World Test championship defense: India in SLanka, Jul-Aug'10

[PKBasu]

Vijay's dismissal has turned the tide slightly in SL's favour now. Tomorrow will be a titanic struggle, but hopefully Ishant will frustrate them for a long time while Sachin keeps the scoreboard ticking.

[Sandeep]

It is stumps for today and India is 53/3, 204 more to win. It will be a cracker of a match tomorrow. Test match at its best.

[PKBasu]

204 needed for victory on the final day of the series. Dravid has had a miserable series, making no 50s and averaging just 19. Sad to see a great man struggle. Laxman, Raina and Dhoni have a lot of work to do in support of Sachin tomorrow.

[ssp]

I'm not optimistic of us getting another 204 runs tomorrow. If Sachin goes before lunch, we will collapse.

Maddening to let SL off the hook. They scored nearly 200 for the last 3 wickets and to compound our woes, 3 top order batsmen gone already. Very poor last 2 sessions. Mishra has been a big disappointment.

Will we lose our No 1 status if we lose this series 2-0? Rankings are unreliable anyway, but it would be nice to remain at No1 for as long as possible. In my opinion, we don't really deserve top ranking with this bowling attack. Zaheer & Bhajji may have made a difference and Gambhir was missed in this test.

[prasen9]

Sadly, this game looks like it is lost to me. I am a born pessimist, I guess. It was criminal to let the last 3 wickets score 180 or so. On this pitch, fast offspin is what worked most. So, I think Bhajji would have been lethal.

[PKBasu]

Terrible bowling to let the tail add 170 runs. But I think we will still win tomorrow. One Prasenjit is a pessimist, the other is an optimist

[prasen9]

Law of conservation of *imism I hope the other one is right.

[akmohanty]

i wish that's the case but memory says other wise - India has almost always capitulated in these 5th day situations.

[Atithee]

Time for SRT to earn his plaudits and silence his detractors (me included). Surely if Mendis and Malinga can bat, SRT can too. Will he do it? Either way, in my books, I will hold him responsible. I hope it will be for a favorable result. God know I'm waiting for a day like this. It will make a great weekend.

[prasen9]

Our best wins chasing in the last decade or so have been against Australia. In Chennai chasing 155 where Laxman did it and in Adelaide where Dravid took us to 230. We also had a close win against Zimbabwe in Delhi in 2002, but that does not count. Of course, the epic game against England in Chennai chasing 387. I cannot remember any other close wins chasing, unfortunately. Can someone tell Laxman that he is playing Australia? SRT successfully guided India against Pak in Delhi in 2008. The way this game is setup reminds me of the other Chennai game against Pak where SRT went almost all the way and India choked. These guys are supposedly older and wiser now. One partnership doomed this whole game! Alas!

[S_K_S]

Time for SRT to earn his plaudits and silence his detractors (me included)

If the detractors haven't been silenced in the last 20 years 1 performance or non-performance in a meaningless test match isn't going to change their view. Baffles me how people can still tie this bell around the neck of Sachin after everything he has achieved and done. You can't please all the people all of the time.

[genius]

what i saw today was totally unacceptable.

dhoni has to be given a stern warning for this. even it it was bradman at the crease, its his job to go at the opponent's throat.

why this timid display against less than great batsmen? i would not have acceopted this even there was great batsmen at the crease.
this is downright disgraceful.

they deserve to lose.people like this do not deserve to win.

and the bowlers really need to get it on their head if they can't take the initiative and knock the opponent down for your team, what the hell are they doing there?

sad state of affairs.

[jayakris]

Time for SRT to earn his plaudits and silence his detractors (me included). Surely if Mendis and Malinga can bat, SRT can too. Will he do it? Either way, in my books, I will hold him responsible. I hope it will be for a favorable result. God know I'm waiting for a day like this. It will make a great weekend.

Count me in too. I don't really consider SRT as a real choker in such situations or anything, but with the limited attention I pay to cricket, what always comes to mind is the number of times I wanted him to win it for us and it didn't happen. In many of those cases he even came through with a pretty good innings - even some impressive knocks under trying and pessure-cooker conditions - but invariably failed to win it for us.. Even more puzzling for me has been that it was even tough to blame him for how he got out -- it was often to a beauty of a ball, some unfortunate runout, a superlative catch or a bad lbw call .. Whatever that is, somehow a case where he just took us to the win has happened only very very rarely. Come on man, let us get it done this time.

Jay

[prasen9]

Sachin will remain the greatest batsmen India has ever produced in my eyes irrespective of this innings, but, his record as a "closer" is more of failure than of success (from my memory). This game can change his record in that respect a bit. Among some of the great chases, in Sri Lanka there was this one that I missed. Ganguly and Dravid in Kandy. But, I think that pitch was in better shape than this one and India did not start losing 3 wickets below 50 in that one.

[Atithee]

Come on man, let us get it done this time.
Jay

Jay, what have you been drinking lately? You have commented in this thread two days in a row now!

I really do appreciate being witness to a great individual such as Sachin, but, more often than not, he has not been able to close the deal. That is not to say that he has never done it, but for a person to be called great, they need to deliver the wins a lot more frequently. No excuses. I am not asking for Sachin to guide a chase of 400+ in the fourth inning. It may feel like that on this pitch, but for Sachin, it should be like playing in his school park.

His indvidual records are meaningless to me and I think he'd generally agree and has stated so publicly. C'mon Sachin, this is nothing for you. Just cut out the risky strokes as you did in Australia for that double hundred and it will be a piece of cake. C'mon, one more time, please, please! I will be up in the late night hours for this.

P.S. If someone has a reliable live streaming link, please PM me. I have stopped searching on the net after corrupting my OS 2-3 times now. These links almost always get me into trouble unless it is ESPN360 or something like that.