Official Thread : India V/s West Indies Options

[LEGENDRAFI]

Congratulations to Jaffer on his double hundred! Great inns indeed, even though he had his chances yet he managed to keep his concentration going and got India to a position where they can seriously think about putting pressure on the West Indies batting.

Dhoni's blast at the end was also stunning and I am happy to see that atleast we have someone who is still keeping the legacy of 'Indian batsmen's strength against spin bowling' alive. Others have just struggled against Dave Mohammed and it was great watching Dhoni put him in his place. I just hope that more Indian batsmen could use their feet against spinners, as was the norm in the 90s, when we had players like Sidhu, Azhar, Kambli and of course Sachin Tendulkar who could destroy spin bowling by using their feet. Today, most of our players struggle to dominate even second grade spinners (Monty Panesar is one) and that is mainly due to their inability or perhaps the lack of will to use their feet and play spin bowling.

All said, it must be acknowledged that we are in a good position now and a great spell from Kumble might just do the trick on the 5th day. Then again, I am not yet discounting the fact that the opposition has players like Gayle, Sarwan and Lara in their ranks.

[tracknest]

Yes LR ji

We are in a good position and Kumble is the one who can take us to a win. It depends how Dravid sets up the field and how he used the bowlers at the other end. Only a miracle acn make WI win hence we have to attack and take our catches.

Lets see..

[Anil4]

Extracted from Cricinfo.com:

Lara emerges with little credit



The row over the “catch” taken by Daren Ganga to remove MS Dhoni which tarnished the final session of the fourth day’s play at Antigua’s Recreation Ground was the talk of the Caribbean’s newspapers on Tuesday, with Brian Lara's antics taking centre stage.

Haydn Gill in the Barbados Nation lead the way.

“As the replays proved inconclusive, the decision was made in favour of the batsman. Lara appeared to ask for a further review, and when the verdict went against West Indies, he had a few words with Dhoni.”

The Jamaica Gleaner noted that Lara’s behaviour was less than exemplary:

“So upset was the West Indies captain that at one stage he dragged the ball away from the umpire at one end of the pitch before throwing it to the stumps at the other end as play seemed set to resume.”

In the Stabroek News Garth Wattley endorsed the view:

“Lara descended to finger pointing at the umpires, a pointed discussion with Dhoni and partner Mohammad Kaif and lastly, the angry grabbing of the ball from standing umpire Asad Rauf.”

That raised the question of a lack of consistency if, as most people believe, the match referee choses to do nothing against Lara while 24 hours earlier Mahela Jayawardene was fined 20% of his match fee for a moment of frustration with himself rather than any official.

[tracknest]

So close yet so far, yes the WI team dodged a bullet. Chappel and Dravid should take a lesson from this game. To say the Irfan is low in confidence is the media was shocking and disgusting at best. How much confidence would Irfan get out of this.

Making VRV play in such an important game inplace of proven players like Habajan and Irfan is a shocker and that could be seen today when the Indian bowlers apart from Kumble did not have what is takes to win games like this specially with a mediocre side like WI.

The field placings by Dravid were childish and obvious. Having many slips is fine if you have the ball swinging or if you have genuine pace bowlers. This made life easy for WI team who knew where the Indian bowlers would bowl and all they have to do is leave the balls outside the off stump and thats exactly what they did. Even the tailenders never looked like getting out. Instead of giving VRV 2 important overs, Dravid should have stuck with Munaf or given the ball to Sewag who was actually getting turn from the wicket

Kumble and Jafer were the highlight of the Indian team that needs a lot of thinking to do for selecting the right team for the next game. You may find my comments very critical but there is no excuse not to win against a team like WI. To be fair, we could have won the game if Kaif could have taken the catch but he forgot his basics that a fielder at that position must stay as low as possible and not rise.

BTW, Lara's behavior was pathetic and shows that he is under pressure.

[LEGENDRAFI]

Tn ji, I do agree with most of the points that you have made. However, we must keep in mind Antigua's past record where the pitch almost always improves, considerably after the first two days. So, perhaps the dead wicket proved too much for our bowlers to exert any real pressure on the West Indies batsmen even though we made a great comeback to pick their 9 wickets on the last day. Still, the absence of Pathan and Harbhajan is a huge matter of discussion as now one could only imagine what could have happened had both of them played.

Still, it was a good game and hopefully we can take some inspiration from this game and play positive cricket right from the first ball in the next test match.

[balajigade]

Tn ji, I do agree with most of the points that you have made. However, we must keep in mind Antigua's past record where the pitch almost always improves, considerably after the first two days. So, perhaps the dead wicket proved too much for our bowlers to exert any real pressure on the West Indies batsmen even though we made a great comeback to pick their 9 wickets on the last day. Still, the absence of Pathan and Harbhajan is a huge matter of discussion as now one could only imagine what could have happened had both of them played.

