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Plays of the day from game five of the Asia Cup, between Bangladesh and Pakistan

Siddarth Ravindran in Dambulla21-Jun-2010Watching the watchers
With the home side not in action and the finalists already decided, hardly any spectators turned up at the stadium. Still, every 20 yards along the boundary, there was a policeman intently watching stands in which there wasn’t a single person during the afternoon. By the time the floodlights came on though, some policemen took up a few seats in the stand, giving their colleagues someone to keep an eye on.What’s to celebrate?
Pakistan had plundered 47 runs in the previous three overs, and moved to 312 for 4 after 44 overs with the batting Powerplay still in hand. In the next over, Umar Akmal was bowled by a yorker but Bangladesh’s chances were so slim that only the in-fielders came up to congratulate the bowler. After some more mayhem, Shahid Afridi was dismissed. By then, Pakistan had moved to 347. None of the Bangladeshis bothered to celebrate the wicket.Keeping the spirit
Shafiul Islam had a horror day with the ball. By the 48th over, he had leaked 72 in nine overs and Pakistan had racked up a total Bangladesh had no hope of chasing. But when Abdul Razzaq carved one towards deep extra cover, Shafiul hared after it and made a diving stop to keep Pakistan to three.Afridi makes Mashrafe pay
Afridi gave a simple chance to Mashrafe Mortaza at mid-on when on 32. Mortaza shelled it. Afridi made him realise just how expensive it was through a spell of hitting that was breathtaking even by Afridi’s explosive standards. In the next 20 deliveries, he slammed 12 fours and a six to ransack 62 runs and set Pakistan on the way to their highest ODI total.Getting out of neutral
Perhaps to restore the balance between bat and ball after Pakistan’s rampage towards the end of their innings, Imrul Kayes started off in Test match mode. Chasing the small matter of 386, he took 24 deliveries before finally getting off the mark, that too off an outside edge to third man. Old-timers reminisced about Sunil Gavaskar’s infamous 36* in 60 overs during the 1975 World Cup in the face of a similarly monumental target, but Kayes eventually perked up to lift his strike-rate to 60.

Under pressure after a poor batting effort, on a pitch that had eased out but was still lively, Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth missed Zaheer Khan, the leader of the attack

