Friday, June 4, 2010

Zimbabwe make it 2-0 against India

When I wrote my last article about minnows doing the damage,I did not believe that Zimbabwe would do it again.And they have surprised more people than just me.I heard the pitch report and all it said was it was another good track for batting.I was hoping for some kind of intent from the indians,because I was sure they would have the last loss in mind,where they couldn't defend 285.However,I could not see any intent what so ever.Dinesh Karthick took his time and so did Murali Vijay.It wasn't the worst start,but five quick wickets and it was altogether a different ball game.India look incomplete without Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.Karthick is a wonderful middle order player,but he just isn't himself when he opens.He becomes too defensive and just doesn't seem the player that he is in Ranji Trophy or Deodhar Trophy or the IPL for that matter.Murali Vijay's strike rate of 37 in an ODI is not acceptable,particularly when you see the superb form he had in the IPL.
Having said all this about India,I have to say Zimbabwe was on top of their game,with good fielding causing two very crucial runouts and tight bowling by all the bowlers.The spinners very particularly impressive.India's batting was trying to crawl its way towards 200 and even fell short of that.That very moment I felt,India would surely lose,because this Zimbabwe team is determined and gave a clinical performance just when it mattered.The series is now wide open.
India's second string team as this is called,just isn't good enough.For me,it is India's third or maybe even fourth best team.Pragyan Ojha,who is probably India's second best spinner isn't on the tour.Ishant Sharma should have been here instead of Ashok Dinda.But,what really let India down today was their batting and I am afraid the batsmen picked are mostly definitely India's second best lot and yet they couldn't do the job.A question came to my mind and it was 'Is India's bench-strength good enough ?'.Something inside me tells me,that seeing all the talent that India has,the bench-strength is good enough(apart from the spin department,where I think their might be a lack of quality spinners),and they just had an off day.
Lets see how they perform in next match and possibly in the final of the series,might give us a more definite to that question.

2 comments:

  1. How could India score just 194 and the pitch was good for batting.

    In the bowling attack Dinda doesn't look good enough as he bowls too full for a swing bowler. If a bowler is skiddy and bowls as full as Dinda does then he is in trouble.

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  2. Yeah,Dinda selection is a surprise to me.As I wrote in the post,Ishant Sharma should have picked in the squad instead of him,because if Ishant isn't good enough to make it to the regular team then he is most definitely in this so called second string team.
    Thanks for adding my blog to your blog list.

    Cheers,
    Mayank Jhaveri

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