Friday, February 27, 2009

An "A" for effort!

To stretch a game from 45/0 in 4 to the last ball of the last over calls for effort.

And thats all a fan can ask for.

Posted by Homer at 2/27/2009 04:20:00 AM

16 comments:

Gaurav Sethi said...

Homer, good call, but pls don't ever put a cap on a fan's ask

5:08 AM, February 27, 2009
Ankit Poddar said...

precisely homer!

5:15 AM, February 27, 2009
straight point said...

"A" for an effort and "S" (read ASS) for strike rate of a captain...

5:21 AM, February 27, 2009
Maithreyi said...

No, that be heartbreak.

If you could pull it back that far, surely you could've won?

7:01 AM, February 27, 2009
Homer said...

My apologies NC.. I should have qualified that by saying "all this fan can ask for".

Cheers,

9:59 AM, February 27, 2009
Homer said...

Cheers Ankit :)

10:00 AM, February 27, 2009
Homer said...

Hear Hear SP :)

Cheers,

10:01 AM, February 27, 2009
Homer said...

Maithreyi,

A win was never the option after our abysmal batting effort. And given New Zealand's start to their run chase, it was hard to think of the game extending beyond the 15th over.

Given that, to stretch the game this far is credit to the bowling effort ( and did I mention this was done without 2 overs from Ishant?)

Cheers,

10:03 AM, February 27, 2009
Anonymous said...

India has hardly played any T20 cricket the last year, and I guess that is the biggest reason they lost, whereas NZ play so much of it at the domestic level. And the fact that they didn't have any practice matches. Imagine Australia or NZ coming into a series in the subcontinent without any practice matches. They'd have fussed silly..

1:54 PM, February 27, 2009
Soulberry said...

I didn't watch the match, but if I recall correctly, two years ago they were being able to throttle it down from 45/0 in 4 to just a run short in 20.

8:15 PM, February 27, 2009
Homer said...

Preeti,

Match practice or not, we fluffed our lines. And thats the only thing that matters.

Mercifully, the lessons seem to have been learnt, atleast if we go by MSD's post match comments.

Cheers,

8:36 PM, February 27, 2009
Homer said...

SB,

My memory fails me.. Help me out here..

Cheers,

8:37 PM, February 27, 2009
Anonymous said...

Aren't we missing a point here? 45-0 in 4 was the captain's doing. Making Pathan open the bowling. It was a defiant ploy to show the world that if i believe in my players I will stick with them. So what if I lose a match. Has anyone written about the brilliant brotherly effort of the Pathans in the last 2T20s? Saw a lotof them after the SL match

2:43 AM, February 28, 2009
Q said...

Thats what Dhoni said as well Homer - he said he doesn't care much about the result as long as the effort and commitment is there from the players, which truly was..

3:20 AM, February 28, 2009
Rishabh said...

Yeah, well said Q.

Anyway, I feel there were quite a few reasons for the way things went for India in this series:-

1. There was already a lot of pressure on the team even before they landed in New Zealand. After all it's never easy when you are on an away tour and you have been tagged as favourites.

2. The record that India has in New Zealand!

3. Lack of match practice

4. India has been playing in sub-continent for almost a year. So this is pretty much understandable that it will take them some time to get used to NZ conditions.

5. One of my favourites that I have mentioned before - whenever Indian team's jersey changes, they tend to loose the first series they play wearing it. Remember WC 2007! And now even the newspapers have columned that dark blue uniform and orange colour at that back of their t-shirts is not lucky.

But I am looking for India to hit back hard in the ODIs.

2:27 AM, March 01, 2009
Homer said...

I agree Namya.. Plenty of mis steps by Dhon in this match and the previous one.

About the Pathans, Irfan did drag India back into the game somewhat by taking two wickets in two balls.

All in all, both the brothers had a game to forget.

Cheers,

11:26 AM, March 02, 2009

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