The Cricket World Cup Thread

Sridhar K · Post by **Sridhar K** » 12 Mar 2011 22:47

in the post match conf, Dhoni said that he felt more comfortable with seamer bowling than a spinner in the last over and nehra has been the go to guy for us in the last 1.5 years

mraghu · Post by **mraghu** » 12 Mar 2011 22:48

Dhoni has lost his touch as a cap, First mistake was to delay the Batting Powerplay It should have been taken when Tendulkar and Gambir were going strong before the ball was changed at the 34th over and not batting ( himself ) thru 50 overs. In the first ball of the 49th over he took a single. During our bowling too many singles were given and I feel Munaf doesn't like to field at all.., He should have given the 49th over to Bhajji and 50th over to Zak. < End of Armchair analysis >.....

AjitK · Post by **AjitK** » 12 Mar 2011 22:51

merlin wrote:Letting a medium pacer bowl the last over is the standard thing to do. Trying out Bhajji would have been better, given that he was the highest wicket taker in this match for India and bowled better than he normally does.

Everytime there's talk of Bhajji bowling in the death overs I get a flashback of his over to Misbah in the 20-20 WC.

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 12 Mar 2011 22:56

I'm glad we lost. Can't recall India having won a tournament having gone through to the finals unbeaten

The bowling did better than expected which is a positive. It is our middle order that needs sorting out!. We need to finish strongly so Dhoni must take it on himself to be the batsman who stays till the last over while feeding the strike to the other power hitters( who should aim for 2 boundries in each over ( not six sixers) in the last 10 overs.

In my opinion, India has a 50 50 chance of winning this WC

Ambar · Post by **Ambar** » 12 Mar 2011 22:59

Ambar wrote:I never have a good feeling when the team batting first doesn't play out the entire 50 overs quota. We have a huge problem in the middle-order and tail against quality bowling.

Dont wanna sound like Casandra, but had we batted out the entire 50 overs, we could have won.

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 12 Mar 2011 23:01

If my aunty had balls she would have been my uncle

mraghu · Post by **mraghu** » 12 Mar 2011 23:05

Dhoni has become a very subjective captain rather than a objective one. Not sure why Raina is getting not picked ahead of Pathan. He did not bowl any extrodinary overs nor was his fielding.. so it begs the choice of the skipper.

praksam · Post by **praksam** » 12 Mar 2011 23:06

Mahendra wrote:If my aunty had balls she would have been my uncle

Very True,No point crying over spilt milk.If all players play their game diligently then we are set,like the white pakis.

Chinmayanand · Post by **Chinmayanand** » 12 Mar 2011 23:07

Suresh Raina needs to be in. Either Gambhir or Yusuf Pathan need to make way for him. Munaaf needs to make way for Sreesanth if we are to play three seamers. Or Ashwin should join bhajji if we are to go with two seamers.
BTW, will TI qualify for QF if it loses to WI which looks like a probability.

mraghu · Post by **mraghu** » 12 Mar 2011 23:22

We are qualyfying easily because Eng has lost to Ire and Bangladesh

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 12 Mar 2011 23:27

I will say this one more time. Sreesanth is the bowling mahdi we are waiting for. The sooner he is in the team the better for TI.

rvishwak · Post by **rvishwak** » 12 Mar 2011 23:32

last over while both batting and bowling is proving costly for India. Against Eng we were all out with 1 delivery left and given 13 runs while bowling, against SA we couldn't play the last over and given 14 runs while bowling

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 12 Mar 2011 23:36

words are mightier than stones. let us tell this to dhoni. he needs a whip.

Vikas · Post by **Vikas** » 12 Mar 2011 23:39

Wasted my whole evening to watch Nehra gift it to SA in the end. The last unplayed 8 balls came back to haunt us in the end.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 12 Mar 2011 23:44

don't blame the bowlers.. look what your kaptaan and his middle order men did? before the match he complained about top order giving up. what now? he will say middle order collapsed. Never he will say he fu(ked it all up. team selection should not be his duty any more, strip him off that role now.

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 12 Mar 2011 23:45

Yeah, Yeah make Pujara the captain...Sigh!

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 12 Mar 2011 23:48

who knows what talent he has got?

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 12 Mar 2011 23:49

Not enough talent at the moment to make it to the team

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 13 Mar 2011 00:26

Speed is not a big concern for me but it is the consistency, fitness and commitment that are cause for concern.

