Mark Chilton – LiveCricket.in
Chill discusses cricket
Archive for November, 2008
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16th
Not a great start! England have now suffered two humiliating defeats within a fortnight and are going to have to turn things around very quickly to try and regain some confidence. Losing is never fun…but getting whooped is dreadful. They face a stiff challenge, the Indian team look full of confidence in both forms of the game and are taking the game to the opposition by playing positive, aggressive cricket.
My feelings are that they England are going to have to match this and go all out to try and assert themselves from the start of the game. Whether they bat or bowl first tomorrow the first ten overs will be crucial and the game can be won and lost in that time. This puts alot of responsibility on the likes of Matt Prior and Ian Bell with the bat and Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad with the ball.
The injury to Yuvraj Singh would be a bonus after his phenomenal performance the other night!
5th
What a finale….both captains, Ricky Ponting of Australia and Indias golden boy Mahendra Dhoni, have both publicly stated the importance of the final test at Nagpur. After having been comprehensively outplayed in the first three tests, Australia still has a chance to come away from India holding the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
They will be under no illusions though, it will be an incredible result if they pull it off. The pitch will be a huge hurdle for them, all reports suggest a slow, low pitch suited to the spinners….no surprise there then. Australia are still faced with the problem of no Shane Warne, it is time to give Jason Krejza his opportunity. Krejza is relatively unknown but must be there for a reason, he has been selected as the Aussies number one spinner and they have to put some faith in him. Australia have performed well to stay in the series, to follow a huge Indian total of over 600 is never easy no matter how flat the surface and they batted admirably.
Great to see Lancashire new recruit, VVS Laxman, in the runs. He was fabulous in his short stint in 2007 and i am sure we are all looking forward to his arrival. A quick congratulations to him, this will be his 100th match for India….quite an achievement.
My tip….a step to far for Australia. Indian win
2nd
So the bonanza comes to an end in disappointing fashion for the fans and a slightly embarassing one for the England players. Not only did they miss out on the biggest purse of their careers but they also failed to perform even close to their potential on the night. The money is obviously a huge factor but i also think they will be gutted to not have given a better performance.
Right from the start there seemed to be a funny feeling surrounding the whole event. Kevin Pieterson made no bones about the fact that he hadnt enjoyed the experience and there seems to be a cloud over how things will go forward from here. A performance like the one in the final often screams of some sort discontent or lack of focus and maybe the players were uncomfortable with how the whole event turned out. I certainly think Pieterson is on the ball when it comes to preparing and focusing for cricket matches so i find the whole thing quite bizarre.
Although England didnt come out of the whole affair covering themselves in glory i think KP has handled it all with a degree of dignity and that we have the right man in charge.