South Africa Vs India

[lord_of_darkness]

The Most Unbelievable / exciting till my blood pops out / this is why im a die hard cricket fan !!

I stayed up from 8 pm Nz time till 5 a.m nz time to watch the India vs S.A game since im one of Indias hardout supporters along with NZ ..

The most exciting cricket match ive got to see in ages, i really should have taped it

India won the toss and opted to bat , they started of well , with sehwag hitting 10 runs of the first over , back to his original self , but at Indias 42 ganguly got out Laxman didnt help much and Tendulkar got run out a mistake which was mostly his fault ... Sehwag getting out for a brilliant 59 of 58 R.Dravid came in and supported well scoring 49. But the run rate soon started to drop , Y.Singh came in supported really well and scored 62 good support at the end from kaif scoring 19 of 21 ... India reached a total of 261/8 while at one stage they looked to reach 300 , everyone thought they would atleast reach 280 after such a good batting start..

S.A;s bowlers didnt do well early on but go through later in the stages in preventing more runs from leaking... best bowlers were

Pollock 9 0 43 3

the rest were pretty.... shocking


S.A comes to bat , and i predicted that Gibbs , Kallis and Rhodes would be the danger men for India . The first wicket for S.A went for 14 . Smith got out to a Brilliant catch by Yuvraj Singh of Z.Khan.
As i predicted Gibbs went on to smash 116 of 119 lot of good running between the wickets , but he got retired hurt real soon , Rhodes and Dippennar didnt stay for long going out for 1,0 respectively, my other predicted danger man kallis was a danger to India right till the end , working wel with Gibbs first and then boucher he was a pain for India scoring 97 of 133 balls a rather slow rate...

Indias bowlers
A.nehra bowled crap like he did all tournament , dispose him off like they did to agarkar thanks..

Z.Khan he is a whole different thing , did well in england , and is doing really well here too , playing the "mcgrath" part for India reducing the run rate and bowling tight at a good length
Khan 9 2 27 1 match winning performance

other well supporting bowler

Harbajan Singh
10 0 37 2
good job mate..

Okay the last over was where the tense moments started. S.A needed around 21 of 6 balls , some would say an easy feat some would disagree , there were a lot of team talks on who would bowl , Khan couldnt use up his last over cause he just bowled the 48 , so it was agreed that Sehwag the Indias saviour for first match and 2 match bowled , 1st bowl 6!!!!! , i was pissed of ! ofcourse and it was none other than Kallis himself ... that cheeky.. Now Sehwag already had one wicket , he had picked up the crucial wicket of Boucher earlier...2nd ball dot ... 3rd ball OUT ! Now it was said even though 15 was to win , if S.A tied at 14 they still go through because of wickets at hand .... When it was Out ...I was Like Wohooo Wohooo its all over India won .... But realized that a silly extra and few sixes or 4;s could kill a victory .... Easily , look at dillon if u want proof . 4th ball 2 runs , 12 to win of 2 balls ! Still possible ! Klusener was the man in i thought he was gonna smash some umpire or persons head of with his thick as bat and his big frame ... 5th ball 2 runs !! i jumped up with Joy , ERRRR game over S.Africa ... nah thats just being a fool now,, Last bowl Klusener gets out ... of sehwag
Sehwag hits 50 earlier and bowls at death taking 2 crucial wickets ....
Why Does India need Sachin ?
Answer : When It can have 2 ?! :O :O

S.Africa i give then Total Respect they played awesome cricket, restricting India to a total which could have been worser .... They batting chasing really well and could have won it , not taking oppurtunities was a mistake ! Oh well they didnt have a full strength squad , almost did but still have a lot of problems to sort out before the World Cup

India played well , should have scored higher given the oppurtunity , again good play from the youngsters in the team . Great bowling from Khan , always delievers when asked , the only thorn was Nehra who couldnt bowl anything like him to support him , Kumble bowled utterly crap too.,......

