The Oval Preview: Perspective England

Posted: August 17, 2011 by thecognitivenomad in Cricket, India in England 2011
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Chandrasekhar Jayarama Krishnan

Head of Cricket, The CouchExpert

17 August 2011

 

Let us be honest with ourselves here: any attempt to get the competitive mood a little testier than it was prior to the Edgbaston-induced euphoria might be challenging. The margin of dominance might seem to have alleviated the competitive juices that would have existed before statistics played devil’s advocate – but far from all that, England will target a whitewash. With their openers back in form, the solitary glitch of the series up and until Birmingham was resolved in style.

As painful as Cook’s drab innings was, it is hard to argue that he might have ended up playing the role that was expected of him. For the spectator though, the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility seemed to govern his innings that day when, at one point of time, the value of every additional run scored decreased, at least virtually, as his individual score piled on.

Nevertheless, England’s neoclassical revival couldn’t have hoped for anything more concrete. The nation’s persistent expectations were finally in congruence with their team’s performances in the middle. And the icing on the cake was to add to the former World Number One’s bundle of misery by ostensibly portraying the visitors’ woes as voluminous and grave as unpaid taxes in India.

Tremlett will definitely miss out due to injury, while Anderson's situation isn't entirely clear yet

The combination of a prospective whitewash and a battered Indian morale could well tempt Flower & co. from fielding their best XI at the Oval. Graham Onions is likely to return if the suspected injury of Anderson stops him from taking any part on Thursday. Tremlett isn’t fit yet, therefore Bresnan, riding on that wonderful form of his, will look to stay in phase with the momentum.

Bopara’s return placed him in the footnote of a scorecard with monumental numbers, an image that would only appear more blurred when he reads newspapers that highlight James Taylor’s great run of late. The Leicestershire wonder kid scored yet another hundred against the visiting Sri Lankan – A team, and is piling runs at the rate at which Cook was doing over the winter.

Bopara, in all likelihood, will be given another run at the Oval to cash in on runs against an attack that seems far from convincing. Some might argue that it would appear a bit premature for Taylor to be given a go now, but keeping a young in-form batsman waiting in the wings for too long has its own set of unpleasant consequences – one which even Ravi Bopara experienced at an earlier stage of his career.

And to imagine the prospect of throwing young Taylor in to a steaming cauldron somewhere within the subcontinent in conditions unfamiliar to him may not be the ideal start to envision. Flower is probably already thinking of this – the thought being hidden somewhere in his mind amidst a collage of numbers that read 4 and 0.

While it is easy to overstate this need, substantive as it might appear, the bigger picture of the Oval being a battlefield that will house the war between a bruised ego and new-found arrogance must not be forgotten. England cannot, and will not, look to hand India the advantage with a lackluster approach knowing that a 4-0 drubbing would lead the Indian media to frantically dig the graves of culprits before the start of the ODI series. This would, consequently, hand England another advantage going ahead.

Having climbed to the top with promising signs of a new era and a mentally tougher unit, the ghosts of England’s past have vanished for good. Hyperbolic as this statement might allegedly sound, only a strong performance – redolent of the visitors’ era under Gary Kirsten – might tilt the scales otherwise.

When the Queen, Scotland Yard and Weasley twins couldn’t stop Cook from sending the cricket world into depression

Posted: August 16, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Fiction
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 Goutham Chakravarthi

 16 August 2011

Ian Botham has slammed the ICC for not giving England a fair opportunity to win the four match series 5-0. His request to let India bat twice again on the 4th and 5th days on a crumbling Edgbaston pitch so that England could showcase their supremacy over the highly overrated Indian batting line-up. ECB had sold any number of non-refundable tickets for the last day. He quibbled, “This Indian side is only interested in IPL cricket and the razzmatazz associated with it. The partying and cheer leaders can be very tempting! But ECB should rub their faces in the mud when they can so that I can walk with my head held high!”

Ravi “Tracer Bullet” Shastri accused Ian Botham of being jealous for not being involved in the IPL. He said, “Instead, we could have had 5 IPL games on the 4th and 5th days as skippers of Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Daredevils, Pune Warriors, Mumbai Indians were around. It would have proved only Indian teams can win IPL matches even in England and England cannot stomach that fact and India would still be world no. 1”. Sunil Gavaskar, nodded in approval even as the editor of the Outlook magazine was stealthily eavesdropping on the conversation in a Scooby Doo disguise but wearing his ID nonetheless.