Vikas · Post by **Vikas** » 13 Mar 2011 00:38

Pray Why not blame the bowlers if they can not defend almost 300. When are they going to stand up and be counted.
Poor Dhoni cannot bowl in their place. As suggested by expert BRF jirga, he even replaced Chawla by Munna.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 13 Mar 2011 02:00

Because, everyone including jirga knows that our bowlers bunch are a piece of crap and the batsmen were to be top class. Hence, this blame is for the middle order collapse, and dhoni sending pathan instead of kohli was pathetic decision, in addition kaptaan himself playing powerless.

remember 6 to 7 desi top class wickets fell for 28 runs! now you want to blame the poor already mauled up bowlers? Some heads will have to shuffle to the right place. Our bench is getting hot headed to bear this!

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 13 Mar 2011 02:04

Only good thing was the fielding...

Excellent actually. Anyway, let's swallow this and move on...

What's the deal now, do we get into the quarter finals or do we have to hope that Canada will beat Kenya by 200 runs!!!??? Not sure about the process on this one...

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 13 Mar 2011 02:13

We have qualified already saar!. At best we can now hope to reach no 2 in the table and hopefully play against SL/NZ

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 13 Mar 2011 02:16

Phew!!! I was terrified of the above scenario - waiting for some other two teams to kick the crap out of each other in some unrealistic scenario !!!

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 13 Mar 2011 02:18

JE Menon wrote:Only good thing was the fielding... Excellent actually.

indeed saar, kohil and bhaji to mention here, and the bench hero raina! If he does not play (and play well) next game, I am going to throw a stone icon here in this thread.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 13 Mar 2011 02:25

Yeah, Raina should be in - and the guy can bowl in a pinch situation too... but it's a hard call. I mean who to remove? There's only Pathan, and I wouldn't want to take that guy out. Putting him up at 4 was senseless in my opinion. He has a role and he knows it - at 7 and save the country, end of story. At 3/4, he's confused... I mean where's the crisis? He needs a crisis to butcher the opposition, a cold calculating contract killer he's there to do a very specific job. He'll kill the buggers then, but at 3/4 you know, he's like, wtf there's Yuvraj, Dhoni, Kohli after me... he's uncomfortable and not sure of his "responsibility". He's not a capo.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 13 Mar 2011 02:31

he can replace nehra, or actually should have replaced chawla for today's match was my thought even earlier.

amdavadi · Post by **amdavadi** » 13 Mar 2011 02:36

TI choke that too against biggest chokers....
We will be playing pakis in ahmedabad.

I have a request for NaMo.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 13 Mar 2011 02:47

indeed saar, kohil and bhaji to mention here, and the bench hero raina! If he does not play (and play well) next game, I am going to throw a stone icon here in this thread.

Why are you forgetting Tendulkar!! He at 37 should be the fitness and fielding coach to Nehra, Munnna and their ilk. He was excellent in fielding (apart from the usual batting).

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 13 Mar 2011 02:52

I admit committing inadvertent blasphemy there. nehra and munna can not be together in a game. We can bear only one of them. OTOH, Pranthan though expensive, would be very challenging against Smith & Co. Dhoni is just playing power politics on him. At least we could have had some lungi dances.

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 13 Mar 2011 04:32

ajit_tr wrote:the day tendulkar makes century india loses

James B wrote:We have a new octopussy. Sharpen your pitch forks folks
Tendulkar's centuries most of times jinx TI

The myth about gawd's ton and TI losing

Of the 48 ODI centuries that Tendulkar has scored so far, only 13 such three-figure scores have ended up in a losing cause for India, while in 33 matches, where the batting maestro has gone past 100, India have emerged victors.

The next question that will come up on peoples' minds is "Who has scored the maximum number of tons in winning causes for their respective teams?" Once again, Tendulkar's critics will have their mouths tightly shut because the master tops the chart with most number of tons resulting in a team's win. He also has stayed unbeaten the most number of times while leading a team's win.

If TI had played as a team in some of the matches including this one gawd would have perfect record likely.
Most probably gawd is an avtaar like Shri Ram on holy earth experiencing the human nature and frailities without using his supernatural powers.
Bow to you gawd!!
You are the bestest of best.

To all the detractors of gawd,

niran wrote:
scarliege....! may jou live as a keda in the anus of a coackroach

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 13 Mar 2011 04:35

If Smith was in TI, would he be gawd as well?

