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[keep-it-cool]

im confident srt will score a century in hobart batting first to take us to the finals. that will be his ticket to 2 consecutive failures in the final. 

i would take that .. and then GG, RS, MSD and RU can win us the finals!!

[gouravk]

with srt scoring 5, vs 4 and ys 3 ? and the score being 30/3 chasing 280+ ? you think they can do that ?

[keep-it-cool]

with srt scoring 5, vs 4 and ys 3 ? and the score being 30/3 chasing 280+ ? you think they can do that ?

yesterday, they reached 299 from 50/4!!

[achutank]

Would you take  and mera advice and drop Gambhir and give Raina a go?
Will Mukesh get a chance instead of Uttappa?

:D

yeah airy fairy and ultabat have been given so many chances its time they earned their salaries, good they came good, now i like to see some consistency there

two centuries, highest scorer in the series by a margin of more than 50 runs .. top or second highest scorer across more than 50% of the matches - that is GG for you

two innings where he could have reasonably hoped to play a big hand ... one cut short by a run out and a 50+ score at a SR of well over 100 - that is RU for you

These two have been the only consistent ones along with MSD. Actually make that consistently good ones. SRT and VS have been consistently pathetic this series.

a few swallows not a summer make KIC lets see how these two branch out - have seen enough of their cricket to know that luck and conditions are bigger contributors to their game than technique and temperament

[gouravk]

with srt scoring 5, vs 4 and ys 3 ? and the score being 30/3 chasing 280+ ? you think they can do that ?

yesterday, they reached 299 from 50/4!!

and yet we were always behind the eight ball werent we ? it never seriously looked like we were going to win.

[dhruvdeepak]

im confident srt will score a century in hobart batting first to take us to the finals. that will be his ticket to 2 consecutive failures in the final. 

yeah what a loser. scoring the 100 in a knockout match

[gouravk]

and then failing in the finals as is his birthright. 

[keep-it-cool]

with srt scoring 5, vs 4 and ys 3 ? and the score being 30/3 chasing 280+ ? you think they can do that ?

yesterday, they reached 299 from 50/4!!

and yet we were always behind the eight ball werent we ? it never seriously looked like we were going to win.

i agree .. it may not have looked that bad were we chasing only 280

anyway, my point was that these guys can do it .. whether they will or not, we'll have to see match by match.

[keep-it-cool]

Would you take  and mera advice and drop Gambhir and give Raina a go?
Will Mukesh get a chance instead of Uttappa?

:D

yeah airy fairy and ultabat have been given so many chances its time they earned their salaries, good they came good, now i like to see some consistency there

two centuries, highest scorer in the series by a margin of more than 50 runs .. top or second highest scorer across more than 50% of the matches - that is GG for you

two innings where he could have reasonably hoped to play a big hand ... one cut short by a run out and a 50+ score at a SR of well over 100 - that is RU for you

These two have been the only consistent ones along with MSD. Actually make that consistently good ones. SRT and VS have been consistently pathetic this series.

a few swallows not a summer make KIC lets see how these two branch out - have seen enough of their cricket to know that luck and conditions are bigger contributors to their game than technique and temperament

well, these guys have done well at least this summer .. unlike what was expected by most ... luck can get you to 20 and 30, maybe .. it cant get you to two hundreds in 7 matches.

[gouravk]

well if one needs luck at all it is mostly in those first 20-30 runs ...

[keep-it-cool]

well if one needs luck at all it is mostly in those first 20-30 runs ...

so, how was he lucky yesterday?

[gouravk]

well there were a lot of flashes and plays and misses ...

[keep-it-cool]

well there were a lot of flashes and plays and misses ...

of course .. we were chasing at over run a ball .. SRT was out and you still need to score at a very healthy rate ... so, there were risks taken.

at least, if this guy has shown that if he gets in, he has the ability to go on and play big plus score fast as he plays big .. he has also admitted (including after yesterday's knock) that he is trying to play straighter and knock off the square of the wicket shots early in his innings.

[gouravk]

yes, that is the point. he tries to play square too often early on which leads to those false shots and at times gets him out. that is why all these days i have been talking about flashiness bordering on fluke. plus he tries to go too hard at the ball as well ...

it is good that he understands where his problem lies ... at least he can work on it.

