India vs England 2012

[Tridibans_16]

Thanks for the welcome!

Welcome bhoot bhai.... Series ke dauraan England/ Gauti/ Viru ko aatma/bhoot/chudailon ki kaafi jaroorat padegi :-)

[Tridibans_16]

Dravid commentating as well.. :aha: Warney!

Loved Dravid's analysis during the T20WC, but he speaks a bit too fast :--D Anyway, looking forward to Warney and Boycott. But will miss Nasser :((

[SLICKR392]

Loved Dravid's analysis during the T20WC, but he speaks a bit too fast :--D Anyway, looking forward to Warney and Boycott. But will miss Nasser :((

Heard Dravid commentating once in the B'lore Test. His commentary is bit dull though.

[Eternal Atma]

Welcome bhoot bhai.... Series ke dauraan England/ Gauti/ Viru ko aatma/bhoot/chudailon ki kaafi jaroorat padegi :-)

Lol. Gauti shouldn't play first test in my opinion. Viru has the x factor and already his presence has England on the backfoot. He is a game changer.

[indiaregulator]

Yes his king pair certainly did change the game.

[Eternal Atma]

Yes his king pair certainly did change the game.

Doesn't matter. The whole team played poorly away. He is a little out of form but scored a Ranji ton and did ok in champions league. Plus we are playing at home. You would have to be foolish to drop Sehwag. Gambhir should be dropped though for Rahane/Mukund.

[Tridibans_16]

Doesn't matter. The whole team played poorly away. He is a little out of form but scored a Ranji ton and did ok in champions league. Plus we are playing at home. You would have to be foolish to drop Sehwag. Gambhir should be dropped though for Rahane/Mukund.

But but Gambhir gives us a 50 run bradmanesque start with Viru? Blasphemous to drop him :nervous:

[Eternal Atma]

But but Gambhir gives us a 50 run bradmanesque start with Viru? Blasphemous to drop him :nervous:

Haha. I read that article on cricinfo. But he should consider how poor he has been in recent times. Should have been dropped long ago. He is a candidate for lbw again and also keeps playing to slip/gully. Sehwag just needs to get his eye in and is irreplaceable. Gambhir should be replaced with one of the others, at least they will help give a start.

[Tridibans_16]

Haha. I read that article on cricinfo. But he should consider how poor he has been in recent times. Should have been dropped long ago. He is a candidate for lbw again and also keeps playing to slip/gully. Sehwag just needs to get his eye in and is irreplaceable. Gambhir should be replaced with one of the others' date=' at least they will help give a start.[/quote'] Actually the more I think about Gambhir's fortunes off late, the more I become convinced that he is FINISHED as a test player. Look at his technique and the dismissals in the past two years. He has an innate deficiency poking outside off and tends to fall over while driving through the on side. When he was in supreme touch back in 2008, these flaws were somewhat masked by his patience/ urge to succeed and an inform hand eye coordination (if you can call it that :giggle:). As he gets older, these will not only tend to haunt him, his footwork will gradually become more and more poor. What I fear the most is that he might end up scoring a couple of good scores in flat pattas at home, only to be found out next year in SA and it will be 2011 all over again for us :nervous:

[Forever Indian]

EspnStar.com have started the SuperSelector for the Ind-Eng series. Would be good to start an Apnaleague with the ICFers as we had for the T20 competitions. As I am new to the forum, any idea who should be creating it?

[Forever Indian]

The Superselector link: http://ssindia.espnstar.com/

[CricLind]

What I fear the most is that he might end up scoring a couple of good scores in flat pattas at home, only to be found out next year in SA and it will be 2011 all over again for us :nervous:

The 2011 SA Test tour was one of the highlights of the Indian team before our decline. Laxman's amazing knocks in Durban, Tendulkar's outstanding series overall and if I remember correctly, both Gambhir and Dhoni had decent series too. The bowlers also did a good job and Bhajji did very well in the final test. Hard to believe that only a few months later we were pwned everywhere.

