Can someone explain the Mumbai Disaster, please?

[tooextracool]

You seriously don't think there's anything in the fact that the best he can manage is 37-38 when most of the top batsmen are averaging 52-53?

who honestly gives a crap? nearly half of those 'successful' batsmen averaging in the 50s have been dismal failures outside of india(and some in india). Kaif at least has actually shown potential at the international level and on his A tours, and he at least deserves an extended stint in the side.

I sure enough do.
No, Kaif's Tests in 1999\2000 don't mean too much, and he did play reasonably well against Australia. But he just doesn't look like a Test player to me. Even in the 91, he was dropped off a pretty simple caught-and-bowled chance to Flintoff.
I find it interesting that you say that about Kaif but refuse to acknowledge the same thing about Atherton in 1989...

whats the same thing about atherton in 1989?
for me almost everyone has at least one let off in their innings, the good players take advantage of it and carry on with it. poor players like dhoni get out 2 balls later. what i dont like however is players getting multiple lives, because thats extremely fortunate.

 

[tooextracool]

You seriously don't think Laxman, Tendulkar (if he can get himself back as Gillespie seems to have) or Ganguly can tough it out?

i honestly dont rate Ganguly, especially in conditions not favoring batsmen.
Laxman and Tendulkar maybe, but Tendulkar IMO will never return to what he used to be,but i do still think that he can at least average in the high 30s or low 40s. which is why i believe he should open the batting and open up positions down the order for others.

 

[tooextracool]

Tell me, please - how on Earth is Patel rated so highly as a batsman? He's played the odd decent knock in adversity - there's no sign whatsoever that he's able to build big innings, something Karthik has clearly shown the ability to do.

so did Karthik clearly show this ability in all of his 1 successful innings at the international level?

 

[tooextracool]

I said "he'll turn the ball on a turning surface".
You said, in effect, the pitches in Pakistan allowed him to turn the ball, and he didn't.

the pitches in pakistan allowed bowlers to turn the ball but it was largely slow turn. the pitch at mumbai offered prodigious turn and bounce onthe 5th day. theres a difference. The fact that Udal required that kind of pitch to even keep it tight speaks volumes of how poor he is. The fact that Panesar was useless even on that kind of wicket tells us that he is utter garbage. and honestly how does any finger spinner expect to have any success without having an arm ball like panesar? not to mention his inability to use drift.

Of course no slogs have ever been successful?
Don't you think it might have been a bit more than coincidence that every time someone tried slogging him, it went straight up?

dont you think it was stupid for the tailenders to go about slogging when it was quite obvious from Englands performance the day before that runs were very very difficult to score on that wicket? fact is that it was very difficult to slog any bowler on that pitch on the last day, especially one that was on target.

Udal was slogged plenty in Pakistan; Dawson and Batty have been slogged plenty. None of them, even when bowling at tailenders and Dhonis, managed to get 3 slogs (or 4, given that he had Dhoni twice) that went straight to fielders.

and Udal was slogged plenty in the first innings of the test match, which is why he couldnt even be depended upon to bowl a few overs. and AFAIC how many people tried to slog the Dawsons and Battys on a pitch that offered consistent turn and bounce? let me remind you that not a single surface that those bowlers bowled on actually offered turn and bounce.

 

[social]

IMO, India lost this test match because of their negative attitude as much as anything and the blame for that must be sheeted home to management and the captain.

Sending the opposition into bat in ANY conditions is a gamble.

Doing it in India beggars belief and suggested that Dravid was trying to draw the match from the outset by hoping to prevent England's strength (seam attack - but really only Flintoff and Hoggy) from gaining any advantage. In doing so, he also negated his own team's massive advantage in spin bowling.

Dravid's attitude when batting is also a massive worry.

The guy is obviously a world-class player but how a strike-rate in the 20s can be justified on any surface is beyond me.

Batting so slowly allows the opposition bowlers to get into a rhythm, allows them time to work on plans to all batsmen (as the strike is not being rotated) and places all the pressure on his partner to do the scoring.

Dravid fell into the same trap last year vs Aus and his team paid the penalty.

Forget about dropping Sehwag and Dhoni - both have had one ordinary series only.

Sehwag, before this series, was clearly rated the world's best opener. He'll be back.

