Now that the cup is over for us.... to the only news worth following: Suspect held in Woolmer case: Geo TV
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Inzamam and Mushtaq were questioned the longest as they were the ones who interacted with Woolmer the most because of their positions in the team, Geo TV said.
The television channel also claimed that the Jamaican police had already arrested a man in connection with Woolmer's death, which the police are treating as a case of murder.
The Jamaican police will disclose the <b>name of the person in the next eight to ten hours</b>. The report claimed that the person, who is not a native of Jamaica, was in touch with members of the Pakistan, Sri Lankan and <b>Indian </b>teams.
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Were Indians, Lankans and Pakistanis were staying in same hotel?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Meanwhile, a former Pakistani Test cricketer claimed that Jamaican Police recovered contact numbers of some South Asian players, including some <b>Indians</b>, from the person arrested.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Names of these Indians eagerly awaited <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I have watched Agarkar ball for quite a some time. For some reason, fielders love to drop catches when he bowls. Umpires love to not give LBW on his balls. It is very fishy indeed. For some strange reasons we tend to discourage good players and tout useless players like Munaf Patel.
If we keep up with this unnecessary criticism of Agarkar on a national level then this surely is going to affect his morale. Not a good idea.
I will place the blame where it squarely belongs â Indiaâs batting sucks. Indiaâs batting line up is bogusly touted. Everyone outside India knows it.
Indian bowlers (including Agarkar) were able to restrict Sri Lanka to a score of 254 on a good batting pitch. That speaks well for the seamers and others.
On the other hand our star batting lineup collapsed for 184 on a good batting pitch.
How can you blame bowlers?
In India, we have been unfair to our bowlers for a very long time. It is about high time we stop giving free pass to the batsmen who fail us again and again.
A coach cannot do much unless selectors give him a good team to work with. I think Greg Chappell did a good job with whatever limited batting talent that was given to him.
A coach cannot do much unless selectors give him a good team to work with. I think Greg Chappell did a good job with whatever limited batting talent that was given to him.
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Are you saying that the Bangaladesh team is more talented than the indian team? Or that the SL batsmen are better than SRT, Dravid, Tendulkar, Yuvraj etc? No, it is the coach who should devise strategies on countering opponents. I am not saying that the indian team is blameless, but india was clearly blindsided by BD plan. the underarmer should be held responsible.
Anyhow all that is moo, like Joey would say, a cow's opinion. All is lost.
03-24-2007, 08:45 PM (This post was last modified: 03-24-2007, 08:47 PM by narayanan.)
Hold on, bacche. I am betting big (not with my money though) on India making it to the Super 8, because Bermuda is 400% certain to beat Bangladesh. Pls read the P.G. Wodehouse episodes where the famous bookie <b>Steggles</b> makes his appearance, and all will b clear to u.
If I were the BD team manager, I would lock the team up until match-time, and make very sure that no Rooh Afza bottles are sent up by Room Service. Its 600% certain that said bottles will contain more than the usual dash of zam-zam cola.
Then again, Steggles was always unpredictable except for the dead certainty that SOMETHING very nasty would happen.
Can u imagine how much $$$$ is riding on this match now, and what the odds are for the brave and well-informed punter? $500,000 multiplied by 1000 is serious money even to Dawood and Co.
BTW, the fact that some Indian players' contact numbers appear in a bookie's diary mean nothing. They probably also carried pictures of M. Bedi. BTW, WHERE IS M.Bedi in all this? I watched TWO India games, and saw not a glimpse! <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Proof of pudding is in eating. Bangladesh beat India. May be it was just a fluke?
It was our batting line up that collapsed against non-talented Bangladesh and then against Sri Lanka.
It is clear as daylight whom to blame. Our batsmen let us down yet again, not the coach, not the bowlers. But the primary fault lies on selectors for selecting such a crappy batting lineup. Once again, Sehwag and Tendulkar are useless. Selectors should be investigated for bribery charges.
Proof of pudding is in eating. Bangladesh beat India. May be it was just a fluke?Â
It was our batting line up that collapsed against non-talented Bangladesh and then against Sri Lanka.
It is clear as daylight whom to blame. Our batsmen let us down yet again, not the coach, not the bowlers. But the primary fault lies on selectors for selecting such a crappy batting lineup. Once again, Sehwag and Tendulkar are useless. Selectors should be investigated for bribery charges.
