When I read about the rains in Bangalore, I was worried that we would have a split of points. Well it didnt rain and we still had points being divided. Only I wished it HAD rained so that I would not have lost a few valuable hours of my life tearing my hair out in frustration.
Don’t get me wrong. As a cricket-lover, what could be greater than witnessing a tightly fought tie? The ultimate winner is the game and all that crap. But this is the World Cup. And I am a jingoistic Indian fan. So seeing Pakistan making short work of tournament favorites Sri Lanka without breaking a sweat and then witnessing India huffing and puffing like a fat man in a sauna to hold England to a tie after scoring 338 runs was nothing short of traumatically depressing.
It’s not the fact that they tied that so got me hot under the collar, we will still qualify for the knock-outs given the format of the tournament. It was the purely lackadaisical attitude of the Indian team throughout the entire game, almost as if after the Sachin innings, they had put themselves in an autopilot mode. Munaf, who I expect would know the benefits of sliding his bat in deep, ran one run short off the last ball. Bowling badly or dropping catches are part and parcel of the game but the sheer amateurishness of this kind was something else—-and when you realize the game was tied, this could just as well have been the most defining moment of the game. I know that the ground is noisy and all that but I do not ever recall any keeper ever missing two fairly significant snicks like Dhoni did today, when two edges he had caught were not appealed for. It was almost as if the only thing some people can catch is the sound of jingling coins. And finally lesser the said of Bhajji’s reluctant one handed swipe at a Strauss mishit the better, it seems that our man’s “ungli mein tingli” has impacted his bowling and fielding in equally devastating measure. If there was one win for an Indian fan, it was the sight of Munaf taking evasive action against a Pietersen drive, like an aunty using her fish thaila to shield her head from an errant hit from the street cricketers, to find the ball hitting him and ballooning for one of the luckiest chikna catches you will ever see.
England are a very good team. Granted. But not a team that deserved to make 338 runs chasing against a tournament favorite. The fact that England got there is a severe indictment of our bowling, fielding and captaincy. Piyush Chawla bowled three good balls in his spell, one of which got Trott’s wicket, and sent in a series of half-trackers and over-pitched hit-mes and was actually lucky to escape with even that expensive spell of bowling. Harbhajan did not even bowl three good balls. And these are our second and first choice spinners. Really scary shit.
And now Ireland coming up. Come on India dikha do. Duniya ko hila do. Or at least hilao.
The Greatbong Blog & Podcast 
First.. š
I would have preferred a loss. A slap is better any day than a hanging judgment
First!
The last line captures your frustration. I know. Tie is BAD. Hate it. I think we should come to RTDM to read post-match coverage. Better than some of the stuff we read in mainstream newspapers in India. Reiterating this, I know.
luckiest chikna of catches š
Also this tweet of yours: “Dhoni are you happy with a tie? True answer: Dude, I get paid either way. So screw you and your question.”
Should have been up here on this post.
The atmosphere at the match had to be experienced to be believed. I shall remain always thankful that I was there. Related piece on the match here.
Team India performance in today’s match was shameful. It seems MSD was having a bad day, I haven’t seen such lame decisions (field setup or bowling changes) by him before. Harbhajan Singh is the main spinner of India his job is not just to be economical but to take wickets as well. We cannot improve our bowling in just 1 week. Things we can work on is fielding. If we lose a toss we might suffer a big loss. My hope for India winning the world cup is thrashed now, but I do want to see them in Semis. I am disappointed after this performance and it would really be difficult to see India losing from Pakistan/Srilanka in quarter finals.
This post echoes my sentiments!
I think the ICC knew something we did not want to. That is why they gave only few tickets for aam aadmi in finals. Upar se lane ka niche dabane ka (-:
Do you agree with the contention or popular myth that Whenever SRT plays i.e hits a century or half century India looses the match ?
Hi, great fan and over the last 3 months managed to finish reading almost all your blogs.