Cook is to be rechristened as “Sir Mulish” by the Queen

ESPNStar, the Indian broadcaster of the India-England series, has sued Alastair Cook for a severe dip in their television ratings and their studies revealed that grown men preferred to watch soaps over cricket who have refused to switch the channel back on to cricket even a week later fearing that he would be leaving deliveries bowled by M.S. Dhoni whilst still batting on 401 after 70 hours at the batting crease.  They have sued his mentor, Graham Gooch, and his hair-transplant consultant who is rumored to be a distant cousin of Geoffrey Boycott for implanting these ethics into Gooch, and by extension, to Cook.

Indian fans who have travelled to England have been seen scampering at Kings Cross in the hope to find the platform 9¾ to escape to the magic world of Harry Potter. They were seen frantically performing the memory charm ‘Obliviate’ on each other in a vain attempt to erase the memories of Cook. ESPNStar has warned that another innings of Cook on similar lines at The Oval would further weaken the economics as they already have no advertisers or viewers till the time there is Cook.

BCCI has warned the cricket world of there being a great depression should Cook continue to be allowed to play any cricket at all. They have challenged Cook to settle scores with Praveen Kumar in a wrestling bout followed by a sweating contest with Rahul Dravid. Cook has agreed to the challenge but only after he is done with his batting practice that commenced 10 mins after the 3rd Test ended on Saturday afternoon. Two bowling machined have limped off with hamstring and shoulder injuries, but Cook’s practice shows no signs of abating.

Praveen Kumar is warming up to settle scores with Cook in a wrestling bout

On Sunday, with the Indian Embassy appealing to the Queen, the matter was forced into Scotland Yard’s hands. They have hired the services of the Indian minister and former cricketer Sidhu and former England captain Nasser “Jealous” Hussain to provide pitch-side distraction for Cook in his practice. Sidhu has apparently not let Hussain utter, “I have been paid to provide my opinion,” in 18 hours of Cook’s batting practice so far. With bowling machines worn out and all net bowlers doing their shoulders, Scotland Yard’s private detectives were seen plotting their strategy against Cook.

They hired the services of George and Fred Weasley who ran-up to bowl to Cook and cleverly disguised the use of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes’ new trick of developing five arms on the delivery stride and bowling them over-arm, under-arm, side-arm, a Shoaib chuck and a Sreesanth beamer simultaneously against Cook only for Cook to defend, block, leave, sway and duck at the same time to the five deliveries. The mesmerized Weasley twins were last heard arguing with J.K. Rowling that Harry Potter should now be rechristened Harry Cook.

The Queen has decided to take the matter in her own hands and it has been decided that Alastair Cook will be given knighthood on Thursday so as to ensure that he doesn’t play in The Oval test after the BCCI accused ECB for not playing in the spirit of the game. ECB, it is understood from our sources, have sent out a massive search for bowlers who specialize in bowling long hops and leg-stump half-volleys in order to restore interest among Indian batsmen and Indian spectators.

Not even the magic tricks of the Weasley twins could get Cook out.

The Queen has urged that normalcy be restored in cricket. She urged, “Alastair Cook henceforth will be known by the name Sir Mulish for his insane ability to resist a Sreesanth half-volley after two days of batting when he can see even the smallest of craters on the moon even in broad day light.” Sreesanth complained that he never felt this bad even when he was slapped. And Warne ended-up sending text messages to all nurses in the whole of England to beat boredom. All the while, Sir Geoffrey Boycott was seen admiring Cook and blowing kisses at him.

ESPNStar, meanwhile, has resorted to desperate measures to keep the Indian interest alive in the series. BCCI has arm-twisted ICC to decide the result of the final Test through online voting and text messaging. Viewers will be asked to vote on the following:

BCCI is working with PCB to see if they can spot-fix the Test last summer where Cook scored his career saving hundred. They are talking to have the umpire change his mind and give him out against Mohammed Aamir when Cook was on 2 so that England would drop him retrospectively and his Ashes and Edgbaston exploits be deemed void.

The REDS must never panic

Posted: August 16, 2011 by stoic trader in Barclays Premier League, Football
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 Mayank Gupta

Football Analyst – The Couch Expert

August 16 2011

Recent reviews and rants of the RED fans on public forum, media critics slandering Carroll and questions being raised on every newspaper in the British media should hardly worry RED fans. Agreed, we dropped two points, however, one must remember this team never played together as a unit. Thus, they could not play at each other’s pace and were unaware of each other’s movements.

On the contrary, the first 40 minutes of the game showed a true glimpse of the team the King has at his disposal. The movements were slick, the passing was good and the pace of the players was fast. It was only towards the last 5 minutes in the half when the pace dropped and sloppiness crept into the team which flowed through the team collectively resulting in bad passing.

