1st test in cardiff has proved that ICC should never think of tinkering with the Test cricket format. The match was a treat to watch with some superb exhibition of skills with the bat and ball. The life time innings from Collingwood and the tail playing for time to save the match should make the ICC officials think hard before embarking on any kind of change in the format.
Aussies were on top right from the go and never gave the english men a chance to dominate the proceedings. The only session England can take heart of was the lower order batting well to get runs on the board in the 1st innings and the last session of the last day.
Australian batting line is back to its own with all the top order batsmen except M.Hussey getting runs and its only matter of time that Hussey gets into form. The big plus for australia is the find of the youngster North playing some important knocks, he did very well in South Africa and continues the good work here. I like the way he bats, in the sense he knows when to attack and when to defend and his technique is solid. The big relief for Australia is Ponting getting back to his own, i enjoyed every movement of his 150 and the flow of strokes and what not, if he continues to perform like this i am sure it will reflect in his captaincy. Katich is the most under-rated player in the Australian team and i remember the way he played in India in his early days and has come a long way to seal his place in the team, even though he is not the great player to watch (chanderpaul style) but very effective. Haddin has taken the big burden of filling the great legacy left by Gilli and has been pretty successful till now, even though its early days to compare with Gilli.
As for as the England batting, its a side that rarely perform as a team. England i would say is the most over-rated team in world cricket today. All the players are good individual players and perform to keep their place in the team and rarely play as a team to win. Kevin Peiterson and Strauss are the two solid batsmen who can make a difference to the side and i would say Cook is fine player but lacks confidence now with string of medicare performances. We have not seen much from Boppara in the test arena and all others Collingwood,Flintoff,Prior are all absolutely over rated players as batsmen. Even though Collingwood played the innings of his life, i would say he will fail often than perform. Flinoff is the utterly over-rated player i have ever come accross in cricket history. I do not remember his batting winning a Test match in the recent past, a player with so many injury problem and uncertainty is not worth the kind of backing he gets from the ECB.
Australia missed the fire power in the bowling department and were a bit too defensive in the field. May be the 2005 ashes loss is still rankling hard in Ponting that he was a bit defensive and let the tail to score runs and play time in both the innings. Ponting back to form should help his confidence and show in his captaincy. There is only one strike bowler in Johnson who can run through the opponents and that is hurting the chances of taking 20 wickets. All the other bowlers can support and take wickets but not take wickets in quick time which is very important in test cricket. I feel this is what had cost the 1st Test for Australia.
I see england is a better bowling side compared to the batting even though they gave away 650+ in the 1st test. If the conditions and wickets are going to favour seam bowling they can prove very difficult to tackle with. Anderson & Flintoff with Harmison can prove to be a solid seam attack in helping conditions. S.Broad is listless if the wickets are not helping, i would prefer harmison or Sidebottom for him. Paniser has been out of form for too long and may be needs a tour to India to get back to form with helpful wickets. Swann is yet another ordinary spinner who will be carted even in our TNCA First div league but he is ratted so high.
Overall Australia as a team is a better side compared to England and its going to be Aussies yet again.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Tough times for True Cricket
The next cricket calender is going to be the toughest year for true cricket .. Test Match Cricket. The ICC move to make modifications to the current format makes me worried that the best format of the game will have to undergo changes.
The proposed 4 days for tests can make the game more spectator friendly but not the true test of character of the game. I know people will argue that the format was changed even in the past like having a rest day after the 3rd day and so on but for purists the 5 day format of Test Cricket is true cricket even though there are few phases where the game can get boring.If test cricket is restricted to 4 days initially there will be few no result matches. Over a period of time things will settle down and we will see results but we will see the end of players who painstakingly spend hours and hours in the middle to fight to save the match and show character and technique (Just imagine Artherton's match saving 5th day innings against SouthAfrica and many such innings from Dravid).
I would blame the various cricket boards to have dragged the best format of cricket to this stage with poor planning and unmindful push to the slam bang version to fill their coffers. It was a pity to see empty stand in WI when Aussies toured and the same was seen even in cricket crazy country like Srilanka and India. Many factors like pricing of tickets,lack of initiative to market the format has brought down the most important format of the game down to this stage.