This one here exactly echoes my sentiments last nite. Well written yet again !!
And yeah if i am the first one to comment, dont give me an i-pod š
@surya: ok. but it is still tiresome. So he supposedly had an affair with some guy and hence he will lusting after the backs of every guy he sees (which is what GB had written in his last report). If a guy has a girlfriend, does it follow that the only thing on his mind is sex whenever he sees *any* girl, no matter what the context is?
Our blowlers cannot even bowl to under 16 international teams, let alone world cup players. As if Bangladesh scoring 280 was not a good enough indicator for Dhoni and Co, that they needed a reminder yesterday again on how world class our bowling attack is…Next what…score 500 in 50 overs? I am sure they will “make a match” out of that one too…
@ Mohan – OMG! Kitna analysis! And if you find them tiresome, dont read na. I dont think GB will feel bad. I was just telling you what they are based on. Chill. Please get yourself some sense of humour.
@surya, sure he won’t feel bad if I stop reading. But hopefully, he will feel better if I point out some of the egregiously bad aspects of his writing rather than simply ignore him.
We were playing good hosts. England gifted us the game with their famed batting implosion.. We gifted them a few sixes and a tie.. We deserved to lose.
Relax mohan i am sure GB only wanted to sound funny.
Tie for all the wrong reasons…no 1 deserved to win yesterday..this weekend has exposed the 2 favorites…SL with its lack of lower order hitters will suffer against the big teams and India need atleast 350+ to feel safe while defending….The short run by Munaf of the last bowl of Indian innings just cost India the match…
And that 2.5 metres UDRS rule is just bollocks….Now I understand why Indians hate UDRS so much…
As a jingoistic Indian it was a pretty bad weekend…seeing Bangladesh and Pakistan win 1st and then seeing Ajmal Shahzad(proud to be a Paki performance)channeling his inner Javed Miandad and hitting that 6.
Ind really missing a medium pace allrounder like Dada/Irfan.
Even Joginder Sharma will do..
Seriously. Why the eff did Dhoni not go up in appeal when Strauss nicked it?? The umpires have stump earphones. They wld have (not sure about Billy bowels though) put their finger up if he at least appealed!!
Billy Bowden took revenge for that Tedhi Ungal ad…
The match reminded me of the play “The Great White Hope”, which is sometimes comically used to described the frustration of whites on not being able to produce a champion boxer. I feel the same way when I see our bowling attack. Dhoni rightly said that you can’t keep setting huge targets to shield your miserable bowling attack. Bowlers and fielders need to do their bit regardless of the total on the board.
The crowd leaving the stadium midway during the England innings was a reflection of poor sporting culture, which is interested only in a win. We need to learn something from Sri Lankan fans who not only stayed put, but maintained a cheery disposition (at least it appeared so) despite being aware that the match had slipped from their hands.
This Indian team will score 330+ batting first in every league match – it has to face WI, Ireland and Holland – which makes it plausible. The day it scores less than 300/310 against a team like SA, they are done. They wont win the cup with this bowling, nor do they deserve to win.
Our bowling is anyhow not great. We have so often allowed teams to get away. when BD scored 283 against us, wanst that a hint enough. What is so suprising. BTW what is that you have against Dhoni? seems to have rubbed you on the wrong side or soemthign.
well as cricinfo says, the match deserved to be a tie not because no team deserved to lose but because no team deserved to win.
small consolation that Sreesanth at least didn’t play. otherwise England would have won the match in 45 overs.
You forgot the brighter side……….Zaheer’s last spell!!!!
Utter waste of another classic century from Sachin and our time on Sunday…
One Word – Fixed !
Common guys!! it was a good game of cricket. If Schin batted well, so did Straus. It was an epic innings from him, and England were unlucky to tie the game.
As an Indian fan.. i wish we had lost. It would have woken the team up, and made us switch off from the world cup. Now we will beat NI, Ireland, fans will get all excited.. till we meet WI, who will bounce us out.. and SA, who will beat us all ends up..
