Captain Gayle leads the way
If Chris Gayle leads, West Indies tend to follow. All teams can be inspired by the performance of their captain, yet rarely has the impact been so clear as with Gayle's role within his side. As with Mahela Jayawardene he came within a brace of becoming the first batsman to make two Twenty20 international hundreds, but of far greater significance is that the hosts remain very much alive in this tournament.
This innings was Gayle at his destructive best, but it was also Gayle at his most mature and composed as he batted for all bar two balls of the innings when his bat bounced up when he tried to make his ground. He scored at better than a run-a-ball in the first six, but only just as he assessed conditions were tougher after overnight rain. At the start of the eighth over he was on 26 - Gayle has often had that many to his name before anyone can blink.
He picked his moments and targeted certain bowlers. Harbhajan Singh was allowed to escape with four overs for 16 (much as Johan Botha had been treated with respect by England) and teams are often allowing the opposition's main threat to be played out. Batsmen are confident of being able to make the ground up elsewhere. This time it was Ravindra Jadeja - who has had a tournament to forget - and Suresh Raina who were picked off for 50 in four overs. India again packed their batting, but they were desperate for another bowler.
This effort can rank alongside the 117 Gayle made against South Africa in the opening match of the inaugural tournament and the stunning 88 off 50 balls against Australia last year as his finest Twenty20 innings. "The South Africa one will always stand out more but if you look at the situation here it was a must-win for us," Gayle said. "So to come out and deliver is what we asked for. It was suitable for my style of batting and the ball came on nicely."
The atmosphere inside the Kensington Oval was electric which confirmed how important West Indies presence is to this tournament. Each Gayle boundary was greeted by cacophonous noise as the West Indian fans made sure they out-cheered their Indian counterparts. For sponsors and broadcasters this would have been the perfect final.
Staging the match at 9.30 on a Sunday morning (or 10am after the delayed start) was hardly ideal timing for the local audience, but the needs of the Indian television market are being serviced first. The irony now is that India are looking increasingly unlikely to make the knockout stages. However, despite the early start the crowd turned up in numbers with only a few vacant seats.
"The support has been tremendous," Gayle said. "We had to come out and give the crowd something to cheer about otherwise I'm sure stones would have been thrown. This victory eases the pressure a bit but we can't relax."
Gayle's strokeplay warmed the crowd and one blow - a back-foot drive off Yusuf Pathan - bounced on the top of the 3Ws stand. Locals say they have never see such a blow. It was a monstrous strike. But there was one moment later in the match that was true Caribbean and all too rare these days. Kemar Roach produced a wicked bouncer which followed Gautam Gambhir as he tried to sway out of the line. The ball kissed the glove and Denesh Ramdin leapt off the ground to take the catch. The stands went wild.
The reaction was the same, and perhaps even louder given the match was heading for its denouement, when Dwayne Bravo produced a direct hit from long-on to run out MS Dhoni who was India's last hope. Bravo ended up at midwicket in celebration then had the task of bowling the final over after a nervous Roach bowled four wides and a no-ball to make West Indies sweat. Even on a day when Bravo hadn't been at his best with the ball he wasn't going give up 19 runs.
The local fans are desperate for success - victory still brings huge passion - but they are so used to defeats that it has become the norm. The scenes when West Indies do conjure victory remind of how much they are savoured. As they exited the stands the trumpets were blaring and smiles beamed. It was much the same when Jerome Taylor skittled England for 51 in Jamaica last year. Now West Indies need to repeat this against Australia and Gayle will set benchmark. Once again captain, it's over to you.
Andrew McGlashan is assistant editor of Cricinfo
Comments have now been closed for this article
@DaleGonsalves I guess Ind has been the most consistent teams to tour Aus since 2003 among all the teams. We have drawn/beaten Aus in Aus more than any other touring team since then... So be clear before commenting... We clobbered Aus in Perth... the fastest pitch in cricket...
