India maintain a glorious 20 year old tradition

So the Indians make an awesome comeback beating the rogue Pakies by 8 wickets with 3 overs to spare. And by doing that they maintain a 20 year tradition -- not losing a single fucking match to them in a World event. And in this glorious tradition, I'd let go those thousands of Pakistani Sharjah victories specifically scheduled on Fridays to aid them in some special way. Gone are those days now when specific parts of all Indian cities used to rejoice on Pakistani victories and you havent heard likes of Shoaib Malik after 2007 thanking Indian "Muslims" for supporting their team.

Pakies imploded today as they explode explosives in India. They wanted to make runs, huge runs. So that their "Varied attack" could take wickets and seal a place in semi-final. But they did not apply minds. Senseless batting is Pakistan's USP. And noone better than Shahid Afridi signifies it. He believes in mentality -- if I touch a ball it has to be six or I am out. He hit 2 boundaries and then he was OUT. A golden duck against SA in first game and today he walked at # 3. 

Hafeez is T20I captain but he played a test match and made a scratchy 15 off 28 balls. And basically thats where he set a platform to allow other Paki batsmen to implode and they did. Even a Tamil Nadu centric attack with the likes of Balaji and Ashvin whose speeds might differ by 10mph or 20mph were able to get this poor non English speaking batsmen out. Heck Balaji is on hattrick next game. 

All in all a pressure game made one sided by the mindless Pakistani game plan where they not have any plan. No plan at all. They buckled under pressure. They are now a mentally fragile side. Saeed Ajmal is not going to win them all games they play. And the Pakistani batsmen need to understand the importance of playing the game as per the match situation rather than those Afridi style wild slogs.

India's Super Eights Issue

England continue to confound against spin and collapse on Sunday gives a very good hope for a Test whitewash in the winter. But then the entire batting lineup shall be different to the one we saw fold out for meager 80 on Sunday. Thanks to Dinda, England just managed to get past the lowest ever T20I score.  England next are to face Windies and their mystery spinner might be another big challenge to conquer for England. Sunil Naraine had an awful English summer in damp conditions but in SL he shall be a definitive threat to English batsmen. And the spin challenge doesnt stop right there.  Mendis or the new spinner of SL await next and then Daniel Vettori in NZ game.

England look sorry and they will not win the World T20 if they continue to fall prey to spin bowling.

And btw, here is a toast to the fighting spirit of Harbhajan Singh for his superb return to the International cricket. But if thats going to be long term, that needs to be seen.  Ashvin will return next game and that shall mark an end to Harbhajan unless MS wants to play 2 spinners. 4/12 are the best Indian figures in T20I and also that victory was biggest for India in terms of runs. A T20I win over England in 5 years.

India has its own set of problems. Batting line up looks formidable on paper and despite playing plethora of T20s in a year, India find it difficult to score or accelerate in international T20 games.  Low par scores of 159 vs Afghanistan, 155 vs SL in Aug and 170 vs England indicate that India need to pace their innings really well. Another mystery is the strike rate of MSD who has played countless "cool" innings for his IPL franchisee but he fails to repeat that form in T20Is. Or for that matter his ODI form. A strike rate of 110 and a highest score of 48 is under achievement for Indian captain.

The pace department is a poor reading for India. Zaheer Khan is of little value in T20s and less said about L Balaji and Dinda the better. Dinda has quite long runup and a high jump in his action, but his pace is again 130ish.  And no wickets either.  Umesh Yadav should have been playing this tournament, instead he was playing in pointless Irani trophy fixture.  Hopefully with new selection committee getting installed, they will iron out this kind of selection blunders in future.

Australia are top heavy and once the top 3 are gone, the rest are dicey against spin. Perhaps India should look forward to exploit this weakness in their first game of Super 8s.  Super 8s is a worry for India since first edition(Super 6 then). They have never won the first game of Super 8s in T20Is and for that matter in past 2 editions they have lost all 3 Super 8 games. Will this be different ? Hopefully yes.

