England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

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PKBasu
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England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by PKBasu »

England will be playing just two tests on their tour of India this winter. I find this utterly ludicrous. Although slapping the English in the face isn't such a bad idea given the history of their Board's arrogance towards us, India is working hard to destroy test cricket. The BCCI under Sharad Pawar has gone money-mad, and has raised parochialism to an art form. Both tests will be played in the West Zone, at Ahmedabad and the CCI ground at the Brabourne Stadium (to demonstrate again how much clout Raj Singh Dungarpur has). As a life member of the CAB, I am hopping mad that there is again no test at the Eden Gardens. Here is a write-up on the itinerary:

http://content-eap.cricinfo.com/india/c ... 61036.html
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by PKBasu »

Not only are both tests in the West Zone, but even the practice games before the ODI series are against various Mumbai sides. Sharad Pawar is truly demonstrating how much of a monopoly he now possesses in the Board (even if a proxy from Nagpur is the nominal president of the BCCI). And bastions of the old Maratha confederacy -- Indore, Rajkot, Cuttack (where the Bhonsles ruled until 1807) and Kanpur (near Bithur, where the last Peshwa retired after 1818) -- are hosting the majority of the ODIs :p !!!

Anyway, even the Mumbai 3rd XI seems to be good enough to thrash England. Yesterday, a scratch team of non-Ranji Trophy players (containing one old ODI discard, Avishkar Salvi) from Mumbai bowled the full England side out for 98, with an 18-year-old with no first-class experience taking 5 wickets!!!
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by suresh »

Kshemal Waingankar is 23 years 220 days old and has played one first class match before picking up 5 wickets against England
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by Kumar »

And the most stupid thing about the itinerary is playing ODI series first. Indians have just played 4 test matches and England just played a 20 tournament... instead of playing test series first, we will play bunch of ODIs!!! so stupid...
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by PKBasu »

suresh wrote:Kshemal Waingankar is 23 years 220 days old and has played one first class match before picking up 5 wickets against England
Thanks Suresh :oops:

The 18-year-old without first-class experience took 3/35 (including Flintoff's wicket). His name is Rahil Sheikh.
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by prasen9 »

A curious choice is RP Singh over Pravin Kumar in Indian conditions.
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by PKBasu »

The choice between RP Singh and Praveen Kumar is a pretty close run thing, especially based on performances in the NKP Salve Challenger trophy (the trial tournament for the ODI side). Praveen did marginally better than RP. As a batsman in ODIs, Praveen sadly doesn't add much, and his bowling is about the same as RP's.

But the one to whom a grave injustice has been done is Irfan Pathan, who definitely proved himself with the ball AND bat (especially with the ball) in the Challenger Trophy. To pick his half-brother Yusuf ahead of him was the unkindest cut: they should both have been selected, but Irfan first.

There is a surfeit of talent in our cricket now, but the selectors (who are professionals now) should reward players on the basis of performance. Uthappa is the other one who was superb in the Challenger but continues to be ignored for all forms of the game. This is the sort of treatment that demoralizes youngsters. (Tiwary, for instance, is vanishing because of shabby treatment a la Rayudu: Tiwary was picked for the ODI side on the basis of magnificent domestic performances, then injured his shoulder while fielding just before his first game, was out for half a year, but was never again treated as an incumbent -- having to get back into line and prove himself from scratch; he is not making the grade, which is sad given the talent he had clearly demonstrated a couple of years ago).
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by prasen9 »

But, PKB, Uthappa got many chances and did not really perform that well. Should we not try out other folks to see if they take their chances before restoring Uthappa back? Okay, whom would you want to drop to get Uthappa in? Vijay? Rohit? The former seems to be the only case because Rohit has performed very well in the domestics after stinking the joint in the ODIs. I actually think Vijay is a more impressive batsman than Uthappa. I used to support Uthappa a lot, but, was disillusioned seeing him in Australia. Let him prove himself in the domestics consistently and let us see if Vijay is any better in the interim. U is still young.

Irfan was indeed very unfortunate to be dropped. He adds good balance and is more useful because we already have spinning all-rounders in Sehwag and Yuvraj.
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by prasen9 »

Sehwag played a very good innings, Gambhir gave a cracking start, Raina a neat cameo, and Yusuf failed again. Yusuf should grab the chances he is getting. Yuvraj is hurt but played brilliantly. I do not think England has a spinner to stop Yuvraj. Samit Patel is very innocuous. I hope Yuvraj is not hurt badly enough such that he cannot play the next match in two days. He has fabulous strokes. The ground is very small but nevertheless I think/hope 387 is too much to chase. The pitch is a very batting pitch. Patel was probably overbowled with Anderson bowling one over short and Bopara not bowling at all. Nevertheless, everyone got hit; so it does not matter that much.
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by Sandeep »

Terrific start for India in this one day series! After scoring 387 they are on top dismissing 2 english batsmen in the span of two overs. England are struggling at 29/2 in 9 overs with the dangerous Pietersen and Ian Bell at the crease. Pietersen was a bog disappointment in both of the warm up matches and it would be interesting to see how he performs on Indian soil.

It should be interesting to see how he performs here in India especially since he is already considered as one of the future greats.
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by Sandeep »

Indians are making an absolute mockery of England at the moment. Two more wickets for Zaheer and England are literally out of the game. They are 40/4 after 11.4 overs. Collingwood and Pietersen at the crease
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by Sandeep »

Between, Gambhir becomes the third fastest Indian to score 2000 career ODI runs. He accomplished this feat in 61 innings. Only Sidhu (52) and Ganguly (52) reached the mile stone in lesser innings than him.
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by PKBasu »

What a fearful thrashing India administered to England today! Yuvi was utterly brilliant on this pretty tiny ground: at least a couple of sixes were actually chipped over the boundary, and a third mild lob just missed going for six. He made it look ludicrously simple despite his bad back. But it is Sehwag/Gambhir that makes all the difference game after game. It is just wonderful to get these consistently good starts.

Zaheer was quite brilliant, but the rest of the bowling did very well too. Yusuf seems not to be able to live upto expectations at the ODI level: I wish he didn't have to compete with Irfan -- who deserves a place in the side separately. Yusuf has it in him to do well, and I hope the selectors will give him a bit more of a run.
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by PKBasu »

prasen9, Uthappa may have been mediocre in Australia, but his career record is no worse than Rohit Sharma's, and I don't understand why he should be excluded from all forms of cricket despite repeated demonstrations of form. Uthappa has won us some momentous victories (including that terrific performance at the Oval against England last year).

It appears that Uthappa has fallen foul of Dhoni (and perhaps also Ganguly, as I read somewhere that his caustic reference to hair style changes referred to Uthappa). I feel that this sort of "attitude"-based rumour/reputation is a pretty sad reason to brand a young player with early on. I hope it is his cricket rather than his alleged attitude that will determine Uthappa's future. (And attitude on the cricket field is relevant, not off-field things like hairstyles, raised collars, etc.).
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Re: England tour of India, Nov-Dec 2008

Post by Prashant »

Uthappa didn't help his cause during the IPL circus. I know that a lot of fans in Mumbai started out cheering the guy & ended up really disliking him, and the gossip rags alleged that this was true of his teammates too. No idea of the veracity of the latter.
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