Team India eyeing series win at Edens

 

Second test match of the series between India vs. West Indies going to start on Monday 14th November, 2011 at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Team India will go into this test match with series victory motto. On the other hand West Indies will look to tame the Indian team and will try to level the series. Hence, contest at Eden will become very interesting.

Team India won the Kotla test after conceding the  lead of 95runs in first innings and that must have given great confidence to this MS Dhoni lead team. Openers and middle-order batsmen except Yuvraj Singh had decent outing at Feroze Shah Kotla and got into the form very early which is very good sign. Bowlers did fantastic job for Indian team at Kotla and will certainly continue their good work at Edens as as well.

 Pitch will not be the same, as it was at Kotla, as per the curator of Eden. According to curator, pitch is hard with little shine on the top and will assist spinners on last two days of the test match which will definitely rejoice the West Indian pace battery but remember India also have a very decent pace attack at the moment and that will definitely come into play, if pitch will assist the pace bowlers. Ishant and Umesh bowled brilliantly at Kotla but without much luck, so they will definitely cherish the carry on the wicket. As far as spinners are concerned, I think bounce will assist them as well, especially R.Ashwin, who is tall and definitely use the bounce because of his height.

Everything went well for India in the end at Kotla but there were few jitters which haunted India on Day 2 of the Kotla test especially in batting and Indian batsmen have to be careful in approaching their batting and ensure that no batting collapse happen as it happened in Delhi in the first innings. India also have to plan the wicket of Shivnarine Chanderpaul because Chanderpaul is the man who has scored tons of runs against India and he simply loves batting against India. MS Dhoni and the team think-tank have to find the way to get Chanderpaul out without scoring too many runs. If Chanderpaul fell early then West Indies will not be able to score much runs.

This will also going to be a special test match for Sachin Tendulkar, if he succeeds in getting his epic hundred on  epic Eden Gardens. Epic ton of Tendulkar is much awaited among fans and cricketing fraternity but somehow it has not come so far. Let’s hope this epic ton comes at Eden. I also feel it is right time to try out Ajinkya Rahane or Virat Kohli in place of Yuvraj Singh which will give us fair idea about the new talent as well.

As far as West Indies is concerned, except Chanderpaul none of their batsmen clicked in Delhi and that is the irony of this new look West Indian team. Guys are young and this tour will going to be a good learning curve for these young West Indian players. Brathwaite, Kirk Edwards, Kieran Powell and Darren Bravo looks promising but failed to deliver so far and if West indies have to do well then all these batsmen have to score big runs and support Chanderpaul who is an anchor in this West Indian line-up. I think if West Indies promotes Chanderpaul at No.3, then this will certainly boost their batting because at the moment there is too much inexperience prevailing in that West Indian top-order. If Chanderpaul bats at No.3 then he will definitely guide the young batsmen and help them to score big runs which eventually help the cause of West Indian team but that is unlikely to happen and Chanderpaul will bat at No.5 for sure.

As far bowling is concerned, young leggie Bishoo had shown lot of promise but he has to convert his potential into performance because pitches are very supportive to the spinners atleast in sub-continent. I think if West indies drop one batsmen, either Kirk Edwards or Kieran Powell and go in with additional seamer Kemar Roach, then definitely their attack will look more potent. So according to me, they have to try 5 bowler formula.

Second test match at Eden will going to be an interesting affair as India will look to seal the series and West indies will try to tame the Indians and in between there will be an eye on great man who is on the verge of creating history.

Invincible Aussies take on jubilant Pakistan. India will fight to regain their favourites tag at Chepauk.

Its big battle ahead of the knockout stage in the tournament in which mighty Pakis will take on invincible Aussies. This battle will decide who will top the Group A. There is no suspense in Group A as all the top teams who were expected to go into quarter-finals has already made it. If Australia wins they will lead the Group A. If Pakistan win then they will lead the Group A. So it will be interesting to see who ends up on top from Group A.

Looking at the venue, Premdasa Stadium I think Pakistan is favourite to win the contest because they have the team which suits more to the conditions and pitch as compare to Australia. Shahid Afridi captain of Pakistan team is  the leading wicket-taker in the tournament so far and he holds the key to Pakistan bowling. Its interesting to see whom Pakistan play as second spinner. They have Ahmad, Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Razzak to choose from. So far Afridi bamboozled opposition batsmen with his leg-spin bowling and without much support from other spinners, so it becomes more interesting as Aussies are vulnerable to spin. They have good pace bowlers in Umar Gul, Shoaib Akhtar and Abdul Razzak but I think Shoaib Akhtar is doubtful for this match due to the little niggle which he is carrying from the beginning of the tournament. Although Shoaib Akhtar will definitely love to play this game as he has announced his retirement after this World Cup. So he will try to play as many matches as possible before the World Cup gets over.If Pakistan reach the finals then Akhtar will play big role in Pakistan's scheme of things.

