Indian batsmen : still bunnies on pacey wickets?

[Pratters]

Check this!

Peter Rowbuck my favourite cricket writer but this article is disappointing to say the least. India did collapse in Perth but Australia too lost 3 qucik wickets before Symonds and Gilchrist rescued the Aussies.

India had a batting collapse but Tendulkar and Sehwag were coming after a break. There is no question that Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman can play well on any track.

I would say India can bat well on good and bad wickets. Perth was a small hickup even though most pitches India faced in Australia were slower and more batter friendly than usual.

 

[SquidAU]

Check this!

Peter Rowbuck my favourite cricket writer but this article is disappointing to say the least. India did collapse in Perth but Australia too lost 3 qucik wickets before Symonds and Gilchrist rescued the Aussies.

India had a batting collapse but Tendulkar and Sehwag were coming after a break. There is no question that Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman can play well on any track.

I would say India can bat well on good and bad wickets. Perth was a small hickup even though most pitches India faced in Australia were slower and more batter friendly than usual.

I agree. There is nothing about India that has been disappointing this series. Their batsmen have adjusted well and their bowlers have been surprising to say the least. The Perth game was a hiccup that can happen to any team on any pitch. We shall see them beat Zimbabwe on Tuesday with ease!

 

[Arjun]

It has a lot more to do with the lack of pace in Indian new-ball bowlers. You look at the better bowlers they have succeeded against, they were not of frightening pace. Even in international matches, you can see Ganguly stepping out against Caddick or Gough, both good bowlers, but not really fast. He looks a world class batsman then. The same Ganguly looks like a weak link against Brett Lee, because he's too fast for him. This is based more on reaction time than technique. It will take him some time to adjust himself, by which time he's missed the ball, or he's mis-hit it. If he was used to that pace, he'd handle that bowling a lot better.

It's not just the wickets, it's also the bowlers. This (Australian) is a quality bowling attack. The match has just shown that pace bowlers in India are not of any real quality. They lack the power and the consistency. Easy for many batsmen to succeed against them. Place the same batsmen against powerful and accurate bowlers like these and they're helpless. Brett Lee was bowling well and the Indians had their problems agaisnt him. On these wickets, with all the pace and bounce, if the bowling is nothing great, they can bat a lot better. If the quality of bowling in domestic matches was better, they would have scored more on such pitches. That said, some of the strokes played, such as that one by Yuvraj, as well as that by Ganguly, were quite ordinary.

 

[Arjun]

The ESPNSTAR commentary team, as you might have noticed, had said a few times that the bowlers other than Brett Lee offered no real threat. The batsmen did a lot better against them, especially Symonds and the part-timers. In fact, the Indians might have been relieved when Lee finished his 10 overs.

 

[SirBloody Idiot]

Too me, being an Aussie, think India definately was prepared for the type of pitch the WACA provides. It had been a while since they have played on a good a bowlers' pitch as the WACA. If there had been a test there they may have had a better performance than this, but they didn't.

To me, Lee uterlised the wicket to his advantage more than the likes of Pathan, Balaji and to a lesser extend Agarkar. The bowlers could not shape up enough to rid Gilchrist and Symonds from their woe list, therefore were easybeats today...

 

[Pratters]

Lee is a good bwoler.. not gr8 but not mince meat for the batsmen either.

Regarding Ganguly, I had serious doubts over him against pace for tests before this series in Australia. But his century in the test series was pretty impressive in the way he faced whatever pace Australia had to offer. I would say Ganguly has improved from the past and Indians as a whole are no bunnies against pace/faster bowling as they were earlier on.

The performance in the World Cup (where the bowlers let them down in the finals, not the batsmen, even though the pitches werent exactly seamer friendly), and the steady progress of the team from losing every series they played abroad to having good series in England and Windies is testimonial of the slow yet good progress made.

 

[Arjun]

A lot was said about Ganguly's weaknesses against the short ball. Then, bowlers started bouncing him repeatedly, after which he was aware of this plan and began scoring runs against them.

Ganguly's no weak link against pace. In the tri-series in 2001 in South Africa, he batted very well, hitting Pollock and his attack all around, like a world class batsman. In the NatWest final, he got a lot of runs, hitting Flintoff off a lot of short deliveries. Even in the Test series, he got more than a few runs. In the tour of NZ and the World Cup, he was a bit disappointing, but he got runs against SA in Dhaka and later on, in Australia, in Brisbane and then Melbourne. He has played for 7 years and he has a good Test and ODI average, so he definitely is one of the better batsmen in this Indian team.

 

[Richard]

I seriously hope Ganguly comes in at three in the first final and hammers the Australian bowlers to all parts.
I haven't hoped for something as much as that for ages.
As for the WACA match, Lee simply bowled well, something that hasn't happened for a few ODIs. No denying that, all we can do is hope it doesn't happen again and if it doesn't, that India punish it.

