Careful Man, Thats My Initiative You're Handing Back

Over at Trent Bridge, India have managed to play themselves into a position, where they could lose by a day to spare. On the first day, they had England by the throat at 124-8 and then, thanks to a Stuart Broad counterattack and a rather depressing reappearance of what I can only term "the eight-wickets-down-blues" saw them get away to 221 (by this I mean bowlers stopped doing whatever it was that had gotten them the eight wickets thus far, the captain's field lacked imagination and the fielding grew ragged). Yesterday, thanks to the Dravid-Yuvraj partnership, India looked like building up a 150 run lead, and then suddenly, spectacularly, everything went pear-shaped. Broad was back again; this time with a hat-trick, sparked off by the Indian captain's dismissal. Dhoni continues to have a poor series; one wonders how he is going to dig himself out of this hole.

A lead of 67 with more than three days left in the game is simply not good enough (as I write this, England are already 57-1, and have been rattling along at almost a run-a-minute this morning). Chasing anything over 200, given the flakiness in the current line-up, is going to be supremely difficult. More to the point, the team chasing is going to have to work hard to move their minds on from the thought that they never should have been in a sticky situation.

This is a test match; strange things happen. Initiatives are gained by hard work, and handing them back is never a good idea. Especially away from home, and especially when you are 0-1 down.

Poetic justice in hat-tricks?

Some ten or so years ago, Harbhajan Singh brought about India's first test hat-trick: he dismissed Ponting, Gilchrist and Warne. Today, Harbhajan became a member of the triad of victims in the first hat-trick ever achieved against India in test matches. But the similarity doesn't end there. Harbhajan's second victim, Gilchrist was out LBW, even though he had inside-edged the ball onto his pads; today, Harbhajan was the second victim of this hat-trick, and he too, was LBW, off an inside edge. What the hat-trick gods giveth, they sometimes taketh as well.

Stuart Broad ain't no John McEnroe

A new post, following up my earlier post on Stuart Broad, is up at Different Strokes.

Broady you silly boy

Over at Different Strokes, I join the party in having a go at Stuart Broad (via having a go at Duncan Fletcher's lame defense of him in the Guardian).

Stuart Broad doesn't like umpires

Will Stuart Broad ever, I mean ever, get nailed for dissent? No other modern international cricketer throws as many tantrums as this kid and gets away with it. What is it that makes him untouchable?