Aus-Ind-Eng: The Carlton Mid Triangular

First topic message reminder :

I like triangulars  that Aus hosts...there is a continuity and history with these.

and Just before the world cup...the 3 big brothers get the prime practise slot in the world cup conditions.....
it's a shame Aus found  no space for Harris and Lyon in the world cup squad...and India couldn't accommodate Vijay.( see story in next post)

to me in the triangular Aus are sure to make the finals and Ind inspite of their excellent overall record are about even with Eng...
better batting than Eng but the spinners that Ind relies so much on are not as much effective

India slipping here, 237-6, double strike from Starc, he first got Dhoni to play on and then gets Akshar Patel LBW for 0. All down to Sharma, Ashwin and Kumar to get India to a respectable score. With their bowling, they have to score at least 30 over the par score on any pitch.......

A pathetic umpiring call doing Akshar in by the way. The ball missing the stumps by a country mile.......

Starc gets his 5th, Sharma gone after a fine innings. India 262-7 in the 49th over. India falling short of a solid total here. They don't have the bowling to defend anything less than 290-300 against this lineup. And Starc gets his 6!. Becoming a specialist in double strikes!.

Golden duck for Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Starc on a hat trick!.
Shami manages to keep him out!.

Australia proving my running theory correct. The only way to contain a team at the death is by taking wickets.

India finishing with 267-8 in their 50 overs. Think they are at least 20 short of the par score, and 50 short of the stretch score they need with their substandard bowling.......

Absolutely fabulous from Mitchell Starc, yet again he got a wicket in the first over, and then he got Raina when he was well set and India were in control, then his double strike with the wickets of MSD and Patel derailed the Indian innings and by getting Sharma in the penultimate over and adding Bhuvneshwar next ball, he destroied any chances of India having a flourish at the end.

To say that Rohit Sharma is not my favorite player would be a serious understatement, but it was a fine innings from him. I certainly would rate it over that insane knock he had against Sri Lanka. Right from the first over he had to bat under pressure, and when Rahane and Kohli went within the first 15 overs, it was his responsibility to take the innings forward. He almost batted through the innings and looked in control throughout.
Hopefully this is not his one mandatory good innings of the season.......

Finch and Warner off to a rapid start. India needed early wickets, but the bowlers have no intention to surprise and they are as useless as ever.......
Australia 49-0 after 8.

After a period in which they took 1-13 in 5 overs, Umesh goes for 10 an over and lets the pressure go away.
Australia 72-1 after 14 and in control. Watson starting to get a move on and Finch has been in for some time now and has got a start.

Akshar offering a boundary ball an over, so despite not rotating the strike, the Australians are able to go about alright.

Australia 196-2 after 35. They need 72 of 5 overs to take away a bonus point as well. With Smith and Finch well set, perhaps they can have a go for it, with this Indian bowling, its worth.......

Just saw the closing overs. A good effort by India - lovely dismissal of Bailey by Dhoni (take your pick whether he was caught or stumped down the leg side!) - but Australia have massive strength and composure.

With James Faulkner coming in at 8, that Australian batting has depth. To add to it they have Starc in at 9, and when the original Mitch is back, they will have him at 9 and Starc at 10. With the bowling that India have got, there was no chance against that lineup even with those late wickets in defending a score of 267.
This is the best that the bowlers can do, so the batting will have not only to perform, but also to cover for the feeble bowling unit.......
Hope people have noticed Akshar Patel bowl. He did bowl well, in general kept a decent line and length, without giving too much room to the batsman as he largely kept it stumps to stumps. But he wasn't ripping it across the batsmen, he wasn't really tossing the ball up and challenging the batsmen's technique against spin. In essence, was working pretty much in the Ravindra Jadeja mold.......
He could be a very handy bowler in all formats, particularly when the pitch has some life for the spinner. But he's not going to be India's deadly spin option in overseas conditions, spinning a magical web around the batsmen.......

