well thanks to parthiv patel and to steve bucknor the test match seems to be ending in a draw ... Patel is in the team as a wicket keeper .. doesnt matter if he scores 30 runs per innings .. if he misses 2 stumpings and 1 catch in a match ... he is not good enough for the highest level ... the stumping of ponting was crucial ... he dropped gillepsie at 5 and he went on to make 47 ... he missed katich who made a century .... no excuses ... he might be 18 but this is test cricket .. no place for emotions .. he has missed a total of 4-5 stumoings in the series and a few catches ... he might be the best that India can offer .. but he looks to be only a compromise ... not the talent that everyone feels he is ... patel's missed stumping might have effectively ruined karthik's career ... he was walloped in the first innings .. he came back and got a wicket ... he should have got another one .. which patel missed .. and then he might have gone to take 2-3 more wickets which would have resurrected his career ... but that was not the case .. he ends up with one wicket and will be dropped from the team when harbhajan returns ...
to patel :: stop appealing whenever the ball hits the pad
i really luv cricket. today's match (6th of January 2OO4) was really cool.thank you for giving us such a wonderful match today, australia and india. sorry for steve waugh.
Ashish Magotra is a real p%#$#. Here is what he said:
The umpires, Parthiv Patel and Australia conspired in the afternoon session to keep India's victory hopes on the edge.
Parthiv Patel is 18 years old. You don't write crap like this about a budding 18 yr old cricketer. Don't vent your life frustrations on him. One of the worst pieces of journalism I have come across.
The message at the end of the match is that India didn't have the will to win. They had a lead of 303 runs when Sehwag was out. And what did Ganguly do - send Tendulkar in which defies all logic. Here is a struggling batsman sent out when quick runs are required. Either Ganguly or Laxman, or at the worst even Agarkar, should have come out and tonked the bowlers around. Instead we had two grafters who played about 10 over for 0, 1, 2 runs each. Granted that Dravid picked up the tempo, but if one end is safe, why should the other end play safe too ? Did tendulkar play safe for his own satifaction ? I don't believe ganguly would have asked him to play slow, the way he did. 60 in 90 balls is SLOOOOOW. In the end, that decision cost India the series win.
In the worst case, if Ganguly or Laxman played, even if the two lost their wickets quickly, with Dravid, Tendulkar, Patel wouldn't India have been able to score another 70-80 runs and have a total in excess of 400 for Aus to win ? So why did Ganguly do the indefensible and send Tendulkar in ? It defies logic. All other decisions seem correct including not enforcing the follow on. If only Tendulkar played for the country in this game.
