[Fx14]

India are the under-19 women's world champions.

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted by Fx14

India are the under-19 women's world champions.

Women's cricket, in spite of some excellent (but admittedly inconsistent) performances over the years, hasn't got its due in the media. With the advent of WIPL, hope things will take a turn for the better.

What Indian women's cricket needs is perhaps a Sachin equivalent mascot who could drive up its mass appeal and popularity.

In the instant case, the World Cup win is a creditable achievement. While the captain is an important member of the senior Indian team too, the rest of the young players have been marshalled well by her and the support staff.

Congratulations on a well deserved win.

[Emvi]

South Africa vs England ODI Series

South Africa chase down 342 losing 5 wickets to defeat England in the second match of the 3-match series to take an unassailable 2-nil lead. To be fair, I don't think many would have expected this result. Well done South Africa!

ENG- 342/7 in 50 overs
SA- 347/5 in 49.1 overs

[deathwalkr]

A t20 match without a 6 being hit! Who would have thought?!

What a boring match it turned out to be. If Tickner had caught that catch, if Pandya had been run out...Thank God.

[Aakash118]

Originally Posted by Emvi

[b]

ENG- 342/7 in 50 overs
SA- 347/5 in 49.1 overs

Really happy to see SA winning the series. To me it’s just a matter of time before the so called ’Bazball’ approach starts going horribly wrong for England.

[Aakash118]

Murali Vijay announces retirement. One guy who I was a big fan of as test opener. His ability to leave the balls outside off stump was just great to watch. Him & Pujara batting together used to really frustrate the opponent on a pacy wicket. In fact, I always keep reminding me of these two along with Dravid in my tough moments of life and keep saying to myself- leave the ball, leave the ball, let this time pass…

[harry10]

So, curator has been sacked.
Imo it's quite harsh as we all agree pitch was tough to Bat but not impossible. It's the inability of our batters to play quality spin which is exposed again and again. And to sack a curator just after one pitch is a bad precedent especially when curator specifically said he received a request from Indian team to create a spinning track.

Now all curators will prepare 200+ tracks with bowlers treated as bowling machines.

[Venkatesh]

Amul special doodle on Women's U19 team winning the inaugural World Cup.

[msdivy]

The pitch was not dangerous. Nobody was getting hurt. Match went into the last over. Not sure what the fuss is about.

Originally Posted by harry10

Now all curators will prepare 200+ tracks with bowlers treated as bowling machines.

Our captain is an all-rounder and does a decent amount of bowling, felt the pitch was a shocker. India’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey deflected the question to the curator. The curator received no support. This shows want the current team wants - they want to hit sixes, and get hit for sixes.
Ref: https://indianexpress.com/article/sp...pitch-8412434/

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by msdivy

Our captain is an all-rounder and does a decent amount of bowling, felt the pitch was a shocker. India’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey deflected the question to the curator. The curator received no support. This shows want the current team wants - they want to hit sixes, and get hit for sixes.

Isn't T20 supposed to be that. Most spectators would like to see extravagant shots rather than batsmen struggling. I don't think bowlers should mind getting hammered in T20s. There are only 120 balls between 10 batsman so they are going to swing their bats nevertheless and even good balls go for runs all the time.

T20 is mindless fun. I don't think a pitch where every batsman struggled was fun. It was no even odds.

[whencut86]

Originally Posted by joslicx

Isn't T20 supposed to be that. Most spectators would like to see extravagant shots rather than batsmen struggling. I don't think bowlers should mind getting hammered in T20s. There are only 120 balls between 10 batsman so they are going to swing their bats nevertheless and even good balls go for runs all the time.

T20 is mindless fun. I don't think a pitch where every batsman struggled was fun. It was no even odds.

This affects the skillset of the Indian batsmen. Earlier when we had a spinning pitch our batsmen used to be good enough to score well on that pitch even against the likes of Murali, Warne, Vettori, Swann, etc. But today our batsmen get out with only a slender lead.

In the current team except Shreyas, Pant and Pujara to a certain extent, no other batsmen is good against spin. The likes of Rohit, Kohli, Gill are susceptible to spin and we have seen them give out wickets to spinners easily.

If a team cannot play atleast decently in a spin friendly pitch due to lack of skills but the captain complains in press conference and the curator gets sacked when in fact it was the team which requested for a slow surface, it sets a very wrong precedent. In the earlier teams, Sehwag, Ganguly, Sachin, Laxman, Dravid all had great skillset against spin and the quality of spinners was way above what we have today. In the current team, we have two who can play spin well and one who can handle decently. This ends of negating the home advantage we have slowly.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by whencut86

In the current team, we have two who can play spin well and one who can handle decently. This ends of negating the home advantage we have slowly.

Agree, our batting has been found wanting against quality spin time and again.

Our home advantage went away the day we decided to invite plane loads of foreign players, coaches and analysts to come over for two months every year during peak summer, in the name of IPL. Nowadays, at least 5 players from all good teams as well as all coaching and support staff are well versed with Indian stadia, pitches and conditions. Indian conditions are essentially home conditions for most of the good international players nowadays.

It is also a fact that out modern day pitches are a lot more flaccid than during the Tendulkar and Kumble days. In fact, it takes something like that Lucknow pitch to flummox everyone. It was literally out of syllabus, and that’s what made that game great to watch. Made them do more than just swing their bats wildly with the ropes pulled in.

[hamster]

There is another angle to the spin. Look at how Australia, New Zealand and England are mastering the art of sweep shots in the sub continent. They are using the South Asian pitches as their practice ground to groom themselves to play against spin, whereas, we are going in a different direction, with "playing for the gallery" shots like slogs, scoops and yet to be named shots.

And bearing a very handful of matches, when have we seen a match on a "rank turner" track in the recent times.

Ashwin and his variations only exploits the batsman's weakness in playing shots.

The days of the legends - Warne, Murali, Hirwani, Kumble are over. Havent seen a good one in a very long time.

[Bhargav7]

I believe the curator is getting a lot of flak for a spin-friendly pitch. It definitely is not a rank turner or a dust bowl which we see in quite a few test matches in India. As highlighted multiple times in the last few posts, it is just the batters' inability to play a mediocre bowling attack. Santner, Sodhi, Bracewell, and Phillips are definitely not good enough bowling attack to restrict India to a 100-odd score. Phillips is actually a wicketkeeper and not a bowler.

Originally Posted by whencut86

In the earlier teams, Sehwag, Ganguly, Sachin, Laxman, Dravid all had great skillset against spin and the quality of spinners was way above what we have today.

With 60-odd meter boundaries, this batting lineup would have chased the score with many overs to spare.

Probably the way forward for T20 is concrete pitches with 50-meter boundaries?

[PPS]

Will be too shocked if Gill doesn't bat at no.5 against Australia next week! Considering the rich vain of form he's in & Shreyas Iyer still down with a stiff back, Gill looks a certainty. Don't think team management will entertain thoughts of playing Ishan in Tests considering his form off late, which is a good thing since Kona Bharat is the better keeper. Should be an interesting Test Series on turning pitches since India are no longer the best players of spin & some of them downright struggle.