Last day blues
A typical Indian last-day meltdown underway at Lord's. Two wickets before lunch to good balls. A small partnership from Laxman and Dhoni, and then just desperate hoping that rain would close in. But it hasn't, and both Zaheer and RP Singh have played some utterly brain-dead cricket as well (Dhoni hasn't helped either by exposing the tail and continuing to take risks - to be fair though, he has played a much more responsible innings than usual). Ah, well. It seems India is determined to let England take a lead in this three-test series.
posted by Samir Chopra at 10:18 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Samir
I was at Lords yesterday and( btw I found your post on your visit to Lords in 1996 very interesting)I found Dhoni's batting quite curious. He does not know how to play defensive shots and played these great expansive shots when he was not looking to score.He was still the reason India lasted that long and this innings will serve hoim well for future situations.
It is always difficult to bat with the tail and even KP struggled the other day and Dhoni showed a lot of faith in the tail, rather foolishly in some cases.
It is all set up nicely for the next match, where I think both teams go with a lot of positives, especially in the bowling department.
I have taken some pics of the match and are on my blog at:
http://rash-cricketchat.blogspot.com/
Rashmika,
Thanks for your comment. I was struck by Dhoni's batting as well. A part of me wants him to play his natural game all the time (bear in mind that had he smashed 50 in quick time, the English could have panicked), but he is a bit of a loose cannon, and all his heaves don't always come off. I was impressed by his attempts to reign himself in, but also struck how its not a very natural act for him (and hence the silly singles off the first ball, or the occasional big hits when it got to be too much. Mind you, theres something to be said for letting tailenders acquire confidence by letting them face (an Aussie tactic) but I think those tailenders have a little more batting talent than ours.
Cheers,
Samir
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