India vs SA, review

India was able to win the final Test in Eden Gardens and save its # 1 Test ranking.  The final day of play was rivetting and it almost ended in a draw, but thanks to the reborn Surd, the top ranked team defeated Saffers by innings margin, their largest win and managed to draw the series. 

Actually the last 4 series have been very tightly fought series between this 2 sides and yet the rivalry is not yet billed as the top class like India - Australia or Ashes or India - Pakistan or even Sri Lanka - Bangladesh.

Both teams have won tests each and won 1 series each with 2 drawn series (1-0 I 2004, 2-1 S 2006, 1-1 2008 and 2010)

The top performers for India were Sachin Tendulkar, Sehwag, Harbhajan and Zaheer Khan as it was Hashim Amla for SA.

Graeme Smith had a forgettable series whereas Kallis could not repeat the magic of the Nagpur test in Eden Gardens. 

Not sure if Eden Test would mark a comeback for Surd to form of 2001-05.

There have been lot of false dawns before and he has just deceived us when we would have tend to believe that he is back to his prime form.

The so called young batsmen -- Dabri and Saha do not reflect well on the actual bench strength of Indian youth.  Dabri is no longer young and Saha was a no-brainer selection.

Before the judgement of the real bench strength is passed, we need to test the real performers of the domestic cricket. 

Dabri

56, 6,1.

That's scoreline of great domestic king
Subbu Dabrinath.

After gutsy few test innings Vijay is fading too. Time to look beyond
Tn players.

Sent from my iPhone

Eden Test preview

India play for pride and SA for the series. If India win this Test, they should retain the # 1 ranking. The batting would be stronger than what it was in first Test. With return of Laxman, it would be interesting to see where he bats. # 3 or # 6 ?

Gambhir and Sehwag failed to give the starts in the both innings of the first test and that was evident in the crumbling of the middle order in Nagpur, so Gambhir would need to find his golden touch soon again, not later than tomorrow if India bats first.

And other player to be on watchlist would be HArbhajan Singh, who has continued failing. Unfortunately Amit Mishra and Ojha have not performed well consistently to put the Turbonator under pressure.

It would be interesting to see if Dabrinath finds a place in the Test XI ?  Most prolly he would play, but would he score ?

Get well soon

Pretty unfortunate that a retard and mentally sick guy is posting abusing comments on my blog.  Not only personal but also country specific racist in nature. I wish he gets best of treatment in his home country and gets well soon!!!

Selectors do not learn

From their selection fiasco. Still no prominent batsmen to replace RD for the second Test. I am sure Cheeka wants to fill in half of Tamil Nadu players in the national team as replacement for every player. Any player gets injured or is dropped DK is in. Not many  days back he was dropped and he hit 2 tons in a futile game (in sense that did not help his team win) to be back in the team again. Amazing. What an effect he has got over the selectors and MSD. The likes of Pandey, Parthiv Patel and others would be scratching their head in disgust to see DK being back in the team. Have we lost the quality players that the likes of DK or Saha are being played ?

DK is not going to score runs in international games. That’s a well proven point. Why not go beyond him and chose Pujara ? What else he needs to do  ? DK has scored two tons in a game. Pujara has scored eons of them in last 2 years, just that he does not have a Srikanth like figure in the national selection committee, he is not able to break in, else he has done everything he could to get a chance. If Badrinath gets in for so called strong domestic performance, then Pujara is no lesser than him. For that matter even Kohli is more deserving than Karthik to be in the team. His strong performances in the last 3 ODI series as replacements are indicative of his claim.

Yuvraj made a strong name for himself in ODIs and then he came into the Test side, for that matter even Kaifu did the same. He was deserving more than DK. Only if somebody from North Zone was head of the selection committee.

Srikanth and DBV were part of the team that changed the fortunes of the Indian cricket 80s ownwards and they were expected to be level headed players or somebody with sane mind who would give more weightage to the form than the region of the player. Unfortunately that did not happen. If likes of Jaffer got umpteen opportunities in place of Sehwag in 2006-07, then the likes of DK, Dabri and Vijay (though he has proved his worth and would be too early to call his axe) have prospered under Srikanth.  DBV was openly critical of Sehwag in 2006-07 when the batsman went through the slump and thus lost the race of captaincy to Dhoni.

It would be very unfortunate to see Laxman and Dravid not play in the Eden Gardens – the same ground which saw them do greatest rear guard action of Indian cricket in 2001.  Its pretty unfortunate that Srikanth and his 4 other men are not ready to learn from the selection blunder they made for the first test and the result is out for everybody to see.

Opportunity let gone

By Badrinath yet again. 6 runs in 2^nd innings when he had a chance to stamp his domestic stature as good as Rajnikanth on the Indian 2^nd innings, but the dude failed and my prediction came true. ROTFL.  Its back to the GOD to do the damage control.  Some things never change. Badri – a glorious example. 28* on his ODI debut and then single figure scores in next 2. And then a 50 in IPL followed by single digit scores. 56 in first and then 6.

 

Indian scorecard reads a sorry look

So the selection fiasco paid rich dividends and the most inexperience Indian middle order in long time collapsed to Dale Steyn;s career best figure.

My foot in the mouth. Lol. I know with my style of writing I am bound to win more foes or critics with guns ever pointed to me like the rangers from the neibhouring country sitting at the border sharing with this huge republic / democracy.