[broadbat]

yes, that is the point. he tries to play square too often early on which leads to those false shots and at times gets him out.

Er are we talking about SRT or GG?

[gouravk]

hehe .. what do you think ? 

let me clarify ... he looks to use the square drive far more than the cover drive or the drive to mid off which is causing all the problems outside off stump.

[justforkix]

Did Dhoni lose us the match today?

Actually he tried very hard to win it for us. Unfortunately he can do only so much each time and not more...

I don't really agree. I think 36 of 66 was an ordinary effort especially when he struggled to get a move on and was also struggling to get even Pup off the square. His getting out gave us a batter chance for a win.

Neither do I agree with you. you are looking at just 36 in 66 without putting it in proper context. He came in at 51/4 in 10. 2 overs. If he were to go bang, bang at that time or try and hit Clarke it could have gone the other way too. The need of the hour was to consolidate since there were enough overs left at that stage. His partnership with Gamhir provided that consolidation as well as the launch pad. He got out at the wrong time otherwise I am pretty sure he would have hit Hogg and Michael Clarke out of the park in the later stages.

If anyone really wants to find someone to blame for today's loss, he needs to look else where, Dhoni is no where in that list

Wrong. Clarke came on much after MSD had consolidated and settled down. No one asked him to bang bang from the word go. And no one asked him to go bang bang against Clarke too. But he was not even getting the singles against him. Even after 40+ balls, he was not even getting Clarke off for singles !! So, your comment about MSD trying very hard to win it for us today is clearly over the top IMO. MSD was clearly struggling to accelerate w.r.t. GG.

[justforkix]

with srt scoring 5, vs 4 and ys 3 ? and the score being 30/3 chasing 280+ ? you think they can do that ?

yesterday, they reached 299 from 50/4!!

and yet we were always behind the eight ball werent we ? it never seriously looked like we were going to win.

Not exactly - just before bhajji got out, we needed 28 from 15 balls with 3 wickets in hand with Uthappa and Bhajji at the crease. We had a great chance to win, but just did not go our way. Once RU+GG brought us within 120 runs, I thought we had a great chance.

[broadbat]

The impression I got was that MSD was only trying to ensure that another wicket did not go down at that time. My feeling was that he was trying to get the game into a T20 kind of situation and take it from there. But it did not work out with him getting out. It left too much for the others to do.

[gouravk]

yet MSD the batsman is not the one to be blamed.

[justforkix]

I did not blame MSD for the defeat. But I cannot call it an excellent one and trying hard to win it for us either. He could have easily added 10 more runs in the same number of balls with risk-free cricket.

[keep-it-cool]

The impression I got was that MSD was only trying to ensure that another wicket did not go down at that time. My feeling was that he was trying to get the game into a T20 kind of situation and take it from there. But it did not work out with him getting out. It left too much for the others to do.

Not exactly - just before bhajji got out, we needed 28 from 15 balls with 3 wickets in hand with Uthappa and Bhajji at the crease. We had a great chance to win, but just did not go our way. Once RU+GG brought us within 120 runs, I thought we had a great chance.

The problem with making it a T20 kind of scenario was that we did not have the cushion of wickets that this approach demanded. Having said that, from 50/4, it was the best possible approach ... although I wish Dhoni had been a bit more effective in scoring runs while doing the consolidation job.

JFK, while we were in with a chance at that stage, with no one else to come in, Australia were always in the box seat. 8 times out of 10, they would have won it. So, in that sense, we were always playing catch up once GG went.

[achutank]

The impression I got was that MSD was only trying to ensure that another wicket did not go down at that time. My feeling was that he was trying to get the game into a T20 kind of situation and take it from there. But it did not work out with him getting out. It left too much for the others to do.

Not exactly - just before bhajji got out, we needed 28 from 15 balls with 3 wickets in hand with Uthappa and Bhajji at the crease. We had a great chance to win, but just did not go our way. Once RU+GG brought us within 120 runs, I thought we had a great chance.