Sidharth Monga at SuperSport Park17-Dec-2010Harbhajan Singh was bullish when asked, at the end of the first day, whether Zaheer Khan’s absence had done India psychological damage already. “We have not bowled a single ball yet, so I can’t say if we have missed Zaheer Khan or not,” he said. “We have got other bowlers. If you see previous games, Ishant Sharma bowled really well in Nagpur. The other guy, Sreesanth, bowled really well. Spinners also bowled really well. So we don’t depend on one particular bowler. And we have bowlers who can adapt to any condition and get us wickets. We are no more a team that depends on one particular batsman or bowler. We believe everyone can perform in given conditions.”On paper, or even on websites, that sounds good. In reality though, under pressure after a poor batting effort, on a pitch that had eased out but was still lively, Ishant and the “other guy” missed the leader of the attack. The man who could show them what lengths to bowl, the man who would stand at mid-on, put an arm around their shoulder, and suggest slight corrections to get them wickets.It could be argued that the Indian medium-pacers didn’t have the pace of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, and were hence ineffective. Sreesanth and Ishant, however, have always relied on movement as opposed to pace. When he won India the Wanderers Test on the previous tour, Sreesanth did it with movement, and not pace.There was movement to be had here too. And both Sreesanth and Ishant had it aplenty in the first spell. Except that Sreesanth kept erring on the shorter side, not bringing Graeme Smith and Alviro Petersen forward at all, which is where the edges would come. Loud tuck after loud tuck followed off Sreesanth’s bowling as both the batsmen could stay back and cover the movement, and also leave balls on length. The stares that he gave the batsmen after they defended balls back to him smack off the middle of the bat grated, and also earned him a lot of heat from the crowd who cheered when he misfielded, and had a lot to say to him. One of them seemingly had to be asked to leave too.Ishant looked likelier to get a wicket, especially with the seam movement he obtained at the start. The first ball he bowled beat Smith, but it was pitched outside leg. The second missed the edge slightly outside off. However, despite the movement Ishant failed to make Smith play enough. His lengths created doubt, his lines ruined the effect. The openers chose to leave 17 deliveries from him, and Smith deliberately played inside the line of several others. Ishant didn’t go round the wicket to Smith, nor did he try a bouncer like he meant it. The new ball would set the tone, and there was no doubt as to what kind of music it played.The bouncers arrived when the ball was some 40 overs old, and had some sort of impact on Hashim Amla, but one wonders if that sort of variation would have taken so long coming had Zaheer been there. By then, a selection blunder had also been put on display. Jaidev Unadkat, about as non-violent as the other man from Porbandar who came to South Africa decades ago, clearly is not the fourth-best fast bowler in the country. He didn’t swing the ball, he didn’t have pace, he wasn’t Test-ready. Nor is Umesh Yadav the fifth-best.Rahul Dravid, speaking after the day’s play, admitted Zaheer could have made a difference. “He has obviously got a lot of experience,” Dravid said. “He is someone who has played all over the world, and is the leader of our attack, so obviously you are going to miss him. You can’t help it. These things happen. People get injured. Especially when you fall behind in a game, you need somebody to step up and Zaheer has usually been our go-to man in the last couple of years. He wasn’t there today.”The other guys tried their best. [But] South Africans batted really well, and the wicket eased out really considerably. It’s a learning experience for a lot of our younger bowlers, in terms of their lengths. Maybe we could have bowled a bit fuller, maybe we could have made them drive a bit more.”Abhimanyu Mithun impressed the team management with his strength and spirited bowling on the Sri Lanka tour, where India drew the series on unhelpful tracks in the absence of Zaheer, Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh. He will now be wondering what wrong he has done to not be on this trip. Knowing the Indian selectors’ ways, in all likelihood nobody has told him. To send two rookie fast bowlers on such a big tour, one of whom has played four Ranji Trophy matches and the other who failed to create any impression in two ODI defeats against Zimbabwe, was as big a blunder this selection committee – used to making blunders – has made. There could be an argument worth considering that the selectors have been frustrated by Munaf Patel, but against Mithun there is no case.Two days into India’s tour of reckoning, both their wings have malfunctioned, and they find themselves facing one of their worst defeats in recent times. While they have been at the wrong end of conditions to an extent, neither did the day-one conditions merit 136 for 9 nor did those on day two merit 366 for 2. Test cricket provides a second chance though, a shot at redemption. This team has redeemed itself in the past, but the players know if they are to get out of this one – without the help of weather – it will take the very best of their efforts and huge improvements in all aspects of their game.

ESPNcricinfo presents the Plays of the Day from the World Cup, Group A match between Pakistan and Australia at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo

Brydon Coverdale and Osman Samiuddin at the R Premadasa Stadium 19-Mar-2011Referral of the day
Pakistan haven’t been too hot in their usage of the DRS in this World Cup, their batsmen and bowlers both too eager to go upstairs to challenge decisions that, to the naked eye, have mostly looked right in the first place. But when Ricky Ponting edged Mohammad Hafeez – and it was so huge, it nearly came off the face of the bat – and Marais Erasmus turned it down, they asked for it straight away. They’d already wasted one early in the innings but as replays confirmed, the edge was so massive Kamran Akmal did remarkably well to hold on to it. Perhaps Akmal holding on to an actual edge was what Erasmus couldn’t believe? We’re not sure what Ponting
was hoping to achieve by hanging around but this is surely why the DRS exists.Scrap of the day
Bragging rights and a favourable quarter-final draw were the only incentives in a game of two sides already assured knock-out spots. It could’ve been a low-tension stroll through the Premadasa but low intensity is not something associated with these two sides. Pakistan announced their intent by not giving into emotion and keeping Shoaib Akhtar out. Through
the day there was chatter among opponents, though Umar Akmal and Brad Haddin took it to another level with their feisty tete-a-tete after the Ricky Ponting referral. Words were exchanged – not nice ones – and fingers pointed, before Shahid Afridi and Younis Khan tried to calm things down. They didn’t and the situation seemed to get worse with what appeared to be a little shove of Younis by Haddin. Ah, dead group games…Double of the day
The result was drifting towards foregone-conclusion territory with Pakistan needing 79 more runs with eight wickets in hand, when Brett Lee gave the game some spark. Lee had removed both the openers in his first spell, and as soon as he came back for his second, he struck a double blow. Younis Khan edged behind from the fourth ball of Lee’s second spell and the next
delivery Misbah-ul-Haq also nicked through to Brad Haddin. It was the lift the Australians needed, but unfortunately for Lee, his was proving to be a solo effort.Soccer of the day
Lee did some fine work with the ball in this match, but this was not his best moment. He dug the ball in to Umar Akmal, who kept it out, though not without a certain awkwardness, and in his follow-through Lee looked set to collect the ball. Instead, he decided to kick it off the ground towards the wicketkeeper – the only problem being that it skewed off the side of his boot and ran away towards fine leg for an overthrow. Or, more correctly, an overkick.

