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[Cernunnos]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/-mOW0Imy1zo&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/-mOW0Imy1zo&rel=0</a>

One can only appreciate the change in attitude ushered in by the likes of Ganguly in the 00's when they see the 80's Indian mentality.

I recall Border's shameless time-wasting at one stage. I am sure antics like that on "4:40" influenced that idiot Vikram Raju to cave in. Border's reaction on that fatal delivery tells it all that there was an inside edge.
Shastri's advice to Maninder to play out 2 deliveries and hit out out on the last ball was stupid to say the least. With such a negative mindset, I am glad he captained only 1 test.

[avinashgodkhindi]

Hey cerenous

I don't think shastri is to be blamed here. Even Ab accepts shastri kept us in the game, the likes of yadav,more ,chetan they need a kick in the butt. when this man is scoring sixers why did they need to gift their wicket. He never asked him to defend the two balls, he advised maninder to try and score and if not have a go on the last one. makes sense doesn't it, the pressure was getting to both sides. lets say maninder goes for a big one on the fourth ball and gets out. who knows if mattews would have bowled a long hop on the 5 or 6th ball because of the heat,pressure, crowd etc. He could also have bowled a beauty but the worst that could have happened was maninder getting out, which was highly likely if he had a go on the 4th ball itself. On the last ball, there is no more supply of possible loose deliveries, you have to have a go. Perfectly sensible. tactically, Shastri was the best captain india had ( atleast in the era that i have seen cricket since 1983-85) and he had great guts to fight it out. SG is a great motivator but shastri was in a different league when it came ot tactics. Do you know he won the test against windies by getting hirwani all the way from gorakhpur. Hiru was less than 18 then and the BCCI rules stated that he needed parental consent too play. hiru had run away from home and played and his father was in no modd to let go. Shastri want all the way to gorakhpur to speak to his parents and get the consent, begged and convinced the father that hiru would be taken care of. He was the won who pushed hiru's case to the selectors . What desire to win, what patriotism! He was never negative, he would be a great coach for india. Do you know that at 23 he declined captaincy stating that he felt he was too young to get it, and that kaps was a better chocie at that stage? Well bro, thats patriotism and team spirit.
Even today you hear him comment ,he is always pro india, which I like. when Bill lawry can be unbiasedly aussie why not R Shastri?

[Cernunnos]

Ok maybe I was bit harsh on Shastri, the anger of seeing Vikram Raju got on to me. But if you see the video Maninder didn't even try to score on that ball. I think that's a result of Shastri's "Wait for the last ball" advice. Even the previous ball he just defended. He was not saving a test here. The test was already saved, as Shastri said "we had nothing to lose". Then why not go for it right away? At least play a shot, what do you achieve by playing out dot balls? It is literally playing into the hands of the close in catchers. There were no slips even for an edged drive. Totally wrong tactics IMO.

Hey cerenous

I don't think shastri is to be blamed here. Even Ab accepts shastri kept us in the game, the likes of yadav,more ,chetan they need a kick in the butt. when this man is scoring sixers why did they need to gift their wicket. He never asked him to defend the two balls, he advised maninder to try and score and if not have a go on the last one. makes sense doesn't it, the pressure was getting to both sides. lets say maninder goes for a big one on the fourth ball and gets out. who knows if mattews would have bowled a long hop on the 5 or 6th ball because of the heat,pressure, crowd etc. He could also have bowled a beauty but the worst that could have happened was maninder getting out, which was highly likely if he had a go on the 4th ball itself. On the last ball, there is no more supply of possible loose deliveries, you have to have a go. Perfectly sensible. tactically, Shastri was the best captain india had ( atleast in the era that i have seen cricket since 1983-85) and he had great guts to fight it out. SG is a great motivator but shastri was in a different league when it came ot tactics. Do you know he won the test against windies by getting hirwani all the way from gorakhpur. Hiru was less than 18 then and the BCCI rules stated that he needed parental consent too play. hiru had run away from home and played and his father was in no modd to let go. Shastri want all the way to gorakhpur to speak to his parents and get the consent, begged and convinced the father that hiru would be taken care of. He was the won who pushed hiru's case to the selectors . What desire to win, what patriotism! He was never negative, he would be a great coach for india. Do you know that at 23 he declined captaincy stating that he felt he was too young to get it, and that kaps was a better chocie at that stage? Well bro, thats patriotism and team spirit.
Even today you hear him comment ,he is always pro india, which I like. when Bill lawry can be unbiasedly aussie why not R Shastri?