As far as Pakistan batting is concerned, they have all kind of issues in the top-order and batting is the weakest link of Pakistan. Misbah and Younis fired in few matches but they are not consistent and Umar Akmal's injury don't help Pakistan either. So Pakistan have to settle few batting issues before the knockout stage and this is the match where they have the chance to do so. Ahmed Shehjad has given some hopes to Afridi at top of the order but it will be interesting to see how he handles the pace of Lee, Tait and Johnson. I believe Afridi have to shoulder more responsibility with bat as well if Pakistan wants to win this match and the World Cup.

Talking about Australia, well they are invincible in World Cup since 1999 World Cup finals but remember Pakistan is the team which defeated them last time in World Cup 1999. So they have to be careful against their unpredictable opposition. Form of Ponting is big concern for Aussies as Ponting failed miserably with the bat in last 4 months and captain's poor form definitely affects the team performance. Aussies will go into match with the intention of winning it and try to keep their unbeaten record intact with the win but things will not going to be that easy on the slow and turning pitch of Premdasa. Watson and Haddin have to provide them best of the starts, so that middle-order comes in and capitalise on the platform give by their openers. Form of Michael Clarke is heartening from the Aussie perspective. They have one of the best bowling line-up in the world as two of the fastest bowlers in the world cricket in Lee and Tait opens the bowling and they are backed with bowler like Mitchell Johnson. They have handy spinner in Jason Krezja who can do wonders on the turning pitch. 

So, exciting contest in the offering as both teams fight for the glory today and try to gain momentum ahead of knockout stage.

 India will fight to regain their favourites tag at Chepauk.

India will go into the match against West Indies with the intention to win it comprehensively after all the cricticism they faced in the past week after their loss to South Africa at Orange City which really hanged sword on their chances of qualifying for the quarter-finals. I also think this is last chance for Dr. Dhoni to experiment with the combination because after this match he will not get any chance of experiment and if he tries to experiment in kncokout stage and if that fails then his ass will going to be pissed off by the BCCI and public. That will also impact the viewership of IPL. I think this year's IPL viewership will also depends largely on India's World Cup performance because there is only 6 day gap between end of World Cup and commencement of IPL and BCCI don't want to fail in organising IPL especially after the termination of Mr. Lalit Modi.So Team  India's performance in the World Cup campaign will directly affect the IPL. So Dhoni have to be careful and have to win the trophy for the IPL and BCCI instead of public and Sachin Tendulkar.

As much as the wicket holds up, the constant getting more and more prominent is the advantage of winning the toss. Bar flies at the Madras Cricket Club have now calculated that winning the toss - and batting first - is like adding 75 to the total, even before a ball has been bowled. The problem may well be that ODIs haven't been played in Chennai during the month of March for the last 15 years. The last one was the 1996 World Cup quarter-final, between two teams who will be glued to Sunday's game, Australia and New Zealand.

On Sunday, for India to find their mojo and West Indies to give themselves a chance to hang on in the Cup, prayers around the toss must be abandoned. For all its trials, the Chepauk track must be made immaterial. Between the two teams, India have the best of all options, other than fielding of course. The team turned up at Chepauk on Friday for the first time in the lead-up to the match. There was an energetic game of football and the first two batsmen in the nets were Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina, and the first bowler wheeling his arm over was local offspinner R Ashwin.

While Ashwin's inclusion in the XI is as good as a foregone conclusion and far removed from Piyush Chawla's absence from the nets on Friday, there is every chance that Suresh Raina may make his way into the squad as well. The reasons are several: the confidence of his batting in Indian conditions, his ability to quickly churn out a few part-time overs and the speed and energy of his legs. Yusuf Pathan may well look like the easiest candidate to be replaced, but Raina's inclusion in place of Pathan will not be a case of like replacing like. The left-hander may be a purely attacking middle-order batsman, but a power hitter he is not. The choice of India 11 will be a dilemma because, on Sunday, they would like to field the squad that can move ahead in the tournament. Any switches, other than due to injury, between their last group game and their first quarter-final is flirting with hazard. The Indians may live in a silent bubble, but the rumblings about their Nagpur performance are being felt. Bowlers, who always consider themselves the footsoldiers, grumble that once again they are copping the flak for India's flashy cavalry of batsmen. It may not make sense for Pathan and Ashish Nehra to be made the easy scapegoats for the middle-order batting failure in Nagpur, but the maths of Indian cricket sometimes works in mysterious ways.

