Reetinder Sodhi's a strange bowler. He just sticks to a line and length, bowls at virtually no pace, but still varies his pace a great deal. No seam or swing movement is there to compensate for the lack of pace, and he seems to be an Indian version of Gavin Larsen. Rather difficult to get away most of the time, his loose deliveries got spanked. There was this hilarious over where he was milked for four singles, then one slower delivery was scooped over keeper for four, and one more slower delivery was scooped over keeper, caught by Rohit Sharma! A tailender then hit one slightly uppish and got caught easily by Venugopal Rao. Anyway, we now know why Sodhi (a.k.a Agarkar bowling right-) was upstaged by Joginder Sharma in the zonal selection– Sharma is certainly more productive a bowler.
As for VR Singh, he's bowled like a genuine strike bowler. He's bowled with pace on a slow pitch, and more importantly, he's bowled straight. He's attacked the batsmen without giving too much room and bowled well to get his three wickets, though he looked like getting two more. A highlight was this supposed caught-behind, which didn't impress the umpire (good take, though), but the batsman walked off after he saw a bail dislodged– he was out bowled! By a whisker! Not too many bouncers, and a significant reduction in the no-balls and wides, capped off a very good performance by this India contender.
Dinesh Karthik's wicketkeeping has also been impressive, but for those byes conceded off Chawla. He's attempted more than a few snappy stumpings, and even attempted that catch of Yasir Arafat, who was out bowled by VR Singh by the thinnest of margins. Not too many runs scored, but good work behind the stumps– may make the national side as a specialist wicketkeeper. Even as I type, Bazid Khan is hitting big shots off RP Singh in the last three overs.
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