A collection of quotes from Shoaib Akhtar and by others about him over his colourful career

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Mar-2011″How many diamonds can you retrieve from one single mine; there has to be an end somewhere. I don’t see any natural fast bowler after me.”
(June 14, 2008)”I think I will donate the money to Mother Teresa or something like that.”
. (May 30, 2008)”Once Shoaib sees the crowds, and of course the babes around, I think he will be able to perform.”
(May 7, 2008)”The Shoaib Akhtar [of our team] is Asmavia Iqbal … The only difference between him and her is that she’s completely fit, sticks to her game and does the job she’s asked to do.”
(April 24, 2008)”I don’t know – for us or for Pakistan?”

(September 29, 2007)”This would be a first for Shoaib, who is widely regarded as a more committed playboy than cricketer.”
(May 11, 2007)”He said I looked like Tarzan, and wondered how I could bowl fast looking like that.”
Shoaib reveals how Andrew Flintoff inadvertently boosted his will to win (December 14, 2005)”Shoaib, leave the chicken man alone, and start your practice.”
(November 27, 2005)”I didn’t see him in Australia because he didn’t turn up for the first three days of the Test.”

(November 11, 2005)”This is not a joke, so just shut up.”
(October 20, 2005)”A bloke’s bowling at 150kph trying to rip the fingers off your arms or probably even worse. It gets your blood going and the adrenalin pumping. You are in a fight. And to me that’s what Test cricket is all about.”

(January 1, 2005)It is quite surprising that one is unfit in Pakistan and by reaching England gets fit overnight.”
(May 12, 2004)”I am not an angel, I have my bad days and good days. I am still learning day by day.”
(April 10, 2004)”We will try and pull the chain and stop the train midway.”
(March 4, 2004)

MS Dhoni had earlier spoken of how the rotation policy will have helped “by the time” India make it to the finals. With “by the time” becoming a big “if”, India are set resort to their best XI, but who constitutes that XI is not a straightforward decision

