Australia v India, 1st Test, Melbourne, 26-30 December (II)

Allan D wrote:
England must still be slight favourites.

The oz batting remains a crock. As fragile a Nasser's fingers.

Our fast bowling in the this match was superb. The most even performance amongst 3 quicks that I can recall.

England are more than slight favourites.

Turning point of the Test - Cot bowling SRT late on the 2nd evening. It was looking bleak for Aus as the started to warm down for Day 3.

Mick Sawyer wrote:

Allan D wrote:
England must still be slight favourites.

The oz batting remains a crock. As fragile a Nasser's fingers.

Our fast bowling in the this match was superb. The most even performance amongst 3 quicks that I can recall.

England are more than slight favourites.

Aye, England well in front on the class front at this point, but we do have a year and a half to work on our unit.

So did iIndia choke?

Has anyone seen SG today?

lardbucket wrote:He does bat well ... seems to have a sound technique and all the shots.

I thought all that about Midge in the early days too. Thankfully we don't have Neilsen to fark Patto up.

he may have put himself on ignore

skully wrote:Turning point of the Test - Cot bowling SRT late on the 2nd evening. It was looking bleak for Aus as the started to warm down for Day 3.

Aye. Cot's batting early in the day was pretty important too.

I think it was easily Cot's most valuable game for Aust. Hopefully we'll see much more of it.

Was the wicket too bouncy?

Winning margin was 122 runs which was Punter's match total.

Why do commentators come up with the stupid stat that if someone crosses 20 his average goes to 70. That's bleeding obvious.

skully wrote:Has anyone seen SG today?

Ganguly or Gavaskar?

The Fence got bowled by all three Oz fast bowlers ...Is he gawn?

taipan wrote:Was the wicket too bouncy?

Well, it was above knee high, so the Bannies were in trouble immediately.

tricycle wrote:

skully wrote:Has anyone seen SG today?

Ganguly or Gavaskar?

Our most prolific Indian poster. Was pretty fiesty in the first 3 days of this Test but has been very quiet since.

Since his last test ton, Punter has reached 40 13 times without going on to 100 (or in fact only one of those past 80).

Well, I'm not getting carried away - much more even game than the final margin suggests ... could easily have gone the other way.

Yadav looks a very useful find, Zaheer is back (some beautiful bowling), Ashwin looks very useful with ball AND bat (not as good as Kumble with the ball, but better with the bat), and Ishant seems to be returning to something like his best form.

JGK wrote:Since his last test ton, Punter has reached 40 13 times without going on to 100 (or in fact only one of those past 80).

Clearly not the genius he once was, but I'll take a scratchy pair of 50s from him over some of the other tosh our batsmen have been serving up recently.

Four 50's in his last 6 innings, is it?

skully wrote:

taipan wrote:Was the wicket too bouncy?

Well, it was above knee high, so the Bannies were in trouble immediately.

At 2/2 hundred and a bit with SRT and the fence motoring along it looked a good batting wicket

skully wrote:

JGK wrote:Since his last test ton, Punter has reached 40 13 times without going on to 100 (or in fact only one of those past 80).

Clearly not the genius he once was, but I'll take a scratchy pair of 50s from him over some of the other tosh our batsmen have been serving up recently.

Aye - if he averages 61 for the series we'll be looking good.

lardbucket wrote:Four 50's in his last 6 innings, is it?

Yes, with an 8,0,0 before that though.

JGK wrote:

lardbucket wrote:He does bat well ... seems to have a sound technique and all the shots.

I thought all that about Midge in the early days too. Thankfully we don't have Neilsen to fark Patto up.

or that dickhead Cooley

BTW - did this match thread have more pages pre the start of the match than post?

embee wrote:

skully wrote:

taipan wrote:Was the wicket too bouncy?

Well, it was above knee high, so the Bannies were in trouble immediately.

At 2/2 hundred and a bit with SRT and the fence motoring along it looked a good batting wicket

I put that down to the class of Wall and SRT. The Nein protractor showed that both deliveries that Cot removed TLM with deviated 1.5 degrees, and would've hit the middle of his bat both times without the deviation. So it took a couple of very good deliveries (that pitched within inches of each other but went in different directions in the two innings) to remove the little genius.

skully wrote:

tricycle wrote:

skully wrote:Has anyone seen SG today?

Ganguly or Gavaskar?

Our most prolific Indian poster. Was pretty fiesty in the first 3 days of this Test but has been very quiet since.

Gavaskar must be throwing a hissy fit at the moment. Can't see him here either. He doesn't shy away from criticising the batsmen though, something that cannot be said of Shastri.