Finally it will be sad if the format is changed in any way and the talk of playing with color dress & day-night just hits the last nail in the coffin.I can not even think of seeing the players in color dress in the true cricket "TEST CRICKET".
On Indian Tour to West Indies
Rohit,R.Jadeja & Y.Pathan all wasted the god sent chances they got to play in this series. I am disappointed with this pathetic display purticullarly by Rohit. Rohit was so promising when he entered the international scene and some how he is yet to cement his place in the team.Good to see D.Karthick get some runs but this is not good enough for him to assure himself of a place when the big guys come back. Dhoni is back among runs and after a long time his batting has won a game for India. Not much to write about our bowling it just suffers and need a lot of discipline to put up some decent performance.
On Selection Matters
I know Cheeka as a selector is doing his bit to make sure that TN players are part of the team and Dhoni does his bit to keep them out of the playing XI. Unfortunately for Dhoni this time the youngsters he backs has failed more often than perform. I expected Badri to get a chance after dismal show from R.Sharma & Y.Pathan but yet to get his chance. On all merits M.Vijay should have got the openers slot at the first place but some how dhoni preferred karthick for reasons best known to him. Saving grace is karthick has performed well. I think at least now the people who back dhoni for all his decisions will agree with me on his prejudice against TN cricketers.
I would also feel that I.Sharma needs to be handled carefully, we have lost some good young talent in the past due to some poor handling of players. I see that I.Sharma is shot of confidence and needs a lot of hand holding so that he gets back to his prime.
Overall i would say this tour to WI is played just because of some obligation between the two boards and there is no real interest or intensity. The cricket administrators should put an end to these sort of meaningless series in the future, more so because the players are already overworked.
The proposed 4 days for tests can make the game more spectator friendly but not the true test of character of the game. I know people will argue that the format was changed even in the past like having a rest day after the 3rd day and so on but for purists the 5 day format of Test Cricket is true cricket even though there are few phases where the game can get boring.If test cricket is restricted to 4 days initially there will be few no result matches. Over a period of time things will settle down and we will see results but we will see the end of players who painstakingly spend hours and hours in the middle to fight to save the match and show character and technique (Just imagine Artherton's match saving 5th day innings against SouthAfrica and many such innings from Dravid).
I would blame the various cricket boards to have dragged the best format of cricket to this stage with poor planning and unmindful push to the slam bang version to fill their coffers. It was a pity to see empty stand in WI when Aussies toured and the same was seen even in cricket crazy country like Srilanka and India. Many factors like pricing of tickets,lack of initiative to market the format has brought down the most important format of the game down to this stage.
Finally it will be sad if the format is changed in any way and the talk of playing with color dress & day-night just hits the last nail in the coffin.I can not even think of seeing the players in color dress in the true cricket "TEST CRICKET".
On Indian Tour to West Indies
Rohit,R.Jadeja & Y.Pathan all wasted the god sent chances they got to play in this series. I am disappointed with this pathetic display purticullarly by Rohit. Rohit was so promising when he entered the international scene and some how he is yet to cement his place in the team.Good to see D.Karthick get some runs but this is not good enough for him to assure himself of a place when the big guys come back. Dhoni is back among runs and after a long time his batting has won a game for India. Not much to write about our bowling it just suffers and need a lot of discipline to put up some decent performance.
On Selection Matters
I know Cheeka as a selector is doing his bit to make sure that TN players are part of the team and Dhoni does his bit to keep them out of the playing XI. Unfortunately for Dhoni this time the youngsters he backs has failed more often than perform. I expected Badri to get a chance after dismal show from R.Sharma & Y.Pathan but yet to get his chance. On all merits M.Vijay should have got the openers slot at the first place but some how dhoni preferred karthick for reasons best known to him. Saving grace is karthick has performed well. I think at least now the people who back dhoni for all his decisions will agree with me on his prejudice against TN cricketers.
