Imagine Australia starting a four test series in India after being there for only a few days with just one practice match. This scenario will never happen because Cricket Australia cares about Australia winning its matches, about putting on a good show for its fans, about giving its players the best chance to win. BCCI on the other hand only cares about money. It is not poor planning that made India arrive in Australia a few days before the first test. It is BCCI's GREED -- milk as much money as possible by playing as much cricket as possible. The focus is quantity, not quality cricket. Throw stones and brickbats at the shoddy and incompetent cricket administration in India. They deserve it.
RE:Blame BCCI's GREED
by kudigarakumfu on Dec 30, 2007 12:57 AM
well said, so what you got to do by writing this? Other than you no one will read this article that too on rediff. So its better you do this talk in your community address the people and make them think. Make them realize power of democracy. This is the problem all of us have, just write and leave. For whose sake your doing it? There is no vision, there is no though process involved, you will write here, resent for a whiel and start doing your normal business but you expect BCCI to change in one night and by your advice. I appreciate your concern but it should be more action oriented than just writing comments.
Dravid shouldnt have offered to open the innings for the first test. He must understand that he is under pressure and should settle for his No:3 spot.
Dravid has an excellent record in Australia and against the Australians. He would do a good job at 3.
Sehwag should be lucky to be a part of the team as he is not doing good in Ranji Trophy. We need to give Sehwag a chance in the practice match after the sydney test. We must open with Karthik.
Karthik has done an excellent job as an opener in SA and ENG. He failed in 4 innings in India against PAK,but he is good enough to open the innings and is also an attacking playe and a brilliant fielder.
The bowlers have done a decent job and we should stick with the same bowling combination
RE:Wrong Combination
by jet on Dec 29, 2007 10:06 PM
idiot, that 20-20 player has scored 169 in a given chance and is the player who won matches for India playing under pressure when all other famous paper tigers collapsed. I cont help but laugh on people like you.. Look at the records and compare how many matches Yuvraj won for India and that too under tremendous pressure.
RE:Wrong Combination
by sriram ramani on Dec 29, 2007 10:21 PM
Jet, Yuvraj has hit 2 centuries against Pakistan in test match. One in Karachi which we lost and one in Blore which was drawn.
He needs to tighten his game and should be given a long run, but i think not during the tour of Australia where you can experiment
RE:RE:Wrong Combination
by Janardhana on Dec 30, 2007 08:11 AM
Uthappa is now not fit to play in Ranji also, In some 8 or 9 innings he could not score even a single fifty and is a big flap and Karnataka are out of Ranji competition despite good start given by Dravid and Kumble in initial 2 matches. So you think this Uthappa will score in australia and make uthappam to team members.
RE:RE:Wrong Combination
by Janardhana on Dec 30, 2007 08:07 AM
Don't use ugly words. Australia is not Bangalore. The problem with you is just by one century you want yuvaraj to play without merit. Now he has failed in both innings wht he will do;. He was given a long rope in 2006 what he did do. In australia such silly thing that a batsman who scores in one innings should be given a permanent slot will not happen. Remember what happened to Haddin. YOu have to see their ability and Karthik has proved in away series which is more important than home seires.
If you want to analyze, then Dravid - Slowest batting seen for years but he is the same bastman who was the wall in last tour of Australia... Needs to relax and play his natural game... may be taking opener's role too seriously... needs to go back to his 1st down position ... unnecessary shuffle for all the bastmen
2) Ganguly - Poor running between wickets - dont rotate strike much, slowest fielder - demoralizes the fielding side...BUT his century in last tour (first test) set the temp for the whole series... Right now in the greatest form of his life...
Laxman - same as above plus need to convert his 30's-40's to big scores in this tour
Yuvi - Dont have technique to play either quality fast bowlers on seaming, bouncy pitch or quality spinner on a spinning track.. BUT he is brilliant stroke maker when ball comes to bat and raises standard of fielding .. Needs to be a part of Ind A tours to Australia/SA/England regularly to gain experience...
Dhoni - same as above BUT he has the maturity to curb his instinct and play according to requirement.. Also keeping well these days...
Kumble - Fighter as ever
Zaheer - Fine
RP Singh - Fine considering he just came back from long break.. Needs to consult Akram more
Bhai - waste in this tour unless he plays his heart out...
affar - Good temprament BUT its all very predictable now ... Play poorly in first 1-2 tests and then score hundred or big score..
Sachin - He is playing well right now... not to think too much abt his scores
Only Shastri,Sunny,Bhogle and the jokers(BCCI) will certify we have the best batting line up in the world.Should Ponting allow us to play 3 more batsmen ,!! we will loose even by a bigger margin.the only way now is, fake injury and say the jokers were unfit.also send an SMS to Madam Tussaud Wax Museum for some wax potraits.
RE:Don't blame Dravid alone, okay
by Starwar on Dec 29, 2007 07:42 PM
Mahesh ..Why we bont blame Dravid if he cannot perform...just because he is from Bengaluru?
Dravid made aussie bowlers feel more aggressive and added more pressure to other batsman..
Forget the past about Dravid as this was long ago ..for last one year he is a shadow of his former self in tests against SA, England and Pak...
Dravid should be retired permanently now ...or else let RD go and play Ranji for his state Karnataka to recover his form....
Other than biased fans, rest of India fans are sick of this boring, negative player Dravid who blocks deliveries endlessly and hardly scores runs .