[LosingNow]

Hey cerenous

I don't think shastri is to be blamed here. Even Ab accepts shastri kept us in the game, the likes of yadav,more ,chetan they need a kick in the butt. when this man is scoring sixers why did they need to gift their wicket. He never asked him to defend the two balls, he advised maninder to try and score and if not have a go on the last one. makes sense doesn't it, the pressure was getting to both sides. lets say maninder goes for a big one on the fourth ball and gets out. who knows if mattews would have bowled a long hop on the 5 or 6th ball because of the heat,pressure, crowd etc. He could also have bowled a beauty but the worst that could have happened was maninder getting out, which was highly likely if he had a go on the 4th ball itself. On the last ball, there is no more supply of possible loose deliveries, you have to have a go. Perfectly sensible. tactically, Shastri was the best captain india had ( atleast in the era that i have seen cricket since 1983-85) and he had great guts to fight it out. SG is a great motivator but shastri was in a different league when it came ot tactics. Do you know he won the test against windies by getting hirwani all the way from gorakhpur. Hiru was less than 18 then and the BCCI rules stated that he needed parental consent too play. hiru had run away from home and played and his father was in no modd to let go. Shastri want all the way to gorakhpur to speak to his parents and get the consent, begged and convinced the father that hiru would be taken care of. He was the won who pushed hiru's case to the selectors . What desire to win, what patriotism! He was never negative, he would be a great coach for india. Do you know that at 23 he declined captaincy stating that he felt he was too young to get it, and that kaps was a better chocie at that stage? Well bro, thats patriotism and team spirit.
Even today you hear him comment ,he is always pro india, which I like. when Bill lawry can be unbiasedly aussie why not R Shastri?

Leaving aside his weakness for the weaker sex..and his awfully slow batting in the Aussie WC(for which I have still not forgiven him)...this man is perhaps the best combination of "guts" cricketer+strategic thinker+articulator India has produced.

[suraj]

How is it Ravi Shastri's fault that Maninder Singh was such an awful batsman that couldn't even score 1 run?? It was onlybecause of RS that we came so close to winning.

The choices he had to really make were whether to go for a big one when he was on strike or atleast score a single to ensure a tie and hope that a batsman playing at intl level even if he is a no. 11 player can squeeze one run.

I distinctly remember that match and Cerrunous if you are saying it was because of negative mindset that's not true. Instead it was a case of some bravery by tailenders but unaccompanied with the shrewdness that could have gotten us a victory.

Here is an example: Shivlal Yadav was on strike and while the Aussies expected him to play the over out he stepped out of the crease to loft the ball for a six. If RS is blamed for Maninder not going for a run- does he get credit for this??

The fact is that Shivlal probably did this on his own and while this coupled with Shastri's 48 off 40 definitely showed positive intent Yadav's inability to control himself is the missing shrewedness. After the six it was advantage India and all that was needed was Yadav should support Ravi while he takes us to victory but Shiv went for another big one trying to be  a hero when only 3 runs were needed and was bowled.

We were 331 for 6 at one stage needing only 17 to win with 4 wkts in hand but failures like this brought the Aussies back again. And please, Maninder Singh was totally clueless in the 4 balls he faced- he could not even score whether he wanted to or not.

[kban1]

I think some of you guys are going overboard in your praise of Shastri the tactician or Shastri the captain.

He had a good tactical brain and India probably missed out in not having him as a captain for a longer period, but he was no Brearley by any shot, not even close.

The fact is we have had so few opportunities to see Shastri captain on the main stage, that the sample is too small to make an accurate assessment. Even Kapil made some good cricketing decisions but we do not necessarily rank Kapil as a tacticallly brilliant captain (he certainly qualifies under the inspirational part) simply because the wider sampling brought to the forefront his weaknesses as well.

Not saying Shastri may not have been all that given a chance, the fact is there are too few data points to draw this definitive a conclusion.

On a completely different note (I am not sure if this video clip has it or not), India would have won the test had the umpires correctly called one of Shastri's 6's as a six. They did not --they called it as a 4.

Also, I have not watched the clip (still at work) but do you guys know if this is the same footage that ABC (autralian broadcasting Corp) recently broadcast (I believe they did a special on the Madras test just this weekend in Australia) ? If so, maybe the footage has been remastered or cleaned up and could make for a little better viewing.