India Spin Themselves Into A Rut Again

[Guest BossBhai]

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[fineleg]

Absolutely .... pound for pound a faaaaaar more destructive batsman than Viv Richards in his glory. The 2 hours or thereabouts that he was at the crease just flew by in a flash ( and then the next 20 minutes were utter misery )

today - since sehwag has a great knock we can say that. Sehwag played very well - but, thats a big comparison, and u cannot say he is 'faaaar' more than Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards in prime form. Both are good players. But, we cannot just dismiss IVAR becos he does not play today!

[Guest BossBhai]

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[observer1]

the only thing richards wouldnt have done is try that silly shot down to fine leg and get lbw! he would have turned that ball to midwicket for 2. otherwise, this year's sehwag has been of the same calibre

[fineleg]

the only thing richards wouldnt have done is try that silly shot down to fine leg and get lbw! he would have turned that ball to midwicket for 2. otherwise, this year's sehwag has been of the same calibre

It was a sudden misjudgement by Sehwag - otherwise he could have stayed till end of day 4. sehwag plays great, and then self-destructs. 100 was his for the taking.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[vroomfondel]

Eng Seamers- 54.4 7 182 5 3.34 Eng Spinners- 44 5 170 6 3.86 India can't play spin.

[yoshi]

bhaji will really struggle as the senior spinner and to be honest i am not sure about mishra place at all

[DomainK]

Mishra is pretty good. Lets not forget that he is still very young and new. He will get a little confused in situations like these. But Bhajji can not afford to get confused anymore. Like Shastri pointed out today, he is a leas spinner and needs to act like one.

[Shehezaada]

Bhajji was way too short today and on Day 1 as well. Needs to make the batsmen drive and where has his doosra gone? He's also bowling a little too fast and not getting enough revs on the ball. But I'm confident he'll come back. then conveniently Dhondy will disappear.

[Dhondy]

Shehzaada, you on a break from..er..hanging from lampposts? I think Bhajji should be in the side as a batsman. He clearly can't bowl anymore.

[Bumper]

Its almost a given. Every time, we've gone on to make 350+ recently, one of our openers had a big score (or both played a part in laying a solid foundation). Our middle order has been incapable of repairing an innings, once the openers bungle. We saw this in Lanka. We are witnessing the same in this game too. Our openers failed in the 1st innings & we got bowled out for 241. Inspite of chasing an unrealistic last innings total we are back in the game again (at least it appears so), because of Veeru's knock. Suffice to say that this batting lineup is heavily dependent on its openers. When the form of our openers run out, the cracks in our batting lineup will open up & our vulnerability will surface. Our hopes will be alive till Gambhir is around. Dravid is terribly out of form, SRT is unreliable in 2nd innings, Laxman's form is indifferent and Yuvraj is inexperienced. I reckon our tail will fight a bit before succumbing to the inevitable. Expect India to lose by 100 runs. And what a dagger that will be, after whooping Australia 2-0 & raising our stakes for being the next dominant cricketing nation. We can blame our bowlers -- spinners, pacers, doesnt matter. We are in this mess because our middle order flopped in the 1st innings. And thats been the pattern in most of our recent losses

[Shehezaada]

Shehzaada, you on a break from..er..hanging from lampposts? I think Bhajji should be in the side as a batsman. He clearly can't bowl anymore.

Metal bar actually. And even though you say I can't I will will myself to grow. Can't bowl anymore? I can't remember the last time you rated him!

[Shehezaada]

Its almost a given. Every time, we've gone on to make 350+ recently, one of our openers had a big score (or both played a part in laying a solid foundation). Our middle order has been incapable of repairing an innings, once the openers bungle. We saw this in Lanka. We are witnessing the same in this game too. Our openers failed in the 1st innings & we got bowled out for 241. Inspite of chasing an unrealistic last innings total we are back in the game again (at least it appears so), because of Veeru's knock. Suffice to say that this batting lineup is heavily dependent on its openers. When the form of our openers run out, the cracks in our batting lineup will open up & our vulnerability will surface. Our hopes will be alive till Gambhir is around. Dravid is terribly out of form, SRT is unreliable in 2nd innings, Laxman's form is indifferent and Yuvraj is inexperienced. I reckon our tail will fight a bit before succumbing to the inevitable. Expect India to lose by 100 runs. And what a dagger that will be, after whooping Australia 2-0 & raising our stakes for being the next dominant cricketing nation. We can blame our bowlers -- spinners, pacers, doesnt matter. We are in this mess because our middle order flopped in the 1st innings. And thats been the pattern in most of our recent losses

I honestly don't think so Bumper. Tendulkar played two very important 2nd innings (a match saving 49 at Bangalore), and 47 at Delhi. i think in the last leg of his career he's getting even more reliable...All his innings came at very important times in the recent test match. You are right when you say history backs England but I think this new Indian side has it in them. Let's see what happens! And your right in saying it's our batsmen's fault. 241 in the 2nd innings in our backyard isn't acceptable

[vroomfondel]

I honestly don't think so Bumper. Tendulkar played two very important 2nd innings (a match saving 49 at Bangalore), and 47 at Delhi. i think in the last leg of his career he's getting even more reliable...All his innings came at very important times in the recent test match. You are right when you say history backs England but I think this new Indian side has it in them. Let's see what happens! And your right in saying it's our batsmen's fault. 241 in the 2nd innings in our backyard isn't acceptable

latke raho munnabhai :):two_thumbs_up:

[Shehezaada]

latke raho munnabhai :):two_thumbs_up:

:hysterical::hysterical:

[Silly Point]

Agree with most here that Bhaji is not bowling to his potential, in fact I would go as far as to say that in the last 2 tests in think both Krejza and Swann (both on debut) have out bowled Bhaj to an extent...or at the very least got more turn and bounce from the pitch. Mishra is still new and he was certainly targeted by England. MSD's one big error was to continue with the spinners when the tail was in in the 1st inns, at least he corrected this in the 2nd inns. Ah well i suppose it was all part of the master plan!!.