[Crookbond]

England confident on Finn fitness http://www.espncricinfo.com/india-v-england-2012/content/current/story/590677.html

Steven Finn, the England fast bowler, is expected to be available for the first Test against India and he has said his looking to put pressure on Stuart Broad and James Anderson for the new ball. Finn limped out of England's opening tour match after just four overs with a thigh strain suffered in the field but has been taking a full part in training sessions and could share the new ball with Anderson on Thursday if Broad has not recovered from a bruised heel. Whoever is selected, both Finn and Broad will be short of match practise. Finn made his England Test debut against Bangladesh in March 2010 and played in every Test that calendar year until being dropped for the fourth Ashes Test in Melbourne. Despite his height, pace and wicket-taking ability, he was criticised for being expensive, something Finn feels he has addressed. "I suppose when I started, I was a little bit expensive, " Finn told Sport magazine. "But I still managed to take wickets, which is probably what kept me in the team. My economy rate in Tests, 3.66, isn't terrible - but it's not great either. I set myself very high standards, and it's probably not up to scratch by those standards." Finn took 46 wickets at 26.23 from his debut until the Perth Test in December 2010. "The criticism of my knack of leaking runs hasn't been unfair but I was young at the time and I'd back myself now to be able to hold an end up and not give away as many runs. I feel like I've learned and developed a lot over the last 18 months. "I've proved in limited-overs cricket for England that my economy rate has been as good as anyone's. I go at 4.67 runs an over in one-day internationals, and my T20 rate, 6.70, is okay as well and there's no reason why I can't transfer that into Test cricket." Finn has forced his way back into the England bowling attack and has benefitted from the help offered by Anderson - whom he is aiming to start alongside in the first Test. "The guys who have opened the bowling for the past two or three years have been exceptional," he said. "Broady and Jimmy have both been brilliant, so I think it would be hard for me to knock either of them off their perch. "I'm not saying it's not something I'm aspiring to, though, because I've enjoyed taking the new ball in one-day and T20 cricket - and it's something I've done for Middlesex since I was 18 or 19 years old. It's something I'm accustomed to and really enjoy." Finn is keen to test himself in subcontinental conditions again, having been one of few bright points for England during their ODI tour of India in October 2011. He took eight wickets at 31.62 with an economy rate of 5.27, when England as a team went at 5.88 an over during the 5-0 defeat. "I've always enjoyed bowling on subcontinent pitches because you need a different set of skills and I think that suits me," he says. "You need to be able to reverse-swing the ball, your changes of angles on the crease are important, and having that bit of pace also helps on those sorts of wickets. "There's definitely room for aggression, too. We saw that India struggled with the short ball when they came over to England last summer, and just because the wickets are slower there's no reason why you can't still use it." Finn will resume his battle against Virat Kohli, a batsman in exceptional recent form, against whom Finn has played since he was 17. "He's not invincible," Finn said. "And we have a very good track record when it comes to getting the big men out." Another big man is Sachin Tendulkar, who could end his Test career at the end of the forthcoming series. "There's been talk of that," Finn said. "The bloke averages 55 in Test cricket and obviously still loves the game; but you can't play the man - you have to play only the batsman in front of you, no matter what his name is. It would be nice to say I was the last person to take Tendulkar's wicket in Tests - definitely something to tell the grandkids."

[Crookbond]

Gooch’s ‘spin mat’ bolsters England preparations http://www.wisdenindia.com/cricket-news/goochs-spin-mat-bolsters-england-preparations/34442?single_col_view=true

England have sought to downplay their recent difficulties against spin, but are leaving no stone unturned in preparing themselves for the worst ahead of the Test series. Graham Gooch, a master of playing spin, has led the way, unfurling what he calls his ‘spin mat’ each time he takes a batsman out to practice at the nets abutting the B Ground at Motera in Ahmedabad. While the England team played its match against Haryana, the real practice seemed to be happening in the sessions that Gooch and Andy Flower organised. On the field, England have been deprived of spin, but they’ve faced no such problems in their net sessions. Each day, they have asked for specific types of bowlers, mostly left-arm spinners and offspinners, with the odd leggie and seamer thrown in, and the Gujarat Cricket Association have obliged. While the spinners bowling to England in practice have been mostly under-19 and under-22 cricketers, the spin mat has helped simulate more trying conditions. The mat, which has a surface that allows the ball to grip prodigiously and bounce to different degrees when it lands on different spots, has ensured that the batsmen are not limited by what they have experienced in the middle. “Graham’s method has always been to ensure that practice happens in conditions that are more extreme than matchplay,” said Ian Bell. “In Australia, it was about getting more bounce so that when you went out to play, you had that degree of comfort. That’s been his method, making practice tougher than the real thing, and that’s what we’re doing here.” To what degree this is helping England is a matter of conjecture, for their batsmen have fallen repeatedly to spinners. “Even though they made runs, I didn’t get the feeling some of the batsmen were entirely comfortable against spin,” said Jayant Yadav, the Haryana offspinner who picked up four England wickets, with Amit Mishra scalping a similar number. “Just from the way they played, attacking from the word go, especially against me, I got the feeling they were not totally comfortable. When batsmen are comfortable, they usually choose when to attack and when to play from the crease, rather than just attacking from the start.” Yadav could have a point, with England losing eight of nine wickets to the 40.2 overs (of a total of 118.2 overs) the slow bowlers sent down. England did feast against the quicker bowlers, though, getting to a massive 521, scoring at 4.4 an over. “I’m playing in just my fifth first-class match and it was a good experience for me to bowl against an international side,” said Yadav. “When the Test matches come, the England batsmen will be up against much more experienced and skilled bowlers, on pitches that will offer more assistance to spinners. If they have to play on a rank turner, it could be quite interesting to see how they go.”

