Something happened this morning(my time anyway)...but I shall not talk talk about that.
No.Shush. :-$
Too depressing.
:-(
Instead I'll wonder why that one whose name shall not be taken took 3 wickets and scored 49 runs.
Hmpf.
And who the heck is Dougie B???
Plus isn't half of the Australian team down with swine-flu or something?
(Yup I read that on Cricinfo.)
No.Too darn depressing.
Instead I'll focus on Uppal.Mana Hyderabad.
And I'll sing, à°®ా à°¤ెà°²ేà°—ు తల్à°²ి à°•ి మల్à°²ి à°ªూ...
I don't know what I wrote there...I am guessing it'sOK.
(Sharath, correct chestawa tappulu unte?)
Meanwhile in other news Kohli batted at #3.
Uff! These are the times I wonder if Dhoni has bumped his pretty li'l head against the wall and lost all cricketing sense.
Or I conveniently blame Kirsten.
Why the heck did god invent Raina if he wasnt't going to be sent in at #3?
Meanwhile all of you who said that 7-match series are too long... (who me? Never!) see now it's a 3-match series.
Later.
Pakistan's Muddle Order.
1 hour ago
34 Maidens bowled!!:
Leela, you're perfectly right:
GOD INVENTED RAINA FOR NUMBER THREE.
But it's depressing, after such a good performance with the ball. It's an uncomfortable roiling somewhere in my gut, and I bet the Indians are feeling just as uncomfortable.
Whoa!
My fav would-be doc is alive and kicking!!
Whatzup gf?
:-)
I did not see the match. Got the news on public transport from a friend that we lost.
:-(
Won't see it.
C'mon now. Think positive energy & power of intention. Isn't that what they are teaching you in med school nowadays?
à°®ేà°°ు à°¤ెà°²ుà°—ు à°µాà°°ి à°…à°¨ి à°¤ెà°²ిà°¸ి à°à°²ె సన్à°¤ొà°·à°®ుà°— ఉన్నది.
మన à°µెధవుà°²ు ఛల à°Žà°…à°¸్à°¯్ à°…à°¨ుà°•ునరు. à°•ాà°²ు zఆరి పద్దరు.
Dhoni insisted Kohli was a bundle of talent and waxed eloquent on how much energy he brings into the side. How about some occasional runs as well, Mahi?
I love Dougie B, but fellow Aussies insisted he was a waste of space. Which is what they said about my Nathan as well. I love it when I'm right (which is frequently).
A miracle occurred yesterday and the Aussies made the series 2-2. So at least it won't be a dire 6-1 defeat. It'll be a slightly less dire 5-2 defeat instead.
Peter Siddle is on way home now as well. Our injury list just keeps on growing ...
well what you have written has not been translated in a good way.But your intentions were understood :)
there are two mistakes the correct script would be
à°®ా à°¤ెà°²ుà°—ు తల్à°²ిà°•ి మల్à°²ెà°ªూà°¦ంà°¡ (Maa Telugu Talli ki Mallepoodanda)
btw
*Sharath, correct chestawa tappulu unte* is spot on!
the thing i hate about the Uppal stadium is no home team has ever won a match in that stadium! ( India has lost 2 ODI's there and we all know about the Deccan Chargers there :( )
Hoping India reverse the trend !
Ha ha, nice to be back Leela. :D
Considering I've come off from a year of pulling apart dead bodies soaked in formalin to prowling hospital corridors poking at abcesses soaked in disinfectant, I'm not really feeling much of the "positive energy" - or New-Agey at all. :p
I take it the next match is in Hyderabad then. As Geoffrey Rush once said, "You win some, you lose some. You can't lose them all."
The problem with the team is SRT. I wish he'd take the "rest" he always seems to take after a few matches. Then the batting order would be just fine. While Sehwag was going berserk, he just threw the Aussies the lifeline they were looking for.
I did not see the match live but "watched it in retrospect" today and was shocked at how openly the commentators were blathering on about the 17,000 run mark. Gavaskar was positively ready to pop a baby when SRT came within a hit or two of the mark. Yikes!
Made me think of: "For want of a nail..." and all that jazz. Ugh!
The last time SRT played a ball "on its merit" was when it was lying on his mother's sewing machine. What scares me is the MSD is thundering down that path with each advancing month. He isn't quite there yet but he is well on his way.
