddy not teach you about Level 1 offenses?"

Why so angry?

If this is okay



why the outrage over the elbow?

Brilliant!

The ECB are demanding an urgent review of the behaviour of billionaire Allen Stanford which calls into question their continued participation in Saturday's $20million Stanford Super Series match in Antigua.

The England and Wales Board are concerned that the tawdry nature of the event - which they have committed to participating in for five years - is doing great damage to the image of the game.

Cool.. But as the English players are not exactly welcome in the IPL, what will Giles Clarke do?

Third Test - Day 1 Australia have a problem

and his name is Ricky Ponting.

And not just because he lost the toss, twice in a row.

Saurav Ganguly, in one of his interviews, mentioned that Ricky Ponting's true worth as captain would be known after Shane Warne and Glen McGrath retired.

And so far, in this tour, Ponting has been found wanting.

What is the point of playing Cameron White as your spinner when Michael Clarke, with a crooked back, bowled more overs than him? Ditto Simon Katich.

Starting from his self imposed go -slow after scoring his maiden Test hundred on Indian soil through his rather timid declaration at Bangalore, from his inept handling of his bowling resources at Mohali down to his callous treatment of Cameron White on the first day at Delhi, Ricky Ponting has done his utmost to undermine the confidence of his team.

And it shows.

India finished the day at 296/3.From 5/1, And 27/2.

And while Gautam Gambhir deserves a kudos for his 100 and Tendulkar and VVS for their 50's, I am inclined to believe that Nasser Hussein would have done a much better job with this bowling attack to restrict the Indians.

From India's point of view, the game plan is simple enough. Keep the Australians on the field for as long as possible. There have already been signs on the first day of fraying nerves in the Australian ranks and a touch of the smog and the sun will abet the cause even more.

And with back to back tests, grinding the Australian bowlers to the ground is not a bad ploy.

PS:- The blog turns 2 today.. :)

A mind in disarray?

WE'VE put considerable thought and effort into how we're going to play the third Test, which starts in New Delhi tomorrow.

Working on the themes of what we're going to start doing, what we're going to stop doing and what we're going to keep doing, we've got a very clear idea of how to tackle India.

However, there were a lot of nodding heads at our team meeting on Sunday morning when I made it clear that it's fine to write those things down and talk about them, it is putting them into action that is the important thing.

After a disappointing last Test in Mohali and with some relatively young and inexperienced players in the squad, it's important to keep communicating all the time and not let little things slip away.

I've made a point of talking to every player at some stage during training over the past couple of days just to see how they're going.

That includes a good chat with Matty Hayden about the way he batted during the second innings of the second Test, when he took on Zaheer Khan.

Haydos plays his best cricket when he gets himself locked into a one-on-one battle with a bowler. There's no doubt about that.

When you see him glaring back at the bowler you know he's really up for the contest.

He went beyond that in the second innings with Zaheer after Zaheer had dismissed him in the first three innings.

Haydos wanted to put the pressure back on the bowler but he was actually through that stage.

He got to 29 and didn't need to go hard any more.

He'd won that battle and there was a change of bowler. Harbhajan Singh came on and I think he could have pulled the reins in a little bit then and played a different way.

He totally agreed with that and knew he had made a bit of a mistake.

But with his presence you only have to listen to the Indians talk about him. They genuinely fear him.

If he gets to 29 or 30 in the next Test, I reckon there is a big innings just around the corner.

If I've got a bit of advice to offer about cricket to the guys, great, but my chats are often just about communicating and seeing how things are going for them away from cricket.

Brad Haddin has a newborn at home, Cameron White's in the middle of his first Test series and missed out a few times with the bat, although he's been pretty good with the ball and Brett Lee's probably been putting extra pressure on himself.

If the guys tell me absolutely everything that's going on it makes things easier for me to communicate with them and it helps them get a little bit off their chest if they need to.

Brett was obviously disappointed after the second Test. He was one of a number of players who didn't meet their expectations, including me. It's important to do what he's done. Have a couple of days of reflection and then get that all out of the way and look at what he needs to do building up to this Test to give himself the best possible chance of playing well.

Everything that's come out of his mouth and his actions in the past few days have been spot on.

He's been in the gym doing extra weights and doing extra running and bowling sessions, so he's giving himself every opportunity to be ready for this game.

To see him take things on like that and have a bit of an extra spring in his step about it will be great for him and hopefully rub off on the rest of the team.

It was important that we moved on quickly, forget about what happened last week and start thinking about some of the more positive things we did in the first Test and try to start this game well.

The whole momentum of the last Test went away really quickly with the way India started.

The way they began with the bat was very positive and they had a lot of momentum.

And the way we started our innings was exactly what we didn't want, losing early wickets.

There has to be a certain strategy around the way everyone goes about their cricket. The way we attacked things with the ball and the bat in the last Test, it looked on reflection like a lot of the strategy we had in the first Test wasn't evident. That's generally what happens when you're under pressure in a game but the important thing this week is everybody has their strategy for success.

It's important that we apply it from the very first ball we bowl and the very first ball we face.

With our batsmen, the chance to get out early in these conditions is pretty high and if we give a little bit of room to the Indian batsmen when we're bowling, all of a sudden we're under pressure.

We must get back to what we did in the first Test and put India under pressure.

Or the after effects of having spent a hour too many with Guru Greg?

You decide.

Happy Days!

Mike Procter has stood down as an ICC match referee to take up his new role as Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) convener of selectors.