 

[marc71178]

Why are you so against Brett Lee?

 

[imranrabb]

If ganguly is having problems ahainst quick bowling i wonder what will happen to him in pakistan wih sami and akhtar

 

[Rik]

Why are you so against Brett Lee?

Well, it's obvious that he's massively over-rated, just kind of nice to know it's being justified in performances...

 

[Choora]

If ganguly is having problems ahainst quick bowling i wonder what will happen to him in pakistan wih sami and akhtar

Sachin,Dravid,Laxman,Kaif,Chopra and Sehwag will take good care of S's (shoaib and Sami), Ganguly probably won't be facing them much.

 

[marc71178]

Well, it's obvious that he's massively over-rated, just kind of nice to know it's being justified in performances...

Not in ODI's is he over-rated, but yes in Tests - he's definitely one where there needs to be a big distinction drawn.

 

[Don Ricardo]

A lot was said about Ganguly's weaknesses against the short ball. Then, bowlers started bouncing him repeatedly, after which he was aware of this plan and began scoring runs against them.

Ganguly's no weak link against pace. In the tri-series in 2001 in South Africa, he batted very well, hitting Pollock and his attack all around, like a world class batsman. In the NatWest final, he got a lot of runs, hitting Flintoff off a lot of short deliveries. Even in the Test series, he got more than a few runs. In the tour of NZ and the World Cup, he was a bit disappointing, but he got runs against SA in Dhaka and later on, in Australia, in Brisbane and then Melbourne. He has played for 7 years and he has a good Test and ODI average, so he definitely is one of the better batsmen in this Indian team.

I still think Ganuly is weak against the short ball. The one day series has really confirmed this- look at the manner he has gotten out in the last 4 or 5 games, just about all due to short balls (even against zimbabwe). Whilst he may have done well in the tests, the aussie bowlers werent at their peak back then and the pitches were pretty slow. Now that the aussie bowlers are starting to hit their straps and blignaut of zimbabwe is bowling quick as well ganguly has looked second rate the last couple of weeks, not just in the way hes being getting out but also the way hes been ducking into bouncers and carelessly wafting at them with his bat.

 

[Rik]

Not in ODI's is he over-rated, but yes in Tests - he's definitely one where there needs to be a big distinction drawn.

The thing is, his ODI performances have dropped in this series as well, with the exception of his last performance. I just keep getting the impression it's just a bright spot in a continuing downward spiral...

 

[marc71178]

The thing is, his ODI performances have dropped in this series as well, with the exception of his last performance.

To be honest, I would say that apart from the 1-83, he hasn't actually been that bad - 1-29 in 10, 2-46 in 9 and 1-32 in 8 are all reasonable efforts.

 

[Salamuddin]

The thing is, his ODI performances have dropped in this series as well, with the exception of his last performance. I just keep getting the impression it's just a bright spot in a continuing downward spiral...

A hell of a lot of ODI runs at an average over 40 -- do explain to me how he is overrated ?

As for tests, even most Ganguly supporters would admit that at best he is a competent batsman and certainly not in the Tendulkar-Dravid-Laxman class.

I don't think he has ever been rated so much in tests so as to be overrated.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

A hell of a lot of ODI runs at an average over 40 -- do explain to me how he is overrated ?

As for tests, even most Ganguly supporters would admit that at best he is a competent batsman and certainly not in the Tendulkar-Dravid-Laxman class.

I don't think he has ever been rated so much in tests so as to be overrated.

Wasn't Rik's comment concerning Lee?

 

[Salamuddin]

Wasn't Rik's comment concerning Lee?

Yes indeed it was . My mistake. However Rik and Marc are two of the Ganguly bashers on this board so I'm sure they'll disagree with what I said.

 

[Slow Love™]

A hell of a lot of ODI runs at an average over 40 -- do explain to me how he is overrated ?

As for tests, even most Ganguly supporters would admit that at best he is a competent batsman and certainly not in the Tendulkar-Dravid-Laxman class.

I don't think he has ever been rated so much in tests so as to be overrated.

He was talking about Brett Lee, I think, not Ganguly.

And yes, I do think that India are still particularly vulnerable on pacy wickets. What have we seen that contradicts that notion? They've been fabulous on batting paradises, and I don't mean that as an insult - I'd have hoped that Australia would beat them on flat batting tracks, and the Indians have shown that they were just as good, if not better, and all without a wicket that favors spin as much as at home (on which the Aussies are truly shaky).

But it wasn't too much of a surprise that the top order failed so badly in Perth, for the first time against Australia all tour. Coincidence? I doubt it.

And what is going on with Ganguly and the short deliveries? I know that the talk had been circulating for years, and I genuinely thought he'd looked quite competent against the short stuff in the tests, but the last few games, he's looked rattled and clueless, and has just stuck his bat in front of his face. It's been incredible to watch.