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 13 Mar 2011 04:42

Dilbu wrote:I will say this one more time. Sreesanth is the bowling mahdi we are waiting for. The sooner he is in the team the better for TI.

with you dilbullah,
bowling bugbear

Sreesanth hasn't been given enough games, and been dropped on the basis of that one game against Bangladesh where he conceded 53 runs in 5 overs. What the scorecard of that game will not tell you is how unlucky Sreesanth was, with none of his good balls - and yes he did bowl quite a few of those - getting wickets, and some of them in fact flying off edges to the boundary. True he bowled some bad balls too, but on another day that five-over spell could so easily have resulted in figures of 2/35 rather than 0/53. In the two games he did get against New Zealand, Sreesanth was magnificent. He took 3/30 and 4/47 for a combined economy rate of 5.37 and an average of just 11.00. To be sure, when the team goes in with only two pacers Munaf should get the nod ahead of Zaheer, but Dhoni's continued shunning of Sreesanth is inexplicable. Remember too, that he had a very good Test series against South Africa, delivering the ball of the series to snare Kallis.

But if there comes another pitch, where the team think-tank opt to go with three pacers, it is time to give Sreesanth a go

MSD is having a major problem with the bowling mahdi- likely disciplinary issues rather than bowling per se.

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 13 Mar 2011 04:46

some kamedi amidst tragedi-

Kochi team now called kochi tuskers
would have been better off with kochi kammandos instead of indi commandos.

Sumeet · Post by **Sumeet** » 13 Mar 2011 04:54

This is a big lesson learned ahead of knock out stage. Players should play maturely according to your game plan. I hope the crowd understands as well that WC is not IPL Twenty-Twenty. Team India is not entertaining but playing serious cricket.

Plan to give Nehra Last over proved costly

"I think instead of playing for the crowd, we should concentrate on playing according to the situation. The batting power play is not about hitting fours and sixes to please the crowd. We should understand that," fumed Dhoni.

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 13 Mar 2011 06:25

SaiK wrote:If Smith was in TI, would he be gawd as well?

does not qualify to be a semi gawd also.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 13 Mar 2011 07:37

Y. Pathan has had his share this time around but has not been a success. Definitely, Raina deserves a place now. Once upon a time, Y.Pathan was able to bowl a containing spell, but not anymore. Raina cannot be a worse part-time bowler than him. I would also rate Raina a better fielder than YP. I hope Raina comes back for the next game against the West Indies in his IPL-homeground. That would also be the last game of the league. It would be unjust if Raina is suddenly thrust into the team for the QF match alone after another failure of YP against the WI.

The din and noise of the Indian crowd can also work against us. How I wish we are not so unruly.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 13 Mar 2011 07:54

I Think people are going over the Top calling for Y Pathan head after just a couple of failures batting Higher up.

In a way its good India Lost to SA at this time for the following reasons

1) Media Hype and hyper expectations of the Mango Indian will not be so high to jinx the team completly

2) In a long tournament you are bound to to have a bad game( does not aplly to white Pakis) to keep the player focus(in SDRE complacency enviorment) in there, we need them to be focused in QF, SF and F

3) The Piyush Chawla, Ashish Nehra going to be superstars for India hype after the WC warm up game against Australia on a wicket which was underpreparation seems to be sorted out, both dont seem to be wicket takers and bowlers who can be given the ball when the pressure is on. Ashish Nehra has done nothing in Home conditions in the last 5 years. He needs SA type wickets. and Nehra with the bat can't even do a forward defense.

4) Middle Order will not take things for granted and go for 4's and 6's after SRT mainly , Gambhir and Sehwag had set up the match so beautifully for India.

5) Ashwin has not been overexposed and teams will not have had formulated thier plans for him. This is true of Pranthan[Edited later after nachiket post] also.

6) Munaf Patel- bowls good line and length - but does not seem penetrative enough- on flat wickets and good batsman he is not good enough because even Bhajji is also more or less a containment bowler. Bhajji performance gets improved( SA tests) when Zak and Parathan have caused some ripples in the Top order.

I feel in the macth against West Indies we need to give Zak, Parathan, Ashwin, Bhajji bowling combination a try, its an attacking bowling combination.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 13 Mar 2011 07:58

Aditya_V wrote:This is true of Parathan also.

Saar it's Pranthan. Unless you are giving him another nickname.

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 13 Mar 2011 09:26