I would also feel that I.Sharma needs to be handled carefully, we have lost some good young talent in the past due to some poor handling of players. I see that I.Sharma is shot of confidence and needs a lot of hand holding so that he gets back to his prime.
Overall i would say this tour to WI is played just because of some obligation between the two boards and there is no real interest or intensity. The cricket administrators should put an end to these sort of meaningless series in the future, more so because the players are already overworked.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Early Exit for Team India
Team India's campaign to retain the T20 world cup came to an end with the second consecutive loss in the Super 8 stage. There has been lot of expectation from the Indian fans and the stadium looked grim at times even though the match is played in England and the host nation is progressing to win. Indian fans out numbered the English fans on Sunday and the match moving from one side to the other like our sensex, the cricket mad Indian fans were backing Team India like anything but in the end it was the team which held their nerves and the experience won the match for England. The Semi-final line up is already done, so the remaining matches in the Super 8 is just for the sake of playing.
I pity Dhoni.
I have mentioned quite a few times in my previous posts during the IPL that Dhoni is a bit confused with his batting position and desperately wants to prove as a batsmen. This confused state of mind has reflected in the not so aggressive moves that he took in the 2 super 8 games. To me dhoni is kind of likes to dominate the proceedings and likes to be in the thick of action all the time but once his batting style changed he was not able to do this with big success and this was very much apparent in the IPL & WorldCup.
I feel it has become a habit now for the general public and the media to take a player to the cloud on success and dump him to the ground from there on failure. This is very much evident in Dhoni's case, what ever he did made news and every other move was talked as a strategy and so on and when he and the team failed its the opposite. I feel pity for dhoni, he could have done a lot of things much better but i strongly feel that holding one person for the team's debacle is crap talk. I just do not understand how the past Indian cricketers sitting in the news channel's just talk what ever they feel like and get so personnel on their comments, its very disgusting and disturbing trend.
I would say Team India was a bit off color in this tournament. Bowling was very ordinary, Zaheer did not deliver what was expected from him (early breakthrough) Ishant Sharma was listless and Harbhajan was not able to produce a maginc spell in the middle overs which normally puts india well positioned on chasing or defending. On batting it was even more disappointing that other than Yuvraj & Y.Pathan none of the other guys looked comfortable, Gambhir is the key player for the team's success and when he was not getting the runs the top order failed badly. Rohit & Raina were shot of experience to handle some fine swing and seam bowling and failed miserably. I dont have to write on the fielding, we fielded below par through out the tournament and gifted 10-15 runs in all the matches.
Overall i would say that a combination of too-much pressure to retain the trophy, over-worked body and fatigue factors contributed to the early exit of Team India.
I pity Dhoni.
I have mentioned quite a few times in my previous posts during the IPL that Dhoni is a bit confused with his batting position and desperately wants to prove as a batsmen. This confused state of mind has reflected in the not so aggressive moves that he took in the 2 super 8 games. To me dhoni is kind of likes to dominate the proceedings and likes to be in the thick of action all the time but once his batting style changed he was not able to do this with big success and this was very much apparent in the IPL & WorldCup.
I feel it has become a habit now for the general public and the media to take a player to the cloud on success and dump him to the ground from there on failure. This is very much evident in Dhoni's case, what ever he did made news and every other move was talked as a strategy and so on and when he and the team failed its the opposite. I feel pity for dhoni, he could have done a lot of things much better but i strongly feel that holding one person for the team's debacle is crap talk. I just do not understand how the past Indian cricketers sitting in the news channel's just talk what ever they feel like and get so personnel on their comments, its very disgusting and disturbing trend.
I would say Team India was a bit off color in this tournament. Bowling was very ordinary, Zaheer did not deliver what was expected from him (early breakthrough) Ishant Sharma was listless and Harbhajan was not able to produce a maginc spell in the middle overs which normally puts india well positioned on chasing or defending. On batting it was even more disappointing that other than Yuvraj & Y.Pathan none of the other guys looked comfortable, Gambhir is the key player for the team's success and when he was not getting the runs the top order failed badly. Rohit & Raina were shot of experience to handle some fine swing and seam bowling and failed miserably. I dont have to write on the fielding, we fielded below par through out the tournament and gifted 10-15 runs in all the matches.
