If sachin fails in 2nd innings and in final test, then he should retire as there is no more reason to defend his place in the team considering the fact that youngsters have scoring well. It will be very sorrowful if he retires in such a way instead of retiring in high and especially considering Sangakkara has been scoring well with good batting average and has chances of breaking tendya records
In case Aus lose this match tomorrow it is M/Clarke who has to blame himself for his ‘attacking’ strategy at the wrong time because India were not going to lose this game any way even if it had got out at par score of around 408 !. So what did Clarke gain any way ? After Dhoni got out M/Clarke should have shifted to lower gear, slowed down the game, spread the field and allowed the Indian innings to prolong as long as possible at low run rate. Instead he just did the opposite and brought on himself the likely defeat by getting india out quickly ! Although Aus might stil save the match but fact remains the Aus Captain has made things difficult for himself ! Now what Dhoni Should do ? Obviously he should go for the kill but remember that it is not the usual 5th day conventional wicket and in the past opposition teams have managed to draw here by playing whole day. Dhoni has to ‘attack’ alright but at the same time not give too many runs. Best bowling bet ? Peg Ashwin at one end and choke them for runs from that end.Continuously keep changing bowlers at the other end starting with B’Kumar. I/Sharma, P/Ojha and R/jadeja…
Inspite of some good individual performances both the teams seemed to have goofed up somewhat tactically. First, India failed to take initiative in accelerating the score to get a sizable lead quickly. Despite his patient innings M/Vijay could have been little more positive and accelerated the score after completing his century to-day as the team needed some fast scoring to press for an outright win. True Dhoni got out precisely doing that but Sachin and even Virat had slowed down the innings considerably and allowed the bowlers to get on top resulting in the batting collapse. Sachin’s slow batting is a real cause for concern which is hurting not just team India but also Virat Kohli’s career. Now that team is winning such things will not be noticed but when the team starts losing then all these things are going to be magnified. That is why Virat Kohli must come at no. 4 before Sachin as long as Sachin is playing. Now coming to the game ,although for India In a way it was a blessing in disguise that it got out early but fact remains captain Clarke committed a tactical blunder of ‘attacking’ when actually he should have played a defensive cricket to ensure that that Aus would have to bat minimum period of time and not maximum duration as has happened now !.
...to-day's game will be remembered for anti-climaxes.. and tactical mistakes and even tactical blunders..as if the two teams were competing in committing mistakes. While yesterday Shikhar Dhawan returned to the pavilion twirling his moustaches after playing a totally unexpected awesome debut innings never seen before to-day he returned to pavilion within minutes after a tame dismissal. It was simply unbelievable after the fluent and fearless innings played w/o any pressure on a debut day, to-day the pressure of a double hundred seemed to have got better of him ! Any way he does look to be long term prospects. M/Vijay on the other hand also played his best Test innings of character so far and looks promising with ‘tentativeness ‘ which we used to see usually in his earlier innings totally not seen this time around. Both the players auger well for the rebuilding Indian side.
Edcowan was plumb in front... he was surely out... regarding outside leg stump pitching it was still 50% inside the line... of Edcowan was not out because of big stride forward than Dhoni was not at all out as he was out of crease for a good 10-15meters away from crease...Rediff get your facts right///