Sidharth Monga in Sydney25-Feb-2012MS Dhoni will persist with Ravindra Jadeja as the allrounder, and Irfan Pathan will play as a specialist bowler in India’s near do-or-die match against Australia on Sunday. Dhoni said he was impressed with Irfan’s bowling, but that playing him at No. 7 will leave the batting thin. When asked if India will play a specialist batsman at No. 7 as, seemingly, the batting was their main concern, Dhoni said he didn’t want to lose out on Jadeja’s spin bowling.It is an interesting persistence. Jadeja is a likable player, no doubt. He fields superbly in the circle, has a rocket arm from the deep, and squeezes every last drop out of his batting and bowling talent. You want to make space for such players in your side, but how long do you persist, and do you respect conditions? The fact remains that Jadeja is neither as good a timer of the ball as Irfan nor as good a bowler in Australian conditions with two new balls being used.This thought process points to a limited side that happens to be out of form too. In other words, Dhoni is not confident that his four specialist bowlers and Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and Virender Sehwag can bowl 50 overs among them. Nor does he trust his six best batsmen followed by Irfan and R Ashwin to bat out – and bat out convincingly – 50 overs. You have to empathise with Dhoni here: the batting is struggling, and you will never bet your well-earned money on India’s bowlers, bar two, completing their quota.One of those two bowlers, Zaheer Khan, is out with a calf injury, which is the reason Irfan was tried out in the first place. The second, Praveen Kumar, has played only two ODIs in this series despite being fit. Given Vinay Kumar’s hamstring injury, Praveen is likely to return, but Dhoni made it clear he wasn’t the first choice as his pace and length had fallen away following a rib injury that kept him out of the Test series.”He is swinging the ball,” Dhoni agreed, but added, “after he has come back from injury, he has dropped down in pace a bit. From a bowler who was bowling just over 130, the last game that he played, he bowled close to 125 and below that. And he was bowling a fraction short. At that pace if you are a fraction short, then players have more opportunity to cash in.”Dhoni said that with the injuries forcing him to rotate players, there was no need to employ an extra rotation policy. When India had won two matches in a row and tied the third, Dhoni had spoken of how the rotation policy will have helped “by the time” India make it to the finals. “By the time” has become a big “if” now. And so, he suggested he would go back to playing the best XI, meaning Rohit might miss out again.It was a bold move to back the youngsters, to give them more exposure, or even look for a better fielding unit. The motive behind the move cannot be questioned in a vacuum. The communication can be, but that’s a different matter now. At the end of the day, the youngsters haven’t taken those opportunities. Rohit has all but played himself out, Raina has only been marginally better. Dhoni is not giving up on them any time soon, though.”Not disappointed,” he said, “because every time any individual goes on to the field he wants to perform. And at times you can’t perform. It has happened to each and every one who has played international cricket. It’s just that most of our batsmen haven’t done consistently well in the series, so we are feeling the pressure.”Doesn’t matter who you are or where you are batting, if you think of the first six batsmen as a unit. Out of first six, if three or four of them are performing, it doesn’t matter who is the person who is not performing. Because what happens is, as a team you do well. You can give those extra few games to the individual who has not done well.”But when you are going through a phase where you are struggling a bit, then it becomes difficult to give that particular individual those extra two games or three games, which may make him turn things around. You have to go by the demands of the game, and right now we are not in a very good situation. We are in a do-or-die situation, and the best XI will feature based on fitness and availability.”What the best XI is, is another matter altogether. There are various factors to be considered: slow fielders, injuries, bowlers who can’t be trusted to bowl ten overs every day, out-of-form batsmen. You wouldn’t want to be in Dhoni’s shoes right now.Edited by Nikita Bastian

Terrific on the road, not so at home. An inconsistent Kings XI Punjab still punched above their weight

Siddarth Ravindran20-May-2012

Key player

Kings XI Punjab had to shell out $1.4m for David Hussey’s services, but it proved to be money well spent. Whether it was as a finisher or as a stabiliser, Hussey’s game proved malleable to the match situation. With Adam Gilchrist ruled out of much of the season with a hamstring tear, Hussey took over the leadership and inspired his younger team-mates like Mandeep Singh. His offspinners weren’t on view often, though it did prove a game-changer in at least one match.

Bargain buy

At $200,000 Azhar Mahmood was a cut-price purchase. After the troubles with his visa were sorted, Mahmood became an integral part of the XI, showing that even at 37, he was a formidable force in Twenty20s. In a tournament where the death-bowling has been abysmal, Mahmood was a reliable performer late in the innings, regularly tricking batsmen with his slower ball. He hasn’t been a slouch with the bat either, entering the tournament with 14-ball 33 against Royal Challengers Bangalore and finishing with a steadying 36 against Delhi Daredevils.Another contender in this category is uncapped fast bowler Parvinder Awana, who went on to become their highest wicket-taker this season.

Flop buy

Hard to pick anyone for this category at a tight-fisted franchise like Kings XI. Unlike others, they didn’t make any big-money buys to shake up the XI. Their wage bill was possibly less than last year as they sold off the $900,000-rated Dinesh Karthik and brought in a load of inexpensive players. The costliest acquisition this season was Mahmood at a measly (by IPL standards) $200,000, and he turned out to be a shrewd investment.

