Team India finally succeeded in saving.. A Full day of life..
They have saved a full day energies of almost one billion people which would
be finally used for right cause (hopefully)...

Pavan

I think our team is jaded and just does n't have energy to play any Cricket, much less fight against a superior Australian team.

They deserve none of my time and attention and I am glad that I wasted little time reading up on daily reports and keeping tabs with scores at cricinfo.

I reckon there would be some wholesome changes in post-series-mortem. Baccha from Baroda will be out. Though I'd be sad to see him go away since he batted like one of the few men from our team, yet he has to go as his keeping has been despicable.

There would be some new blood in the new team with the axe finally falling on Ganguly. Dravid would be new captain, Sehwag vice-captain, and Lakshman would have to prove his worth to the team once again and I'd not be surprised if he is out from consideration too, for the age and inconsistency work against him.

Kaif seems to have done a lot of good to himself by performing in middle order and that means Yuvraj would be out from a Test team for a long time to come.

SRT seems to be a spent force --and I've the inkling that he would continue to accumulate runs against weaker teams but he would remain woefully out of touch for a long time to come against better opposition.

So much for my predictions. Abuses and curses in my direction are welcome.

India, in my book, are a class side. Dravid, Sachin, Sehwag, Anil Kumble and Laxman, all class acts.

Australia are just too good.

Your observations have been borne out by the selection changes for the last match. Parthiv and Yuvraf have been dropped, so also Chopra & Agarkar. Kaif has cemented his place. But Laxman gets another chance to redeem himself.

The Mumbai Test may be the last appearance of what seemed a "tenured" team composition. We can expect to see more new faces in the near future. Already Gautam Gambhir and Dinesh Kartick and a couple of others are being tried out.

I guess the best match-up in the world would be Australia "A" -vs- Australia "B".

How about Austrailia vs Mumbai Ranji Team, which has always been a tough opposition for the aussies..

Pavan

Unni, It 's quite the reverse, so as to say. I wrote that post yesterday and the selection changes were announced today in the papers. It was a no brainer, anyway. Details were the only things to be figured out.

Now, ask me next time you need a prediction.

Anurag:

Your 'predictions' yesterday have been borne out by the team announcement today. (That's what I thought I conveyed).

By the way, did you notice the "zonal" distribution of the new berths? Gautam Gambhir from the North, Dheeraj Jadhav from the West, S.S. Paul from the East and Dinesh Karthick from the South! Age-old story of regional representation? Are they selecting a national cricket team or the central cabinet of ministers?

If Laxman's berth is shaky, they should have inducted a new middle-order batsman. Instead they have inducted two new openers -- one of them will only get to carry the towels.

Why S. S. Paul as new-ball bowler --- whatever happened to Amit Bhandari? And one of the best bats in the country, S. Sriram, remains uncapped.

Questions being asked are:

Has the recent turf-war in the BCCI spilled on to the field?

Is it Ganguly's body or his ego that's hurt?

Sorry Unni, I must have been in a stupor. Yeah, I read it again now and that's what you said. My mistake.

But you have made good observations. Gautam Gambhir and Dinesh Kartik have been in reckoning for a long time, former as an opener and the latter as W/K.

But omission of Bhandari is shocking. He deserves to be in sixteen at the least since he was the best performer with ball last year in first class cricket, both at home and abroad. but the selection of Paul was n't surprising since we have been hearing his names being mentioned recently in papers. I can't recall why!

Sriram should have been in. Left to me, I'd have chosen Sriram ahead of any batsmen.

Zonal politics seems to be creeping in, thanks to the BCCI election fiasco that we recently witnessed.

Anurag:

Did you read this in The Times of India? Written by former selector Kirti Azad:

'I see sinister designs'

NEW DELHI: It's shameful. A team that considered itself No. 2 in the world has simply not come up to expectations. In the two years of my stint as a national selector, we did abide by the golden rule of not changing a winning combination. Unfortunately, due to the insistence of the captain - who is undoubtedly a very successful one - we did not make changes even when required.

The truth is that due to our good relations with the skipper, we all got carried away. But power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. To agree or disagree is human nature, but to insist on having your way and therefore forcing decisions to be taken by a majority vote was unfortunate.

Our batting is failing miserably. None of the top players, who are supposed to be the best in the world, have used their bats to speak for them. The reason could be that all of them have taken their place in the side for granted. I have always maintained that we should have good bench strength, so that those on the bench can keep pushing those who are in the playing eleven. Why aren't we looking at people like Gautam Gambhir, Venugopal Rao, S Sriram and Amit Bhandari, to name only a few?

Some stupid decisions have also hurt our cause. Why is the Chopra-Sehwag pair, which did so well in Australia and Pakistan, not clicking today? Well, the captain announced his intention of getting Yuvraj to open the batting. That was the beginning of the decline. Chopra's morale was obviously shattered. He knew there was a sword of Damocles hanging over his head. Then what happens? Yuvraj opens in Chennai and Chopra sits on the bench. In Nagpur, it is vice-versa. What sense does this make? You are neither allowing Chopra to settle, nor giving Yuvraj a fair trial at the top of the order.