In defense of the team’s second half performance, Enrique only completed his tranfer on Friday and played on Saturday. Can anyone imagine the stress of such a transfer and still his statistics of the game show that he won every challenge in the air and in tackles. It is only time when his understanding with Downing develops and they can be the best left flank players in the league as both have pace and youth on their side.

In regards to Downing, one must remember the number of positions he played. He was deployed all over the midfield by KD during the game and he was absolutely comfortable everywhere. His run for almost 2/3 lengths of the pitch was only deprived of its praise by the cross bar. Carroll and Suarez got more deliveries to them in one game than for many games combined together last season.

Carroll and Suarez seemed so natural playing off each other. Those deft touches by Suarez and running around in circles with Carroll laying the ball in his path is just the sign of an incipient partnership that could wreak havoc in the future once both are upto match fitness. Suarez was only back on Monday and Carroll still is lacking his pace. Carroll and Suarez are team players who like to play for each other. This is the ‘mantra’  always for a successful partnership of two forwards. Other teams have many world class forwards but do they have the attitude to see an assist against their name rather than a goal?

For the first quarter hour of the game everything was normal, Carroll no.9 and Suarez no. 10 but somehow, things changed so smoothly and Carroll was playing pretty deep to allow Suarez to surge forward and play no. 9 leaving the defenders surprised. Especially, Richardson who was marking Carroll so deep in their own half without the knowledge of Suarez lying behind him. It is these small movements and understanding between the two in their very first game which shows sign of a great season ahead. With balls being sprayed from the midfield like cannons, it is no time before both will be shooting goals for fun.

The conundrum of Liverpool midfield remains a puzzle but with fewer questions to be answered. As I posted in my previous post, Adam cannot be employed in a defensive midfield role as he is slow. This is evident with the no. of tackles he missed and was booked for one such tackle. This limited the already constrained advances of Lucas allowing the Sunderland midfiled to trap LFC in their own half by sitting right on the toes of Adam and Lucas. This cramped the passing and movement of the ball limiting the supply to the forwards in the second half. Lucas was restricted to float around and mark their playmaker by their DM cattermole who is a champion of such markings.

Added to this was the lacklustre performance of Henderson whose movement at the flank became restricted due to Flannagan’s inexperience. Henderson was cautious in going forward as Flannagan was leaving his marker alone time and again. It was a wise decision by Henderson but however, he could not avoid the doom even with such caution. This should not be such a worry once Glen Johnson is back who we will watch overlapping Henderson for fun and pleasure.

To summarize the performance, it was a game of two halves but not due to inadequacy in Liverpool squad and majorly due to lack of fitness. As the season progresses, training sessions will be more, passing will be crisp and fitness will be sublime to take us to where we are. With Stevie back in September, it would be nice to see him play in the midfield as he can muster the courage to go forward with one of those marauding runs and change the game in a whisker.

As a RED, we should be proud of the performance in the first game. We will dazzle and challenge even the best of the best in the future.

England is the new no.1. Really?

Posted: August 16, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Cricket, India in England 2011
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 Srikrishnan Chandrasekaran

 16 August 2011


There have been plenty of former and current English players speaking about how England would become no. 1 at the end of 3rd Test. Sure, England have blanked India in the three Tests so far. But, is it really a dominating performance by England? Not at all! The matches looked really odd where the English bowlers have got the ball to move and bounce around the legendary Indian batsmen and at the same time were able to score plenty of runs against Indian bowlers like a Twenty 20 match. Indian team had a reasonable chance in the first two test matches but the outcome was really pathetic with England scampering home by huge margins. In the 3rd test match, it was more about India’s fielding where four catches were dropped in a single innings. The bowlers would have needed all the help they needed to get wickets and their own fielders let them down. There were plenty of times when the bowlers ended-up on a few close LBWs, on all occasion the ball pitched outside the leg stump.

Is this England team as good as they are made out to be?

England played decent cricket, but they are not really no. 1 material yet. The wickets were not really earned by their bowlers; it was more thrown away by Indian batsmen in all the three Test matches. All other top cricket nation players will not end up playing these kind of shots on a continuous basis. Even though England are no.1, their bowlers will have a real tough time in their upcoming series. Most of their Test victories are on their home soil, yet to make a decent show in subcontinental conditions. The batting clicked for Englishmen in all the 3 test matches with 2 out of top 7 emerging with big runs in almost all innings. On a few occasions, the lower order put up a great fight which led them to win the first 2 test matches. On a whole, the English batting is still lacking consistency from their top order players.

When there is a collective team effort and the team ends up on the winning side, most people don’t look at the individual performances and also the strength of their players in difficult times. But in the case of a team which is experienced and fail on a continuous basis on a single tour, then the whole world talks about hectic match schedule and lack of fitness of their players. This is really a rare incident in Indian cricket, there is no need to panic or talk about match scheduling without much break to the players or bringing in fresh blood to the Indian team. It is really important to bring the next generation into the side, but there should be some senior players for the next two to three years to bring them in to a level where they can be on their own in all conditions.