Highlight

Halfway through the season, Kings XI had only three wins, and were playing to pre-tournament expectations by being stuck at No.8. The tailspin seemed set to continue against Chennai Super Kings, when they blundered to 156, after having been 97 for 1 in the 12th over. Super Kings’ openers cruised to 47 by the sixth over, before Mahmood started the fightback, dismissing both openers with his slower ball. Piyush Chawla then showed his resilience, taking 2 for 20 and choking the middle order just three days after a confidence-shattering, match-losing penultimate over against Mumbai Indians. Even the depth of Super Kings’ batting, with Albie Morkel at No. 8, wasn’t enough to overcome Kings XI, who in the absence of superstars once again turned in a team effort to outpunch heavier opponents.

Lowlight

After completing the difficult job of beating both Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore away in the space of five days, Kings XI were in the top four for the first time in the season. They had a chance to build on that momentum when they came up against a Rajasthan Royals side that had lost four in a row, the last of which had been a hiding at the hands of Daredevils. Instead, Kings XI imploded, going down by 43 runs. Their captain Hussey summarised the performance: “I don’t think our bowlers were that flash, I don’t think our fielding was that flash. I think the batting needs a bit of work as well.”

Verdict

Inconsistent. They never managed to win more than two games in a row. Kings XI beat four of the top five teams on the road, but their home record was unflattering, victorious in only three matches. For the third time in four seasons, they had a chance of qualifying as the final round of league games started and, as on the previous two occasions, they blew it, surrendering to Daredevils in Dharamsala.One of the bright spots in their campaign was that the highest run-getter and highest wicket-taker for Kings XI were both young, uncapped Indians. At the start of the tournament, Kings XI seemed to have one of the weakest of Indian contingents, especially after the sale of Karthik to Mumbai Indians. Mandeep Singh, all of 20 years old, stepped up as an opener while Awana extended his success in the Ranji season to the IPL as well.

Titans found the correct length with the ball on their home turf, making their bowlers far more effective than the Scorchers’

Firdose Moonda13-Oct-2012Local knowledge was going to be an advantage for South African sides at this year’s Champions League and the Titans showed why. A major factor in their 39-run win over Perth Scorchers was their ability with the ball, which helped them find the correct length on their home turf to far greater effect than Scorchers’ bowlers did.Evidence of that can be found in a simple score comparison. At the end of 12 overs, the Titans were 105 for 0. At the same stage of the Scorcher’s innings, they were 64 for 4.Scorchers’ bowlers pulled it back and gave away only 58 runs in the last eight over of the innings to restrict the Titans to 163 but their lapses earlier cost them at the end. On a pitch with good bounce, every bowler in the attack preferred length and full deliveries to ones just back a length, which the Titans later showed would have made it more difficult for the batsmen.Titans captain Martin van Jaarsveld was surprised at the lack of penetration from the Perth attack upfront, especially since he thought whoever had first use of the surface would make it count. “I was quite disappointed to lose the toss because I thought it was going to do quite a bit,” he said. “But at the beginning they bowled either too full or too short and our openers were electric.”For 73 balls, Scorchers allowed Henry David and Jacques Rudolph to dictate proceedings. Davids enjoyed shimmying down the track and hitting through the offside, and took the pressure off Rudolph, who was allowed time to show why he should not be labelled a Test player.Only when Davids was dismissed did Scorchers get measure of how to operate. Brad Hogg led the way, giving away only two runs of his third over and the Titans batsmen had to do more than just help themselves. “It was tough to hit the spinners,” van Jaarsveld said.With a rein on the innings, Nathan Rimmington did the rest of the containing and gave away only five singles in his last two overs. Scorchers’ captain Marcus North said that performance gave the team some belief as they went into the break and enhanced Rimmington’s reputation as his go-to man.”He is our banker. As a captain he is the guys you want to throw the ball to and you know he will get it right more often than not,” North said. “It comes with the confidence of having a few good games and it is down to hard work. He has worked really hard at those yorkers and trying to be a step ahead of the batsmen. He is very easy to captain and very clear and decisive about what he wants to execute and what fields he wants.”Van Jaarsveld must feel as though he has three Rimmingtons. His seamers, Alfonso Thomas, Ethy Mbhalati and CJ de Villiers did not put a foot wrong, after Eden Links set the tone with a tight first over. Links got the length right immediately as he beat Herschelle Gibbs with a short of a length delivery. And the rest of the attack very rarely swayed from that plan.”We decided to hit four-day lengths and aim for the top of off stump,” van Jaarsveld explained. “I found that the tall bowlers were able to extract a lot of bounce off the wicket.”CJ de Villiers, who will remind some of Marchant de Lange, was the tallest of the lot and had the most success. He used his variations well too, something a bowler like Mitchell Marsh was not able to do. “There is slight inexperience in their bowling line-up,” Van Jaarsveld said. “And we sort of took the wind out of the sails upfront.”North said the air stayed out, even in the batting department, where he would like to see improvement. “The wicket played really well and we left too much work for the middle order. The top four have to take responsibility. With the make-up of our side – five batsmen and the keeper at six – we really need the top four to fire.”