Dhoni has masses of potential with the bat and played a couple of responsible innings during the series - he'll be better for the experience. As for his catching, well .....

The Indian fielding was also diabolical. You simply cannot carry people who are incompetent in this discipline.

Final word on Udal, RETIRE. Everything will be down-hill from here.

 

[marc71178]

The guy is obviously a world-class player but how a strike-rate in the 20s can be justified on any surface is beyond me.

England did it on Day 4...

I thinkthe manner Flintoff played justified his approach perfectly.

 

[Anil]

dravid made a basic mistake by sending the opposition in after winning the toss....england then took full advantage by batting, bowling and fielding much, much better than india.....it's very simple really...they were that much hungrier and walked away with a well deserved win.....

 

[chicane]

haha typical fuss after a loss....though i didnt watch the games so i guess it was a little less annoying.

imo england played superbly despite dropping a few catches, but india outdid them in dropping catches and batted poorly. i didnt expect india to save the game, but it was still a spineless effort. i mean a collapse with udal getting 4 wickets just doesnt sound nearly as convincing as englands seamers ripping through the lineup. wtf first micheal clarke and now this!

dravid was dissapointing by his standards, im not too dissapointed with sehwag and dhoni though. wasim jaffer has been average, maybe aakash chopra should be considered. harbhajan seems to be getting back some form, so i wouldnt drop him either. in the absense of sachin, heres my pick -

sehwag
chopra
dravid
laxman
yuvraj
dhoni
pathan
kumble
harbhajan
munaf
sreesanth

depending on conditions, maybe mohammad kaif or rp singh can be brought in for harbhajan. a middle order of dravid-laxman-yuvraj-dhoni is surely not in the class of dravid-sachin-laxman-ganguly but thats our best bet for now. thankfully our bowlers are performing so they might be able to offset the weaker batting.

well played england, flintoff -> \m/

 

[chicane]

england are back in business, great achievement! plus -

strauss back with some runs
even the backup seamers are performing
they found monty panesar
geriant jones taking catches
flintoff taking his consistency to the next level
some good backup for the batting too - cook and shah

 

[Pedro Delgado]

You're all wrong, it's quite obvious what really happened:

http://internationalreporter.com/news/read.php?id=983

 

[Swervy]

You're all wrong, it's quite obvious what really happened:

http://internationalreporter.com/news/read.php?id=983

incredible...I wondered to myself yesterday how long it would take for the match fixing crap to surface.

Out of the main batsmen, the only player who really threw his wicket away was Dhoni.

I guess some people find it hard to accept that India were outplayed twice in three games by an injury ravaged team that had a reputation for being no good vs decent spin bowling, and for having an opening bowler (Hoggard) who had no chance of doing anything in India ,and had a rookie spinner and another spinner who was no good, etc etc

 

[Arjun]

Predictably, this raises a few questions. I've said what I need to back on the official thread, but this team looks a lot better than Indian teams before this one in the recent past, except that it's vastly different and fans are not used to this one. They need more time, and a few strategic changes, but the sooner they get Gautam Gambhir back, the better.

 

[Swervy]

Predictably, this raises a few questions. I've said what I need to back on the official thread, but this team looks a lot better than Indian teams before this one in the recent past, except that it's vastly different and fans are not used to this one. They need more time, and a few strategic changes, but the sooner they get Gautam Gambhir back, the better.

why do you think this Indians team looks better than previous one?
Sure, they look like they may finally have sorted out a future new ball combo worthy of the task me, but Pathans bowling looked poor, Harby obviously wasnt too much of a threat, Tendulkar has lost it, India rarely produce anything with the opening partnership (forget the crowd pleasing 400 odd partnership, that would appear to be a one off), and without Dravid the entire batting line up appears to be built on hype and really doesnt seem to have too much substance against decent bowling

 

[SJS]

If you're 1-0 up with 1 to go, playing defensive seems sensible to me...
That's why almost everyone has said with hindsight that it was crazy to pick 6-batsmen-5-bowlers.

REALLY !!
I doubt if India will go into the mext match with five bowlers. I think they will bring back a batsman - probably Laxman.