The key areas to focus for team India in the last test match is:

1. Team coordination on the field: The captain and senior players in the team should talk to the bowlers frequently during their long spells, educate to the bowl at right places.

2. Active involvement by team players: Involvement should be more than what it has been during the last three matches. Players should not miss easy chances and also try to convert half chances on the field which really boosts the bowlers and the whole team.

3. Bowlers should understand and bowl to plans: Bowlers should have the courtesy to bowl a decent line and length continuously. They should make the batsmen play at most of the deliveries in an over. There should be variation in line-and-length and pace during their spell.

4. Batsmen should hold their wickets: Batsmen should take a fair amount of responsibility and try to build some partnerships. The trio of Laxman, Dravid and Tendulkar has been pillar of the Indian cricket should understand and take the game on, which will boost the lower order players and also create fear in the opposition camp.

The only odd thing during this series was Indian batsmen failing for 6 consecutive innings whereas their opponent team were able to score twice of their total runs in less than a day’s time.

If England team lost the test series like this in Indian soil, England’s Michael Vaughan would have commented as “the curator applied some stuff on the pitch every time before the commencement of England team batting”

Wishing Indian team all the very best and they will surely end up in a good note on this series.

Time India Looks To Rohit Sharma and Rahul Sharma And Build For Australia

Posted: August 15, 2011 by harmeetmehta in Cricket, Opinion
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 Harmeet Mehta

 15 August, 2011

 

Whether India wins or not, the last test at the Oval starting 18th August, one thing is certain, perhaps, that Sachin

It's time technically superior Rohit Sharma is preferred over Suresh Raina

Tendulkar will get his 100th hundred. India, apart from the Oval test, play ten one day internationals against England (5 in India after the current 5-match ODI series) before embarking upon their toughest tour to Australia in December. It would not have been so tough had they not lost the Pataudi Trophy in the fashion they did. If India does end up winning (or drawing) the last match, it would surprise even the India dressing room & selectors. They (the selectors) have had this coming onto them, especially after doing selection blunders like selecting the IPL star hitter Suresh Raina over better technically equipped players like Rohit Sharma. There is lot of retrospection that Indian selectors need to do in the next month or so, as star Indian batsmen from the current series should not be preferred for the Australia tour. If they want India to redeem their lost respect and hold on to the second (or perhaps third) ranking after the England series, they might just start getting their facts right about the team they form for Australia tour. Let’s look at some of them:

Look beyond Zaheer Khan

Zaheer is past the age where he could bowl thirty-forty overs in an innings and looking at the kind of attack we have now new untested ‘young’ bowlers will be as effective in Australia as Sreesanth and Ishant. With an exception of Praveen Kumar, none of the bowlers from current team should get a chance for Australian tour. Build a team for future and let Sree and Ishant build their career around T20.

Look beyond Sehwag

This is the most dreadful thought as Sehwag has single-handedly won a number of matches for India. But, seeing the trend in last couple of years, Sehwag has not been able to play immediately after IPL due to injuries. Why does he have to play IPL when he knows his body can’t cope up with so much of cricket. It’s definitely money over country’s pride. He must learn from English players and retire from either Tests or IPL (unless India does not have any test series after the premier league).

Sachin, Laxman & Dravid’s replacement 

Rahul Sharma might be given a go in place of Harbhajan Singh

When Rohit Sharma started to play, I could see Sachin of nineties in him. His technique and determination was better than many of his age. With time, IPL and selectors indifference, his true talent has not been tapped into. He has a Test future, if only Dhoni looks beyond his Chennai teammate Suresh Raina. Rohit Sharma, of the younger lot, is the best player of short ball and should be preferred for Test matches in England and Australia. He will be the perfect replacement for Sachin, when Sachin retires, but he needs grooming under the guidance of Dravid and Tendulkar. He deserves a chance.

Drop Harbhajan from Australia series

Why is Harbhajan singh a permanent name in Dhoni’s scheme of things? Especially in the overseas tours? I don’t remember when he last dominated a Test match. I would give Rahul Sharma a chance over Harbhajan or Mishra for Australian tour.

These and many more things selectors will have to look into before they can even think about the Boxing Day test where Australia will try to prove a point. After all they dominated test cricket rankings, since the ranking system was established, for 74 months by beating almost every team in their as well as the opponents’ backyards. India dominated for 20 months without winning comprehensively in overseas series. India’s dominance of 20 months is more to do with Australia’s down slide than India’s own game.

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