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straight point
much has been said about win the toss and win match at the premadasa stadium... not totally off target... here are the stats in support...
| Venue | First innings | Second innings | Difference |
| Premadasa Stadium | 33.05 | 20.97 | 12.08 |
the difference is 12 runs per wicket which makes it a 120 runs deficit straight away for 10 wickets in second innings!
but can the pitch or the curator be blamed for all the problems...? what about humidity factor...?
as can be seen during the series, it really takes its toll on your body... with heavy sweating the fluid level goes down alarmingly and with it the energy... so if you field first by the time you bat second you are not even half of yourself...
you somehow cannot concentrate the way you usually do... the strength in the forearms goes the longer you stay at the crease... balls you would normally hoik over fence suddenly get to the boundary fielder as the timing you would have liked won't be there... your favorite cover drive will go straight to hand coz you are bit late playing stroke on the up... and so on...
the best can be seen thru the example of sachin and the (freak) dismissal of sanga in the finals... sanga was clearly struggling with fitness in the second innings having kept through the first... the strength in his forearms was diminishing... and one could see him stroke his forearms like sachin did in the later part of his innings...
when sachin batted in the second innings he could not get past 50s despite looking in great form... but when he batted in the first innings he could carry on batting till almost the end of the innings... though pitch played its part too but he could carry on coz he was relatively fresh at the crease... i wonder had he carried on the same way despite his form and the sameness of pitch had he batted in second innings...
though sachin won't complain... if he can score in first innings and keep sitting in the comforts of dressing room in second... who would...?
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Gaurav Sethi
In spite of themselves, India beat Sri Lanka, the finals’ jinx, sweat soaked shirts, short-circuited uppers, weak limbs, weaker hearts. Sri Lanka tried their darndest but they couldn’t beat the odds.
It was a weird game. Not so much India vs. Sri Lanka as SRT vs. SL.
First they sent in the explosive RDX (Rahul Dravid) to open the innings, take first strike. At that point I was hoping to watch him keep wickets again. While we’re at it, let’s make him the wallflower instead of The Wall.
Then of course, opportunity knocks, and MSD’s in at 95/1, 17th over. Where were you the previous night, sunshine – ok, that was chasing under lights.
YS makes it at 2/205 to be teased by Malinga outside off. Forget the runs, he was on a blind date with a very bad boy. He wanted to get out, but somehow stayed in.
Then another masterstroke, picking Yusuf Pathan and batting him before Raina. He did not disappoint with 006. Once he makes his 7th duck, he’ll be a Batting Bond.
In the 49th came the make-shift opener-replacement for DKNY, the stop-gap opener Virat Kohli. By then of course Yuvraj was a man again.
Somewhere in between RDX ran for SRT. On the sidelines I might add.
(to be continued)
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Gaurav Sethi
There was Jaddu and Azah
There was Waugh and Warnie
There was you and me
There was storm and Sachin
Blowing through our heart
What’s the score? We want an encore!
What’s the score? We want an encore!
There is Punter and Pigeon
There is Viru and Yuvi
There is you and me
There is storm and Sachin
Blowing through our heart
What’s the score? We want an encore!
What’s the score? We want an encore!
There was dust and drives
There is rain and runs
There was you and me
There is storm and Sachin
Blowing through our heart
What’s the score? We want an encore!
What’s the score? We want an encore!
There was 143 and 141
There is No. 14 and 40
There was you and me
There is storm and Sachin
Blowing through our heart
What’s the score? We want an encore!
What’s the score? We want an encore!
There is storm and Sachin
Blowing through our heart
…Through our world
…Our heart, our world…
From Sept. 06, seemed apt after today's 138. Thank You Sachin, you stormbringer.
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straight point
that the player who was injured and asked to take 10 days rest...was replaced by another injured player who was asked to take eight weeks rest!!
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Gaurav Sethi
PK is a thinking medium-pacer; that in itself is a crime. To his credit, he is a rough boy, the kind that ZZ TOP immortalise in their songs.
Two back to back man-of-the-matches in Australia weren’t enough – the Indians wanted him to win the 2007 World Cup, didn’t matter if he played in it or not.
PK swings the new ball, bowls the length, just doesn’t have the right length of hair. He also has the presence of mind to alter his length – he has in his repertoire, the bouncer. When bowled, it targets the eyeballs, not the balls. He can also bowl yorkers at the death.
In the 2 ODIs in Lanka, RP Singh was selected ahead of PK – RP has 63 wickets in 55 games @33, economy 5.38. PK has 30 wickets in 24 games @31, economy 4.97.
Both are in their early 20s, both from U.P., both it appears, are on MSD’s radar. Both can slog, just PK opened the batting in the recent Corporate Trophy ahead of Gambhir – he has seven first class 50s, RP has none.