India needs to go another level higher to win the cup , but after the shows they been putting up in the ICC who knows what can happen

India in Final
To play Winner of Game between Australia vs Sri lanka ! another game to closely follow

My biggest post yet

Until later

Good Night

Reuben/lord

[warrioryohannan]

Congrats to all the Indians!!!!


This team, under the leadership of Ganguly have shown that it is as good as any top team(san Aus).
So far India has done extremely well, they have reached the final and if they continue to play well then they might actually win the cup!!

So are the Indian team's critics ready to accept India as one of the Next WC's Favourites??

[marc71178]

Not with that bowling attack or in South African conditions no - they may make the
semis, but as a semi-professional gambler will be well worth betting against as the odds will be shorter than their team warrents.

I hasten to add that SA would've cruised it if Gibbs hadn't retired hurt.

[full_length]

No Gibbs would have got out at 122 if he had stayed.

Looks like it was a great game
Ofcourse, SA was understaffed, and with a full side would have thrashed India, just like England but for now.. India goes to finals.
Hurray

Sidenote: Lack of teamplay is one aspect India was criticised for. Now a new guy is coming to the party in each match, and everyone is chipping in. They are definitely one of the top three contenders for the World Cup.

[marc71178]

As I've said a few minutes ago, no gambler worth his salt will touch the Indian side.

At no point have I mentioned that SA were understrength, and I certainly DID NOT SAY that a full strength England side would've thrashed India - all I said was that England were missing several key players who would've made that one game a lot closer.

[luckyeddie]

Gibbs was severely distressed/impeded/cramped/sha**ed out. I don't think that South Africa would have won if he had stayed in - but they might have if he had retired hurt about 4 overs before when the ask was down to 5 an over.

That's the beauty of cricket - we will never know.

Well played again India.

[full_length]

Any gambler worth his salt would be much better informed about the strengths and weaknesses of teams worldwide than either of us. Well, you can hardly call this Indian team inconsistent. Further, their bench strength in batting is awesome. I wish they had latched on the idea of rotation. Players like Badani could easily have been as successfull as Yuvaraj and Kaif. Laxman sits on the bench most of the time nowadays.
The only trouble he (the gambler) may have could be that India havent played Australia Pakistan or SA too many times in the last two years. They've been playing weaker teams all along. And their win percentage is pretty high in this period. They can surely be backed to reach semifinals based purely on this, and from there on it's on judgement. Then..
(If its not based on considerations like this- team performances over the past year- then nothing can be said about anything. )

Blackwell wouldnt have played in a full strength England squad? His score in the match was nearly equal to twice the sum of Vaughan's and Flintoff's career averages. I dont see how one can figure out that either of these two (or even both put together) would have done better than Blackwell in that match.

IF by chance Trescothick had not played, I guess you chaps would have declared the match illegal. Ofcourse he didnt do much in the game..

And yeah, if Gough had played the match and if he had managed to bowl well and if he had managed to get 2/19 Sachin would have scored yet another ODI century.. And Yuvaraj would have murdered the bowlers like he has done a few times in the past.

If you had Thorpe earlier, you have Trescothick now. Most people accept that yes, Srinath's time is passed (since he says so) and there's nothing to say that if he had bowled then we would have got England for under 225 Maybe you guys find it tough to let go... and going by the eulogising of Thorpe going on now, i suppose he'll will become a legend in the coming year just because he isnt around..

Hmm so finally , I think demon bowler Collingwood would have made all the difference in that match...

As for this one... ah! Hansie Cronje isnt there, neither is Kirsten.. Then I guess SA shouldn't play the World Cup- there'd be no point, yes? And England will always have an excuse in hand...

Hey I like this-endless possibilities But dont they have a section for fantasy cricket?

[full_length]

That's the beauty of cricket - we will never know.

Well said. I guess that's not restricted to cricket. But it's seen more in this game than in any other.. right?

