I'm finally over the result of the 1st Test!
OK - I now feel ready to post! What a gutter from an English perspective....you shouldn't lose a match that you're in control of. And I'm afraid I'm not in the "well we made a good fight of it" camp - it's amazed me how many commentators have been saying that! In assessing how the match went we have to realise that the toss is worth more in India than in England, so to win the toss and still lose is pretty disasterous.
We should have got 500, preferably more, as was previously Burbled about. The Indians would have been settling in for a draw once they didn't take early wickets on the first day - a win would have been at the back of their minds as they're used to teams racking up 500+ in the 1st innings. But rather than put ourselves in a position where we'd struggle to lose, we gave India a chance with a poor batting performance.
Somehow though we were still in a good position come the 4th day and in a position to win the match so it's hard to blame the whole loss on the 1st innings. Strauss batted like a dream and must be wondering what on earth else he's meant to do to get the man-of-the match award - instead it went to Sehwag for cumulative runs in the Test that totalled less than either of Strauss' innings. Whoever decides these things needs to recognise that the man-of-the-match doesn't necessarily need to be from the winning side, but if it did have to be, Tendulkar was the most worthy winner amongst the Indian team.
Lastly, the spinners. Panesar has come in for a bit of criticism and rightly so as he took 3 wickets in the match which in India isn't good enough. Peter Moores has said that Panesar lacked practice but let's remember that the ECB wouldn't pay Bloomfields £7,500 so that Panesar could have practised in Sri Lanka. Yes, Bloomfields shouldn't have accepted and then tried to renegotiate, but what price on a key bowler bowling well in India? Less than £7,500 according to the ECB.
I hope that Panesar doesn't get too much stick - he took 3 wickets in 46 overs in the match. Compare that to India's spinners who took 10 wickets in 137 overs between them and it doesn't look particularly poor - only slightly worse than the Indian spinners who haven't been criticised in the slightest!
If England are lucky enough to win the toss again in the 2nd Test, I just hope they nail the 1st innings next time. For me that's the lesson - not worries about Panesar.
5 comments:
Surely the answer is that true class will win in the end. Any one of the top seven Indian batsmen is capable of playing a match-winning innings, and three of them did. The same certainly can't be said of the England top seven. The Indian task was certainly made a lot easier by the rubbish dished up by the English bowlers in the second innings, Flintoff being the only exception. Consistently bowling line and length seems to be a lost skill as far as English bowlers are concerned; it's no good at all bowling four good balls an over to class batsmen if the other two are free hits easily put away.
It was too much to hope for that batting as strong as India's would fail twice, and so it proved. I don't think anyone in the England team should be singled out for criticism; man for man and on home ground the Indians are better than England, probably by a count of nine to two, the two being Flintoff (as a bowler) and (for this match at least) Strauss.
hmmm, yes. I still think it's a shame that Hoggard was jettisoned (if that's how you spell it) - the most reliable line and length bowler we have had for a generation.
Yes, Hoggard and/or Sidebottam would have been invaluable on the last day, but the selectors seem to prefer the flash-in-the-pan Harmison or the very inconsistent Anderson, with the equally inconsistent Broad in reserve. There's no accounting for taste!
Having said India aren't worried about their spin department, it appears that at least one journalist is.
I wonder how long it will take you to get over the 2nd test !
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