De Ghooma ke!!!
@ritwam..i love this version of indian fans
when we were losing, u said see “our bowlers r full of shit”
when we came back, u said it was all fixed.
Good one…Sharing it on FB š
I really believe there was something fishy in the match. Why on earth will the Indian team not even appeal when there was a clear edge 2 times. Why would Ian Bell play a slog when the required rate is around 7, they were doing so well playing traditional shots till then. Harbhajan not going for a catch. Call me a cynic, but I truly believe the match was scripted.
@Saurabh…i saw KP busy on a laptop…may be he was takign teh print out of the modified script whcih was sent to the ground later.
Though very much a die-hard Indian fa, felt that yesterday’s tie is actually gud for us exposing as it did our frail bowling, pathetic fielding & unimaginative captaincy. What was Dhoni thinking in allowing the english to take singles as easy as swatting mosquitoes in Kochi, by spreading the field as wide as Pam’s bosom ? Better tat this shock has come at the gp stage than at a knock-out. Only hope is tat we learn from yesterday & our best team ever fulfils promise..Otherwise leave alone Sachin’s career, I dont foresee us lifting THE CUP even during my lifetime
@Savita Bhabhi: You have to be naive to think that matches aren’t fixed or scripted especially after the recent revelations involving some pakistan cricketers.
If anything, cricket was the loser yesterday. Strauss should be congratulated for his endurance and not his technical perfection. Only Zaheer redeemed himself somewhat by his bowling. The bowling from either side was poor. The batting from both the sides was average. Guess, now the hype created around Indian team should subside somewhat. And I really do not understand how this is being touted as the best one day line up of all time. i doubt the batting line up yesterday, bar SRT have the technique to play 50 overs on a seaming wicket.( its completely different matter that we would not have any of that in this world cup.) 2003 line up was way better in my opinion.
@Saurabh …come home sweatheart…i will tell u how naive i am. come home na…please….come…come…
“Or at least hilao.” What was that GB? Didn’t quite get the last line.
@sid619, the 2.5 meters rule is not bollocks. Any forecasting model has limited accuracy if you apply it over a long horizon. This is not just an ICC rule but a property of statistical modeling. It is laughable to see Dhoni attacking the UDRS system for giving a not-out decision when the umpire’s original decision was also a not-out. Instead Dhoni should be saying, see this is exactly why I say UDRS is not needed!
Pakistan will be the World Cup Winner.
Might be a bit too soon to say that SB but honestly I was thinking the same thing after watching them against Sri Lanka.
“Munaf, who I expect would know the benefits of sliding his bat in deep,..”
LOL!!
Overal, though, it was a good warning to the Indian team, which seemed to have gone into a mode where they thought that they didnt have to play cricket anytime they scored more than 300 runs.
I still think India should play Raina over Yusuf.
India’s world cup chances have always been 99% inspiration(read media hype) and 1% perspiration.One of the reasons why the 1983 squad -which was a team made of stuff that Dhoni’s men are yet to figure out-performed so well was because they went there with zero expectations.That team of champions was made of players-who knew their limits and strengths and played accordingly- and not superstars.
Perhaps, one day our cricketing overlords would discover this simple truth and let the players be and then perhaps we can truly dream of winning the world cup-as a team and not on individual merit.
agreed…pakis seems to have the best bowling attack for the subcontinent.
akhtar can still bowl 150, umar gul is good, icl wala rajjaq is quite useful, doosra rajjaq has done well to keep ajmal out…and afridi will turn out to be the highest wicket taker in the tournament…but a few phone calls may change it all for them
Pakistan will be the world cup winner over bal thackreay’s dead body. You think Pakis will get in to Mumbai for the final?
.no can do sir..they are better off losing against someone..probabaly fix it..come on…u know they are good at it…
Australia FTW!!!!
Aussies r still no.1 and i think they r going to peak at the right moment.
