posted Dec 21, 2008

Any side that bats in a Test likes it's a T20 loses... and fast!
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too busy gazing at stars while Sehwag was batting last week?

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posted Dec 21, 2008

The comments were completely uncalled for from Pietersen. The present English team are arguably one of the most well behaved teams to have toured India in the recent past. Their popularity with the Indian fans was growing, irrespective of the results.
Pietrsen's scintillating century and his out of this world switch hitting wud have won him millions of admirers in India. Will still do for that matter.
But his comments dilute the goodwill generated.
Specially since Yuvraj was the one to be at the receiving end in the last test.

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posted Dec 21, 2008

I should add that England also faced a run-saving one-day field, where the only interest was to slow the scoring rather than to take wickets and STILL were going at better than 4 an over.

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posted Dec 22, 2008

Fairandbalancedfan,

I can understand that India's recent run of success may well have consigned the memories of preceding results to less illuminated mental recesses.

Painful though these may be to plumb, it is perhaps a little excessive for them to erase completely full recollection of the limited number of test playing nations and indeed one's own neighbours.

I refer, of course, to Sri Lanka.

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posted Dec 22, 2008

comment by fairandbalancedfan (U13654179)
posted 8 Hours Ago

The general consensus among Australian and British cricketers is Yuvraj is not a Test Player - Next time Britain sends its East India company to colonize India we may listen to KP and drop Yuvraj
...............................................

We're on it.

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posted Dec 22, 2008

It seems to me that all the on field talk to Yuvraj does him more good than harm. Poor tactics - Pietersen and Flintoff should shut their mouths and play

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posted Dec 22, 2008

I dont rate Moores, but you cant hold him responsible for the way Englands innings petered out(predictably)in yesterdays final session and this mornings play. We seem to have developed an unerring knack of handing back the initiative whenever we assume a promising position.

The bare facts - 22 runs for 6 wickets, at a point where the commentators were remarking on how the helpful conditions for bowling had passed, is woeful.

But what convinced Peitersen and Freddie that the best course of action when the Indians tossed the bowl up outside leg stump was to kick the ball away? With the rate in excess of 4 an over, the runs then began to steadily dry up and, true to form, the innings disintegrated. Surely, with the Indians being so defensive, this would have been the time for the charge, the result could not have been any worse than 302 all out.

I'm afraid this team seems to be in a permanent state of mental decline.

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posted Dec 22, 2008

Garmez,

Agree with everything that you said, with the exception that Moores can't be blamed. Yes he can, his job is to get the most out of the players - to get them playing with a winning mentality. Moores must have been complicit in the decision to send in Anderson. Moores must be involved in setting the tactics for the team. Had we had a thrash at the end of day three the worst that could have happened was that we would have been all out a bit sooner. As things stand that would have benefitted us, as we one day left India only need bat til lunch (with or without fog delay) to put the game and the series safe.

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posted Dec 22, 2008

I have been at a loss to understand England's batting tactics throughout the Indian tour, not only in test matches. We were pitiful in the Stanford event and the return there was the fault of all the batters, and in a number of ODIs our batting ground to a halt. My memory is not as good as yours maybe but in one ODI with Collingwood at the crease we called for the powerplay and 4 overs yielded 11 runs.
Our second innings, last test, was dreadful, any hopes we had of buiding a substantial lead evaporated in 3 hours after lunch - talk about snailspace!
I am not going to condemn individuals in this post, I would just like to have opinions about the perceived plan that must be agreed by KP and moores, these dreadful periods of stagnation did not occur on the spur of the moment, surely?

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posted Jan 2, 2009

Walks_a

Believe me, I hold the same opinion as you regarding Moores. My point was that it must have been KP and Freddie (as surely they do not take instructions on an ad-hoc basis during an innings) to decide to play negatively during the period we dicussed.

KP and FF must know the impact of taking the game to the opposition when they they are beginning to waiver, Ashes 2005 should spring to mind unless they have short memories.

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