[SLICKR392]

^ It seems like has used this technique before. Has he? If he did, good on us.

“I’m playing in just my fifth first-class match and it was a good experience for me to bowl against an international side,” said Yadav. “When the Test matches come, the England batsmen will be up against much more experienced and skilled bowlers, on pitches that will offer more assistance to spinners. If they have to play on a rank turner, it could be quite interesting to see how they go.”

First Kohli and now Yadav. Everyone is having a go against England's failure against spin but they rate themselves high against it. Why blame them when 'some of us' rate them 'very' high against spinners.

[SLICKR392]

You want Tendulkar to respect you too: Anderson

In his Daily Mail column, Anderson wrote, Ū do enjoy bowling against him as testing yourself against the best is what playing at this level is all about. And there is no question in my mind that he has been one of the best batsmen if not the best for 20-odd years. But we have to make sure we do not treat him with too much respect in the middle. Anderson recalled Flintoff as saying, Ū wanted to get him (Tendulkar) out, for sure. But I wanted to earn his respect as well. I wanted to impress him. Ahead of the first Test between India and England, starting on November 15 in Ahmedabad, Anderson said that though he canÃÕ relate directly to what Flintoff said, he knew what Flintoff was getting at. Ū do know that people have said they love watching him bat and maybe too much of that kind of admiration could dull your competitive edge. ŪÃ×e never been aware of succumbing to that myself but maybe subconsciously, because you respect him for what he has done in the game 100 international centuries is some achievement and the way he has conducted himself, you want to get him to respect you back. Playing in front of the huge crowds in India, that too when Tendulkar is in the mix, has always been a heady experience, and Anderson talked about a specific incident in his column. Å´achin getting out is the signal for a mass exodus, wrote Anderson. Ū heard of one game where he was due to come in next but, unbeknown to the crowd, had dropped down the order. When the batsman walked out to the wicket and the crowd realised it wasnÃÕ Tendulkar they booed the other guy all the way to the crease, then cheered when he was out. Once business starts though, Anderson will be out trying to get as many Indian wickets as possible and trying to get England to win. Ū will be seeking to make myself pretty unpopular with the locals in the weeks ahead, wrote Anderson. ŵhe bottomline is that we treat everyone with the same respect, whether theyÃ×e played one Test or 100 and that goes for trying to earn their respect, too.Ǽ/B]

http://www.wisdenindia.com/cricket-news/tendulkar-respect-too-anderson/34687 Not a big fan of Anderson but that's a good attitude coming from a bowler. :hatsoff: On the other hand...you do need to treat certain players differently sometimes.

[India-KXIP fan]

Harbhajan has destroyed all oppositions at home. Take the great Australia for example, he was the leading wicket taker in the 2001 and 2008 series'. 2nd highest wicket taker in 2004. That means since he's been playing he's been leading the wickets charts against Australia at home. England is even worse at playing spin. Plus Ojha is out of form, look at his most recent Ranji game. He was outbowled by Bhaji.

[Trichromatic]

Harbhajan has destroyed all oppositions at home. Take the great Australia for example' date=' he was the leading wicket taker in the 2001 and 2008 series'. 2nd highest wicket taker in 2004. That means since he's been playing he's been leading the wickets charts against Australia at home. England is even worse at playing spin. Plus Ojha is out of form, look at his most recent Ranji game. He was outbowled by Bhaji.[/quote'] :blink:

[Sidhoni]

Match thread allocation SuperSelector

[someone]

I find it a bit stupid with the huge emphasis on spin. Let's be honest, Swann is definitely better than many of our options. Actually, he is even more proven than Ashwin who is our best spinner today. And Panesar is just about similar to Ojha. Thus, unlike ourselves where we don't have any genuine quicks and so we do struggle overseas, England do have experise in spin and it's a question of will they be able to adapt to the local conditions. So far, the friendly matches have indicated that they have done well in adaption. It's going to a hard series and really wouldn't surprise where we have one test match just like our worst test match against SA at home.