And the sad part is that I LIKE watching SRT bat (at least when he is not in a predetermined mode...which invariably these days seems to be to defend).
Did forget to comment this though.
Good stuff by MSD to WALK in the last match. I'm guessing of the present lot, he is the only one who has WALKED consistently ???
It's late here and my head can't think right on this point, but I really can't think of anyone else who WALKS these days !
Leela you really need to be ' online' a lot more to get the comments in quickly :-)
Good win yesterday for the Aus ! Sets the series up perfectly and makes sure I have something to wake up to at 4 in the morning on Sunday :-)
That Sachin LBW was a howler but what got my goat was reading today that ' millions were waiting for SRT to cross 17,000 ODI runs'. I was like WTF - surely the millions wanted an Indian win !!!!
The earlier the stupid media infatuation with individual records ends, the better. I shudder to think of the Indian media reaction when SRT decides to call it a day !!
Mahek - the stakes for the bet is perfect. Albeit I think Aus have more chance of winning this series, than Man Utd beating Liverpool :-) I couldn't believe the result two weekends ago at Anfield ! Anyways I'm up for it.
Sharath - didn't take any offence when you suggested that I was fighting a losing battle. To each his own opinion, or in this case - my opinion against the rest of you :-)
Here's to a 3-2 score for the Aus come Thursday. Would be a Houdini act so to speak, seeing how their pacemen are leaving the series. Wonder who is next - and even bigger amazement is that Watson is still playing :-)
Cheers
I repeat what I said in response to your last post, Leela. Kohli should not be in the team. I don't care how talented he is. I don't care how good a fielder he is. I don't care how much 'energy' he brings to the dressing room. International cricket is not where Under-19 stars should be blooded. That's what we have first-class cricket for. Look at what happened to our last 'great' Under-19 player, Irfan Pathan. I daresay if we had been patient with him, he would have been a very good cricketer for India. But no, we pick him when he is 19, make him believe he is the next Akram, and four years later he's nowhere to be seen. It would be sad indeed if the same thing happens with Kohli.
Yuvraj and Kaif, though they were under-19 stars, did time in first class cricket and then came back into the national team (the latter is still doing time, but that's an argument for another time).
Send him back to whichever state he is from, and in three years if he has performances behind him, pick him. The sooner we stop trying to unearth the next Tendulkar, the better. Tendulkar was an aberration. We're NOT going to find another 17-year old prodigy. We should first accept that and start picking 24-25 year olds who've had four or five years of success at domestic level.
Dhoni should be our career template moving forward (debut at 24); not Tendulkar.
About that Telugu sentence, Aditya did the job admirably well. I don't want to steal any of his thunder by repeating what he said :-)
Maithreyi,
I say this with a great deal of respect for your tribe...
Eww.
Som,
I like Kohli, just not at #3.
Sid,
How kind of you to say it was a miracle.
Sigh.
I wish the Men in Blue take the next one.
SB,
I understood the first line; thanks for saying that.
From the 2nd line I picked up the word, "vedhavalu" (right?)... totally agree.
Aditya,
I know... that stupid statistic. I wish India win.
TG,
I need to be "online" more often so that I can actually watch a match!
:-)
See that's why one likes MSD.
Sharath,
Like I said, I like Kohli.
Of course I am one of those that still believes in Kaif... but that's a topic for a diff day.
I would prefer Kohli down the order though.
JQ,
SMG(in this case "Dronacharya") has that whole "Arjuna" hangover wrt Sachin.
He seems to believe that Sachin's records might get appended to his stats.. or something like that.
Highly irritating, I agree.
@ TG
"...surely the millions wanted an Indian win..."
This attitude is a conditioned reflex born out of the long, barren 1990s, TG. You see, back then, there was only one way India could win any match, and that is if Tendulkar got a big score. So back then, "Do you want India to win or do you want Tendulkar to get a hundred?" was a silly question, because the former didn't happen without the latter.
Nowadays, things are a little different, but the association remains. Like Pavlov's dogs that salivated at the sound of a bell, we still yearn for Tendulkar to break more and more batting records, because we have been conditioned to believe that if Tendulkar does well, India does well.
That is why newer fans of the game - people who started following cricket in the new millenium - are not as enamoured of Tendulkar. It's not their fault, because unless you've not witnessed the 1990s, it just cannot be described how literally he carried the team. It was almost superhuman.
