Hotting up
No, I'm not just talking about the weather in England with another two excellent cricket-playing days of weather in mid-October. The Australia v India contest should be hotting up over the next few hours if Katich can find the odd shot or two (his strike rate is below 15!) - with nearly two sessions and a day to go Australia are well over 100 ahead and can push on to leave India a tantalising target which allows Australia to take 10 wickets and win. Ponting's captaincy skills, which Ian Chappell has been praising compared to India captain Anil Kumble's, will come to the fore again.
With a Warne in their side, Australia would have been virtually dead certs, but without the game is in the balance. A draw just favourite perhaps....
2 comments:
Interestingly, judging from the scorecard there was no real attempt by the Aussies to up the scoring rate before the declaration came. Might be what Richie Benaud calls a 'closure' - we've got enough let's see if we can get you out now and if not we can always close it up - rather than a declaration ' right now we're going to bowl you lot out, so don't even think about scoring the runs'.
Difficult to time a declaration when the oppo are Tendulkar Sehwag Ganguly VVS and Dravid ( not to mention Gamhbir).
Yes, Sehwag certainly makes it tricky to time a declaration. I gather Australia took 5 overs to score 35 on the 5th morning, so that's not bad in a Test match, but earlier on it doesn't appear they had much urgency, Katich in particular.
There seems to be a war of words about who was more defensive - Kumble has been attacked for very defensive captaincy, and Zaheer Khan has said he's never played against such a defensive Australian team....
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