Also we softened up Aussies by beating them when they toured Ind in 2008, which helped SA beat them in their own backyard...
T20 is a shorter game where 2-3 quick balls can change an innings... Also WI team were very poor against Zim and Ireland in batting.. so does that mean ur team can play even mediocre bowling??
Infact all teams SL, Ind, Pak have suffered to short bowling.. so guess be fair in ur comments...
This is a message to all the subcontinent team officials, I hope you guys read the forums at cric info and please take a note of my suggestion. When will you guys produce bouncy and pacy wickets in our countries? Its obviously evident that the countries that do produce these wickets are playing much better such as Australia, England, etc.
how come Ganguly start suggesting that how to play against Australia and WI (he has 2 centuries against Aus in all the matches he played and against WI he has none) more over now he start suggesting the players how to play short pitch ball. ha ha ha ha
@johnca Dunno how you can claim India as the better team while begging for flat pitches, pathetic really.
The Kensington pitch isnt the fastest or bounciest that could have been produced, if India cant cope here what will they do in Oz where the pitches are more bouncier and faster.
India needs to improve instead of constantly getting home advantage from mediocre pitches. Saying that they are the best when they cant play Jerome Taylor or a new, raw Kemar Roach says a lot about their so called "quality"
I was really confused what all this talk of the 'Boom Boom Indians' was about. Now it's all clear. Play Australia (boom!! they lose), play west indies (boom!!!!! they lose). Boom Boom!!!
well indias has got to stop relying on sehwag, they have got enough match winners in their team, but not many of em are in form n the same can happen to any player even sehwag has had bad patches.
For some time i have been wondering why Shivnarine Chanderpaul is opening the batting wken they could have used someone like Dale Richards instead of trying to reserrect Hinds. Richards would clobber the australian fast bowling . At this rate there is no way the w.i will beat Aus with Gail alone.....up to this point Pollard has not impress me.............of course he is not scoring runs.
haha captain gayle leads from the front what a joke this will happen only once . Look a the number of extras the wi conceded roach was all over the place . You need to do better than that to beat the aussies .Gayle will be thrashed the next match due to sheer pace . its hopeless for west indies
Windies didnt win the match rather the indian bowlers and fielders gifted the match.
nonsense approch of India cause the defeat for themselves. Neither Gyale nor windies bowlers are responsible for the defeat. Jayvardena of SL played a knowck of 81 in the first match and still SL lost the match, same way Gayle's inning was good but not that much better that snatched away the match from India. History repeats here as of the previous WC when WI thrashed Ind the same way. Persistance of Dhoni to play Jadeja was the main factor along with the inability of indians to rotate the strike well. Gambhir is the biggest disappointment of this WC. He is playing like a debutant !! God knows where this team will go ! Only Persistant Dhoni can tell us. He is becoming a whimsy captain and perhaps answers his supporters that why he can not be in the league of Ganguly and Kapil !!!
@DaleGonsalves I guess Ind has been the most consistent teams to tour Aus since 2003 among all the teams. We have drawn/beaten Aus in Aus more than any other touring team since then... So be clear before commenting... We clobbered Aus in Perth... the fastest pitch in cricket...
Also we softened up Aussies by beating them when they toured Ind in 2008, which helped SA beat them in their own backyard...
T20 is a shorter game where 2-3 quick balls can change an innings... Also WI team were very poor against Zim and Ireland in batting.. so does that mean ur team can play even mediocre bowling??
Infact all teams SL, Ind, Pak have suffered to short bowling.. so guess be fair in ur comments...
This is a message to all the subcontinent team officials, I hope you guys read the forums at cric info and please take a note of my suggestion. When will you guys produce bouncy and pacy wickets in our countries? Its obviously evident that the countries that do produce these wickets are playing much better such as Australia, England, etc.
how come Ganguly start suggesting that how to play against Australia and WI (he has 2 centuries against Aus in all the matches he played and against WI he has none) more over now he start suggesting the players how to play short pitch ball. ha ha ha ha
@johnca Dunno how you can claim India as the better team while begging for flat pitches, pathetic really.