South Africa are next opponents and then there is Pakistan.  So if India can win 2 of this 3 games then they would be a very good team to go in the semi-finals. But for that the batting has to click and fast scoring needs to be done.  Likes of Gambhir, Raina, Dhoni will need to pace their innings. And a little bit of patience for Sehwag.  and with a weaker bowling department, the batting is the only key to a repeat of 2007.

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Beat the rowdy Englishmen!!!

No matter how shit Indian bowling is, I'd bet them to beat down the rude English tomorrow in the meaningless last league game of Group A.  Go Indians, nail down that cranky little boy Stuart Broad's rowdy Englishmen. 

Nothing is pacifying seeing the whipped asses of this rowdy Englishmen, who are undeserving #1 in ODIs. And then wont care if Indians are kicked out in Super 8's itself!!!!

Dhoni messes up with Yuvi's return!!

When Dhoni messes up something, he has excuses ready for everything. Like he did have for the bizzare loss in the 2nd T20I yesterday. Pitch got changed when he came to bat suddenly.  He has played his IPL cricket on that damn pitch and if he didnt knew it then he should have drowned himself for not knowing it. He has been a hyped player in the T20 format and he has often gone slow in start. But yesterday he messed it up and team lost the game which it had no business losing it. 

22 off 23 balls might seem a decent score but at one stage it was 9 off 16 balls and thats where India lost the plot. He coming at 5 was also a wrong move if he is to play slow. Irfan Pathan is much of an improved batsman and he should have been coming when Kohli got out.  Sending in Rohit Sharma on Yuvi's dismissal was also a blooper and instead Tiwary or Pathan should have been sent. Dont know what the team management was thinking.

And of course it was a Chennai game, so the local heroes had to play. Didnt matter they turned out to be flops.  L Balaji and R Ashvin were flop stars yesterday.  Now that Srikanth is gone, we expect no freebies rolled out to the failed stars of Tamil Nadu cricket.

Welcome Back Yuvraj Singh

Welcome back to the field Yuvraj Singh. Today is those one of the rare days where turning up on the field would matter the most and whether you make or do not make runs shall not matter. Today's day is an ode to your persona and your spirit.  And that's what the fans are joyed to see.

 

The man of 2011 World Cup final is back and that should be the biggest plot of the day.

 

 

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Apply 25% reservation for Pakistani players in ICC awards

Let the 33% reservation quota in Indian government jobs apply to 25% reservation for Pakistani cricketers in ICC annual awards categories as well. That way the Pakistanis shall be happy given the hue and cry their board and bloggers have created over Ajmal snub!!!

PCB's sour grapes

The talks of PCB boycotting the ICC awards and instead awarding Ajmal on its own following the snub is a classic case of sour grapes.  Ajmal should have been in the list given his returns in all 3 formats of the game, but the knee jerk reaction of PCB is childish and ridiculous. 

May be Vernon Philander should have made way for Ajmal!!

Leave Sachin Tendulkar alone

Nothing is wrong with Sachin Tendulkar's batting form except the fact that he seems distracted at the moment and his picking and choosing isnt helping him any more. He is an MP, he needs a break to be with his family and then a Test series arrives once in few months. So this is the reason why he is not in the form he should be. It's not the time to go for him. He just got bowled and we are not used to see him getting bowled that often. He did have this kind of spell once in 2002 when in England and West Indies he got bowled few times in row. Pedro Collins and Alex Tudor were the culprits then, Trent Boult and Tim Southee are now.

For the transition phase, Indian test cricket is in, the team needs him and more than ever now. So lets just not get behind him to go but to stay on and focus back on cricket, not put additional pressure than he has already handled in 23 years. For a country lacking genuine heroes and role models here is one man who has passed every stern test and provided millions of cheering and happy moments, so lets not bog him down asking him to go. We're just nobodies compared to his stature asking him to go.

Leave Tendulkar alone and allow him to focus on his game.