selfish gambhir

[Dravid]

he played aight after that bad start.. sachin was injured.. and he couldnt get the singles..so took a while.... well played

[coverpoint]

Gambit and others who are ripping me. Thanks. You have scared me. Seriously, I know mot of you watched the game ... when he came in we had a good platform. at 150/1 .... chasing 316 .. the idea was to keep the momentum going not get bogged down. Gambhir at the end had a huge 6 and a couple of fours too... and still ONLY a 80 SR. His innings was very poor in the scheme of things. Remember this was a patta wicket. And just fyi, I am an out and out Delhi-ite and still think Gambhir has been poor in this series. Even Ganguly is better

[Ram]

CP , have you ever heard of the term consolidation ? If you have seen even decent amounts of cricket , you would know that ANY team that scored 150 in 22 overs and the first wicket falls , it would be followed by a period of slower batting. That is how the game works. The priority then was not to keep scoring quickly , but preserve wickets for the final assault. If Gambhir had also indulged in high-risk strokeplay then , there was every chance that he too got out , immediately after the openers , further hampering India's chase. In a big run-chase , wickets are like gold , not an over-the-roof run rate throughout. Considering all , 47 runs 0ff 57 balls is a decent enough contribution from Gambhir. He was at the wicket for the crucial 22-40 overs period. He has done his job properly. Nobody should be complaining.

[coverpoint]

CP , have you ever heard of the term consolidation ? If you have seen even decent amounts of cricket , you would know that ANY team that scored 150 in 22 overs and the first wicket falls , it would be followed by a period of slower batting. That is how the game works. The priority then was not to keep scoring quickly , but preserve wickets for the final assault. If Gambhir had also indulged in high-risk strokeplay then , there was every chance that he too got out , immediately after the openers , further hampering India's chase. In a big run-chase , wickets are like gold , not an over-the-roof run rate throughout. Considering all , 47 runs 0ff 57 balls is a decent enough contribution from Gambhir. He was at the wicket for the crucial 22-40 overs period. He has done his job properly. Nobody should be complaining.

I have probably PLAYED more league cricket than you would have watched in your life. So lets put that one on the side to start with. And having played at that level AND having watched cricket for many many years I can tell you that today's innings by Gambhir was a poor one. His job was to keep the momentum of the innings going. NOT whittle away any advantage that we had from the early part. He was lucky to have gotten his SR back up to even 80 (which was poor in the circumstances). He really had a poor start.

[Ram]

Having actually played such amounts of competitive cricket yourself , I ask you this. What would you do , if your team chasing 317 for victory , loses both its openers within 6 runs of each other with a further 160 runs required for victory ? Knowing that run rate as of then is not a problem and even if we fall behind , we can catch up with hitters later in the order ( which is exactly what happened). 315+ chases dont get over in 45 overs. Gambhir did the right thing in preserving his wicket , laying the platform for the lower middle order to come , attack and win the game for India.

[coverpoint]

Having actually played such amounts of competitive cricket yourself , I ask you this. What would you do , if your team chasing 317 for victory , loses both its openers within 6 runs of each other with a further 160 runs required for victory ? Knowing that run rate as of then is not a problem and even if we fall behind , we can catch up with hitters later in the order ( which is exactly what happened). 315+ chases dont get over in 45 overs. Gambhir did the right thing in preserving his wicket , laying the platform for the lower middle order to come , attack and win the game for India.

Two points. 1) When he came in and started playing t he way he did we were only ONE down. SRT left afterwards. Many felt Gambhir could have relieved some of the pressure from SRT by taking on the onus. The fact that Gambhir could not penetrate the infield meant the pressure on SRT expanded. 2) Dont forget we actually were playing 7 batsmen. The idea of playing that many bats (plus the part time batting of Agarkar/Powar/Chawla) is that the higher order batsmen can play a bit more freely. Today we not only had played 4 bowlers ... we did not have either Munna Bhai or RP singh (arguably the poorest of our bats among bowlers). All the more reason for the higher order bats to not let the momentum down

[Ram]

Two points. 1) When he came in and started playing t he way he did we were only ONE down. SRT left afterwards. Many felt Gambhir could have relieved some of the pressure from SRT by taking on the onus. The fact that Gambhir could not penetrate the infield meant the pressure on SRT expanded.

Gambhir and Sachin spent a sum of 20 balls in the middle. I cannot possibly imagine how Sachin might have expected Gambhir to go all out once he was at the crease , and the argument that since that didnt happen, the pressure on him and hence got out theory is bit weak

2) Dont forget we actually were playing 7 batsmen. The idea of playing that many bats (plus the part time batting of Agarkar/Powar/Chawla) is that the higher order batsmen can play a bit more freely. Today we not only had played 4 bowlers ... we did not have either Munna Bhai or RP singh (arguably the poorest of our bats among bowlers). All the more reason for the higher order bats to not let the momentum down

I see it the other way around. A deeper batting order with the power players like Yuvraj , Dhoni and Uthappa at 5,6 and 7 means that you can consolidate , preserve wickets even if it means the reqd RR shoots up , coz scoring 50 runs of 5 overs with 6 wickets in hand is always easier than scoring 50 runs of 8 overs with 3 wickets in hand

[Rajiv]

Always been a fan of gambhir, his contri was very very crucial at that stage

[Chandan]

I think Gambhir played okay. Nothing spectacular about his knock, but not one to be criticised either. When he came in, Sachin was struggling at the other end and was unable to take quick singles which Gambhit wanted. No batsman can go out and start hitting 4s from ball one! Secondly in last 25 overs, the ball had started gripping the pitch and it was not coming on to the bat, which is why Yuvraj suffered. In such a scenario, Gambhir did a good job by preserving the wicket and getting the score ticking! And Gambhir can't be blamed for Sachin's dismissal. It was almost impossible for Sachin to continue. He was hobbling there on the pitch. If anything, he should have gone off the ground when Ganguly was still there, so that Ganguly could have played risk-free cricket for some time. But, it seems that since Sachin was in good nick, he thought he could get runs for his team. And hence decided against walking off.

[King Tendulkar]

Gambhir did ok. He also dis very well in last game. Not sure why people are slaughtering him. He is a good player

[fineleg]

GG needs to show consistency over a sufficient time. If he can show consistency, then he can rightfully claim success.

[suraj]

good analysis by CP

[King Tendulkar]

If he keeps up this form he will push for test place. He is more of a test batter anyway