Overall i would say that a combination of too-much pressure to retain the trophy, over-worked body and fatigue factors contributed to the early exit of Team India.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Team India starts with a Win
Team India started their campaign to retain the T20 WorldCup in style with a reasonable victory over the talented Bangladesh.
Yuvi played a gem of an innings to save the day for India with power packed 41 of just 18 balls to pep up the score and India finally finished with a reasonable score of 180. Rohit and Gambhir started the innings in typical style with some well timed hits to the fence.Gambhir back to form is good sign for India and Rohit performing well in the openers slot gives us the flexibility of including an extra bowler. I feel Rohit is bit too ambitious in his strokes, he seems to be going after the bowling all the time.
We are a bit slow in the middle overs between 7 & 14 overs where we struggled to score runs but Yuvi was in great touch that he clobbered the bangladesh bowlers all over the park with towering sixes. Yuvi ensured India gets to a respectable total and I.pathan finishing off with a 6 & 4 in the final few deliveries. Sadly Raina did not get enough overs to set his eye in and explode and it was the same for Y.Pathan. We should also give credit to the bangladeshi spinners, they bowled brilliantly in the middle overs to restrict the explosive Dhonia and Gowtham.
Bangladesh started their chase in good stead with some hard hitting from both the openers and exposed our new ball bowlers. Zaheer was not spared and as usual I.Pathan gave away his quota of runs with the new ball (god know how he is picked time and again and given the new ball) Dhoni brought in Y.Pathan and he responded well to remove the inexperienced Tamim. After this point it was all the way Ohja show with some great seam bowling from I.sharma from the other end, Ohja picked wickets in all the overs and gave very few runs and sealed the victory for India. Harbajan played the role of restricting the run flow to perfection. I feel we gave away too many runs in the initial overs and need to find some way to restrict the run flow to 6 an over in the first 6 overs.
Over all it was a good day and may not be a great opener for India but this should have provided the team management to think through the combination for the future matches.
Sad to see that Aussies are struggling to make it to the knock out stage from the group of death. Aussies need to win against Srilanka by a big margin and WestIndies should also win Srilanka for Australia to make it to the knock out stage. On the other group its a battle between England and Pakistan to make it to the knock out stage. Netherland seems to be determined to make it to the next stage.
Yuvi played a gem of an innings to save the day for India with power packed 41 of just 18 balls to pep up the score and India finally finished with a reasonable score of 180. Rohit and Gambhir started the innings in typical style with some well timed hits to the fence.Gambhir back to form is good sign for India and Rohit performing well in the openers slot gives us the flexibility of including an extra bowler. I feel Rohit is bit too ambitious in his strokes, he seems to be going after the bowling all the time.
We are a bit slow in the middle overs between 7 & 14 overs where we struggled to score runs but Yuvi was in great touch that he clobbered the bangladesh bowlers all over the park with towering sixes. Yuvi ensured India gets to a respectable total and I.pathan finishing off with a 6 & 4 in the final few deliveries. Sadly Raina did not get enough overs to set his eye in and explode and it was the same for Y.Pathan. We should also give credit to the bangladeshi spinners, they bowled brilliantly in the middle overs to restrict the explosive Dhonia and Gowtham.
Bangladesh started their chase in good stead with some hard hitting from both the openers and exposed our new ball bowlers. Zaheer was not spared and as usual I.Pathan gave away his quota of runs with the new ball (god know how he is picked time and again and given the new ball) Dhoni brought in Y.Pathan and he responded well to remove the inexperienced Tamim. After this point it was all the way Ohja show with some great seam bowling from I.sharma from the other end, Ohja picked wickets in all the overs and gave very few runs and sealed the victory for India. Harbajan played the role of restricting the run flow to perfection. I feel we gave away too many runs in the initial overs and need to find some way to restrict the run flow to 6 an over in the first 6 overs.