The Kensington pitch isnt the fastest or bounciest that could have been produced, if India cant cope here what will they do in Oz where the pitches are more bouncier and faster.
India needs to improve instead of constantly getting home advantage from mediocre pitches. Saying that they are the best when they cant play Jerome Taylor or a new, raw Kemar Roach says a lot about their so called "quality"
I was really confused what all this talk of the 'Boom Boom Indians' was about. Now it's all clear. Play Australia (boom!! they lose), play west indies (boom!!!!! they lose). Boom Boom!!!
well indias has got to stop relying on sehwag, they have got enough match winners in their team, but not many of em are in form n the same can happen to any player even sehwag has had bad patches.
For some time i have been wondering why Shivnarine Chanderpaul is opening the batting wken they could have used someone like Dale Richards instead of trying to reserrect Hinds. Richards would clobber the australian fast bowling . At this rate there is no way the w.i will beat Aus with Gail alone.....up to this point Pollard has not impress me.............of course he is not scoring runs.
haha captain gayle leads from the front what a joke this will happen only once . Look a the number of extras the wi conceded roach was all over the place . You need to do better than that to beat the aussies .Gayle will be thrashed the next match due to sheer pace . its hopeless for west indies
Windies didnt win the match rather the indian bowlers and fielders gifted the match.
nonsense approch of India cause the defeat for themselves. Neither Gyale nor windies bowlers are responsible for the defeat. Jayvardena of SL played a knowck of 81 in the first match and still SL lost the match, same way Gayle's inning was good but not that much better that snatched away the match from India. History repeats here as of the previous WC when WI thrashed Ind the same way. Persistance of Dhoni to play Jadeja was the main factor along with the inability of indians to rotate the strike well. Gambhir is the biggest disappointment of this WC. He is playing like a debutant !! God knows where this team will go ! Only Persistant Dhoni can tell us. He is becoming a whimsy captain and perhaps answers his supporters that why he can not be in the league of Ganguly and Kapil !!!
Congrats to the WI team on what on paper was a comfortable victory. My Concern remains with "the Good, the Bad and the Ugly" all in one display that WI put down today. Gayle's match winning innings and Bravo's crucial run out of Dhoni was counterbalanced by the fact that the team bowled the equivalent of 3 extra overs in extras, one third of which came in a wild 19th over from Kemar Roach. As Cameron White and Mike Hussey showed in the match against Sri Lanka later, if you give a good team a chance like that they will crush you in a heart beat.
It looks like new coach Otis Gibson has some good ideas that he is quietly putting in place around improving the teams performance like, giving Ramdin a reality check for a few matches etc. In the meantime though, we are in for a continued roller coaster ride from a team that showed today that it is still quite capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on its day.
Way to go Windies, Would of been better if u made the tripple figure though, We need a Kieron Pollard 60-70 along with a gayle knock in the Australia match With some Fierce fast bowling by Jerome Taylor & hold on to those catches, Go on guys you can do it !!!
I dont know why some 'commentators' are having so much of hope on India. Fielding is pathetic. Bowling dismal and batting good only on paper. It was not the typical Gayle innings like in last world cup when he single-handedly blew Australia out of the World cup. It may suit 'some' to praise Gayle rather than criticizing Indian team selection and performance.