267 was not a bad effort above par by about 5 runs for the pitch ......and with warner out early, it should have been defended.
but when pitch doesn't afford help to spinners, dhoni needs 30 runs above par to defend

Faulkner the finisher sees the aussies over the line again!!!!!!!!

What to do, despite all his 'conditioning', Dhoni's seamers were bowling to the left, they were bowling to the right, all that the likes of medium pacers Umesh Yadav and the likes had was pace around the 140 KPH region!.
Has to be Dhoni's fault that AB de Villiers was aloud to score all those runs to effortlessly!, has to be his fault, has to be, there is no other explanation!.......

Dhoni does't even attempt to take wickets.......just plug away, trying to choke runs.......and that's the mentality with which his bowlers bowl.
so his batting needs to deliver 30 to 40 runs more than par score when the pitch doesn't assist spinners.

so the bowling cannot win Ind matches nd the day batting faily to be above par by a reasonable margin.......We lose

David Warner copped another fine. He must be one of those guys who really like playing cricket, because he's nearly doing it for free at this rate.

Lost 50% of his match fee...

Lucky the ICC didn't take it further could easily been taken as racially motivated

kingraf wrote:David Warner copped another fine. He must be one of those guys who really like playing cricket, because he's nearly doing it for free at this rate.

I can't really type the word that best describes David Warner. A very talented cricketer, but clearly an absolute and utter p****

Yeah, Warner does get a little lucky there. Telling someone to speak English in and of itself isn't a derogatory statement, but like all things in linguistics, the human race has for the last few hundred years made a right effort of making it so.

England v India is next up. Having lost their opening games, both sides would want to have their campaign underway in this game.
As usual, India would be looking up to their batsmen to stretch the total beyond the par score so that the bowlers can get away with the usual rubbish. England would be counting on their superior bowling to restrict the Indian batting to at least par levels that should give their batting a better chance. If the Indian bowlers or the England batsmen can add some surprises, the game would be more interesting.......

It is an interesting match. Expect India to win, but, barring any demons on the deck, if England can't score biggish here... Someone needs to fake an injury, and hope for the best from the faded KP.

If Dhoni fires, 250 is realistic

Nice one, raf. Now he's gone thanks to your optimism!

Woooaahh! England and Finn especially seem to enjoy bowling at the 'Gabba today.

Hah! Finn on a hat trick.

That's it then. England are back in form again....

Doesn't take much adjustment to get their confidence back. That first ball wicket from Anderson helped and the rest have bowled quite tidily.

Or maybe just a bad day at the crease for India? 200 runs will be a push from here as Kumar gets cleaned up from our man Jimmy.

Probably just a bad day, but this is a reminder of what I said a few times during the Lanka series. It all becomes a little different on faster pitches and England minimise the gap between them and the sub continental teams once the wicket picks up some pace

Today couldn't be helped and he had to, but every now and then, Dhoni does take so long to set up that if he fails, the innings collapses within itself.

Would have been better if England had worn their red strip today. All this blue is killing me. OK, England have the navy strides... but I'd like a little more differentiation please.

I saw a bit of the NZ-SL match this morning too. Both wearing predominantly blue. Imagine a quadrangular tournament between them all? (ha ha..)

Oh dear, this will be a short match. India are 9 down now as Binny departs for 44.

Remarkable catch from Ali there, over his shoulder, near the boundary

Super catch from Ali! Good use of beard (as gyroscope) to stay off the rope.
India all out for 153.

I need a cup of tea.

Every time I look at Moeen I feel a tinge of anger at the fact that he has such a full beard. Patchiness sucks.

Just keep eating your oats every morning, mate.

You'll be fine.

I don't think it's the Oats... have it for breakfast every morning, and eat oat-banana chocolates for snacks. My dad has a pretty full beard... so I can only assume my maternal grandfather was patchy. He never did grow his facial hair

You must have a decent gloss factor on your sparse threads, surely?
As soon as you stop thinking about it - it will flourish.

