Kohli will be the world's best batsman very, very soon.

[Laaloo]

Yeah NZ chased down against Australia twice in NZ.

[Old guy]

But quality of bowling was massively inferior to the 2003 one. Lee and McGrath are 2 best ODI bowlers ever, imo. Lee was at the top of his game in ODIs that world cup.

but some how sehwag who is not even great player of fast bowling did well.. some times tracks are so bad that it does not matters who is bowling and you jsut got to play on merit and this was classic case of that. like vvs said run rate wise we were doing fine it was just a choke job imo look at today how calm openers were even scoring under 6 runs per over and playing almost a maiden..back then we would have panicked and lost 2-3 wickets. btw you cannot compare flat tracks and tough tracks and not in 2 different countries and not when we werep laying there after 8-0 :winky:

[vvvslaxman]

I have to say We were not blessed with mentally this strong players while chasing. When Ganguly and Robin Singh won it for us against Pakistan, we showed it could be done. Both were bloody minded that day. Robin Singh pushed him very hard for converting 1s into 2s, 2s into 3s. There were no big sixes,

[vvvslaxman]

but some how sehwag who is not even great player of fast bowling did well.. some times tracks are so bad that it does not matters who is bowling and you jsut got to play on merit and this was classic case of that. like vvs said run rate wise we were doing fine it was just a choke job imo look at today how calm openers were even scoring under 6 runs per over and playing almost a maiden..back then we would have panicked and lost 2-3 wickets. btw you cannot compare flat tracks and tough tracks and not in 2 different countries and not when we werep laying there after 8-0 :winky:

That is exactly my point. I was the only one watched the match full everyone else who watched with me started sleeping by 3rd over. I was secretly hoping India could pull it off as pitch had zilch for bowlers. Boundaries were very short. India just got into a panic mode.

[Old guy]

I have to say We were not blessed with mentally this strong players while chasing. When Ganguly and Robin Singh won it for us against Pakistan' date=' we showed it could be done. Both were bloody minded that day. Robin Singh pushed him very hard for converting 1s into 2s, 2s into 3s. There were no big sixes,[/quote'] we use to choke so much even after world cup i remember countless instances where we just imploded after conceding huge score ..heck, i remember i use to wish everyday that we become good chasers and that happened when dhoni came and yuvi matured :--D

[gattaca]

I have to say We were not blessed with mentally this strong players while chasing. When Ganguly and Robin Singh won it for us against Pakistan' date=' we showed it could be done. Both were bloody minded that day. Robin Singh pushed him very hard for converting 1s into 2s, 2s into 3s. There were no big sixes,[/quote'] You need to credit IPL here it brought calmness to our Team because of the close finishes. These chases don't make our players choke. while it improved our ODI batting but test batting went down a bit.

[vvvslaxman]

we use to choke so much even after world cup i remember countless instances where we just imploded after conceding huge score ..heck, i remember i use to wish everyday that we become good chasers and that happened when dhoni came and yuvi matured :--D

Dhoni started, Yuvi followed, Gauti continued, Kohli set in stone!!

[Laaloo]

Choke jobs in the middle over usually happened because they didn't have the mandatory batting powerplays that you could take anytime you want after the 15th over. Today even if you have a couple of maidens in the middle overs, you can always back yourself to make it up during the batting power play with the new ball changes and short boundaries and what not.

[Lord]

that track and that ground even with those rules against those same bowlers will go for around 350+ runs 8 times out of 10 ... it had good bounce with no variation you jsut sit back and hit it out of ground like ponting did .. heck today's pitch was much more tricky because it was slower and atleast turned .. don;t think it owuld have even reversed there cos of conditions and nature of track..pretty much a perfect ground for batting if pitch is made like that. no surprises that 400 was first scored there and that was before rules changed. forgive me if i am wrong but didn't new zealand chased like 350 2 time before 2007 world cup ,against australia ?

Our bowlers bowled crap to Ponting.they were stunned by Gilly onslaught. Sachin tried the same sit back and hit out of ground as you said but McGrath was too good.

[Old guy]

Dhoni started' date=' Yuvi followed, Gauti continued, Kohli set in stone!![/quote'] don't forget dravid..he was awesome while chasing during that 2 year period:--D

[Lord]

Choke jobs in the middle over usually happened because they didn't have the mandatory batting powerplays that you could take anytime you want after the 15th over. Today even if you have a couple of maidens in the middle overs' date=' you can always back yourself to make it up during the batting power play with the new ball changes and short boundaries and what not.[/quote'] true

[Number]

but some how sehwag who is not even great player of fast bowling did well.. some times tracks are so bad that it does not matters who is bowling and you jsut got to play on merit and this was classic case of that. like vvs said run rate wise we were doing fine it was just a choke job imo look at today how calm openers were even scoring under 6 runs per over and playing almost a maiden..back then we would have panicked and lost 2-3 wickets. btw you cannot compare flat tracks and tough tracks and not in 2 different countries and not when we werep laying there after 8-0 :winky:

Sehwag is not good against fast bowling ? Sehwag scored 2-3 hundreds at s/r > 100 in NZ before world cup, where teams were getting rolled out for 150-170s regularly. We were doing fine run rate wise because to hit good balls you take risks and lose wickets, we were taking risks and losing wickets that was the only way.

[div]

Our bowlers bowled crap to Ponting.they were stunned by Gilly onslaught. Sachin tried the same sit back and hit out of ground as you said but McGrath was too good.

McGrath's economy rate was 6.24

[vvvslaxman]

You need to credit IPL here it brought calmness to our Team because of the close finishes. These chases don't make our players choke. while it improved our ODI batting but test batting went down a bit.

Everything benefits in one way or the other. But larger credit has to go to Kohli who always found boundaries even in tense situations. Mitch is clocking 150 kph, he just bit** slaps him for 4 over cover without fear. You need lot of skills and mental strength to do that.

[gattaca]

McGrath's economy rate was 6.24

But he created the fear factor in the batsmen. In his peak no batsmen tried to hit for runs. I remember sachin did it in champions trophy.

[vvvslaxman]

Choke jobs in the middle over usually happened because they didn't have the mandatory batting powerplays that you could take anytime you want after the 15th over. Today even if you have a couple of maidens in the middle overs' date=' you can always back yourself to make it up during the batting power play with the new ball changes and short boundaries and what not.[/quote'] Actually power plays have produced mixed results. Infact India suffered more in power play than outside power plays.

[Lord]

McGrath's economy rate was 6.24

alongwith 2-3 wckets IIRC

[Ibes]

++

[Old guy]

Our bowlers bowled crap to Ponting.they were stunned by Gilly onslaught. Sachin tried the same sit back and hit out of ground as you said but McGrath was too good.

you proved my point about how bad we were you do not have to hit mcgrath to win..you jsut have to hit balls on merit and try to stay close to required rate. we were choking and this is the definition of choking to start slogging and lose. today rohit and dhawan were going at run rate of just 5 after 15 overs! :hysterical:

[vvvslaxman]

But he created the fear factor in the batsmen. In his peak no batsmen tried to hit for runs. I remember sachin did it in champions trophy.

No. In world cup 2003. Ace bowlers were Brett Lee and Shane Bond and our INdian bowlers in pace. Nehra was unplayable for almost all teams until he ran into a dead pitch. Very reason India batted second was because of Brett Lee. They were fearful of him.