India defeated by Proteas at Durban, At MCG against England Australia in trouble

Once again famed batting line-up of Team India surrendered to South African pace. Now after looking at the performance of our top-order batsmen in little testing conditions, question arise, do Team India deserves the No.1 ranking in Test Cricket. My answer is absolute NO. Team India don't deserve to be NO.1 in test cricket as they can't perform well in unfamiliar conditions. Its really a shame that twice in the series South Africa put Indian batting line-up in big hole. 

As I mentioned in my last post clearly that MS Dhoni will not going win the toss and exactly the same happened. I also mentioned pitch will be green and bouncy that also proved right. So whatever I predicted about this second test match is true. I must appreciate my analysis. Dhoni lost the toss as usual put into bat and India repeated the story of the last match as they lost their six wickets for just 183 runs and that is really pathetic. Once again Dale's Steyn-Gun shot Indian batsmen and put Team India in all sorts of trouble at Durban. There was no application seen from any batsmen because all of them got out after spending reasonable time on the crease and yet couldn't convert the starts in big innings.

It looks like club team is playing against Champion team. There is no competition at all. I feel everything is over for Team India at Durban and Team India is on doorstep of losing yet another test match in South Africa. As far as I am concern India lost the match and series is over. Indian fans must be really disappointed with the poor show of the Team India in South Africa but this is Team India which is champion at home and losers outside the home and it will not going to change unless and until our administrators prepare wickets similar to South Africa, Australia and England.

At MCG Australia is on doorstep of losing the Ashes as at the end of Day-2 England is leading by 346 runs and their five wickets are intact and 3 full days remaining in the match. It was expected from Aussies that they will come hard at MCG after the emphatic in Perth but to everybody's surprise Australia failed to achieve 3 figure mark in their first innings and got all-out for paltry 98 runs. Reason of this score was over-confidence of victory in last match as all the Aussies batsmen played too many shots and tried to dominate the English bowling but this strategy back-fired and now Australia is on doorstep of losing at MCG and with this England will retain the Ashes. Australia prepared the wicket which suits to their bowlers but Ponting lost the toss and put into the bat by Strauss. Pace trio of Anderson, Tremlett and Bresnan bowled superb line and length and that resulted into Aussie downfall. Anderson and Tremlett ended with 4 wickets a piece and with this Anderson becomes the highest wicket-taker in the series with 16 wickets and the top-three bowlers in the series are all English so that shows the dominance of England in the series. Ricky Ponting failed once again with the bat and his captaincy and place in the team is in danger.

In batting Strauss and Cook continued their good form and gave solid platform to England by scoring 159 runs for first wicket. Both fell in quick succession but both completed their half-centuries and put England in commanding position. Pietersen and Trott continued their good form and put brilliant partnership of 92 for forth wicket. Pietersen fell after scoring brilliant half-century. Siddle picked up all the 3 wickets.  After Pietersen's departure England faced little set-back as they lost Collingwood and Bell in quick succession and looked in some trouble but Wicket Keeper Matt Prior and Jonathon Trott put up a good partnership of more than 100 runs and both are not-out. Trott completed his second century of the series and Prior is not out on 75 and looking good to score century. For Australia, task is difficult and I think somebody have to rise and put up a big effort to save the Ashes but it seems virtually impossible for Aussies to save the Ashes looking at their current situation.

So, England and South Africa dominating their respective matches and former No.1 ranked team and Current No.1 ranked team is on the doorstep of losing.