"...he is the only one who has WALKED consistently..."
He has been known to walk for LBW appeals, on occasion.
TG, you'd be surprised as to how many people would love to see India lose so that Dhoni cops flak from all quarters. Fans of Ganguly, Dravid and Tendulkar think Dhoni hasn't treated their favourite player well, which to the unbiased means he hasn't deferred to them.
You can expect Gavaskar and Shastri to drool over Tendulkar. They are obsessed with Mumbai cricketers and Tendulkar is the last world class international cricketer to come from that city. You should hear them talk about Nohit Sharma. It's as if he's Sehwag, Tendulkar and Dravid rolled into one ever-fattening package.
Leela,
You are spooky. Before the series you talked about McDonald in the team. Well, what do you know - he's int he team now!!
It's funny how with a second string team they are troubling us...
My time at castrol cricket with Harsha Bhogle.
Cheers;
Sharath
I've seen SRT bat since his debut and have lived through those barren 90's. What just put me off SRT then and still does is the constant talk of INDIVIDUAL records.
Of course didn't help when likes of Gavaskar and Shastri were drooling over everything SRT did.
Granted it's very very impressive to the point of being unreal, as to what he has achieved, but SRT is no more greater than say a Ronaldo ( the original from Brazil). Save for winning the Champions League trophy, Ronaldo has won everything there is in soccer, including the WC. You never heared the media drooling or salivating over the next Ronaldo record !!
I had this running gag with folks who worshipped SRT that , soon there would be a fragrance in the market - of course talked up by Shastri and Gavaskar, called SRT's BO. The most masculine of fragrance there ever was/is/will be !! I for one can't wait for him to call it a day and with it the media obsession with records. It just grates.
Mahek, the point you raise is precisely why I like MSD. He didn't deferr to the senior guys and the results are there to see. You can't quibble with him, given the results he's achieved.
Leela, well what would you like ? Not being ' ONLINE' and India winning or vice versa ??? ;-)
Lastly, what odds for Kasprowicz moving from the comm box to the Aus playing X1 ?? They have just 13 fit players as I type this.. and one of them is Watson.
My respect for the Aus would go even further ( if that's even possible for me ) if they win the series from here !
Cheers
CPD,
It's not funny... just sad :-(
...
TG,
Leela, well what would you like ? Not being ' ONLINE' and India winning or vice versa ??? ;-)
India winning ANYDAY!
:-)
JQ,
Sigh. I am right even when I don't want to be!
;-)
@ TG
"What just put me off SRT then and still does is the constant talk of INDIVIDUAL records"
That's the whole point of my previous post. When it comes to Tendulkar, for most Indian fans who lived through the 90s, Tendulkar and the Indian Cricket Team are synonymous entities. Tendulkar's record, as far as they're concerned, is India's record. Tendulkar has long ceased to be an individual in the fans' eyes.
"but SRT is no more greater than say a Ronaldo ( the original from Brazil). Save for winning the Champions League trophy, Ronaldo has won everything there is in soccer, including the WC"
No, RONALDO has not won everything there is in Soccer, the Brazil Soccer Team has. Ronaldo had never had to carry Brazil on his own. Besides, in soccer, individual flashes of brilliance can only take you so far. You need at least a bunch of people coordinating well in order to pull off a win. In that sense, it's a 'truer' team sport. Cricket, on the other hand, is an individual sport in the garb of a team sport - as Buchanan liked to say. It's a sport where individuals - if they're brilliant enough - can carry their teams. And no one has done it, I dare say, in history better than Tendulkar through the 90s.
If I were to use your terminology, Ricky Ponting has won everything there is to win in cricket, so does that mean he is as great as, or even greater than, Tendulkar? No, because Ponting, for most of his career, had the luxury of being surrounded by once-in-a-generation players and was part of an all-conquering team. He has never had to carry his team on his shoulders for an extended period of time. And when he had to, he has found it harder than rattling off centuries as part of an invincible team. Don't believe me? Look at his test average after the retirements of McGrath and Warne. Off the top of my head, I think he averages 40-odd in 20-odd test matches (Cricinfo ran an article on the subject not too long ago).