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True. Now consider the situation at the top of the order:
1) Uthappa going after every ball as though it is the slog overs
2) Sehwag is unable to connect bat to ball and has been unable to get any scoring going
3) Sachin has some technical difficulties in his batting
4) Ganguly does not rotate strike often enough
5) The batting order has Dravid coming in at 5 or 6 when stability is required at the top
6) Dhoni too has been very impatient and has been getting out for ducks
Who should have corrected these problems? BCCI president? Captain of the team? The manager? No, it is the coach's job to identify problems before it becomes too serious and fix them. India had problems before too in the last worldcup but the team overcame them. Murali's Man-of-the-match quote was interesting. siva asked him about his lunging catch to dismiss Ganguly. Murali said the coach (tom Moody or their fielding coach Trevpr, not sure) had told murali that he was too old to field in the infield and murali wanted to prove him wrong. That is getting the best out of your team. Something that the underarmer has failed to do. He was just content with sending stinging emails to BCCI and leaking them to the press. So how will the team trust him?
<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> <span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'><span style='font-family:Impact'><i>But if thereâs something India can still hang on to, itâs this line from the bulky, jovial Bermuda captain Irvine Romaine: âThe whole of India wants us to beat Bangladesh? Donât worry, we will try our best.â</i></span></span>
Uthappa cannot bat is Utthappaâs fault not Chappellâs and it goes for Sehwag and Tendulkar as well.
I have already suggested that we should send Ganguly and Dravid as openers. If we have three (Utthappa, Sehwag and Tendulkar) useless batsmen in the top order then it creates a real problem for the coach as to what to do with them.
In order to create a correct batting order, we have to have batsmen who do their job most of the time. We have to know who can do what and we have to know that in a reliable fashion. That is precisely what is missing.
Murali has a sense of honor. That speaks well for Sri Lankan team. I am sure we have players like that as well. All we have to do is bring these players out in the light and drop dud ones.
I have a question for you folks:
Who decides the batting order â captain or coach?
I seriously don't believe that Chappell has much of an idea what modern Australia does to keep its team performing at the top. Chappell's approach has been some sort of amateurish attitude, like "this is how we did it when I was on the Australian team". But he does not seem to have brought many new ideas.
The dynamics in India seem very different. I am really disappointed at how Pathan has just deteriorated, and the failure to get Sreesanth to be accurate and economical in 1-dayers. Thus the decision to play Agarkar, Uthappa and Harbhajan in this match was really stunning, especially since Kumble was bowling quite well in the Bermuda game. Frankly I don't see why Agarkar was even included in the tour side. Munaf Patel has also lost his aggression.
The whole Indian bowling side seems utterly jaded. No sense of imminent doom when ANY Indian bowler runs up to bowl - no tensing the fielders, no cries of "Don't be NARVUSS, YAAR!" (ok, scratch that..) but really, no sense of attack. Zaheer is fairly dangerous on good days, but even he doesn't look like he's straining.
Sehwag, remember, played very well. People seem to take it for granted that a 48 from Sehwag is just so-so, but remember that only Dravid managed more - and 16 of Dravid's 60 came from one loose over near the end with a beaten-up ball.
Why has Sehwag's bowling ability not been used?
I just think the whole Indian team has been thrown into playing way too many games, and are utterly jaded. They need to find "alter ego" replacements for every position in the side, and play them regularly.
First, though, Dravid needs to step down, and bring back Ganguly. Dada may retire in 2 years, but only after we give him a proper retirement send-off and all, as befits a great captain. All this mess was the creation of the idiot selectors Vengsarkar and Kiran More, plus Chappell himself. All 3 need to be asked to step down.
Bring Wadekar as Chair of selectors, and Gavaskar as Coach. How the HECK can you inspire a team to win heroic battles for the Nation when the coach is a foreigner?
BUT anyway, I'm depending on Steggles and Bermuda to bring India back from the brink. Otherwise it's Qualifying Rounds against Nepal, Seychelles and Mauritius in 2011.
I personally think Agarkar, Zaheer and Munaf bowled very well. But I do agree that Chappell has to go - that guy hasnt done anything extraordinary - he kept bluffing about the various 'options' that they had developed and gave Uthappa as an example - turns out he was the main guy. His and Dravid's lack of strategy was really telling.
Re captain perhaps Yuvraj is a better guy ? He is fearless and gives an impression of being more hands-on. I think he has experience with junior team and has won a junior WC ?? He definitely has more years in him then Saurav and should be able to drive and extract respect from the seniors in the team too.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Fan dies of shock </b>
Omer Farooq | Hyderabad
Such was the shock and dismay over India's performance, P Raju, a 28-year-old fan died of heart attack while watching the Indo-Lanka match in which India lost.