This was at 10.54 AM 14th March 2006. Four complete days (3 days 23 hours and 6 minutes to be precise) before the Mumbai test started. Thats hardly hind sight ...or is it

And yes I was advocating a defensive strategy. Dravid was confused he took six bowlers which was attacking and tried to protect his batsmen from thr first day wicket which was defensive.

He lost the plot completely.

 

[chris.hinton]

We are the best side in the world and we are young.... we handed test debuts to 21-23 years olds yet Aussies hand one to a 30 years old and consider him a youngster

The Ashes will stay with us for years to come

Forget the Pakistan series that was after the lord mayor show

 

[Dasa]

We are the best side in the world and we are young.... we handed test debuts to 21-23 years olds yet Aussies hand one to a 30 years old and consider him a youngster

The Ashes will stay with us for years to come

Forget the Pakistan series that was after the lord mayor show

I see.

 

[Richard]

who honestly gives a crap? nearly half of those 'successful' batsmen averaging in the 50s have been dismal failures outside of india(and some in india). Kaif at least has actually shown potential at the international level and on his A tours, and he at least deserves an extended stint in the side.

How many of them have actually played outside India?
I refuse to believe that someone can have such a huge discrepancy in average to the best and it cannot mean a thing.

whats the same thing about atherton in 1989?

Err - he was picked stupidly prematurely when most people (including himself) thought he was not ready.

for me almost everyone has at least one let off in their innings, the good players take advantage of it and carry on with it. poor players like dhoni get out 2 balls later. what i dont like however is players getting multiple lives, because thats extremely fortunate.

Not so.
Plenty of good innings are played without let-offs.

 

[Richard]

i honestly dont rate Ganguly, especially in conditions not favoring batsmen.
Laxman and Tendulkar maybe, but Tendulkar IMO will never return to what he used to be,but i do still think that he can at least average in the high 30s or low 40s. which is why i believe he should open the batting and open up positions down the order for others.

I'll not be surprised if Tendulkar can't return to the days of averaging 57-58.
But I do think he can play long innings where he toughs it out. I don't think you need Kaif to do that.
And I do think Ganguly played some good Test innings in conditions favouring seam and spin.

 

[Richard]

so did Karthik clearly show this ability in all of his 1 successful innings at the international level?

No, he showed it at the domestic level - where he has, what, 3 centuries to Patel's 1 (which was made against a second-string county XI - can't even remember who it was, and it barely matters).
Does anyone seriously think Parthiv Patel is a better batsman than Dinesh Karthik?

 

[Richard]

the pitches in pakistan allowed bowlers to turn the ball but it was largely slow turn. the pitch at mumbai offered prodigious turn and bounce onthe 5th day. theres a difference. The fact that Udal required that kind of pitch to even keep it tight speaks volumes of how poor he is.

I don't find the pitches in Pakistan allowed any turn whatsoever - slow or quick.
I'd say the pitches at both Mumbai and Mohali allowed turn and bounce throughout the game. Udal extracted this, even if it didn't get him many wickets.

The fact that Panesar was useless even on that kind of wicket tells us that he is utter garbage. and honestly how does any finger spinner expect to have any success without having an arm ball like panesar? not to mention his inability to use drift.

Please - don't talk to me as if I've been one of those talking-up Panesar as the best spinner to come out of England since Derek Underwood, etc. I'm not. I'm still very far from convinced, and I was never in favour of his selection for this tour.

dont you think it was stupid for the tailenders to go about slogging when it was quite obvious from Englands performance the day before that runs were very very difficult to score on that wicket? fact is that it was very difficult to slog any bowler on that pitch on the last day, especially one that was on target.

I don't really think it was stupid or not. I think tailenders are likely to bat poorly most of the time.
Runs were difficult to come by against good bowling - bowl a heap of crap and you can hit the ball on virtually any surface.

and Udal was slogged plenty in the first innings of the test match, which is why he couldnt even be depended upon to bowl a few overs. and AFAIC how many people tried to slog the Dawsons and Battys on a pitch that offered consistent turn and bounce? let me remind you that not a single surface that those bowlers bowled on actually offered turn and bounce.

Err, what? The SCG 2002\03 certainly did.
Look, as far as I'm concerned Udal is a better bowler than Dawson and Batty, even if there's no concrete, indisputable evidence of that at Test level.