Mr. Dhoni should trust its pace battery and declare the innings after the total lead reaching 400runs ,he has committed few mistakes when india visited Newzland ,Dhoni declared the innings after total lead reached 500 ,unfortunately Indian ended with a draw,they survivied by 2wickets .Dhoni should not repeat the same .
India is in a commanding position and any declaration (450 plus?)has to come to rule out India losing.The next aim has to be to go all out for an outright win rather than harp on individual records for Pujara and Kohli.It must be understood that while aiming for record for bowlers always aids the side win on the other hand aiming for batting record could go against a side winning! So, both Pujara and Kohli to be follwed by an attacking Dhoni must aim for quick runs rather than slow down the game attempting a double century for Pujara or a century for Kohli. India needs win more than individual records.So India should politely decline Pat Symcox’s suggestions on 'Straight Drive' for going for records by Pujara and Kohli. It is certainly not the priority.
With the ouster of just one player Sachin from the team, what a transformation has come into the team,it is playing as one unit, & that too abroad against the No1 test side. Every player is contributing to the team's success whether it is Kohli,Pujara,Zaheer,Ishant,or Shami. During Sachin's era the spotlight was always on him,irrespective of his repeated failures, and the other players got disgruntled despite their contributions.
Re: What a transformation
by Ashish Singh on Dec 21, 2013 01:28 PM
Wish the" great man" had been dropped from the team before Indian team's tour of England and Australia in 2011, and now looking to our youngsters performance in SA we could have done much better. In the last 3 years Sachin was a burden on the side.
Both team lost quick wickets on 2nd & 3rd day early morning. India lost 5/25 and SA 4/few. Hope this will not be repeated on the 4th day. After this partnership other batsmen don't inspire confidence- should aim for small targets and try to get 100-150 more- sounds pessimistic and hope I'm proven wrong
it was excellent batting from PUjara and kholi. One could have expected them to be there centrestage couple of years back due to oldies reluctant to retire from test cricket. Needless to say about Rehane and Vijay we could stay at the wicket for the ball and bowlers to worn the initial pace and bounce of in these conditions. Well done India. Its now all indias way and they undoubtly win 1st test with sheer dominace.
