India's tour of Windies in May/June 2006

PKBasu · Post by **PKBasu** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 1:38 am

Excellent win for India in the end. Congratulations to Dravid and his men!

That was an incredibly lively final session of play, with the West Indies adding 134 runs for the loss of 6 wickets -- five of them going to the ever-reliable Anil Kumble.

Of course, beating West Indies these days is not such a great achievement -- they are just ahead of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in the test rankings. But nonetheless, it is nice to have a test series victory overseas.

jaydeep · Post by **jaydeep** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 5:03 am

Ramdin played exceptional inning, but Kumble was bowling like champion ... Windies fought hard until end, but well deserved victory by Indians ... I hope this win will remove monkey of winning outside subcontinent and we will keep performing well.

Jaydeep.

jimmy · Post by **jimmy** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:07 am

PKBasu wrote:Superb effort by Harbhajan, 5/13 off 4.3 overs. He should never have been dropped for the first two tests...

Sreesanth was lucky with his first wicket -- which every commentator agreed was simply a horrible mistake on the batsman's part. Gayle didn't play at that ball (he left it alone, misjudging where his offstump was). The second wicket (Lara's) was a superb delivery -- albeit helped by a bad spot on the pitch. Every time I criticise him, Sreesanth comes up with a good performance! But that doesn't detract from the point I am making. He should not be an automatic selection in both the ODI and test side -- when his performance todate has been decidedly mediocre. And I'm afraid it is only a matter of time before his action is called into question: he has a pronounced jerk in his delivery motion.

" An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today." -Laurence J. Peter

jaydeep · Post by **jaydeep** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 7:46 am

Lara's interview after the match .. He critisised selectors and also reconsidering his decision to remain the West Indies Captain.

Lara flays selectors, may quit as skipper

Jaydeep.

suresh · Post by **suresh** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 8:13 am

A "can't win matches abroad" Kumble delivers 6 wickets and not to mention a 45 in the first innings. I am sure that Dravid would love to have a few Kumble clones around -- the effort is never lacking. It's been a topsy-turvy series -- India drew matches that they could/should have won and win one that they could easily have lost. A series win outside India has finally happened.

I hope Lara doesn't resign as captain -- he managed to get WI to play as a team something which has not happened for a long time now.

arjun2761 · Post by **arjun2761** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 2:22 pm

Fabulous win by India overseas. We could easily have the series 4-0, but a 1-0 WIN is also satisfying.

Winning overseas will always be a challenge for India since we do not have a world class pace attack. Fortunately, Kumble and Harbhajan bowled really well for us to win this series on conditions that were clearly not designed for them.

PKBasu · Post by **PKBasu** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 3:34 pm

Actually, on this occasion Sabina Park was a pronounced turning track, and the uneven bounce helped all bowlers -- but particularly our spinners.
Also, I don't think it is true any longer that India doesn't have pace bowlers. Irfan can swing it with the best of them (albeit at fast-medium), and Munaf Patel was bowling at over 85mph yesterday -- and occasionally at over 88mph.

SaniaFan · Post by **SaniaFan** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:25 am

Munaf bowled well over 90mphmany times. But some how he looks a very tired person on the field. On the other hand Sree looks too charged up. Pbly they should try to trade a bit of thier aggro.

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:57 am

I need someone to educate me about cricket.

1. Munaf is listed as medium-fast bowler by cricinfo. At what speed does a bowler have to bowl consistently to be called fast bowler?

2. How complete are the records at cricinfo of Indian cricketers who played Ranji Trophy in late 60s and early 70's?

Thanks in advance.

Post by **jayakris** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 1:32 pm

I had the same question. None of the Indian bowlers ever get listed as fast bowlers, right?

Jay

arjun2761 · Post by **arjun2761** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:01 pm

To PKB's question -- yes our medium fast bowlers are quicker than before but we have the slowest and least dangerous of the regular test playing countries barring Bangladesh and the second string Zimbabwe and SL. But for our spinners bowling brilliantly, we would be winning very few matches. As far as the assessment of our opponents, in the West Indies, our pace attack was described by the locals as a popgun attack and the Pakis considered that they had an Irfan like bowler on every street corner.

PKBasu · Post by **PKBasu** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 4:30 pm

That's like saying that we have a Mohammed Asif-like bowler in half our state teams. True enough in theory, but a statement of bravado rather than fact. How many of those bowlers from the street corners can start a test match across the border with a hat-trick? Irfan has a bowling average of about 30 after 25 tests and is a genuine world class all-rounder. We should play him as one. In Munaf, we also have a genuine world-class fast bowler -- and I think we have another one in Agarkar (who averaged 18 in the ODI series, and should never have been sent back after it).

PKBasu · Post by **PKBasu** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 4:58 am

Nice article by Sambit Bal for Cricinfo summarising the Windies series. His take on our fast bowlers is exactly right:
"...only Munaf Patel, even though he couldn't find the reverse swing that made him look deadly against England, looked the part throughout the series. Sreesanth seemed brittle when challenged, while VRV Singh merely remains an exciting prospect."

BSharma · Post by **BSharma** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 5:20 am

I do not watch cricket either on TV or via Internet, hence I rely on the opinion of people in this forum or via news reports. Here is a cricinfo link detailing and grading the performances of Indian cricketers in this series.

Four Tests, one result by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan

PKBasu · Post by **PKBasu** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 5:45 am

I disagree with the relative grading of Yuvraj (who had an atrocious series, which is hopefully an aberration) and Irfan (who didn't get to really demonstrate his abilities, in the only test he played on an unhelpful wicket). Both deserve low scores, but I don't see how Yuvi (with a batting average lower than Pathan's for the series) can be given a higher grade than Irfan (based on his fielding alone). Also, VRV Singh probably doesn't deserve much more than a "5".
Dravid had a spectacular series as batsman, and Sehwag also shone (with bat and ball). Jaffer came of age as a test opener, Kumble was sublime (especially in his match- and series-winning spell on the last day of the series) and Bhajji bowled a couple of terrific spells. Otherwise, this was a mediocre series for the rest of the team against pretty pedestrian opposition.