AUSTRALIA WINS !!!!

I cant be in sulkier mood than this .Being already pissed off by the training i am undergoing , all i needed to become more peevish was to witness a shamefull defeat in the hands of australians.In my last post you saw me in an ecstatic mood after that victory in MCG so after this deafeat let me shed out some of my tantrums too .
Well,let me start with some positive points of the match which is ofcourse the bowling performance.Through out this tour we have seen some excellent performance by the indian bowlers and i guess i have never seen such consistensy in the bowling department till now. And without doubt todays performance should be the best in the series.Being an indian fan i could not even imagine , all the indian bowlers bowling well that too against a formidable team like australia.It was really a treat to watch all the four seamers bowling exceptionally well in tandom .The way dhoni rotated them is really appreciable.Ishant sharma ,what a find he has been this season ,just 19 years old and already he has marked a name for himself in the bowling department.Today too he was the best bowler.I have always liked munaf patel because of his speed and the line he bowls and today was no different .kept his basics right .Irfan pathan was in a good rythm too .and about Srishanth ,Phew!!1 ,atlast he too bowled well today, after that disasterous match against srilanka 🙂 .Good bowling with a good fielding support can be a deadly combination.After all ,You dont see australians at 50-4 quite often .Today was one such rare day and indians missed to take the oppurtunity when it mattered the most.
Ok fine ,Australians managed to score 202 runs but it was still a very ,moderate total to chase ,i mean these days u see teams chasing targets of above 300 and clearly there were no devils in the pitch.As far as i can see India missed a glorious chance to take over the kangaroos again.Our batting which is considered as a lethel is no longer one.Except sachin ,dhoni and yuvaraj, no body really has the experience .Leave alone yuvaraj ,he looks more obsessed thinking abt his gf rather than cricket .The reason behing irfan pathan’s promotion to first down still remains a mystery to me.Ghambhir looked as if he wanted to go to loo 😛 .WHy was he in so much hurry ??? Wickets fell for india like nine pins and seriously there is really wrong with the line up.WE really lost a game that was clearly supposed to be Won.

Indian batting line up looks quite feeble without the likes of sehwag ,dravid and ganguly.I think upto 20-20 its ok but when it comes to a longer version of the game somebody needs to carry the mantle till the end. ITs high time that the selectors start realising their mistake of removing the senior players.Otherwise we have to see indians losing an easy game every now and then .

INDIA THRASH AUSTRALIA

Well, apparently not thrash ,but certainly won comfortably so i would keep that way,sounds good 😛 . Nowadays ,it gives me more pleasure when we win against Australia than against Pakistan so there are no words to describe my state of elation 🙂 .India finally won a match in MCG,  after some 20 years or so.

It was a match where India seemed to dominate almost every department of the game right from the very first ball.Starting with the bowling department ,well ,it isn’t easy to bowl against the mighty world champions with an inexperienced attack like the indians have.But dhoni managed quite well and the bowlers responded well too.Ishant sharma ,probably my age guy ,bowled exceptionally well with new ball. Hayden has been a real pain in the butt for the Indians ever since he started playing international cricket, taking his wicket was very crucial and thanks to MR .Rudi kurtzen ,yet again ,a false judgement leads to gilly’s wicket. Well, Ishant sharma is having a real happy time bowling to ponting ,every time ponting faces him he seem to get out exactly the same way he got during the Sydney test.He probably is the find of the season with his height and proper length he has the ability to control the ball.hopefully he wont fade away as the likes of balaji and nehra. Sreesanth had his luck today . He has the natural wicket taking ability apart from all the drama he creates on the pitch with his dance and stuff,but generally he proves out to be a expensive bowler ,today he seemed to be different there wasn’t that unwanted aggression ,he kept his balls in the limits which worked well for india. Pathan and harbhajan bowled well too maintaining the pressure on the Australian batsmen. India did very well to restrict them to 159 .

Coming to india’s batting ,Australians for the first time looked defensive after a long long time ,they generally prefer 3 slips with players at catching position no matter how low the target is but this time it was different .They had only 2 slips at first, which reduced to 1 after some time leading to some drop chances at slip .Indians attacked from the very first ball .Wow , wasn’t sachin at his best . Three fours of the bret lee ‘s same over showed his class ,charisma and style .I heard harsha bhogle exaggerating that he would probably not forget the shot till he is alive 😛 but worth exaggerating 🙂 isn’t it ??? . The mystery behind irfan pathan’s arrival at the crease after sehwag is still unknown but whatever dhoni had in his mind ,irfan’s presence in the crease did exasperate the Australian .Who would like to bowl to a bowler while defending a small total with a big batting line up waiting behind 😀 .???

AT the end too dhoni and rohit sharmaplayed quite sensible stealing quick single near the pitch which annoyed the Australians greatly 🙂 . On the whole indians won the match comfortably and now we are ahead of the Australians in the points table 😛 . Slowly but steadily the tag “invincible australians ” is fading away .

Next match is with sri lanka and i am confident our team would do well to win that too.

PERTH TEST WIN – SERIES VERY MUCH ALIVE !!!