Where is Lendl Simmons? My 11 against Australia: Gayle, Simmons, Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Deonarine, Bravo, Sammy, Roach, Ramdin, Benn & Taylor
Sehwag u rock.....INDIA was knocked out of T 20 world cup last year because SEhwag was not in it and this year 2 they are knocked out coz shewag is not there....widout Sehwag India can never win T20 world cup or international gamess
congrats gayle India were thoroughly outplayed. What is more disheartening is despite receiving notice 10 months earlier that we are vulnerable to precise short bowling in bouncy wickets not much has been done to address it. Stil the same suspect cricketers who bully domestic bowling and have repeatedly failed at the international level such as Yusuf Pathan continue to play. all these years of building a great tema which could win outside India and prove to be more than a flat track bully will all come crumbling down once Sachin Rahul and VVS retire in Tests. I do not see anyone filling the big void they will leave behind
Give them q bouncy enough pitch and the "Great" Indian team falls apart. I am concerned about the Windies though as they depend too much on Gayle to get a good score.
sharma and dinesh karthik are the future batsmen not gambhir as i have said ..hoping my earlier comments get posted.we have very good future bowling line up in sreesanth sharma and rp singh but our batting is going to struggle with gambhir exposed so badly.also fast bowling stocks have risen so there is no escape anymore .there is roach taylor and edwards in wi .there is aamir and asif in pak steyn and morkel in sa aus has a combined good quality pace attack although individually they are not "that" good.they are very dangerous in aus conditions.eng has also got a very good bowling attack with anderson and broad.so we are in trouble outside india .
i just hope that people do not jump to conclusions here. the problem that the indians have is not about "handling" the short pitched delivery but scoring runs off them.but the younger generation just simply is not good enough.gambhir is the big culprit here.even raina showed the ability to sometimes duck under the ball but gambhir just could not get out of the way .it just shows that averages are bullshit way of looking at a batsman's quality.gambhir really is just an above average cricketer who has been scoring so highly because there is not many fast bowlers around in intl cricket.also shows the true greatness of dravid sachin and laxman who by the way has a lesser average than gambhir but everybody can now see who the better batsman is.so shameful that alot of people almost made these people retire. we are probably going to have a return to early 90s where we used to lose everything outside the subcontinent,our only hope is the good bowling attack we have.
Well, I can see India beating Australia in a World T20 final in year 3050( I hope that will be enough time for MSD's men to learn to play bouncers).
INDIA chance to semi final..
What India needs to do to qualify for Semi Final?
With big loss against Australia in first super eight game their net run rate has also taken beating considerably and at presently their NRR is hovering at -1.58.
The equation for them is also not as easy as for the West Indies or Sri Lanka. Here is the scenario, if they bat first they must beat Sri Lanka by 20 runs or more margins and if they have to chase down the Sri Lankan total then they must chase down in 17.3 overs or less.
Not only that they have to also hope that West Indies loss their game against Australia to make them qualify for the semi final.
Arun Karthick
im very happy to see windies win but my worry is windies batting lineup becoz apart from gayle every other guys should cm in correct order. today we seen sammy cm in front of others and sarwan hinds r comin at later stage and wasted som deliveries so they need atleast one big hitter at the end to get more runs.good luck windies. even im an indian my support is alwasy for u.........
God please guide them and help them play well for the rest of the tournament
I hope most of the comments are positive for the Windies and not the usual "jump on the bandwagon & offer excuses" that we read from every Indian defeat.
The simple equation is that India were totally outplayed in all facets of the game by a committed hungrier team led in outstanding fashion by someone who does know how ot bat on all surfaces against all type of bowling and has bene delivering in this form of the game for a long time. India, let's face it, are a shell of the team that climbed up the rankings. Their depth, or standard of backup, simply does not measure up. There is no way they can claim to be the best when they lack so much technique against such committed bowling on a surface that was not ioverly fast, but definitely had more spice that the rubbish pitches they serve up in the IPL. Chris Gayle is one of the most destrructive batsman in this form of cricket and has been for some time, He is good for cricket.
Congrats to Chris and the Windies team we certainly enjoyed that victory today. The captain is leading from the front, however its clear to every team get Chris the captain and its all over. We need more match winners and guys like Shiv and Sarwan who are playing international cricket for such a long time needs to step up, and make other team bowlers fear them. This is 20/20 cricket no time to mess around at the crease its a shoot out.