Meanwhile, hundreds of cricket fans in different parts of Hyderabad took out mock funeral processions of the members of the Indian cricket team. In the old city of Hyderabad, a group of cricket fans garlanded the portraits of Indian players with footwear. <b>At Nayapul area, a big portrait of the entire Indian team was put on a busy cross roads in mock state of "mourning" with the mourners burning scented sticks and putting bananas in front of the portraits as a mark of "respect for the departed"</b>. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
"We did not idolized these people for this day", said SA Rahman, a teenager beating the portraits with footwear. People also put their footwear on another portrait with two photos of Sachin Tendulkar.
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<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> <span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'><span style='font-family:Courier'><i><b>who is to be blamed for Indiaâs defeat at the hands of its eastern neighbour? Indira Gandhi.
How come? Because she created Bangladesh!</b></i></span></span>
Yuvaraj has no captaincy experience. He is aggressive but too flamboyant. Kaif was the captain when we won the junior WC. To be honest, Kaif was around 20 yrs + at that time. I track quite a bit of domestic cricket and A tours and Venugopal Rao is quite a good captain and a good test batsman. He lead India A vs The Indian team and his captaincy was brilliant. The issue with him is that he doesnt seem to have the god father and media support as he comes from one of the lower teams i.e. Andhra ( not Hyd). Sehwag would be a good captain (aggressive, out of the box)
I think there was a conflict of Interest b/w the senior players in the team and Chappell especially in the lead up to the WC. Chappell wanted to work with youngsters and build them. The problem is that they all tasted success very early with the 17 victorious run chases and failure followed later with West Indies, South Africa & Champions trophy. Looks like the failure prompted the return of the whole gaurd and people who supported Chappell during the early good run, ditched him and I get a feeling he got undermined by the senior think tank. He wanted Sehwag dropped, Pathan & Sreesanth to be played more often. I would also contribute Yuvaraj's growth as a batsman to Chappell. On the flip side, his refusal to acknowledge the need for a bowling coach was one of the biggest mistakes. That contributed to the decline in Pathan's bowling form, Sreesanth not able to control the economy and using Patel as a stock bowler (ala stuart Clark) instead of a tearaway (like a Malinga).
Bringing back dada as captain is also not going to cut as he was the one who chickened out seeing a green top in Nagpur against Australia and faked an injury (this was true). After WC 2003 he seems to have lost the interest and motivation until Chappell let him know where he was. The credit for coming back should go to Ganguly and Chappell, Dravid and More should be credited for showing him the door. However I do feel that they should have given him the respect and treated him better while dropping him. The political points that Pawar and Co wanted to score against Dalmiya was the reason for his shabby treatment as against the selectors.
I think the solution is something like what SA did with Smith or NZ with Stephen Fleming or Sri Lanka with Jayawardana. The candidates are
Sehwag -- If he is able to regain his batting form (he sort of reedeemed himself towards the last two match)
Yuvaraj -- Unknown with the captaincy but should be made VC so that he gains some exp so that he can replace if Sehwag does not do well either with the cap or with his batting.
Kaif - Can be a good captain but he should prove himself in domestic circuit (how do you take him if he avg 38.00 in Indian Domestic circuit?
Pathan- Seems to have a good cricketing brain, may be a captain in the long run but should sort out his bowling problems first.
Sachin, Dravid and Dada should say farewell to the ODI game. They can remain in the test arena for one more year and if they are unable to contribute they should go out or shown the door though gracefully. In the test team, they should get Karthik, Venu Rao and Badrinath as understudies. We need to get some good openers. The cupboard is bare nowadays. Shikar Diman, Gautam Gambhir should be persisted . May be Karthik with his technique and temperament can be tried.
Hold on, bacche! Rain washes out 18 overs. BD-Bermuda match reduced to 41 overs a side.
Now the advantage should be with the weekend cricketers (Bermuda), unfortunately, their start is not encouraging. Slow runs, quick wickets. Even D-L is not going to be on their side if they don't pick up the scoring rate.
BUT IF THEY DO........ <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo--> High probability of match being reduced to 20 overs a side.
03-25-2007, 09:54 PM (This post was last modified: 03-25-2007, 10:00 PM by narayanan.)
Play stopped again. Dang! A draw is no good.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Unfortunately the heavens have opened and the rain has stopped play. The groundstaff are back on, adding the covers in a flurry. As we mentioned earlier, this has been reduced to 41 overs. We will get inform you of the revised playing conditions soon.
In the event of this match being washed out, both teams will earn one point each, which means that Bangladesh will go through to the Super Eights. However, there is a reserve day tomorrow. If the match isn't completed today, play will resume from the same position tomorrow. In other words, the match will not be replayed from the very beginning.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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