So thats not going to deter me from writing my thoughts out, which may appear fucking comical to most who do not take a min to abuse me or call me different adjectives / expletives esp one blogger who presumes herself / himself to be thoughtful.

Anyways chuck that, let the critics have a hearty laughter at my expense, I am glad that I give them a chance to laugh in their otherwise half sad and incomplete life.

Back to the topic, the Sahas and the Badris failed to live upto the expectations the captain and the others would have had with them. I have not seen the scorecard but the comments in one of the previous posts suggest Badri would have scored decent (more than my prediction of 10s or 20s). So good for him. But then situation was tailor made for him to grind and cast a shadow over return of Yuvraj when fit. Unfortunately he did not and like Yuvraj's 3 hundreds which have come up when India were back on the wall (or their faces to wall)...

So I am not sure if he remains a challenge to the likes of Laxman and Yuvraj when they recover from their injuries.

This also proves that the Indian Test middle order still needs the Fab Three for long time than what we would have expected. We do not want to go the first innings way in the future when the debutants fail to live upto their expectations or find suddenly making their debuts when none expected them to.

If Badrinath bats longer for time and in process scores runs and justifies his outburst then its good for the team and most prolly him, but if he does not then he is the man to make the way for Laxman next game if fit. Yup Saha too, but then I am sure somebody else would replace him if RD is not yet fit again.

We need RD and VVS for some time more contrary to what critics and experts might say.

Cheeka must be seeing his blunder most prolly and hope he would rectify the same for the 2nd test when one of the pacer would go and  2 more specialist batsmen plus one buffer comes in. Perhaps he needs to learn some project management from iT managers who always have lots of buffers in their bench so that when a resource goes on leave, the buffers work and keep the show going on.

Rohit ka sach

Did Rohit Sharma reallly get injured or did he refuse to play Test Cricket as T20s were around the corner ? Time to ring up inquistive Aaj Tak and India Tv reporters to find out "Rohit Ka Sach".

Most inexperienced Test side of decade (2000s) takes field

The least experienced Indian Test side has taken the field where the GOD is most experienced followed by Bhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag.

Awful selection of 6 batsmen makes a wicketkeeper in the side debut as a specialist batsman.

Actually Dhoni can field and Saha, the other Bengali since 1996 to make a Test debut (no since 2000) can keep.

So now there are 2 lame ducks in the middle order that makes the job of Gambhir, Sehwag, Dhoni and Tendulkar even more elephantine.

Dabri would not cross 10s or max 20s, Saha is unknown. So what beckons is scary. Why no Kohlis or Rainas ? Awful in atitude but they can bat.  Dabri will cry foul over chances not offered, but when given would flop. So he is not a long prospect. Majboori ka naam Subbu Dabrinath.

21 years hence Tendulkar remains like angad's immovable feet while lesser mortals around him go and come. Thats the beauty of this MUMBAIKAR.

BTW Zaks continued the top form of BD here as well and grabbing his bunny Graeme Smith once again.

Actually he has taken last 7 wkts to fall playing against India. Awesome. He has moved past Srinath's tally of 236 wkts and is now country's 2nd most successful pacer.   End of the series he should cross Chandra's 242 and then become 5th highest wicket taker for India.

Contrast this side to first BD test when the tests numbers read 28, 73, 137,161,108,35, X for first 7, now those stats read 30, 75,3,163, 0,0,42 for first 7.  No Dravid, no Laxman. Unusual. Weird and fucking ridiculous.

World T20 champions lose

The world champions could not chase 128 to win their solitary game of the disastrous tour, alas they choked and the opportunity lost.

0-3, 0-5 and 0-1.

Are they the new zero of international cricket ?

Kartik

No Karthik please on back of his 2 centuries.

Wrong selection again

The return of Rohit Sharma in the team on the back of a triple century in Ranji game depicts how short sighted the  5 wise men of the Indian cricket are. There is a man who has churned out triple centuries like sixes from Viru Sehwag, yet he finds himself on the fringes of the selection.  Then there is a man who is the only Indian to score a hundred in IPL and has imposed himself well in the game, there is another man who has evolved in the ODIs off late.

Despite the stuff this 3 are ignored and Rohit Sharma from Thackerayland is in the team as a cover for VVS. The 3 men I talked above are:

1. C Pujara
2. M Pandey
3. V Kohli

Instead we have Dabri and Rohit Sharma in the team to play Tests. Whats the credibility of Sharma ahead of Kohli ? Kohli has hit 2 hundreds and 3/4 50s in crunch situations helping India win the games. Sharma on the other hand has done nothing of that sort off late.

So why is Sharmaji in and Kohli out ?

Its a dangerous proposition to go in a crucial Test series without Dravid and possibly Laxman and even more dangerous to go in with substitutes like Dabri and Sharma, proven failures in international cricket.  There are likes of Pujara who make runs yet do not get a chance, then there are dudes like Kohli who had attitude problems but when thrown in the middle of the fire come out with even golden streak. Now if this players do not get chance who else would ?

Being stupid or smart ?

He says every team does it. His 2 ex captains support the same stuff that everybody does the ball tampering. But the subtle and most critical difference if every body does the ball tampering is that nobody else gets caught,  Afridi and other countrymates get caught. Something to do with sheer stupidity and street smartness ?