Congrats Windies!!! However cannot rest on laurels as Aussies are totally different dimension. We still have to beat them to have a chance and today shows that batting revolves around Gayle firing or not. Bowling still lacks consistency and against mighty Aussies, may struggle! Fielding improved 110% but still behind Aussies standard. Next game a must win and believe we can win, but again we have to play near perfect game and have crowd behind us as 12th man. Well done!!!
Sudhai Hazell is right, WI depend too much on Gayle to be great. Its like he has to make 80 odd to provide a winning platform for West Indies. Who else is gonna prove they can be a match winner for West Indies at the highest level? Pollard seems to have the tools but he doesn't last too long at the crease to take the team home (he's like a quick 20 run maker and thats it). Sarwan needs to pack his bags and leave twenty20, as the demand to score quickly is just not his game. Chanders CAN play 20/20, and I think he should be there to provide some stability to this collapse-prone team. Get rid of Hinds (not too sure what his role is here), bring Barath and Lendl Simmons in. Dump Fletcher, and give Ramdin an ultimatum (Improve your batting or else)
I dont understand how BCCI allowed WI to prepare a bouncy wicket. India could have easily beaten WI if we prepared the pitch similar to the ones in IPL. I am sure BCCI being an economic financial powerhouse in cricker could have easily prepared a spinner friendly track and blown the WI out of the tournament. Now India's loss is ICC's losss and there is no more interst in watching cricket. I am sure this is going to hurt ICC's cricket revenue.
Indian team is difinately far superior to WI team, I think WI used bouncy wicket to beat India
Indian women much cricketers are better compared to what they get. Indians support the fantasy sports of women like Chuk de or Dil bole Hadippa in bollywood. They just turn away when it comes to support them in reality. Thisis true for subcontinent teams as well. IPL should have at least 1 women player. Come on earning money is not the everything. I wish these money hungry ICC and BCCI peopl get it and pay attention to women cricket of the world.
What has Indian cricketer's have to say now? I get a feeling that they are more worried about Huge IPL contracts. The first negative step was not choosing to bat after winning toss... shows how much confidence we have on our batsmen.
Then our batsmen knew that they are going to face barrage of short balls yet they looked so un-convincing, I am sure they were all busy shopping and attending parties at the Caribbean.
What has Indian cricketer's have to say now? I get a feeling that they are more worried about Huge IPL contracts. The first negative step was not choosing to bat after winning toss... shows how much confidence we have on our batsmen.
Then our batsmen knew that they are going to face barrage of short balls yet they looked so un-convincing, I am sure they were all busy shopping and attending parties at the Caribbean.
And I will ask again: Where is Lendl Simmons?? W. HINDS is outdated.... What is the personal interest in persisting with A. Fletcher? Deonarine is good against spin, and can get runs against pace..... Please, the team is too predictable, especially to the hungry Australians.
I really hope W.I. can play even better vs Aus. To be honest, they gave away MANY EXTRAS and again they are too dependent on Gayle. Taylor looked very good as well, great to see him back...cricket needs its bowlers to shine. Ind cont. to show their incompetence in the FIELDING department. For how long will they continue to be content with such poor fielding. This is exactly why many are hesitant to give them a solid #1 tag, they have much talent and unlimited resources and if they want the respect from the entire cricketing world they better learn to improve all aspects of their game rather than always trying out-bat teams on flat or slow tracks.
New IPL Kochi franchise - $330 million; Total IPL 2010 expenditure - >$3 billion; Watching the Indian batsmen try and play a short ball - PRICELESS!!!