Yeah, I think India look a little jaded here. England look full of confidence on the other hand.

Assuming England close this out it will be a very good confidence boosting win.

And I think its really important to get to the final to play in a pressure game.

Rest of the series we also need a win from setting a total.

Achieve both of the above and we will be well set to cause a few surprises in the WC

A good sequence of boxes to tick, VTR.

I like the way you put it.

I see Australia have included Mitchell Marsh and Cameron White for their next match on Friday.

Johnson is still having a break, Hazlewood has a minor heel problem, Bailey is suspended (due to poor over rates) and Warner has been left out.... to give his mouth a rest.

Probably give his accountant a rest too. Must be hard justifying tax breaks for fines.

The game today is a case in point I made.......
When there is no help for the spinners.....India needs their batting to score above par.

the day batting scores par or below par.....Dhoni has not even conditioned his team to think that sometimes bowlers need to win the games on par or below par scores.

And I see an acceptance of this disturbing tendency  amongst most fans also...that it is only batsman's job to put a hugely padded cushioned score.

Completely given up that bowling can also have anything more than a restrictive role.

Well then we can give up any aspirations during this world cup

Good to see Finn getting back in form.

I don't think we batted well, especially after choosing to bat, " says Dhoni. "The wicket was a bit two-paced to start off and our batsmen did not really play well. We needed to build partnerships, but that did not happen. If a ball is there to hit, you should, but if it needs to be defended, you should watch out. By the time you need to accelerate, there aren't any wickets left. We have to use whatever time is left before the world cup in a useful manner. Staying four and a half months away from home is difficult, but we have to switch on and switch off. We need to switch on and assess what needs to be done in the nets, or wait in the hotel if the need be."

Dhoni's comments confirm the malaise

OK you didn't bat well...but what about showing that you can compete with the ball...stretch Eng to about 40 overs and pluck out some 5 or 6 wickets.....
Eng could have beaten India two times over today

I think you are being too hard on the bowling there. They had literally nothing to defend, once early wickets didn't come then I don't blame them for not really trying that hard.

Its difficult to read much into this match that we didn't already know. If England click, it is a good pace attack capable of taking wickets. We know India are vulnerable to the England attack from the summer.

England can usually chase down anything up to 250 with relative ease.

Would add to my earlier comment, a successful chase of 300+ would be also be a great confidence booster.

Well done England, a nice comfortable win. Well done bookmakers, you got the odds completely the wrong way around; England were always the favourites here.

Didn't watch the game today, but I see India got absolutely smashed. The batting, the only hope of winning the game was a massive let down, and the bowlers were their usual self and didn't surprise at all.
The one good thing for me from this game, Steven Finn's 5for!.

Will England stick to 4 seamers in Anderson, Broad, Woakes and Finn and then use Ali as the only spinner throughout? Since Ali's bowling has evolved considerably, and since Bopara and Root are half-decent bowling options, I think they can actually do that on these tracks.

I would have liked Umesh Yadav to be bowling at 150 KPH and always at the stumps or the batsmen's head, I would like Bhuvneshwar Kumar to swing the ball in and out at 140 KPH, I would like Akshar Patel to spen a web of confusion against helpless batsmen, I would like Stuart Binny to always bowl tight line and length and give nothing away and chip in with wickets regularly.
But that requires that their skill levels are to be at that level. Unfortunatly, none of our bowlers are extraordinary. They haven't evolved into fine operators through long experience either. They haven't come through a domestic program that gives them something to work with, (remember the scores in the last couple of challenger tournaments, can't remember much under 350 regularly). So with not much in the 'extraordinary' department in terms of skills, without much in terms of experience, the only way is to hope the batsmen will save the day.
But calamities like today's can happen now and then, in such conditions, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever........ Not the ideal situation, but that's what it is if you are an Indian supporter.......