A media storm rose on Thursday evening about a meeting between captain MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, the BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, chairman of selectors Krish Srikkanth, coach Gary Kirsten and bowling coach Eric Simons. It was a pre-planned meeting centred around giving Simons at the very least an interim role as India coach, following Kirsten's departure after the Cup, until a permanent solution to the vacancy is found. 

As far as West Indies is concerned they have only defeated minnows so far in the World Cup and lost to South Africa and England, so it will be interesting to see how they play against India. Toss will also play crucial role for them and they would love to win the toss and bat first. I think they must promote Keiron Pollard to No.4 because he is impact player and have to be utilised in a best possible manner. Russell, Sammy, Roach, Benn and Bishoo the debutant of last game forms very good bowling combination and i think West Indies keep their head balanced on their shoulder they beat any team but till now they did not play like a unit and they will certainly work out on this.

West have very good batsmen in Gayle, Drren Bravo, Sarwan and Chanderpaul but all these guys have to play to their potential if they wants to win against India. Gayle provided them very good starts so far in the tournament but couldn't capitalise on those starts. So one or two batsmen who gets the starts must convert those starts into big scores so that West Indies bowlers get something to defend. 

India and West Indies will lock horn tomorrow to establish supremacy and contest will going to offer lot of thrill, drama and suspense to the spectators.

Team India will go through acid test against Proteas ahead of QF

Team India's serious World Cup campaign starts from tomorrow with the match against Proteas. So far India were playing weaker teams in the tournament and yet they struggled. So Indians will be under tremendous pressure going into this match. India have lot of worries in  bowling, fielding, running between the wickets and top-order batting but remember India have little edge over Proteas according to the statistics of recent times and that suggests out of last 10 ODIs against Proteas, India won 6 of them. Something which can give boost to the Indian team but over all record of India against Proteas is poor which suggests out of 65 ODIs Proteas won 39. But when we talk about recent performance Indian team have little edge. 

 India's main worry in this World Cup is its bowling. So far bowling failed to pick up early wickets except for one match against Ireland. Indian bowlers are certainly struggling on the flat pitches of sub-continent. India's main worry are its regular spinner in Harbhajan Singh and Piyush Chawla, both failed to impress so far in the tournament. Harbhajan Singh have picked up only 2 wickets in 4 games although his economy is quite good but remember he is attacking bowler and expected to pick wickets rather than containing the batsmen. What to talk about leggie Piyush Chawla, 2 top wicket-takers in the tournament are leg-spinners and this guy Chawla struggled to pick the wickets in the conditions which favours the spinners and his economy is also poor. India is clearly struggling with 3rd seamer as well and captain Dhoni is completely confused in picking up right combination and that confusion reflects in his statements. I believe they have to continue with 2 pace -2 spin combination and they must replace Chawla with Ashwin in the game against South Africa just to check whether Ashwin fits the bill or not ahead of the knockout stage. I think  not playing Ashwin so far, Dhoni did it deliberately. I think he wanted to introduce him in a big match like this as a surprise package and I believe this can prove master-stroke as well.

Fielding and running between the wickets is also very big area of concern. India struggled badly in the outfield. India fielders allowed opposition batsmen to pick singles easily and also allow them to convert singles into 2s and 2s into 3s and thats not going to help because the opposition team supposed to get 270 in normal circumstances is ending up with 300 or more means 30-40 runs extra just because of poor fielding and extra pressure on Indian batting as well. India has dropped quite a few catches as well. If we look at the match against England Strauss was dropped by Harbhajan when he was new to the crease later in the same match Virat Kohli dropped Ian Bell and both these batsmen took the match away from India. Had those 2 catches taken then I believe result of that match would have been different. So lot to improve in the fielding and I think India have to employ faster fielders on the boundaries and slow fielders in the close-in because singles are anyways available even though field is up but it is important to stop extra runs which are taken when ball goes near the boundary and slow fielders don't able to throw the ball back quickly enough. India have to improve running between the wickets as well. So far we have seen India clearly struggled in this area as well in the tournament. In the first match Tendulkar got out because of poor calling. I think calling have to be precise and batsmen have to work hard in nets to set the good rhythm with their partners while running between the wickets, so that they can be in a sync with their partners in match while running.