Over all it was a good day and may not be a great opener for India but this should have provided the team management to think through the combination for the future matches.
Sad to see that Aussies are struggling to make it to the knock out stage from the group of death. Aussies need to win against Srilanka by a big margin and WestIndies should also win Srilanka for Australia to make it to the knock out stage. On the other group its a battle between England and Pakistan to make it to the knock out stage. Netherland seems to be determined to make it to the next stage.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Time to cheer Team India :-)
T20 WorldCup is fast approaching and its time for us to cheer and support Team India. It will be great fun to see the same people backing their foes couple of weeks back in the IPL.
One thing is sure that its going to be exciting than the 1st edition. Australia and SouthAfrica have already made their intentions clear that they are not going to take it easy. The success of 2007 worldcup and the mega success of IPL has proved that the format is here to stay and the top teams are going to fight for the top spot.With the success of IPL, victory here means a lot in terms of domestic T20 championships and replicate IPL like formats in their respective nation. so its going to be keenly contested WorldCup.
I feel there is no clear favorites for the 2009 WorldCup and there's going to be a lot of upsets and surprise winners. There are lot of new names in most of the teams but for Team India and the success of these new talents will be the defining factor.
India has distinct advantage of having many match winners in this T20 format. Sehwag,Yuvraj,Dhoni,Raina & Y.Pathan can win matches single handedly and Gambhirs form will decide the fate our campaign. Ishant,R.P.Sighn,Praveen & Zaheer should be doing well in helpful conditions. I will never pick an inconsistent performer like Irfan but i am sure he will play a few games and can spring a few surprise in helpful conditions. Harbhajan & Ohja form a good spinning options for Dhoni.Overall we have a very well balanced team and it all depends on how well we cope with the conditions and potential is transformed to performance and most importantly how well Dhoni uses his talented side.
For cricket fanatics like us, its going to be yet another 2-3 weeks of sleepless nights after the month long IPL carnival. Most of the matches will start at 5.30 UK time which is 11 in the night for us and true cricket fans will try their best to keep them awake till the end of the match. For general public this years event will not be a discussion item as they might not watch the matches live. The Newspapers will carry only partial scores and detailed scores will be available only on the next day which will be too late as our TV News channels will break the news.
One thing is sure that its going to be exciting than the 1st edition. Australia and SouthAfrica have already made their intentions clear that they are not going to take it easy. The success of 2007 worldcup and the mega success of IPL has proved that the format is here to stay and the top teams are going to fight for the top spot.With the success of IPL, victory here means a lot in terms of domestic T20 championships and replicate IPL like formats in their respective nation. so its going to be keenly contested WorldCup.
I feel there is no clear favorites for the 2009 WorldCup and there's going to be a lot of upsets and surprise winners. There are lot of new names in most of the teams but for Team India and the success of these new talents will be the defining factor.
India has distinct advantage of having many match winners in this T20 format. Sehwag,Yuvraj,Dhoni,Raina & Y.Pathan can win matches single handedly and Gambhirs form will decide the fate our campaign. Ishant,R.P.Sighn,Praveen & Zaheer should be doing well in helpful conditions. I will never pick an inconsistent performer like Irfan but i am sure he will play a few games and can spring a few surprise in helpful conditions. Harbhajan & Ohja form a good spinning options for Dhoni.Overall we have a very well balanced team and it all depends on how well we cope with the conditions and potential is transformed to performance and most importantly how well Dhoni uses his talented side.
For cricket fanatics like us, its going to be yet another 2-3 weeks of sleepless nights after the month long IPL carnival. Most of the matches will start at 5.30 UK time which is 11 in the night for us and true cricket fans will try their best to keep them awake till the end of the match. For general public this years event will not be a discussion item as they might not watch the matches live. The Newspapers will carry only partial scores and detailed scores will be available only on the next day which will be too late as our TV News channels will break the news.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Dhoni digs CSK's graveyard ........
It has been very hard to see that CSK went down without a real fight, as a CSK fanatic it was very tough to digest the fact that csk did not make it to the finals.
