I have been following the Indian matches very closely and discovered one thing and that is India was lucky to win the toss on both ocassions and went for batting , what if India had to loose the toss , would Inida be able to chase big totals like Bangladesh and England have done - answer is no .
I would love to see Inida bowling first and then see how good our bowlers are to restrict the opponenet team below 280 even then I think India won't be able to chase for victory .
I think republic of India is over hyped up of winning the world cup but will be deeply saden when they see India loose in quaterfinals.
No doubt Inida has excellent batting line up but it all fails when we need them , we don't want big stars in our team we need performers - look at the 1983 world cup - the whole team had contributed somehow and the result was victory .
Guy's again - my humble suggestion would be don't get hyped up as our team migt not even reach semi's .
Re: world cup India's performance
by Ayaz Alam on Mar 02, 2011 07:50 AM
@ harjit soni, I am not sure how ou are following our matches, although there has been just two matches. By the way, we did not win the toss in the first match (against Bangladesh). If you had really followed the matches, then you might have realized that the only area of concern is fielding. I am quite happy with our performance so far, but yeh dil mange more.
Re: world cup India's performance
by prashant gundani on Mar 02, 2011 07:46 AM
Are you serious, don't waste your smart mind here, people knows cricket better then you! Steyn said but where was he hiding when Sachin hits 200 and India's chasing has been improved drastic in last 15 months, if you don't know then please go to cricinfo and check history, so keep your humble request with you and wait for India comes in Final
Re: world cup India's performance
by ashish sinha on Mar 02, 2011 07:35 AM
this is an old view.. would have been true in the 1990s... we have a new team now.
How can somebody drop a bowler based on his one match peformance. Sreeshanth bowled well against Australia and Newzeland and If you watch his bowling against Bangladesh most of the runs went behind the wicket ,upper edges and lower edges but bangladesh batsmen was struggling against him..
Re: sreeshanth..
by raman thakur on Mar 02, 2011 08:41 AM
Spot on ....his figures did not do justice to the way he bowled against Bangladesh......and the captain did not do justice by leaving him out for the England match.....he is one guy with a lots of guts and i really like the way he tries to pump himself up at the bowling mark ....
Ashwin is the Odd man in the team. He is neither a spinner nor an all rounder. Selectors made a big mistahe by selecting Ashwin instead of Ohja or Irfan Pathan. Now India is having shortage on bowling options. As logn as stupid Srikanth is the selector, india is going to have these issues. It's very surprising to see Ashwin keep on getting selected to ODI team and not playing a single match. Then what's the point of having him in the team. Srikanth selected Ashwin just because he is from Tamil Nadu. fortunately dinesh and Vijay failed miserably. Otherwise India would have been playing this tournament with 12 players only.
Re: Unnecessarily tamilian in the team
by srinivas ramachandran on Mar 02, 2011 09:14 AM
lol...r u blaming Ashwin for the poor performance of Indian team.u r truly a sadist..
Re: Re: Unnecessarily tamilian in the team
by Nowa on Mar 02, 2011 12:11 PM
@srinivas ramachandran, he wants some bowlers selected & getting failed again & again like Ishant. Can he tell atleast one international appearance of Ashwin where he failed?
actaully on a given day it can happen to any side, steayn is a gr8 bowler no doubt... but when tendulkar scored 200 and india passed 400 ODI, same thing happened with south africa...
The 280 runs against BLD and 338 against England has been a cause of major concern. The Indian think-tank still has not found the right combination yet, either 4 bowlers or five, the problem mainly is the injury to Ashish Nehra.
This may become an issue in the later stages but they still have to play against the minnows and we should not be too concerned about the options with Sreesanth, Nehra and Chawla.
I would say wait until Nehra is 100% fit, wait, and in the meantime before the semis and quarters let us juggle with Chawla and Sreesanth.
Yusuf is something that India will get if our batting is struggling in a chase and when the top-order cannot fire. He can turn the match around from a seemingly hopeless situation but a fifth bowler cannot do what Yusuf can do.
The combination of Zaheer, Nehra and Munaf is the best combination since Srinath, Zaheer and Nehra from the 93 World Cup. Munaf has been a revelation, though he got a lot of help in SA, but the three combined can put a serious dent early when India's is defending a large total
Chawla is still not mature and maybe against the minnows for the next few games Sreesanth can be a better option right now.
The attack right now is too spin-centric with Chawla, Harby and the part-timers. When we play SA until March 12 and we have enough time for Nehra to recover, until then Sreesanth is a good option against the minnows with Yusuf still in the eleven and going with 3 specialist seamers is a good option
Re: There is plenty of cricket left -- no need to panic --
by Juni on Mar 02, 2011 04:37 AM
"Zaheer, Nehra and Munaf is the best combination since Srinath, Zaheer and Nehra from the 93 World Cup"
In 93 there was no Zaheer ot Nehra. They started playing since 2000 and 2002 respectively.
Re: Re: There is plenty of cricket left -- no need to panic --
by rilov paloly on Mar 02, 2011 05:20 AM
Nehra is spin bowler now.. He can't bent he is disaster in the fielding.. Compare nehras ad Anil Kumlble's bowling speed then you will understand..