Pick PK for the finals. He may not have the pace, but then neither did Mathews.
Earlier at Bored: From Pathan to Praveen, the Indian allrounder
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Bhaskar Khaund
First off, why the heck must we have series like this triangular? To say it's boring would be to attribute more substance than it deserves. God what an utterly meaningless bore....If there's to be any balance - not to mention interest - at all in these kinda series, the next time they field, say, a New Zealand team outside New Zealand, they need to ensure its a rugby game with the NZ rugby team playing our cricket team. Still suffering the effects of yesterday ...It was an evening when Paul Simon would have changed his lyrics to "....i'm empty and aching / and i DO know why / (It was that game)"
Right. On to subject line. Ok, you watch Ashish Nehra open the attack and you're in 2003. Couple hours later you see Rahul Dravid come in to bat and that takes you to 2005.
Two years in a couple of hours !
You get a sense of how fast and how quickly forward Indian cricket is moving.
But then you consider the bevy of trundling beauties slow mo-ing in like an ultra efficient line of left handed robots feeding a run feast, dishing out their 120-130 kmph pies to be carted around the ground. Take this brother - may you massacre my figures. And this. And this again.
It feels like acute Deja Vu but then you remember the deal.
Forget 2003. Forget 2005. Forget 2009.
Not for nothing is this the no.1 cricketing nation.
Indian cricket is timeless.
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Gaurav Sethi
Nehra has been around, not just with his celebratory glides, but before the North zoned in. He’s always been there, before Jatman, before Yuvi, before Bhajji, before you were born. And he knows it, and he says it, and he will continue to say it.
He is the master. Even old man Srinath laughs about Asheesh’s gyaan. Asheesh is all about gyaan.
When he bowled in another age, he was India’s only bowler to land it on the same spot, ball after ball, that sweet short of length. Zaheer was too full those days, and not half the bowler he is now.
Years later, India’s pace attack runs on Zaheer, elsewhere Nehra stumbles into the Delhi Daredevils. That clicks, West Indies ODIs happen, Compaq Cup happens, Nehra happens.
It’s tough to tell how long Nehra will last. If his bony, Bruce Reidlike frame isn’t very encouraging then neither is his fitness record.
But grant Nehra this much: Indian sans Zaheer was all about who will lead the pack? Pat came the reply, I will!
Nehra won’t have it any other way. Short of length bowler but never short of words.
If you enjoy Short of Length
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straight point
vettori believes... he is leading an odi team...
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bored cricket crazy indians
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Gaurav Sethi
Tendulkar scored 46 off 55 balls, Raina 45 of 54. One opened the innings, the other closed it. One’s right handed, the others left, one's initials are SRT, the others SKR; one's strike rate was 83.63 while the others was 83.33. Point to be noted me lord!
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Homer
15 runs. 45 balls. 1*4. 1*3. 7*1. Cant hit out. Cant rotate the strike, And not for the first time, his inability to get the ball off the square is bogging down Sachin.
How high a price is India paying for its perceived weakness against the short ball?
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straight point
...out to get all those lbw's... he did not get when bowling...
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Gaurav Sethi
Till the previous over with the quicks on, Sachin was at first slip. With Yuvraj’s slow left arm pies ready for delivery, Dravid swapped places with Sachin.
Guptill edged the 6th pie, Dravid gobbled it up. Boy, did he look hungry – like he hadn’t had an ODI pie in a long, long while.
But honestly, if not for Sachin, Dravid would never have eaten. Now what do you say guys?
Pie pie ka hisab karna hai, boss.
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straight point
when you have the world record holder for most catches, rahul dravid in the ranks... what is sachin doing at first slip...?
apparently sachin was looking to protect his heavily taped forefinger... his reaction was slow and tentative conceding four runs...the way premsdasa pitch behaves in the second innings...the pattern of low scores... that was an opportunity lost... at least of saving valuable runs...
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Gaurav Sethi
MSDspeak: If you lose the first game you are rusty and if you win the first game you are fresh. I am really not worried about what people will say about us whether we are rusty or fresh because if you want to make a judgement, it should be made before the result. If some one who makes a result today saying we are fresh or rusty. I will appreciate that.
India is fresh, not fresh as a daisy, not farm fresh, but fresh like a babe on her fiftieth first date. Top that the fans are fresh too.
A quick take on a player-by-player Fresh/Rusty:
Sachin Tendulkar: NA but Rusty
Dinesh Karthik: Fresh
Rahul Dravid: Fresh
Suresh Raina: Fresh
Yuvraj Singh: Rusty
MS Dhoni: Fresh
Yusuf Pathan: Rusty
Harbhajan: Fresh
Praveen Kumar: Fresh
Ishant Sharma: Rusty
Ashish Nehra: Fresh
MSD - this was done way before today's match. If you lose, play in a refrigerator. Stay fresh that way.
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