I am not going to write about the way they performed but the strategic failure in picking the XI for the big semi-finals based on commonsense and the facts which sent CSK packing out of the tournament.
I attribute this defeat is the reflection of Mr Cool Dhoni putting himself ahead of the team in many instances in this tournament. This was a open fact through out the tournament, it was purely some over-smart captaincy,unimaginable team selection and no intervention from the think tanks of CSK cricket management to set thing right at least at some point of the tournament.
Specially on the semi-finals, why would some one pick Goni ahead of a spinner in spite of his very poor performance with the ball and pathetic fielding. Dhoni yet again proved he backs few guys and goes with the instinct and not by one's performance. The whole cricket world knows that it has been spinners all through the tournament but he preferred Goni ahead of Ashwin who bowled brilliantly in the low scoring match against KXIP. Why to pick Oram again and again when he is not going to get his time to settle down in batting with the strong top order and he has been listless with his bowling. We could have picked Thusara or Ntini (sad that we did not use the leading SA bowler in even a single match) as a pure bowler and if this is not acceptable he could have used him as a new ball bowler and picked Ashwin in place of Goni, we would have had many options in the middle overs. If dhoni plans to bat up at No3 & No 4 there is no use in having both Badri and Oram in the side just for fielding.
Finally if Dhoni is going to shuffle his batting order very often in any form of the game in favor of himself, not only CSK but even Indian Team will suffer in time. We saw this happen in Kitply and AsiaCup finals with some dour batting from Dhoni but there was some justification for that but the kind of moves he made in the IPL is debatable. The sad side of all this is neither CSK nor India has a good backup for captaincy .
I am not going to write about the way they performed but the strategic failure in picking the XI for the big semi-finals based on commonsense and the facts which sent CSK packing out of the tournament.
I attribute this defeat is the reflection of Mr Cool Dhoni putting himself ahead of the team in many instances in this tournament. This was a open fact through out the tournament, it was purely some over-smart captaincy,unimaginable team selection and no intervention from the think tanks of CSK cricket management to set thing right at least at some point of the tournament.
Specially on the semi-finals, why would some one pick Goni ahead of a spinner in spite of his very poor performance with the ball and pathetic fielding. Dhoni yet again proved he backs few guys and goes with the instinct and not by one's performance. The whole cricket world knows that it has been spinners all through the tournament but he preferred Goni ahead of Ashwin who bowled brilliantly in the low scoring match against KXIP. Why to pick Oram again and again when he is not going to get his time to settle down in batting with the strong top order and he has been listless with his bowling. We could have picked Thusara or Ntini (sad that we did not use the leading SA bowler in even a single match) as a pure bowler and if this is not acceptable he could have used him as a new ball bowler and picked Ashwin in place of Goni, we would have had many options in the middle overs. If dhoni plans to bat up at No3 & No 4 there is no use in having both Badri and Oram in the side just for fielding.
Finally if Dhoni is going to shuffle his batting order very often in any form of the game in favor of himself, not only CSK but even Indian Team will suffer in time. We saw this happen in Kitply and AsiaCup finals with some dour batting from Dhoni but there was some justification for that but the kind of moves he made in the IPL is debatable. The sad side of all this is neither CSK nor India has a good backup for captaincy .
Monday, May 11, 2009
CSK strikes the right combination :-)
Great to see Dhoni re-inventing himself to play one of the most aggressive knocks against Punjab Kings XI and keeping his cool in the death overs as captain. Dhoni was not at his element all through the first phase of the tournament with most of the experiments going against him and CSK lost 3 games in a row. Finally Dhoni & CSK has come out strongly to perform like champs and looks like they can not go wrong from here but for the very ordinary fielding performance.
I still feel there is some confusion in the batting line up even though they have sort of sorted out things and seems to have hit the best combination. My pri match batting order will be like Haydos,Vijay,Raina,Badri,Dhoni,Morkel,Oram and may be based on the match situation badri can be pushed back in the order but i feel they have to stick to this line up. If CSK is pushed to think of an extra bowler, i would prefer dropping Oram and play Ntini rather than disturb Haydos and Vijay pair. In my view Oram has not been able to adapt to the T20 format yet, i think he has bowled very few overs and has got few opportunity to score big with the bat. I have a feeling Ntini might give his best, if given a chance now and may also get ready for the super semi-finals.