This Dhoni team never looks they're hungry to win. They almost looked like, this T20 tournament just part of their job, but not die hard attempt. They played so casually and arrogantly and carelessly, egoisticly. They;re playing like just 1 match in IPL's 60 matches. So who'll expect this team is going to create wonders? Dhoni's arrogant decision to play with same team, and he didn't dropped Vijay, Yousuf, Ravider Jadeja and he didn't took Karthik, Vinay kumar. So he paid the price. But all the team members pockets are full with IPL ransom money, so how they'll get hunger to win the every match? Their lazy body language is telling, they're not in serious business. They played pathetically and they don't derve to be No.1 team title. Their bowling attack is poor, they can't play short pitch balls (they're not practicing at nets? this 1 billion dollar team? what a shame?). Dhoni you may be good captain, but this is not the way you're dealing with worldcup. You can't read pitches, howcan?
no surprise india lost. if you cannot play short balls who have no business to be in an international team. the same is also true about spin. now the BCCI should use their money power to make sure that t20 or any other ICC event is not held outside india (or at least the subcontinent) otherwise india is never going to win with this bunch of pathetic players led by a pathetic captain. alternatively, the BCCI should try to ban bouncers in any form of cricket. well they have with collusion from other cowardly boards have made it sure that there cannot be more than one in an over. this is ridiculous. why not impose similar restrictions on spinners, i.e. specify how many googlies or top-spin they can bowl in an over? the fast bowlers running in to bowl is a tremendous sight. we donot see this very often because fast bowlers are a dying breed because of the unfair and unjust way they are treated. let us be fair to them.
Dhoni's arrogance and ego caused humiliating defeat to India. When India lost vs Australia, Dhoni could've taken some bold decisions and keeping some players dropped for match against West indies, but Dhoni decided to play with same team and they made same mistakes. Vijay failed miserably, Gambhir not at all in form, Yuvi so so, looks like he lost charm. Rohit badluck, umpires foolish decision caused his wicket. But Dhoni and played well. Yousuf pathan becomes burden to Indian team. Both Pathan and Ravider Jadeja only suitable for Rajastan Royals but not for national indian team. Indian bowlers bowled erraticaly espeically fulltosses and paid the price. Not sure why Dhoni want to bowl with Spinners on bouncy pitch? So Gayle celebrated almost century against this mediocre indian spin and pace attack, except Nehra & Harbhajan. Zaheer also becoming burden in T20 matches. So next time for worldcups, India should send fresh yound talent same like first T20 world cup team, but not this team
Congratulations to Gayle and his boys! That was stunning batting by Gayle and a great display by the West Indies team as a whole. The Indians in these forums who never gave the Windies a chance need to eat their words. We all know that the Windies can beat any team on their day, even the powerful Indians, as they showed earlier today. People tend not to learn from history. Wasn't the Windies who knocked India out of last year's context with a barrage of shot pitched balls? Once again, Indian cricketers have proven on the world stage that they are one-dimensional. They crush teams on the spin friendly wickets of the sub-continent, but fail to deal with lively wickets elsewhere. Kirsten and his team have their work cut out for them. I can't wait for the Windies-Ausies clash!
we need someone else to stand up with gayle agianst the aussies. i dot think chanderpaual and sarwan are suited for t20s. anyway am overjoyed for the win. when sri lanka beat them an friday i nearly killed someone.
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we need someone else to stand up with gayle agianst the aussies. i dot think chanderpaual and sarwan are suited for t20s. anyway am overjoyed for the win. when sri lanka beat them an friday i nearly killed someone.
Congratulations to Gayle and his boys! That was stunning batting by Gayle and a great display by the West Indies team as a whole. The Indians in these forums who never gave the Windies a chance need to eat their words. We all know that the Windies can beat any team on their day, even the powerful Indians, as they showed earlier today. People tend not to learn from history. Wasn't the Windies who knocked India out of last year's context with a barrage of shot pitched balls? Once again, Indian cricketers have proven on the world stage that they are one-dimensional. They crush teams on the spin friendly wickets of the sub-continent, but fail to deal with lively wickets elsewhere. Kirsten and his team have their work cut out for them. I can't wait for the Windies-Ausies clash!