The problem with making it a T20 kind of scenario was that we did not have the cushion of wickets that this approach demanded. Having said that, from 50/4, it was the best possible approach ... although I wish Dhoni had been a bit more effective in scoring runs while doing the consolidation job.

JFK, while we were in with a chance at that stage, with no one else to come in, Australia were always in the box seat. 8 times out of 10, they would have won it. So, in that sense, we were always playing catch up once GG went.

actually even if we play one blinder of an innings at the top it keeps the run rate within control when we have our tradiitonal top order collapse. like Dada's 64 from 40 balls in Natwest.

[gouravk]

Agreed. Which is why a completely out of sorts SRT and never been good enough VS at the top is a wrong combination.

[caught and bowled]

Did Dhoni lose us the match today?

Actually he tried very hard to win it for us. Unfortunately he can do only so much each time and not more...

I don't really agree. I think 36 of 66 was an ordinary effort especially when he struggled to get a move on and was also struggling to get even Pup off the square. His getting out gave us a batter chance for a win.

Neither do I agree with you. you are looking at just 36 in 66 without putting it in proper context. He came in at 51/4 in 10. 2 overs. If he were to go bang, bang at that time or try and hit Clarke it could have gone the other way too. The need of the hour was to consolidate since there were enough overs left at that stage. His partnership with Gamhir provided that consolidation as well as the launch pad. He got out at the wrong time otherwise I am pretty sure he would have hit Hogg and Michael Clarke out of the park in the later stages.

If anyone really wants to find someone to blame for today's loss, he needs to look else where, Dhoni is no where in that list

Wrong. Clarke came on much after MSD had consolidated and settled down. No one asked him to bang bang from the word go. And no one asked him to go bang bang against Clarke too. But he was not even getting the singles against him. Even after 40+ balls, he was not even getting Clarke off for singles !! So, your comment about MSD trying very hard to win it for us today is clearly over the top IMO. MSD was clearly struggling to accelerate w.r.t. GG.

You might say my comment was over the top. However if you just care to look at what I was replying to, you would get the answer. That question was was "Did Dhoni lose us the match today". There is no way it was that. He was working hard to take us to win from an almost impossible position.

You could never say that he had fully consolidated and settled down because we were chasing 320 and an extra wicket at tany stage would have certainly meant curtains for us. he himself has said in his post match interview that he didnt think he played slowly because a wicket at that stage would have meant we would fold up by 150-180.

The bowling was good and restrictive, the field was set in such a way that if one had to score one would be forced to take risks which we could ill afford at that time. The fielding was superb. I had the impression that Dhoni was setting himself for attack at an opportune time when the equation of overs remaining vs run required was less risky, Unfortunately he got out at the wrong time.

[OldPal]

The impression I got was that MSD was only trying to ensure that another wicket did not go down at that time. My feeling was that he was trying to get the game into a T20 kind of situation and take it from there. But it did not work out with him getting out. It left too much for the others to do.

Once you have 4 down .. you will have to have 20-20 with 4 down.

[keep-it-cool]

The impression I got was that MSD was only trying to ensure that another wicket did not go down at that time. My feeling was that he was trying to get the game into a T20 kind of situation and take it from there. But it did not work out with him getting out. It left too much for the others to do.

Not exactly - just before bhajji got out, we needed 28 from 15 balls with 3 wickets in hand with Uthappa and Bhajji at the crease. We had a great chance to win, but just did not go our way. Once RU+GG brought us within 120 runs, I thought we had a great chance.

The problem with making it a T20 kind of scenario was that we did not have the cushion of wickets that this approach demanded. Having said that, from 50/4, it was the best possible approach ... although I wish Dhoni had been a bit more effective in scoring runs while doing the consolidation job.

JFK, while we were in with a chance at that stage, with no one else to come in, Australia were always in the box seat. 8 times out of 10, they would have won it. So, in that sense, we were always playing catch up once GG went.

actually even if we play one blinder of an innings at the top it keeps the run rate within control when we have our tradiitonal top order collapse. like Dada's 64 from 40 balls in Natwest.

Yes. I have always been in favour of optimising the powerplays. At this point, only NZ seems to be doing that. McCullum is scary at the top. Kolkata have got a great guy on their team.