Morkel and Thyagi have been good in the last couple of matches with some great seam bowling and most importantly not giving away any extra runs in the initial overs. Murali,Jataki and Balaji have come good in the last 3 matches with some tight spells in the middle overs and Raina has been proving to be the trusted bowler in the death overs. Morkel and Balaji are little bit unpredictable in the end overs, invariably both of them provide a big (12-18 runs) over in the end, need to improve on this and restrict to a 10 run over in the end, Ntini in place of Oram might strike the required balance.
Its all open and dhoni has been pleading in the pre-match and post-match comments that CSK need to field better and hold on to all the chances that come their way. Is this because we don't have a fielding coach :-) may not be, see how many coach's KKR got and also look at their performance, i feel its all in the mind and if one or two come up with some special effort (like the one Raina took in the last game ) all others will follow suit. Today there is a lot of doubt if they will hold on to the chance so they let them go. Hope the confidence is back soon and does not cost them any more.
CSK has a good 4 day break and i am sure will help the old boys of the team (Haydos & Murali) to cool of their heels. Having said that we have another 4 matches and if we win the next 2 matches we are sure of making it to the semi-finals. Need to give some rest for Haydos,Murali,Morkel (has been playing non stop for the past 8 months) & Balaji. Baily has not been tried out till now and has been in the bench for too long and the only match he played he did not bat or bowl so i would expect dhoni to try his bench strength so that they will be useful for 2010 :-). Its the same with Ashwin, he got a game to play but did not bowl or bat so if it will help if they have to replace someone due to injury or some unexpected events.
I still feel there is some confusion in the batting line up even though they have sort of sorted out things and seems to have hit the best combination. My pri match batting order will be like Haydos,Vijay,Raina,Badri,Dhoni,Morkel,Oram and may be based on the match situation badri can be pushed back in the order but i feel they have to stick to this line up. If CSK is pushed to think of an extra bowler, i would prefer dropping Oram and play Ntini rather than disturb Haydos and Vijay pair. In my view Oram has not been able to adapt to the T20 format yet, i think he has bowled very few overs and has got few opportunity to score big with the bat. I have a feeling Ntini might give his best, if given a chance now and may also get ready for the super semi-finals.
Morkel and Thyagi have been good in the last couple of matches with some great seam bowling and most importantly not giving away any extra runs in the initial overs. Murali,Jataki and Balaji have come good in the last 3 matches with some tight spells in the middle overs and Raina has been proving to be the trusted bowler in the death overs. Morkel and Balaji are little bit unpredictable in the end overs, invariably both of them provide a big (12-18 runs) over in the end, need to improve on this and restrict to a 10 run over in the end, Ntini in place of Oram might strike the required balance.
Its all open and dhoni has been pleading in the pre-match and post-match comments that CSK need to field better and hold on to all the chances that come their way. Is this because we don't have a fielding coach :-) may not be, see how many coach's KKR got and also look at their performance, i feel its all in the mind and if one or two come up with some special effort (like the one Raina took in the last game ) all others will follow suit. Today there is a lot of doubt if they will hold on to the chance so they let them go. Hope the confidence is back soon and does not cost them any more.
CSK has a good 4 day break and i am sure will help the old boys of the team (Haydos & Murali) to cool of their heels. Having said that we have another 4 matches and if we win the next 2 matches we are sure of making it to the semi-finals. Need to give some rest for Haydos,Murali,Morkel (has been playing non stop for the past 8 months) & Balaji. Baily has not been tried out till now and has been in the bench for too long and the only match he played he did not bat or bowl so i would expect dhoni to try his bench strength so that they will be useful for 2010 :-). Its the same with Ashwin, he got a game to play but did not bowl or bat so if it will help if they have to replace someone due to injury or some unexpected events.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
