***Official*** India in Australia

[biased indian]

ha,,,just the way i thought..they didnt pick sachin who is in form..and played kathick..i dont know any other team would have done that...when will he get dropped ???????

 

[Burgey]

ha,,,just the way i thought..they didnt pick sachin who is in form..and played kathick..i dont know any other team would have done that...when will he get dropped ???????

Gotta give the guys who haven't had a hit at least some warm up though. The bowlers did well considering there was zero scoreboard pressure.

 

[Cevno]

Gotta give the guys who haven't had a hit at least some warm up though. The bowlers did well considering there was zero scoreboard pressure.

Not to bothered about giving those people a chance but what is dissapointing is the way they played.They played very carelessly as if the game does not matter one bit.Do not know how you get warm up or match practice by just throwing your bat at everything.

 

[Burgey]

Yeah, I see what you mean. I guess the format doesn't really work to their advantage, and that crowd maybe got some of the younger guys blood up to look for the big shot too soon. Sreeshanth looked the goods with the ball - doesn't look like his lay off has hurt him all that much.

 

[masterblaster]

Not too happy with today's performance by the Indian's but not too bothered either. I think the occasion and the lack of limited overs match practice got to the younger guys. I thought Pathan and Sreesanth were pretty good and it bodes well for the ODI series to see Pathan bat and bowl well, and to see Sreesanth looking fit.

Wasn't overly impressed with Praveen Kumar. He looks a pretty tame sort of bowler (almost a Joginder Sharma clone) that might keep the runs down in the ODI's but won't really pick up too many wickets. Looking forward to Sunday's game. I think the Indian's got overawed by the whole thing today and the MCG is an extremely large stadium so they probably didn't take that into account when playing the big shots.

I'd probably pick the following lineup for Sunday:

1. Sehwag
2. Tendulkar
3. Gambhir
4. Uthappa
5. Raina/Rohit Sharma
6. Dhoni
7. Pathan
8. Praveen Kumar (give him a few more goes at the 50 over level)
9. Harbhajan
10. Sreesanth
11. Ishant Sharma

No room in the side for Dinesh Karthik, and I'd persist with the five bowlers in the squad.

 

[silentstriker]

Well, I thought the slop fest might be over, but we have a LONG LONG way to go in limited overs yet .

Another Test please!

 

[masterblaster]

Well, I thought the slop fest might be over, but we have a LONG LONG way to go in limited overs yet .

Another Test please!

Yeah, just what I was thinking. I was absolutely loving this summer of test cricket, it's ended too soon. We need more test cricket and it's absolutely alive and well.

 

[aussie_26]

poor effort by India who IMO couldn't handle the pressure of playing in front of 90,000 fans most of whom didn't support them.This is an issue that India needs to look at because more often then not they buckle under pressure

 

[Cevno]

Even the senior players took a whole test to warm up to the series despite having toured here before,so i guess asking The younger players touring for the first time to be spot on from ball one without any match practice would be too much.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Interestingly, the MCG nets were absolute spinner's paradise on Wednesday. No pace in them at all, and really roughed up; deliberately. This isn't unusual as such, because the state players often do it to simulate fourth day conditions.

 

[Salamuddin]

Not too happy with today's performance by the Indian's but not too bothered either. I think the occasion and the lack of limited overs match practice got to the younger guys. I thought Pathan and Sreesanth were pretty good and it bodes well for the ODI series to see Pathan bat and bowl well, and to see Sreesanth looking fit.

Wasn't overly impressed with Praveen Kumar. He looks a pretty tame sort of bowler (almost a Joginder Sharma clone) that might keep the runs down in the ODI's but won't really pick up too many wickets. Looking forward to Sunday's game. I think the Indian's got overawed by the whole thing today and the MCG is an extremely large stadium so they probably didn't take that into account when playing the big shots.

I'd probably pick the following lineup for Sunday:

1. Sehwag
2. Tendulkar
3. Gambhir
4. Uthappa
5. Raina/Rohit Sharma
6. Dhoni
7. Pathan
8. Praveen Kumar (give him a few more goes at the 50 over level)
9. Harbhajan
10. Sreesanth
11. Ishant Sharma

No room in the side for Dinesh Karthik, and I'd persist with the five bowlers in the squad.

Really need Yuvraj back from injury.......he's probably one of their key gamebreakers

 

[masterblaster]

Interestingly, the MCG nets were absolute spinner's paradise on Wednesday. No pace in them at all, and really roughed up; deliberately. This isn't unusual as such, because the state players often do it to simulate fourth day conditions.