What if I were to say that Yuvraj is the only batsman threatening the established middle order? He is left-handed, a stroke-player and an attractive one at that (in advertisements too). You push him up the order and whether he succeeds or fails, there is no more threat to the middle order. If I see a sinister design in this and if somebody disagrees with me, he must give me a convincing explanation. After all, you can't stop people speculating.

Look at Kaif. When he was pushed up to No. 4 in the order in England, he was a success. So, why was he dropped down the order again? As for Patel, a wicketkeeper is the backbone of a team. He bucks the team up, turns things around with a brilliant catch or stumping. How about Patel? He has been a white elephant. He seems to be scared of going for difficult chances for fear that he will be seen as having dropped a catch. He would rather not move and play safe.

Now look at the bowling. There is nothing novel about playing with four bowlers rather than five. What does not make sense is to play a combination of two seamers and spinners. With that combination, you have neither a fall-back seamer to sustain pressure if the wicket is aiding seam bowling nor a third spinner to keep the momentum going if the pitch assists turn. A 3+1 combination either way makes more sense.

Offering the Nagpur pitch as an excuse holds about as much water as a duck's back will. Don't tell me that Nagpur was a greener top than the ones our batsman have performed on in Australia and South Africa. In any case, even if you thought the pitch was not conducive to our batsmen, to say so publicly was an extremely demoralising statement. You just don't throw down your weapons before the fight has even begun.

What about Wasim Jaffer ?

He looked good last time I saw him.

Australia totally outplayed the Indians in every department. They had a set plan for this tour and learned from the mistakes that they made last time they toured. The Australians deserved to win this series because seriously the Indians were no threat to them most of the time. Yes you can say that the second test may have gone India's way but that is the only time India looked serious to win a match in this series. Most of the time their batting failed except for a few individual performances here and there.

I do not like Chopra's attitude when he's opening. Sure he is trying to frustrate the bowlers and make batting easier for the rest of the middle order. But by staying at the wicket mostly defending, he simply giving the opposition a chance to get him out. In Australia, he stayed at the wicket, and made some runs but failed to make a big score after he had reached the 40's. He does not combine that defence with alot of strokeplay. Most of the time you see Sehwag scoring most of the runs and Chopra just casually staying at the wicket defending. the best opening pairs in the world have both openers rotating the strike and scoring. A perfect example would be Langer and Hayden.

Kaif showed once again that he deserves to be in both the test and one day teams. He has a good technique and his performance will hopefully cement his place in the test side for the future. It is good Patel was dropped because his wicketkeeping was definetely not up to international standards in this series. He should be trained and once he is ready to come back into the side, he should be given a chance. I do not agree with dropping Agarkar, since he is one of the few Indian bowlers who manages to acheive swing. He should have been given another try and dropping him after just one match is not fair. VVS Laxman should make way for another batsman, most likely one of the newer players who have been chosen for the last test. Tendulkar did not look the same in the last test because he clearly has not had alot of match practice so you cannot blame him for failing. The Australians showed that Dravid's wall can be broken. You do not usually see Dravid's stumps being shtattered because of his great technique but the Australians showed that if you bowl in the right places, things can happen, something the Indian bowlers should learn from. Karthik bowled pretty well but Harbhajan was surely missed. Not only does he extract quite a bit of turn but he also puts pressure on the batsmen by stopping runs. Pathan is their main strike bowler and he was missed as well though Zaheer Khan bowled pretty well too.

Cheers

rafi_rules, who is the batsman getting bowled in your signature? Bowler is Waqar Yunus that I can tell.

Unni, I have mostly stopped reading our Indian rags, except Indian Express -- they are fast turning into tabloids with news on Sex, glamour and the sleazy affairs of Bollywood actors/actresses taking over the front page news.

Hindustan Times even has a dedicated section called HT Tabloids which gets maximum hits these days -- so not even disguising there.

But what Kirti Azad says is mostly right -- but then you see it's easier being an arm-chair expert after the damage is done.

It'd have made more sense if someone pointed out before the series began that Ganguly's gambles may have worked before (e.g., bringing Sehwag to open) but they are no receipe for success in long term.

There was plenty to learn from Australian way of doing things -- even at the peak of his powers, Steve Waugh was asked to retire to blood a new captain. Cricket Australia (the new name of ACB) knows how to keep the pond fresh by rotating and cycling the water while we just end up making it stale.

Now, all of a sudden, we'd go into a team building mode from a matured team -- no smooth transition.

Its Brian Lara getting yorked by Waqar on the West Indies tour to Pakistan in 1997-98

Akhtar ji,

Where did you get that Waqar video from ?. Is there a particular site where you can download them ?

Thanks boss for laoding that beautiful moment .

Waqar is considered one of the finest swing bowlers ever.
Though his career shortened due to back injury and subsequent politics in Pakistan
cricket. He made wonderful pair with WAsim Akram. one of Dreadly pair of all times. Like Holding Roberts

Hum logon ne kai baar TV keval unki bowling dekhne ke liye khola hai.

West Indies mein jo one day series tie hui thi Pak-Indies ki, wo sabse badiya
series mein se ek hai.

Regards

beecee