Sunday, August 8th, 2010
We all know how good fourth innings chasers India traditionally are. I almost wrote a book about it. Even recently there were occasions where the opposition bowlers had to only ensure they didn’t bowl no-balls or wides and our batsmen did the rest. You would barely take an hour break to do something and then come back to see Kumble and some other tail ender delaying the defeat with commentators telling us they were batting better than the established batsmen who got out in a way that had nothing to do with the wicket, conditions or even the bowling.
Seems that glorious certainty is changing, slowly but surely. Despite its grand on-paper batting India has successfully chased a 200+ score a whopping 8 times in its entire history of 440 matches, in 137 of these India had to chase something. 5 of those 8 have come in last 10 years. 3 of those are outside India (Kandy, Colombo and Adelaide).
Add to these some of those recent innings where India batted long enough to draw the game when the target was too much, like at Lords in 2007 and there is reason to think it’s worthwhile to see India’s batting in fourth innings after all. Here are those recent 200+ wins and major batting contributors. I have not listed bowling contributors because in case of a fourth innings chase the roles change - the bowlers can set the game up but not win it, the batsmen do:
258/5 against Sri Lanka, 2010: Laxman, Tendulkar, Raina
387/4 against England, 2008: Tendulkar, Sehwag, Yuvraj
203/4 against Pakistan, 2007: Ganguly, Jaffer, Tendulkar
233/6 against Australia, 2003: Dravid, Sehwag
264/3 against Sri Lanka, 2001: Ganguly, Dravid
Another thing to notice here is the recent three such wins feature significant contributions from Tendulkar, the guy who was always (for Tendulkar “always” means during some 4-5 years phase of his career) criticized as not a finisher. He stayed unbeaten in two of these three games, once against Pakistan.
Posted in cricket, Australia, India, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sehwag, Kumble, Laxman | No Comments »
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
India is the no 1 ranked test team now with this win against Sri Lanka. I guess now the tough part begins - to maintain this ranking. But if some other team takes this away soon, it will be mostly due to that team’s results. This is because India doesn’t really have many tests planned until the next world cup. There is an away series against Bangladesh early next year and then I don’t know what’s next in tests.
With this win Dhoni now has gone his first 10 tests India’s captain without losing any yet. I first thought this might be a record already but then a quick search on Cricinfo Statsguru told me that Gavaskar had gone 18 matches like this when he started. Dhoni has been the main captain only for just over a year now after Kumble retired last year. Prior to that he led India as a stand-in captain a few times.
A couple of amusing news. After some decisions went against Sri Lanka in the third test Murali said the ICC needed to use the Umpire Decision Review System everywhere and not leave it to mutual choice as it is right now. On an unrelated note the use of UDRS irritated umpire Mark Benson so much in the second test between Australia and West Indies that he has decided to retire after this match. Tony Cozier then wrote that the review system doesn’t work.
BCCI has appointed Mike Young as a fielding consultant to the Indian team for three weeks. Mike Young is a former baseball coach. So I started wondering how he can coach the fielders to catch a ball without those mittens, whether he is going to make the fielders more efficient by asking them to not stop after running a batsman out, instead try to make the other batsman out as well (”not bother about that dead ball thing”) and whether he is going to pay any attention to the balls that are hit behind the wicket. But it seems he has been coaching the Australia team for a few years already and they turned out just fine. So we have nothing to worry about. In one of the documents referred on the Wikipedia page about him, he knows this much at least “The ball is about the same size (as the one used in Baseball) but harder…It’s been a real positive sport to be involved in and it is very popular. The players are tremendous athletes”. On the last statement there, do note that he was talking about the Australian fielders and not the Indians.
Posted in cricket, Australia, India, West Indies, Dhoni, ICC, Sri Lanka, BCCI, Baseball, Gavaskar, Kumble | 1 Comment »
Friday, December 4th, 2009
Will Sri Lanka go for a possible win in this match? At the end of the third day of the Mumbai test they are 322 behind with two full days remaining. Of course saving this game will be the first priority and I know for a session or two they will first look to ensure that. But whether they will be just satisfied with that will tell us how far they are ready to go to get to the top of the international rankings.
In the recent years both India and Sri Lanka have won a lot of matches, they have even won abroad and in statistical terms there isn’t much to separate them. India gets more visibility probably because they have won more at places like Perth, Leeds, Johannesburg and Jamaica, and may be another reason is India’s fierce rivalry with Australia in the last decade.
(Source: Cricinfo Statsguru) In the last 10 years Sri Lanka have won 44 of their 96, India won 39 of 105. In the last 5 years it’s 23 of 45 and 21 of 53 respectively. India’s record is better ‘away from home’ - India has won 11 of their 29 matches abroad whereas Sri Lanka have won 7 of their 23. But consider that some of these matches were played against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe and we realize that the overall record is not massively different, at least statistically. In terms of the quality of the opposition India has a better records in last 5 years where they have won at least one match in each away series except the one in Pakistan in 2006.
Where these teams are also similar is the apparent lack of the intent to go for it when there is a choice. I think in the third test in New Zealand Dhoni was criticized for not declaring early enough to account for rain to force a result. The situation was a little different then though as India was already leading and so even with the draw India won the series. Here Sri Lanka faces an entirely different situation - they have never won a test match in India. So if they lose or draw this it will be no different anyway. But if they are able to win it it will be a big thing. Of course there will be criticism but the rewards of success are much bigger for them if they win.
The three scenarios appear to be like this, in the sequence of likelihood:
India win: This is where either India gets them for under 333 or just over it and achieve it. India has enough time to do this.
Draw: For this to happen Sri Lanka needs to either bat out the whole time, or score enough runs by the time they are all out that India can’t get those in the remaining overs. So they need either bat very long for whatever no of runs or bat really fast and get more than 500.
Sri Lanka win: For this Lanka needs to bat at least 4 sessions and that too with a high run rate. That would mean they might get 400+ by that time and have a chance to bowl at India on the fifth day pitch. But it’s a delicate balance as if they declare too defensively they will neither leave India enough overs to get those runs nor for them to get India out. If they need to have about 60 overs for a chance they need to make around 510 runs in 120 overs. Not entirely impossible but very difficult - and then you add a chance that India can still get those runs in 60 overs. As we have seen most of the times both India and Sri Lanka seem content to declare only when they know they won’t lose.
But Sri Lanka have in front of them an opportunity to show that they can take these risks in their pursuit of being the no 1 team. If they go for it, apart from other things what it will also mean is that this match will get very interesting to watch!
Posted in cricket, Australia, India, Ganguly, Dravid, West Indies, Dhoni, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kumble | No Comments »