Re: Re: There is plenty of cricket left -- no need to panic --
by Against Pseudos on Mar 02, 2011 05:52 AM
Juni:
Nice to know that there WAS a 93 world cup... :)
Boss, Nikhil Shah obviously meant 2003 world cup... which was renowned for our swing bowling throughout the tournament - till that final "encounter" of course... ;-)
Steyn trying to play some mind games ahead of ind tie. SA have no right to say that india dont have wicket taking bowlers, if SA was so perfect, they should be having at least one world title by now..poor chockers dont have even a 20-20 title..just jargon!! come on, get a life, steyn!
Re: Re: SA, only words, no results!
by Sweta on Mar 02, 2011 02:50 AM
@Sanjay: Frustration at its peak... You can easily name it fluke or whatever, but you cannot go back and change that record even if you stand upside down. Learn to appreciate victory. I agree with you that SA started playing WC late.. but again that's the same kind of excuse for not winning since they started playing. Except Aus and WI, all other teams have one WC only once (or none at all like SA), Does that mean all the wins are fluke???
Re: Re: Re: SA, only words, no results!
by Against Pseudos on Mar 02, 2011 05:23 AM
Sweta:
:) Sanjay was responding to Sreenivasan Sreedharnnair in his own style... Since you found it so offensive, I am sure you'll find Sreenivasan Sreedharannair more so... :)
Re: Re: Re: SA, only words, no results!
by Sameer on Mar 02, 2011 11:22 AM
Sanjay
India beat WI in the 1983 world cup 2 times. Maybe you need to do research before you write. Yes, the WI team was superior in the 1983 world cup. But guess what, the team that plays best on the day wins the ODI. Also, SA always has had a very highstandard domestic standards, much like Aus. Hence their transition back to international cricket was pretty swift.
offcourse india had wicket taking bowlers, 1) staruss had nicked ball twice, he was some how lucky dhoni,zaheer didn't appeal, due to noise of crowd they didn't sound. 2) Harbhajan dropped strauss which looked half chance, but for good feilder it was real chance. 3) even good feilder kohli dropped one catch. 4) URDS review of Bell, went against india. had above things gone in favour of india, they wud have won.
Re: Re: Re: indians not lucky,
by Sameer on Mar 02, 2011 11:27 AM
Sanju Baba Swan should have held tendy's catch Strauss caught behind should have been appealed for D.h.o.o.b.i should have set better fields Indians should have bowled better World war 1-2 should have never happened. The list can go on
Re: Re: Re: indians not lucky,
by Sweta on Mar 02, 2011 02:54 AM
4 lost chances for India.. According to you 2 lost chances for England.. So.. as per your retaliation logic, India still had more disadvantages... LOL.. Try using your brain, for a change.
Re: Re: indians not lucky,
by suresh roy on Mar 02, 2011 07:51 AM
@sanjay, you seem to be a real frustrated guy or totally anti Indian. Wonder if you ever held a cricket bat & a cricket ball.
Re: Re: Re: indians not lucky,
by Against Pseudos on Mar 02, 2011 11:40 AM
Roy:
:) Seems like one can be proved Indian only if one lets go of facts completely and sticks to the Extremes of "All's well with India" (the present mode) or "Nothing works and sack everyone and burn everyone's effigies"... :) If one tries to be somewhere in between with a balanced view, you'll start talking about cricket bat and cricket ball. . :)
Re: indians not lucky,
by Against Pseudos on Mar 02, 2011 05:45 AM
Madhusoodan:
Well said... We even managed to restrict the mighty Bangladesh to a mere 283... (if you want I can add the tadka - "we even managed to bowl them out within 27 overs")..
And if you think "of course we have wicket taking bowlers" then lets keep fielding the same "wicket taking" bowlers in future matches too.. Just that I hope our "weak" batting line up crosses 280 runs in some matches at least to increase the margin of our victory occasionally... :)
To learn it from the best fast bowler in the world right now, its all about line and length.
What one could observer in the last 2-3 of India's matches is that Indian pace bowlers being swing bowlers try for the swing from the first ball itself and the gives the oppisition loose balls and an easy start.
Same was with Sree against Bangla and Zak against England. What they could do is just stick to a line and length for couple of overs, understand the swing, the pitch and then try out things.
Re: Very well put
by French Cuisine on Mar 01, 2011 11:32 PM
Dale Steyn is arguably the best in the world, but Zak is not far behind and probably he is as skillful. So even Steyn would have gone for runs on wickets like this against the likes of Sachin and Strauss. Munaf is sticking to line and length and yet conceded around 7 rpo.
Re: Re: Very well put
by Tropical boy on Mar 02, 2011 08:13 AM
Well. No doubt about Zak's abilities. He is definitely among the top 3-4 fast bowlers in the world right now. What I meant is he could do better in his initial spells controlling his swing.
Remember the first over against Aussies in 2003 finals
and the first over to strauss was not much different.