They can win when they are considered underdogs and when they are considered tournament favorites, its win-win either way
Paki’s are peaking before real thing starts. Watch out for AUS. Brett Lee and Johnson form a real big advantage.Thier Problem lies in batting once punter comes to party then thers is no stopping them.
@GB
Sorry for the abrupt change of subject.
How about a vintage GB post with a touching farewell to “Uncle Pai” ?
I am sure his books were part of all of your Indian readers’ childhoods.
Here’s more about this real-life hero who touched the life of millions …
England deserved to win… the way they set about chasing 338 odd and the way the indians allowed them to chase was really impressive š .. certainly we were doing some serious “atithi devo bhavah”…. With the game in hand at 29 runs from 12 balls and last two batsman at the crease… yet we managed to do the unthinkable of nearly loosing the game…
The only silver lining – Zaheer’s second spell which brought india back into the game and sachin’s ( god ) century… and yes after bowling 5 lollypops in the last over.. munaf bowled the final good one which gave us a point.
Indian Cricket team– jaago re … !!!!!!
( PS- my mind wanders to the 2007 T 20 world cup where in the league match against pakistan, india were in a seemingly winning position with pakistan needing 40 odd runs from 15 odd balls and last three wicket in hand and they needed one run from the last ball to win .. Misbah was run out on the last ball and the score was tied …. Will history repeat itself š )
@Bengal Voice,
Aha had one in the drafts. Was planning to put it up today.
good article.. this also shows how the pakistanis are coming together for the world cup while maybe our players might be worrying about the IPL 4..
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/cricket/cricket-world-cup-2011/interviews/Shoaib-not-a-fast-brat-anymore/articleshow/7597863.cms
I think the mistake they made is playing 2 spinners…We need to play 3 pacers in the Indian Sub continent pitches….We have 2-3 part time spinners so if the ball is spinning we can use them …. but we need at least 3 pacers to go through 20 overs of power plays and restricted fielding….
We just proved that we are not just great hosts, but, we will do anything to oblige our former colonisers. It’s the colonial hangover which refuses to die down!
The tail enders could have just stayed at the crease and batted, got some runs, instead of believing that the score others before them had erected, would bail them out…sheer lack of judgement, a case of taking the opposition too lightly….always been the problem with the Indian team…
hope the lessons from the England game stay put in their mind….come on India, you owe atleast this much to us, your fans….and Mahi…please let the old Dhoni come back!
Guess what happened in Moradabad (India) after the Pakistan Vs Sri Lanka match
Here’s a shocking eyewitness report from a secular, convent-educated guy:
http://www.indiandefence.com/forums/f31/indian-muslims-rejoicing-over-pakistans-win-against-sri-lanka-4762/
I guess, better in a way that India is getting these lessons early in the tournament. Pakistan might just get overconfident with their easy win. And overconfidence is a major problem with India and Pak.
Did dhoni want to lose this match?
There were many decisions which were not like dhoni…
@Greatbong: did u hear our helicopter guy saying that pitch was flat in the second innings…we all knew it had rained..and dhoni chose to bat…May be it’s me.
Pakistan is really playin like a team. The kind of backing each other in team is so un-pak like.
India will surely struggle against team with decent bowling attack. 350 cant be guaranteed against a decent attack and we cant defend anything less. Good bye world cup dream.
England is more like India now. Bowling ineffective, even NL and Ireland can score 300 against them.
India is always over-rated, Pak always under-rated before start of the tournament.
I won’t discount SL just yet. I think it would be SL, Pak, Aus in that order as fav to win.
India no chance.. with this balling
Can one of you guys recommend a site where you can stream these matches online (in the US)? My dad is visiting me and is an AVID cricket fan, but I’m not able to find a good site – all the ones I found from google keep asking me to download codecs and have a zillion ads.
Feel free to email me at sourish.d at gmail.
@Sourish – try http://www.hitcric.info