It will be a battle between Titans’ batsmen and Sydney Sixers’ bowlers in the second Champions League T20 semi-final in Centurion

Firdose Moonda25-Oct-2012The similarities between Titans and Sydney Sixers are startling, beginning with the simple fact that they are the only two champions left in the Champions League.Both won their respective domestic competitions and have established themselves as the powerhouses of cricket in their countries. Both have potent bowling attacks, although Sydney’s has more of the future with Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazelwood while Titans’ is more of a mix with CJ de Villiers in the youth corner and Alfonso Thomas adding experience.Both have stalwart wicketkeepers in Brad Haddin and Heino Kuhn – who is hoping to challenge for national selection – and both are without some big stars. Titans reached the final without the Morkel brothers, AB de Villiers or Faf du Plessis, Sydney have had it a little less severe.Shane Watson played in their first three matches, all of them which were Sydney victories, but was then ordered to return home. His team showed they could cope without him as they went on to win their last group stage game as well. The battle lines have been drawn on that premise: these two teams are fighters no matter what.”You can’t underestimate a side without their top stars. Titans have shown that in this competition and so have Sydney,” Titans coach Matthew Maynard said, further outlining where the duel will be waged. “We know Sydney are a very strong side and bowlers are suited to these conditions, but so are our batsmen. I think that’s going to be the contest that decides it.”Jacques Rudolph and Henry Davids have done the bulk of Titans’ work with the willow. They have featured in two half-century opening stands and, in both circumstances, Titans scored sizeable totals and won the match. The pair accumulated runs in more traditional ways, rather than relying on improvised 20-overs methods, which Maynard said is the way the shortest format should be played.”I don’t think slogging plays a massive part in 20-overs cricket, full stop,” he said. “Maybe it comes in towards the back end of an innings when people hit the ball in unusual areas. But generally, good cricket shots pay off and teams have learned that over the years. Henry and Jacques both play good cricket shots and they have done well.”But, the pair and Titans’ batting as a whole fell apart against Kolkata Knight Riders, when they were dismissed for 89. It was their weakest performance in recent memory but Maynard is not reading too much into the defeat, because Knight Riders could play with absolute freedom, having already been knocked out of the tournament.”The Knight Riders batsmen really went after our bowlers and hit our guys off their lengths. They had nothing to lose doing that, even if a couple of balls went in the air,” Maynard said, maintaining that building strategies on that type of gameplan does not pay off in the long-run. “It was high-risk, high-reward kind of cricket. You can’t keep playing your cricket as adventurously as Knight Riders did that day and [have it] keep coming off; there’s a time where that fails.”Maynard does not expect Sydney to approach the semi-final with that attitude. “I’ll be very surprised if Sydney are as carefree as Knight Riders were,” he said, but acknowledged that they are the favourites. “The favourites for the final, probably from the outset, would have been Delhi and Sydney. But the two local sides are in the semi-finals as well. I don’t think many people would have predicted that at the start.”The success of the South African sides has in some part been credited to their knowledge of local conditions but Maynard said there is something else Titans will be counting on come Friday. “A big crowd is what gives you the home ground advantage,” he said. “The players love playing in front of a crowd, as they showed against Perth in the first game.”Marcus North, the Scorchers’ captain, admitted that his side found it intimidating in front of the Centurion faithful and Maynard is hopeful they can repeat that against Sydney. “If the stadium is a third full or a quarter full, then I don’t believe there is any home advantage because there isn’t that atmosphere created by the supporters to make that much of a difference,” he said. “But 10,000 people … that’s different.”

