India and England - chances ?? 
December 14th, 2006 | by masti
Ashes -
The Ashes started a little time back promising to be a rocking contest between
two rather equally matched teams.
win a match or two to keep the contest alive till the final match. To say that
the performances from
were disappointing would be an understatement. The first match lasted the first
few sessions as far as the result was concerned.
they made sure they would not lose they match unless they made grave blunders.
They went on to win it, thanks to inspiring performances from Ricky Ponting, Mc.
Grath and wonderful support in from Langer, Warne and Clark. When you have a
team that good, you hardly need to worry about the opposition. But I guess the
overconfidence of the first match win got to the heads of Aussies .. and they
didn’t quite get over it till the last day of the second match .. when only a
tame draw was the expected result. Warne came out with different intentions and
inspired a comeback into the match for a team that looked totally out of sorts
for the first four days. The result, Aussies win .. yet again 
Before the third test, Aussies seem to have their work sorted out .. to make sure
that they don’t have to depend on last day heroics to get the result for the
match in their favor. Ricky Ponting was back to his intimidating best, using
his off field remarks against Monty Panesar ( the replacement for Ashley Giles
who had a rather indifferent tour so far ) and Harmison ( the wwwwww
guy ) to make sure that these two players are nervous before the start
of play.
, on their part, tried to make sure that the playing eleven for the match are
not known .. as to create a cloud of mystery over the game. But it was fairly
given that Gilo would miss out and Panesar would be given a look-in.
I can’t remember the better performance under pressure, if there ever was, from
a bowler. Targeted before the start of the tour for his awkward fielding and
his Indian roots, Panesar answered all critics with a 5-for that will stay in
his memory, if not in the memory of all English fans, for ever. And lets not forget
the wwwwww guy .. Even he has a 4-for. Talk about comebacks.
But all is not lost for Aussies. These chaps make comebacks from all possibly
desperate situations. They have already chipped in with two wickets to end the
day. You never know what sort of mental state the Aussies are in. You push them
into a corner and hope that they will give up now and they will come back at
you strongest from such position.
This game is brilliantly balanced, and for the sake of the Ashes series .. I
hope
win this one. They very well can .. only if they don’t decide to nudge and push
and everything that comes there way. They have the batsmen who can win them
matches . it’s just a question of believing in them
My heart goes out to the
team in SA. Possibly the best result they can achieve is a draw. I don’t expect
them to win .. a draw will be more than welcome.
We need bowlers like Gilo in
bowler .. but he does a good containing job with his outside the leg stump
line. We need someone who can bowl that line all day .. We should get a draw
then
Cric-info statisticians are surprised that Indians actually have performed
better against SA in SA than against SA outside SA. This is a rather
interesting piece of information and one that just goes to show that you can’t
rely on stats to decide the fate of a match. This match is doomed for
bad for the people who bought the 5th day tickets. Sorry people .. no play on
5th day .
will be all out twice before that and Greame Smith will be smiling his way back
to the hotel on the 4th day evening.
If there is one guy, who can possibly extend the contest to the fifth day for
be Kumble. I just love this guy .. never gives up ( unlike me ) , believe in
his team ( unlike me ) .. and has the right attitude to perform in the
conditions ( unlike me ? ) .
I wonder who will be partnering Virendra Sehwag for his short stay at the
crease when
come out to play. Does it really matter? He will be anyway back joining Sehwag
in the dressing room the next ball. That would bring in Sachin and Laxman. Now,
you never know what to expect from these two .. they just might get
and score individual half centuries .. but that would be it .. Do not expect
Big Johannesburg Wonders from these guys .. they are human after all .. ( As
Sachin has said time and again ) .. Next in Ganguly dada and
Mahendra-I-Want-to-Hit-a-Six-Every-ball-Dhoni .. Dada just might do something
.. He is consistently inconsistent. Actually so is the entire Indian batting
line up. Not a single guy can be said to be “in form” and yet you
never know which one of these guys would turn up tomorrow and score a century
..
Bowling wise .. uhmm .. I am looking forward to Zaheer’s
come back into the test team and for his own good I hope Irfan Pathan is not in
the playing eleven. Sree Santh would be doing his bowling in low 120s and staring
at batsmen bit, while V.R.V. Singh .. ehh .. I hate that guys bowling .. dude
.. show some life ..
Kumble should be the man to watch out for .. I hope he does
his best ..
But for all we know .. by the time you are reading this,
at some 300 for 2 .. with centuries from Sehwag and Sachin after bowling out
the opposition for 122 , Thanks to 4 wickets from Irfan Pathan and 5 from
Singh.
That is the beauty of this game . my friend