Terrific sport. It looks like one in which consistancy is tested more than anything else, but we would never know if that inner edge from Sachin's bat that went past the stumps in Sharjah '98 would have lost us the tournament if it had hit the stumps (he was in single digits then- went on to play one of the greatest cricketing innings ever). I saw the replay of those two matches lots of times, and always look at that one twice..

[aussie_beater]

Originally posted by marc71178
As I've said a few minutes ago, no gambler worth his salt will touch the Indian side.....

Are you talking about a gambler or a chicken ?

Gamblers are the ones who take risks by definition and India is looking to be a side worth the risk to an extent.The odds would be low for India in the WC but they can be formidable darkhorses which is of prime importance to a real gambler.

[full_length]

aah there we have it from the horse's mouth .. or whatever the phrase is..

translation: a 'real gambler' would rather bet on India than on Australia on whom he's not going to get great odds, or on England, WI, NZ, SL, Zimbabwe, or even Pakistan.

[Neil Pickup]

Blackwell wouldnt have played in a full strength England squad? His score in the match was nearly equal to twice the sum of Vaughan's and Flintoff's career averages. I dont see how one can figure out that either of these two (or even both put together) would have done better than Blackwell in that match.

IF by chance Trescothick had not played, I guess you chaps would have declared the match illegal. Ofcourse he didnt do much in the game..

And yeah, if Gough had played the match and if he had managed to bowl well and if he had managed to get 2/19 Sachin would have scored yet another ODI century.. And Yuvaraj would have murdered the bowlers like he has done a few times in the past.

If you had Thorpe earlier, you have Trescothick now. Most people accept that yes, Srinath's time is passed (since he says so) and there's nothing to say that if he had bowled then we would have got England for under 225 Maybe you guys find it tough to let go... and going by the eulogising of Thorpe going on now, i suppose he'll will become a legend in the coming year just because he isnt around..

Hmm so finally , I think demon bowler Collingwood would have made all the difference in that match...

I never said that England would have won had we been full strength... just that we might have run it slightly closer.

India can beat anyone on their day but I would not back them to win the World Cup because of
i) Weak Links in the Bowling Attack
ii) Unfamiliarity to South African Pitches

[Anil]

India can beat anyone on their day but I would not back them to win the World Cup because of i) Weak Links in the Bowling Attack ii) Unfamiliarity to South African Pitches

Mostly a fair assessment. However, I don't think the Indians are unfamiliar with SA pitches. They recently played a test and one day series there. The inability to cope with the rising ball is not that big an issue in one dayers. If you check up, you will find that Gangs who is still patently uncomfortable against the short ball had a whale of a time in the last one day tournament in SA and I think even outscored Tendulkar.

[marc71178]

Gamblers are the ones who take risks by definition and India is looking to be a side worth the risk to an extent.The odds would be low for India in the WC but they can be formidable darkhorses which is of prime importance to a real gambler.

My reasoning is that at the moment India are in good form, so their odds are shorter than their real chances of winning the WC.

The other thing is that One Day Cricket is a very random game, and I personally almost never put a bet down on it!

[full_length]

That's fair enough Neil but:

India can beat anyone on their day but I would not back them to win the World Cup because of
i) Weak Links in the Bowling Attack

The SA pitches can only help the Indian seamers. They are all bowlers who rely on movement and are at their best when they are disciplined. If they are not disciplined they will get tonked anywhere in the world. So they can always be expected to improve on their performances in SL. Yes, the spinners will have a tougher time in SA. Thankfully they are both very good bowlers, so Indian fans will be hoping that they'll adjust better than most.

ii) Unfamiliarity to South African Pitches

huh? I'll back this lineup to score anywhere.

BTW, Sehwag got his first Test ton in SA

[aussie_beater]

Originally posted by marc71178

My reasoning is that at the moment India are in good form, so their odds are shorter than their real chances of winning the WC.

There is no such thing as a "real chance"...the odds are determined by the house and you make your opinion on the odds and bet, if at all.So, everything is an opinion from thereon, till the results are out.