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Premonitons


Rajiv

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Re: Premonitons Did you all read Harsha Bhogle's this column? A pinch of self-belief will make the brew perfect for India Harsha BhoglePosted online: Friday, March 09, 2007 at 0000 hrs For the most lucid understanding of the thought behind selecting Indian teams in recent times you need look no further than Greg Chappell?s impressive soliloquy on rediff.com. For all of us, passionate, impatient, critical, indulgent followers of Indian cricket, it offers a wonderful insight into decisions we spend hours agonising over. Chappell is articulate and so, the best spokesman for his views, like Chidambaram and Shahrukh Khan tend to be as well. There is a feeling of reassurance on reading it. First, the awareness that Chappell is not a whip-cracking ringmaster but one voice in a chorus because clearly Dravid and Vengsarkar have as much to do with this team as Chappell does. But more important, because you come away with the feeling that the thinking is right. That is half the process of winning; the other is converting that thought into action for the two go together as Tagore told us in his immortal prayer. It is interesting to see the qualities that Chappell and Dravid identified as those a winning team would need. Good fielding, flexibility and depth in batting and bowling, mental creativity and mental manoeuvrability. It would seem India have the crucial elements of depth in batting and bowling but the rest is debatable. Certainly the fielding is a worry since India catch well but don?t seem athletic enough and as a result, the creativity a team needs in the field will be lost. The last two, I suspect, have more to do with the attitude of individuals and we can at best guess there. In the absence of knowledge nobody should go further. I believe there are two other factors that will determine how far India go in this tournament; momentum and self-belief. In a painfully long tournament like this, teams need to stay in contention till about early April (if that gives the impression this is a voyage, it is intended!) and get on a winning streak from there on. Peaking early will be an issue because it may not be easy to maintain momentum for so long. Teams will need to be creative in their choice of players so that when it counts the most, the best eleven are available and in form. And for whatever you and I might think, it is the belief deep down inside, in the gut of each player that will eventually determine whether they go through or fall away. We will be able to sense that in the approach, not necessarily in press conferences where things are said because they must be rather than because they are indeed true. On the basis of one match, it is too early to make a judgement on the kind of wickets the West Indies will throw up but if indeed they are like the one in Trelawny, India will not mind it too much. On slowish pitches, totals tend to be around 250 which, I suspect, will diminish somewhat the importance of fielding. While you still need to save runs, batting and bowling will tend to become more critical and India will like to play in that kind of environment. It will suit India?s bowling, even allow the Tendulkars and Sehwags to chip in. And India?s batting manoeuvrability, which is an undoubted strength, will become a stronger factor. Teams like South Africa and Australia will prefer surfaces that are harder, that do a lot more because their bowling works best in those conditions. Neither has a world class slow bowler and Australia, in particular, seem to be handicapped by the apparent decline of Brad Hogg, a much under-rated bowler. It will also allow Sri Lanka and, to some extent, New Zealand to become stronger. That leaves the two most enigmatic teams of this tournament; England and Pakistan. If England get on a roll, they have the top six to take them the distance but those batsmen have two roles to play. First score enough runs to make up for their relatively weaker bowling and ensure that they bat long enough to minimise expectations from the lower order. Ideally England would have liked a wicket- keeper good enough to bat in the top seven because with the presence of Flintoff and Collingwood that would have given them the flexibility everyone needs. Now, the inexperienced Dalrymple becomes a key player. Which leaves Pakistan. I just have this feeling that their success, or otherwise, will lie in whether they are thinking of what have, or what they haven?t! ------------------------------------------------------- Hmm.. So Harsha isn't giving any chance to the hosts?

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Re: Premonitons Pitches at Trinidad is this bad?? Cricket: Unfit pitch caps week of World Cup woe 4:34PM Saturday March 10, 2007 By Telford Vice ST AUGUSTINE, Trinidad - A pitch slammed as "unfit" by South Africa capped a week of woe for 2007 cricket World Cup organisers in Trinidad. A string of mishaps has undermined the admirable efforts of World Cup staff and volunteers, who have worked hard, cheerfully and efficiently to try and remain in control of situations that were pre-destined to deteriorate. Play in the warm-up match between South Africa and Pakistan at the Frank Worrell Memorial Ground was held up for seven minutes today. With players complaining about the ball bouncing erratically, South African coach Mickey Arthur and his Pakistan counterpart, Bob Woolmer, even came on to the field after 16 overs to discuss the state of the pitch with umpires Peter Parker and Ian Gould. Off the field, International Cricket Council (ICC) officials engaged in a flurry of telephone calls to try and resolve the issue. "Mickey and (South African captain) Graeme (Smith) both consider the pitch unfit for play," South African media manager Gordon Templeton said. "The issue is the safety of the players," Rushmans media manager Ed Walsh said. "Some balls are coming through low, while some balls are coming through high." The surface calmed down as the sun rose higher and by the afternoon the pitch had been tamed. It was the second time in a week that matches at the ground were overshadowed by incidents that were beyond the players' control after a fallen sightscreen held up play for 77 minutes during Pakistan's game against Canada on Tuesday. The next day, the Pakistan, South Africa, Canada and Ireland squads were evacuated from the Trinidad Hilton in the wake of a gas leak on the eighth floor of the hotel. Police said at least 14 guests and hotel staff were taken to hospital. While no members of the cricket squads needed any medical attention, a government official said police were investigating a theory that the chaos was caused by a teargas canister that was detonated deliberately. If these problems were not already causing headaches for the organisers, the Trinidad and Tobago police have threatened to go on strike once the tournament begins in earnest next week in another looming labour dispute. While many await the arrivals of the Indian, Sri Lankan, Bangladesh and Bermudan teams for the group B games at the Queen's Park Oval, it seems fans, too, have had their fair share of worries to deal with. Some Trinidad cricket lovers were aghast to discover that World Cup tickets they had purchased online had been sent to Antigua in error. "When the option to collect or have the tickets delivered by courier came up, by some error the tickets were in a drop off box at the default location which is Antigua," the ICC ticket supervisor for Trinidad, Mark Santana, told Port-of-Spain newspaper Newsday. Santana said the mistake was in the process of being rectified. Other spectators have complained about the high prices being charged at match venues, where a bottle of water costs US$2.32 ($3.43). Two cases of food poisoning struck the ranks of the media who had been covering matches in St Augustine. During the match between Ireland and Canada yesterday, a reporter retched violently and loudly on to the pressbox floor even as a nearby colleague ploughed through a voice report for an Irish radio station. Perhaps the organisers should have taken note of the omens heralded by the earthquake that shook Trinidad in February. The quake, which caused no injuries and little damage, was reported to have measured 4.7 on the Richter scale. -------------------------------------------------- So? Whyat'll happen with India matches?

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