Still, it was a good game and hopefully we can take some inspiration from this game and play positive cricket right from the first ball in the next test match.

This is the problem right from the day I remember to have started listening to cricket commentries on radio. Earlier it is used to be about the dropping of one of the spinners from the dreaded 4 : Bedi, Prasanna, V'raghavan & Prasanna. Then recently it was between the 4 m'pacers : Nehra, Zaheer, Balaji & Pathan. Similarly when we drop Ganguly or Lakshman or Kaif--- even after their miserable performances on a continuous basis---we are made to think the very next match : arey, woh hota to kuchh kar ke dikhata....
After all we have to have only 11 out of 15 or 16. The only alternative to this, is making pitches which suit fast bowling back home; so that not only we encourage the fast bowling but also we learn how to face it.

A more committment on the field (rather than commercials on the screen) will do a lot of good. Let's hope for a better show in the next match.

--Balji

[LEGENDRAFI]

Balaji, quite right. It is really the inconsistency of our players that puts all of us in this sort of a situation. We hardly have any players who are reliable and that is why you never know whether they are better in the team or out of it. Still, Bhajji's exclusion was perhaps more damaging than Irfan's as Irfan hasn't been at his best on this tour and his test match bowling skills are stil doubtful. Unfortunately, some reports in media suggested that both these players were out due to some indiscipline that they exhibited a couple of days before the test match and hence Mr.Chappell wasn't impressed and decided to rest both of them.

[balajigade]

At the end of the 1st test between India & Windies a no. of controversies in respect of umpiring have come out. I don't comment on the umpiring decisions regarding outs & not-outs---any mistake on thier part is purely out of a human error. However the disciplinary actions taken by them or the match referee are highly biased. Sehwag was reprimanded for the emotion shown by him by shaking hands with the fielders before the umpire gave a decision and a penalty was levied on him. Afterall he did not react with the umpire at all. Where as Lara who stuck out a finger and snatched the ball from the empire was let to go. Do the carear statistics come in the way of taking disciplinary actions? I'm surprised. Earlier during the one-dayers the square-leg umpire was not in position and the umpire at the bowling crease did not notice it until an appeal was made for a run-out (not for the umpire of course) and every one on the field was searching for him. The ball was declared dead very conveniently. I hope the umpiring decisions also come under scrutiny by the match referee. If not, then let there be a 4th umpire (not Miss Bedi of course) who would look into this.

--Balaji

[tracknest]

At the end of the 1st test between India & Windies a no. of controversies in respect of umpiring have come out. I don't comment on the umpiring decisions regarding outs & not-outs---any mistake on thier part is purely out of a human error. However the disciplinary actions taken by them or the match referee are highly biased. Sehwag was reprimanded for the emotion shown by him by shaking hands with the fielders before the umpire gave a decision and a penalty was levied on him. Afterall he did not react with the umpire at all. Where as Lara who stuck out a finger and snatched the ball from the empire was let to go. Do the carear statistics come in the way of taking disciplinary actions? I'm surprised. Earlier during the one-dayers the square-leg umpire was not in position and the umpire at the bowling crease did not notice it until an appeal was made for a run-out (not for the umpire of course) and every one on the field was searching for him. The ball was declared dead very conveniently. I hope the umpiring decisions also come under scrutiny by the match referee. If not, then let there be a 4th umpire (not Miss Bedi of course) who would look into this.

--Balaji

Good post. I hate to say this but Indian, Pakistani and SriLankan cricketers are always treated in an unfair manner. This is not the first time and certainly not the last. Lara must be ashamed, he did a Ricky Ponting. The umpiring standards in the match were appalling specially from the Australian umpire who seem to have dozed off.

There is double standards in world Cricket and it is the weakness of the various Cricketing boards in the sub continent that more than often their teams are the ones who are treated unfairly. The shocking aspect is that match refreees from these 3 cricketing nations have made indifferent and unfair decisions against the teams from the sub continent.

[balajigade]

I hate to say this but Indian, Pakistani and SriLankan cricketers are always treated in an unfair manner.

Exactly. Poor Murlitharan had to face this discrimination (as Asian?) throughout his carear and so did Bhajji also. The former had his last laugh in the concluding test match with England in the last series. But the Engish are highly courteous to appreciate & congratulate him unlike the Australians.

Well done Viru and as usual Dravid in the 2nd Test. India must tighten the noose with Dhoni still to come.

--Balaji

[tracknest]

Congrats to the Indian team for a well deserved win. The WI team at last ran out of luck. Dravid and Kumble were the stars for us. Dravid has proved again why he is one of the best in the game and what can one say about Kumble.

He is at par with Shane and Murali if not better. A true legend.

[desai2rn]

Congratulations to team India on a great victory. They came close in the earlier tests, and Wnides were rescued by rain. This will make
for the one day series loss. Great performances by Dravid and Kumble
and great support from others.

Ramesh.