We would've been competitive if we would've scored 160 or more, but it was a pretty poor batting performance, mainly because the ODI guys have just flown in from India. We'll probably lose up in Brisbane, but by the time we play our second match I think we'll be much better.

 

[masterblaster]

Really need Yuvraj back from injury.......he's probably one of their key gamebreakers

For sure, but he just looks woeful at the moment. He's out of it completely in terms of his fitness, his batting and his fielding which is disappointing because he's such a good athlete and fielder. Starting to think we shouldn't have dropped Sourav and Rahul.

 

[Salamuddin]

For sure, but he just looks woeful at the moment. He's out of it completely in terms of his fitness, his batting and his fielding which is disappointing because he's such a good athlete and fielder. Starting to think we shouldn't have dropped Sourav and Rahul.

Nope wouldn't have got India anywhere.....picking a young squad will invariably mean short term pain as players develop but that has to be weighed against long term goals.

In any case, India weren't really all that successful with Saurav and Rahul around in ODI's

 

[masterblaster]

Nope wouldn't have got India anywhere.....picking a young squad will invariably mean short term pain as players develop but that has to be weighed against long term goals.

In any case, India weren't really all that successful with Saurav and Rahul around in ODI's

But...look at their batting averages

There's no doubt they've contributed immensely to Indian Cricket with averages of 43 and 39 respectively and with so much experience there. But yeah, I agree with you and short term pain in a CB Tri Series is a small price to pay in order to give the Uthappa's, Raina's and Sharma's some world class experience.

 

[Cevno]

But...look at their batting averages

There's no doubt they've contributed immensely to Indian Cricket with averages of 43 and 39 respectively and with so much experience there. But yeah, I agree with you and short term pain in a CB Tri Series is a small price to pay in order to give the Uthappa's, Raina's and Sharma's some world class experience.

They were not looking too good after the mcg test were they?
Let the youngsters settle and they will come good(except karthik and gambhir).The only senior i would have held back was laxman because it is australia and yuvraj is injured.

 

[SJS]

Not to bothered about giving those people a chance but what is dissapointing is the way they played.They played very carelessly as if the game does not matter one bit.Do not know how you get warm up or match practice by just throwing your bat at everything.

I agree. Its not that they did not score. Its the way they got out.

• Gambhir - a tame lofted drive to mid off
• Karthik - bowled to a full toss that he was trying to hit square of the wicket !
• Uthappa - drives loosely to mid off. It was just the third delivery he was facing.
• Rohit Sharma - tried to pull a ball that was hardly short enough for the shot.
• Dhoni - swats a pull to deep mid-wicket - is caught about 15 meters inside the fence he was trying to clear. Till then he had managed just 9 runs in 27 deliveries. Made no effort to play the ball for singles and twos with Pathan playing fairly decently at the other end. In the same situation he scored 26 in 30 deliveries without a single boundary.

They seemed to think that they had to just go after the ball and everything else would take care of itself.

How can we complain of not being used to the conditions when they were defeated by poor strokes or poor stroke selection.

They were not out on a typical fast Aussie wicket where the pace or bounce was different from Indian pitches. They were out, a lot of them, to balls that actually came slower than they played for. They seemed to have come convinced that Australian wickets are going to be fast and easy to play through the line and on the up.

The kind of strokes they played would have got them on sub continental wickets too.

 

[Nate]

Gilchrist
Clarke
Hodge
Mike Hussey
Symonds
Voges
Dave Hussey
Hopes
Noffke
Lee
Bracken


is the likely line-up. Batsmen all over the place. And lots of bowling options as well tbh. We'll win in a canter.

Pretty chuffed with this post.

 

[pup11]

Hey the guys wrapped up the game pretty easily in the end, but it was a boring game all thanks to the way India played, anyways what's up with this guy Dhoni, he seems to be all ****ed up atm making one dire comment after the other, first he said India is looking at this game for some practice (i mean how can you say you are looking ahead to getting some practice out of an international game) and then after the game he openly criticises his batsmen for not understanding their responsibility, i mean some of those batsmen were playing their first game in Australia so i think he was being a bit too harsh on them by openly criticising them, doesn't do the team morale any good.

 

[Nate]

Bracken to own in the 20/20 match. It's his time.

And this one tbh. Can't wait to catch highlights.