One down, three to go

One of the memories of watching Tendulkar over the years is how often he falls over when beaten and hit on the pads and I've always felt that this results in him getting more dodgy leg before decisions than he otherwise would. When you're a short player and you fall over the way he does, umpires can't be judged too harshly for thinking that the trajectory is lower than it actually is. So despite all the protests from the likes of Gavaskar and Shastri on air, I don't think India can complain too much about things given how unsurely they've played the spinners.

Be interesting to see how Tendulkar (and the rest of the batters) approach things in the rest of the series and whether they get on the front foot a bit more. It will be good to watch no matter how many runs the master makes.

Comments

Much ado about a run-out

Judging by the amount that's been said and written about Ian Bell's run-out-that-wasn't at Trent Bridge, you would think that it has been the most significant occurrence of the series so far when nothing could be further from the truth. Andrew Miller and Samir Chopra seem to be of the opinion that it was the crucial turning point in the match, which I completely disagree with (the post-tea sessions on days one and two were far more critical and momentum shifting). Andy Flower says that if Tendulkar had been run-out similarly in Bombay, it would have caused an international incident. He's clearly feeling the effects of having been in the England cricket set-up for too long given that a) its very improbable that Tendulkar would do something as daft as Bell did, and b) when a controversial run-out (but within the laws) did happen to him (against Pakistan at Eden Gardens no less), Tendulkar went out to the crowd and appealed to them to calm down and let the game proceed...

A kick up the backside

Its very interesting (and revealing) that so many Indian cricketers pull up their socks and become better players once they've been dropped from the side and left out in the cold for a while. The trend is even more prevalent currently when the selectors have a larger pool of good players to choose from. Dravid (from the one-day team), Kumble, Ganguly, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Harbhajan, the list goes on. In fact, the only people I can think of who haven't been dropped at any point in recent years are Tendulkar (in any form of the game), and Dravid (from the Test team). This article in the TOI attributes their post-drop performance improvements (at least in Yuvraj's case and a few more as well) to anger. I'm not too sure I agree. I think its more a generic Indian mentality of taking things easy and getting soft and comfortable too easily. Its a national trait and one that needs great guarding against. I've discovered the hard way how getting physically unfit or slack...

First thoughts on the Ashes

The only minor surprise for me in the 2013 Australian Ashes squad announced last week was the selection of James Faulkner ahead of Moises Henriques as the second all-rounder. Minor because given the Shane Watson shenanigans of recent times, I would have thought that Inverarity and co would have opted for a second batting all-rounder (which is what Henriques clearly is). Instead they've gone with a bowling all-rounder in Faulkner and it'll be interesting to see what happens if Watson's batting woes in Test match cricket continue in the first two Tests. As for the rest of the squad, given the way the inexperienced batting performed in India, Rogers and Haddin were always going to make it in to the team and the choice of Khawaja over Smith appears sound too given that the latter's strength is in playing spin bowling. The batting still looks as unsettled and shaky as the Indian fast bowling line-up and its here that the series will be won or lost for the Aussies. The retu...

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