RE:RE:Don't blame Dravid alone, okay
by Janardhana on Dec 29, 2007 09:23 PM
What pressure is created by dravid. Despite out of form and thurst into opener's job he played for 35 overs and took the shine off the new ball. This is 20-20 cricket to play fast. Infact when Dravid and Laxman were defending ponting really had some worries and that is why he brought Symonds who is a parttimer. Unfortunately, great strokemakers of india who were in their comfortable positions playing old ball could not last another 35 overs alltogether. If dravid's slow batting is creating pressure, why can't they come and open and break the shackles and let dravid play at No. 6 and we will see.
RE:RE:RE:Don't blame Dravid alone, okay
by Janardhana on Dec 29, 2007 09:26 PM
Continuing, I don't want to say that dravid played well, infact he is not in form and failed to convert his start. But what I hate is the way people attribute everything to Dravid, including collective failures of others. In test cricket 54 for 1 is not really pressure situation, but bowling 35 overs without getting breakthrough is a worrisome factor for bowlers. Only who understand the test cricket can agree to this.
RE:Don't blame Dravid alone, okay
by kannan kannan on Dec 29, 2007 11:08 PM
Dear Friend don't talk about the past. Now dravid is clearly a liability to the team. In the first innings he was out once in a noball, got one life.Even then he was not able to survive. In the second innings after facing 114 balls getting out to a parttime bowler is really pathetic. If you are not able to perform for more than 3 series please get out.
RE:Don't blame Dravid alone, okay
by Suman Bhat on Dec 30, 2007 01:17 AM
Rahul Dravid has aggregated 606 runs in 19 innings (10 Tests) at an average of 35.64, including one century and three fifties, in 2007 %u2013
Tendulkar%u2019s average in 2003 was around 17 and 2004 it was 23 but he never dropped from team for bad performance Ganguly was non performing captain for almost more than 2 yrs nobody asked his sacking Now the ppl are screaming against dravid even though he secricfied his batting position and his average still good, Even dhoni yuvraj jaffer harbjan failed Superstars also failed But ruled does not apply to superstars.. The way dravid dropped from odi after playing in different positions and now the way he was asked change his batting order again it is clear that vengi had an agenda against dravid..
From Dec 15th 2006 to Dec 26th
Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave BF SR
12 23 2 65 5 129 31.19 1590 41.19
Bat1 Bat2 Runs BF SR Oppositio n Date 32 1 33 92 35.86 v South Africa 15 Dec 2006 11 5 16 48 33.33 v South Africa 26 Dec 2006 29 47 76 192 39.58 v South Africa 2 Jan 2007 61 2 63 110 57.27 v Bangladesh 18 May 2007 129 - 129 176 73.29 v Bangladesh 25 May 2007 2 9 11 24 45.83 v England 19 Jul 2007 37 11* 48 122 39.34 v England 2
RE:Don't blame Dravid alone, okay
by Phenomenon on Dec 29, 2007 07:55 PM
I fully agree with you. Just cuz of our narrow regional bias, are we lagging behind whether it be sports or anything else.
RE:Don't blame Dravid alone, okay
by Bharat Shetty on Dec 29, 2007 08:44 PM
I totally agree with Mahesh Shetty. Dravid's contribution is enormous, his test career itself is evident. He scored close to 10,000 runs in test. Yes he is in bad form currently, the way played was not upto the mark.
See he is a team man and he obey's what team management decide. He scarificed his fav batting position 3 to accomdate YUVI in team.
Today i was watching zee news where Media started blaming KUMBLES ability as a captain. I don't know why we overreact on this. It is a game India lost, fine let us see next match.
I dont why Nikhil Chopra make such foolish comments. Blady he never played test or one day not more than a year. He is not in a position to criticize Sachin, Dravid, Kumble and DADA. In my opnion media should stop showing cricket discussions and such foolish comments. Media and so called stupid experts like Nikhil chopda, Y sharma, Saba Karim and making cricketers life hell.
RE:RE:Don't blame Dravid alone, okay
by Janardhana on Dec 29, 2007 09:20 PM
People like Nikhil Chopra, saba karim, chetan shrma don't understand cricket at it's highest level. Otherwise they themselves would have played long.
it is not new about our failure in first match of overseas's tour.we also do not have any ideas to beat Aus. in any form of game. We, all do well or all crush toghter.In Aus. even top 3/4 fail,remaining members can score and bring the total. Their boulers are capable of defending any total. It needs lot of thinking.
Jaffer, Sehwag, Laxman, Sachin, Saurav, Dhoni/Kartik, Irfan, Kumble, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Ishant if you have 2 great allrounder as irfan and dhoni/kartik then should go with 5 bowlers
With all due respect to Dravid, i would say that the way he batted set the tone for rest of the Batsmen. Such gloomy start had a negative impact on other batsmen. It is better to get out rather than play such innings. He should stick to his original place.
RE:Poor Opening
by Janardhana on Dec 29, 2007 09:30 PM
He should have attacked got out for 25 and then India would have been allout for less than 100. After he got out all other 8 wickets together sustained only for 35 overs. Well unfortunately, this is not a 20-20 cricket and scoring 100 and getting allout in 20 overs is not going to win the test.We had 2 days, and whatever dravid tried is best, only that he did not succeed fully, blaming dravid for other's failure is totally biased.
RE:Poor Opening
by Silpa Setty on Dec 29, 2007 07:04 PM
You are right Baliga he should have attacked and made even 25-30 it would have been a different cup of tea. His style sent a negative
RE:RE:Poor Opening
by Silpa Setty on Dec 29, 2007 07:04 PM
You are right Baliga he should have attacked and made even 25-30 it would have been a different cup of tea. His style sent a negative vibes to the rest.
RE:Poor Opening
by Starwar on Dec 29, 2007 07:44 PM
No offence but Dravid needs to be dropped in next test for his negative attitude and bad form ...period