I have been following cricket from the time i could remember things and i guess todays win has been one of the best inidan victories i have witnessed till date .The victory cound’t have possibly come at a better place and time .Defeating Australia at perth (considered to be the fastest pitch in the world) after going down 2-0 and more importatnly after the sydney test fiasco ,is special for the team and possibly to each and every indian here in india.We,cricket fans ,have a,lways critisized the team if it performs badly .But After sydney test loss , the support indian team got worldwide was overwhelming  and the team has reciprocated really well by winning this perth test.
Indians have stopped aussies from acheving that elusive record of 17 consecutive wins yet again .I am so happy 😀 , yes i envy sometimes the way australians play ,but i guess everything is fair in love and war,and cricket for me is both , love for country and war against the australia  😛  .
This test has showed a lot of positve aspects as far as the team INDIA is concerned .Bowling department being one of most important one.Bowling out australia two times in its home ground with an inexperienced attack is really appreciable.I think ishant sharma bowled  extremely well. Pathan is back to his original form Hecan be a lethal bowler once he starts swinging and RP singh has delevered everytimne he has played a match.BAtting wise ,i have always felt india has the strongest batting line-up in the world .Partenership between Dravid and sachin proved to be a costly one for the ausralians .Lakshman has been a thorn in the flesh of aussies ever since he has started playing international cricket .It was the same lakshman who came in the way of 17 consecutive wins last time in 2001 through his blistering 281.Irfan pathan is the all rounder india has been looking for the last one decade or so.
Australian batting really looks feeble without hayden .Hayden factor could be one of the reasons of the low first innings total.He has been a real pain in the butt for the indian bowlers 😛 .Other than that i dont see any thing wrong in australian side .It still looks the same champion side .
Though ,India are still down by 2-1 the series still look evenly poised ,lets accept the fact that the other two games too were fought closely,unfortunately india had their share of bad luck in sydney test otherwise the game could have headed any way . Indians have psyological advantage going into the next game as the confidence is high and the team is playing as a unit and now that australians have lost one game they would definately feel a bit apprehensive as they are no longer invincible 😀 .Good for the game of cricket .

STEVE Bucknor REMOVED FROM THE PERTH TEST!!!!

Ah!! now the indian team can sleep.AUSTRALIA is WEAK NOW. ARE THEY ???

Sydney TEST – A DISGRACE TO UMPIRES, AUSTRALIAN TEAM AND ICC

Yesterday i had written a post after India’s disastrous loss .Well,i was quite harsh on them ,yes,i accept it . But that was merely due to fact that i was out of my senses ,i was really hurt watching them loose.It was just a wild rant that came out of my heart. NOW that i am back to normal i would want to write on the other aspects of the Sydney test,perhaps the darker sides of it.

The Sydney test has been a complete blow to the spirit ,dignity and integrity of the game .Here i dont want to talk about the result of the match as i have already discussed it in the previous post.Well, Aussie skipper says the match has been played in the right spirits of the game .What i feel is that being a captain of such a team which has performed so well on the past ,he has totally forgot the meaning of the right spirit.How can staying on crease after getting out be called as right spirit?? How can appealing for a catch thats not a proper one be right spirit ?? What bothers me more is that even after the replays clearly shows that the catch was not neat ,He is not ready to agree it .That clearly shows the arrogance of the player.Yes,the way australians have played the game was not upto the right spirit of the game.

When there are one or two wrong decisions it is acceptable but 8 decisions in which most are quite simple is ludicrous.When there’s a so called technology at your disposal why the hell they cant use it for confirming it . It was a total umpiring fiasco out there in Sydney . Steve bucknor has already been into trouble before but he is not bothering to change . I guess its high time now for technology to take over most of the umpiring and a rule should be implemented so that 3rd umpire could rule over the wrong decisions taken by the umpires in the ground.I dont blame the loss entirely to the bad umpiring but yes it did change the course of the match.

I have always been a Fan of australian team’s commitment and skills but they have also disappointed me with sledging that australian are known to do but thats part and parcel of the game.But complaining against harbhajan for his so called racist remarks against symonds was difficult to comprehend. Banning him for 3 matches on the basis of the opposition team player’s statement is another black dot for the sydney test.Actually ,How dumb can a refree be to accept the complaint when the umpires have not heard it many things go on ground that is not reachable to the umpires ears you cant just put each player under the banner.Well, i dont want to go into the subject whether harbajan called him “monkey” or not But there have been instances where players have used abusive language ,particularly Australians and south african players.They even get caught on the TV but they get without even a fine.Why so big issue for this match.If umpires are not needed for the judgment then any player would lodge a complaint against a opposition teammate make him sit out for 3 matches or so.The decision that they have taken by banning may be good for the problem of racialism but it change the future of the cricket.Now even kumble has lodged a complaint against hogg and he may be banned too and this may go on irrespective of whether the player is guilty or not.

Well, now the latest news is that bucknor would not be present in the rest of the series. Will that help .May be may be not .What appalls me is that as per the rules umpires cant be changed in between the series and its not only steve bucknor even in the last series the umpire who was awarded the best umpire of the year too committed mistakes. Use of technology is best possible way to reduce the errors.The game must have resulted a bad taste in the mouth for ICC too. The way ICC functions has been quite below par ,its clearly visible when a Board like BCCI holds a special position due the amount of money BCCI holds for ICC . There have been times in past when BCCI has been able to convince ICC to change a judgment against a particular player . and I see that happening in harbhajan’s case too .Clearly, if that happens would be really a disgrace to an international organization like ICC too.