Plays of the Day from the first day of the second Test between Australia and Sri Lanka in Melbourne

Andrew Fernando at the MCG26-Dec-2012The poor stroke
Sri Lanka’s top order played several awful shots during their first-innings shambles, but Tillakaratne Dilshan took the prize for woeful shot selection when he was bowled in the seventh over by Mitchell Johnson. Eyeing a good length delivery pitched on middle and off, and leaden-footed, Dilshan brought his bat down in an ungainful swipe across the line and missed the ball by a distance as it nipped back in at him. Dilshan had been eager to aggress from the first delivery he faced, but even given his hundred in the first Test that was founded on positivity, it was a stroke whose rashness the “that’s the way I play” defense would struggle to survive.The anticlimax
When Johnson dismissed Prasanna Jayawardene and Dhammika Prasad with two consecutive lifters, Michael Clarke placed a leg gully, short leg and midwicket for Rangana Herath’s first ball, even taking pains to approach the tailender and ensure he knew those men were there for the duck-hook he had played several times in Hobart. The 61,000-strong crowd clapping Johnson on as he approached the crease might have expected another bouncer as well, but instead he delivered a length ball on off stump, which Herath tamely tapped onto the offside.The catch
Michael Hussey had snaffled a sharp chance at third slip to dismiss Angelo Mathews earlier in the session, but Matthew Wade’s take to send Kumar Sangakkara back eclipsed that effort for pure tenacity. Wade turned around in an instant when Sangakkara top-edged a pull off Johnson, and tore after the skied ball, heading directly towards the sightscreen. Despite his speed, the ball seemed to have got away from him, right until he put in a full-stretch dive to intercept it with the tips of his webbed gloves, about 10 metres from the boundary.The sequence
Sri Lanka’s only assured moments on day one were when Sangakkara was at the striker’s end, and he was at his most sublime in the 21st over, when he struck Mitchell Johnson for a trio of exquisite boundaries. The first was hit through mid-on, as Johnson overpitched on leg stump, before Sangakkara went back to square-drive Johnson between gully and point the next delivery. The best shot of the three was the last – nothing more than a firm push with the full face of the bat that raced back past the bowler and to the straight boundary.The overhead forehand
Shaminda Eranga attempted to bounce Hughes upon his arrival, letting one fly so high that it evaded Sangakkara’s reach and skipped to the boundary. When he bowled a similar length next ball, Hughes found a way to get off the mark with a stroke that was unconventional even for him. The ball was flying through about a foot above his head well outside off stump, but Hughes managed to middle it, bringing his bat down on the shot much like how a tennis player would on an overhead volley, and sent it to the boundary.

From DravidFan, United States of America
Someone referred to the “I” in Ganguly

Cricinfo25-Feb-2013DravidFan, United States of America
Someone referred to the “I” in Ganguly. Well, Ganguly is not Terrell Owens or the guy from the commercial who says “well, there is no V in team either” to the someone’s comment saying “there is no I in team”. However, Ganguly always felt he was royalty. I bet he still does. To me, Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar are much more reliable than Ganguly ever was, not to mention being humble.That said, what Ganguly brought to the table was aggression, albeit the baggage. He never gave up his lunch money and assumed the fetal position to any sledging or other nonsense from anyone. That attitude has been sadly missing for ever, with the exception of Sunil Gavaskar who once famously pushed Chetan Chauhan out of the field when he was upset with Lillee.To me, Ganguly so far has been the best Indian left hander I have seen. Gambhir has potential, but ways to go. The point of this rambling is that Sourav has lost a bit of my respect when he spewed the lava about his teammates and I assume Dhoni when he said changing hairstyles. I gotta think that Dhoni is the reason Ganguly was dropped from the ODI team.Lastly, we all know at some point TDLK (Tendulkar, Dravid Laxman, Kumble) will all be retiring (I sure hope so) before they get unceremoniously paraded out. I seriously think Kumble is playing his last test series, given that he is giving up runs faster than the speed of ganges.India should follow Australia’s footsteps, have the juniors ready to go (will not happen without TDLK mentoring the juniors) and ease them and have TDLK exit one at a time.