Dhoni's arrogance and ego caused humiliating defeat to India. When India lost vs Australia, Dhoni could've taken some bold decisions and keeping some players dropped for match against West indies, but Dhoni decided to play with same team and they made same mistakes. Vijay failed miserably, Gambhir not at all in form, Yuvi so so, looks like he lost charm. Rohit badluck, umpires foolish decision caused his wicket. But Dhoni and played well. Yousuf pathan becomes burden to Indian team. Both Pathan and Ravider Jadeja only suitable for Rajastan Royals but not for national indian team. Indian bowlers bowled erraticaly espeically fulltosses and paid the price. Not sure why Dhoni want to bowl with Spinners on bouncy pitch? So Gayle celebrated almost century against this mediocre indian spin and pace attack, except Nehra & Harbhajan. Zaheer also becoming burden in T20 matches. So next time for worldcups, India should send fresh yound talent same like first T20 world cup team, but not this team
no surprise india lost. if you cannot play short balls who have no business to be in an international team. the same is also true about spin. now the BCCI should use their money power to make sure that t20 or any other ICC event is not held outside india (or at least the subcontinent) otherwise india is never going to win with this bunch of pathetic players led by a pathetic captain. alternatively, the BCCI should try to ban bouncers in any form of cricket. well they have with collusion from other cowardly boards have made it sure that there cannot be more than one in an over. this is ridiculous. why not impose similar restrictions on spinners, i.e. specify how many googlies or top-spin they can bowl in an over? the fast bowlers running in to bowl is a tremendous sight. we donot see this very often because fast bowlers are a dying breed because of the unfair and unjust way they are treated. let us be fair to them.
This Dhoni team never looks they're hungry to win. They almost looked like, this T20 tournament just part of their job, but not die hard attempt. They played so casually and arrogantly and carelessly, egoisticly. They;re playing like just 1 match in IPL's 60 matches. So who'll expect this team is going to create wonders? Dhoni's arrogant decision to play with same team, and he didn't dropped Vijay, Yousuf, Ravider Jadeja and he didn't took Karthik, Vinay kumar. So he paid the price. But all the team members pockets are full with IPL ransom money, so how they'll get hunger to win the every match? Their lazy body language is telling, they're not in serious business. They played pathetically and they don't derve to be No.1 team title. Their bowling attack is poor, they can't play short pitch balls (they're not practicing at nets? this 1 billion dollar team? what a shame?). Dhoni you may be good captain, but this is not the way you're dealing with worldcup. You can't read pitches, howcan?
New IPL Kochi franchise - $330 million; Total IPL 2010 expenditure - >$3 billion; Watching the Indian batsmen try and play a short ball - PRICELESS!!!
I really hope W.I. can play even better vs Aus. To be honest, they gave away MANY EXTRAS and again they are too dependent on Gayle. Taylor looked very good as well, great to see him back...cricket needs its bowlers to shine. Ind cont. to show their incompetence in the FIELDING department. For how long will they continue to be content with such poor fielding. This is exactly why many are hesitant to give them a solid #1 tag, they have much talent and unlimited resources and if they want the respect from the entire cricketing world they better learn to improve all aspects of their game rather than always trying out-bat teams on flat or slow tracks.
And I will ask again: Where is Lendl Simmons?? W. HINDS is outdated.... What is the personal interest in persisting with A. Fletcher? Deonarine is good against spin, and can get runs against pace..... Please, the team is too predictable, especially to the hungry Australians.
What has Indian cricketer's have to say now? I get a feeling that they are more worried about Huge IPL contracts. The first negative step was not choosing to bat after winning toss... shows how much confidence we have on our batsmen.
Then our batsmen knew that they are going to face barrage of short balls yet they looked so un-convincing, I am sure they were all busy shopping and attending parties at the Caribbean.
What has Indian cricketer's have to say now? I get a feeling that they are more worried about Huge IPL contracts. The first negative step was not choosing to bat after winning toss... shows how much confidence we have on our batsmen.
Then our batsmen knew that they are going to face barrage of short balls yet they looked so un-convincing, I am sure they were all busy shopping and attending parties at the Caribbean.