Indian top-order batsmen are also struggling and they have to come good now, because one failure can cost dearly. Sachin, Shewag, Gambhir and Kohli have to bat well and out of these four, tow players have to take the anchor role. I think Sachin and Kohli have to play the role of anchor and Gambhir and Sehwag have to go after the bowling and that will be ideal situation for the middle-order batsmen where you have hitters like Yuvraj, Dhoni and Pathan who can easily capitalise on the good start given by the top-order batsmen. So Indian top-order have to take some responsibility and one or two of them have to carry their bat through the innings. We have seen how Indian team struggled to chase scores in last two matches where top-order failed. However, Yuvraj's form with both bat and ball is a big plus for India.


Squad:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni(Captain/WK), Virender Sehwag(Vice-Captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin, Piyush Chawla, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel. Gary Kirsten(Coach)

Talking about Proteas, I think they are the most balanced side in the World Cup.   Amla and DeVilliers are in great nick and batting looks very good as they possess one of the best batting line-up in the world which includes star batsmen like Jacques Kallis. However Kallis is not among the runs so far in the tournament but he is big match player and against India he is terriffic and in the match against India he will definitely going to make a big score because he loves Indian bowling very much..Proteas won  their first two matches  convincingly but lost to England in a cliffhanger and that will be playing on their mind in this match and they will certainly play better cricket compare to the match against England and will not going to repeat those mistakes which they did against England. Proteas lower-order batting is a bit of concern which often cracks under-pressure and they have to work on this weakness. I think they must promote Morne Wan Vyk up the  order and send Kallis or DeVilliers down the order just to consolidate the lower middle-order.  

Proteas are the best bowling side in the tournament in terms of pace and accuracy. They have great variation in their bowling department. They have two terrific opening fast bowlers in Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel and Indian batting is quite vulnerable against genuine pace and bounce. They possess great spin weapons in leg-spinner Imran Tahir, left-arm spinner Robin Peterson and off-spinner Johan Botha but since Tahir is injured I think they will go in with Johan Botha. They can also think of playing Lonwabo Tsotsobe who had great success against India in the last series and pace is also the Indian weakness so there is no harm in going with pace attack. Felding is the Proteas biggest asset and I must say Proteas starts as favourites to win this game. Imran Tahir is the joint second leading wicket-taker in the tournament and he was trump card for Proteas in previous matches but I think he play or don't play doesn't matter in the match against India because Indians play spin well.


Squad:

Greame Smith(Captain), Hashim Amla, Jacque Kallis, AB DeVilliers(WK), Morne Van Wyk(WK), Jean-Paul Duminy, Collin Ingram, Faf DuPlessis, Johan Botha, Robin Peterson, Imran Tahir, Dale Steyn, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Morne Morkel, Wayne Parnell. Corrie Van Zyl(Coach)

Wicket at VCA Stadium in Nagpur will going to be a belter and will allow score in excess of 300 if teams bat well. I think toss will not going to be a factor in this match because wicket will going to be the same for entire 100 overs and there is no problem of dew as well because we are in mid-March. VCA stadium have the history of big scores. So it will going to be run-feast for the batsmen and nightmare for the bowlers especially Indian bowlers who need some assistance from the wicket.

India's perfect 15 for ICC Cricket World Cup 2011

MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Piyush Chawla, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin, Yusuf Pathan.

Above are the 15 players on whom five men selection committee led by K.Srikkanth have put in faith to win ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. Now this 15 men squad have to carry the burden of billion people's dream of winning the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 for next 3 months.

I feel selectors have picked up near perfect squad and this squad is picked up according to the conditions of sub-continent and thats why selectors have picked up 3 spinners in Ashwin, Chawla and Harbhajan. It is good that this ICC Cricket World Cup is happening in sub-continent and our players will get lot of home support to win it. I feel it is correct decision but to me back-up wicket-keeper is also essential because Dhoni is carrying few finger injuries and if something happens to him during the tournament then I don't think so anybody else can do keeping. In last 2 World Cups we had services of Rahul Dravid but this time he is not around so who will keep wickets if Dhoni gets injured before any key match. I feel instead of Ashwin if selectors had chosen Parthiv Patel then it would have been considered more wise decision. Although Ashwin is very good bowler and deserves the place in the side but we have too many off-spinners now. Sachin,Raina, Pathan and Bhajji can bowl off-spinners, so additional off-spinner is not required.

Over all I feel team is good and I hope they bring glory to the country by winning ICC Cricket World Cup and make our dream true.