Whereas Tendulkar not only carried the team single-handedly, but he also did it in an era of great fast bowlers and lively pitches. He was one of only three batsmen to have averaged 50 (and I think he averages the most among the three) during the period. Cricinfo ran an article on this too, not too long ago. I am also willing to wager he is the only batsman who averages 50+ BOTH home and away during the 1990s (he still does so now overall). Statsguru should help with this.
There is a reasonable argument to made for Lara that he carried West Indies through the 90s too, and I would agree to a point, but West Indies did have Ambrose, Walsh and Bishop during that time. They could at least hope to take twenty wickets. Who did we have?
By saying all of this, I am not for a moment justifying the mad idolatry that people have for Tendulkar. It is unhealthy, I know. I am just pointing out that it is not without reason :-)
@ Mahek
"Nohit Sharma"
Haha!
TG, it's not Tendulkar's fault if the media wants to focus on his individual records. Even if he retires, the media will harp on the records of some other player, and then another.
Comparing a cricketer's achievements to that of a footballer is unfair. A more apt comparison would be with baseball players as both are team sports with a lot of focus on individual achievements. It's no different in baseball with how the media went crazy when Mark McGwire was about to break Roger Marise's record of most home runs in a season, or when Barry Bonds was on the threshold of becoming the all-time leader in home runs.
Sharath
I don't think anyone needs to explain why Tendulkar is idolised by so many Indians. But people need to realise that the team doesn't live and die by Tendulkar's bat anymore. More importantly, they need to realise that cricket is a team sport. You might think a single player can carry the team but that's absurd. Who was taking all those wickets while Tendulkar was hammering attacks for fun? Would he have scored all those runs if his teammates hadn't stayed at the wicket?
It's this obsession with Tendulkar that's preventing India from using their best combination upfront. I'm afraid we don't have a shot in hell at the 2011 World Cup if the players continue in their current vein of form and Tendulkar opens with Sehwag.
@ Mahek
"Who was taking all those wickets while Tendulkar was hammering attacks for fun"
Kumble at home, nobody overseas. That's why we weren't winning anything :-)
"But people need to realise that the team doesn't live and die by Tendulkar's bat anymore"
I agree; that's why I called it a 'conditioned reflex born in the 1990s'. The situation has changed now, but the reflex remains. And that's why people who've started following cricket in this century are not as taken in by Tendulkar as the ones from the 1990s.
And you're quoting me out of context when you say I think a man can carry a team. I said an individual can carry a team better in cricket than in a 'true' team game like soccer. Mine was a comparative statement - not an absolute one. And even when I say Tendulkar has carried the Indian team better than anyone in history, I mean it as a relative statement - i.e. no one in history has single-handedly carried his team as well as Tendulkar has without letting his own performance flag.
The fact that an individual cannot carry a team (in an absolute sense) is, of course, obvious, and it can be seen readily in the fact that India hardly won anything in the last decade, precisely BECAUSE it was a one-man team.
I am not saying the obsession with Tendulkar and his deeds is healthy; I am just saying it is NATURAL, given what happened in the last decade.
Are you saying Sehwag and Gambhir should open then? And give up on the services of clearly the best opening ODI batsman ever, who has not shown any signs of bad form, injury or being too slow for the game?
Or are you saying Sehwag should drop down and Gambhir should open with Tendulkar?
Viv Richards is the greatest ODI batsman of all time. Does that mean the Windies should bring him back?
Tendulkar has been the best opening batsman in One Day Internationals. But his partnership with Sehwag has not been nearly as successful as the Sehwag-Gambhir combination. So yeah, I'm saying Tendulkar should bat at 3 with Gambhir opening the innings with Sehwag. Of course that will never happen because what Tendulkar wants, Tendulkar gets. It's not his fault, it's the fault of the people who defer to him.
"Viv Richards is the greatest ODI batsman of all time. Does that mean the Windies should bring him back?"
Viv Richards is retired. If he was not, and if he was in good form, had no injuries, and if he was able to keep up with the pace of the game, I don't see why West Indies would NOT bring him back.
If Tendulkar should drop down, there should be compelling enough evidence that he is starting to lose it as an ODI opener. And as I type this, there is none.
For anyone to lose their opening slot there should be compelling enough evidence of a better opening pair. There is enough of it.
Tendulkar is good enough to walk into any side. There is no doubt about that. But he doesn't form as good a partnership with Sehwag as Gambhir.
Post a Comment