India cricket news

Paul Collingwood papers over fragile England batting line-up

Because if you’ve got a fragile batting line-up, paper is the greatest disguise. You can conceal all manner of batting sins through judicious use of paper.

England’s batting folded at Old Trafford but they got away with it. It happened at Headingley and they didn’t. Paul Collingwood’s innings of 91 not out off 71 balls was a desperate one from a top one-day player, but he was never going to get England home alone.

England are definitely improving, but you still don’t feel confident when they bat. India’s top four all made fifties. England’s managed 4, 46, 44 and 0, which isn’t really good enough.

We’re still not convinced about Matt Prior as an opener. We don’t think he likes it. He should play, but maybe bat at seven. The question then is who opens?

England want quick runs from their other opener, with Alastair Cook nominally playing the long innings. Perhaps Ravi Bopara might fit the role, although he seems to be developing into the next Paul Collingwood – a canny run-chaser.

A bit of form from Kevin Pietersen would help immensely, of course.

England v India, fifth one-day international at Headingley
India 324-6 (Yuvraj Singh 72, Sachin Tendulkar 71, Sourav Ganguly 59, Gautam Gambhir 51)
England 242-8 (Paul Collingwood 91)
England lost following a Duckworth-Lewis calculation

Ajit Agarkar tries to fool us with wickets – we won’t be fooled

Ajit Agarkar is still all kinds of terrible, despite taking four wickets in the fourth one-day international at Old Trafford. We’re not going to be swayed. We accept that his ball to Ian Bell was a beauty, although it was a hideously dreadful leave on Bell’s part. You don’t think it was that bad? The ball hit his stumps. It doesn’t get any worse than that.

Other than that, Agarkar’s wickets were largely the result of batsmen taking on a bad bowler. He went for a run a ball in a low-scoring game. When he came back into the attack later on, with pressure mounting, he promptly bowled two wides. That sums it up, but the wickets will save him.

Four wickets will keep in the side for a good few games. This is how he operates. He flukes a good haul of wickets in one game and then takes none for many in the next three matches.

Ravi Bopara and Stuart Broad given the ultimate honour

What were you doing when you were 21 or 22? We were mostly not leaving our room for weeks on end and feeling kind of numb inside. Not Stuart Broad and Ravi Bopara. They were exhibiting extraordinary amounts of steel in rescuing a disastrous one-day international run chase in front of thousands and thousands of people.

We’re not sure the scale of their achievement was properly expressed in the highlights. India had been dispatched for just 212. England had just lost the only batsman who’d seemed remotely competent – Paul Collingwood – and had fallen to 114-7. It was only the 24th over. Wickets had been tumbling.

Again and again we’d hoped someone would stick around and again and again batsmen hadn’t. Paul Collingwood had looked likely and now he’d gone. The English supporters in the crowd had given up and were occupying themselves by starting Mexican waves and shouting at the stewards. This was the context of the match.

The crowd were to entertain themselves for quite a bit longer, but we were watching. Stuart Broad and Ravi Bopara went about their business and about an hour later they’d started to win the crowd back over. They faced and conquered every Indian bowler with excellent shots, sensible thinking and some great cheeky-bastard singles.
Slowly, one by one, people said to each other: ‘Listen. Put down the beer snake. Something’s happening here.’

THAT’S the scale of the achievement. Stuart Broad and Ravi Bopara batted so well and rescued what had seemed such a lost cause that drunk England fans, at the end of the day, when they’d been drinking for the longest, actually put down their beer snakes and watched the cricket in near-silence.

That’s some performance.

England v India, fourth one-day international at Old Trafford
India 212 (Yuvraj Singh 71, Sachin Tendulkar 55, Stuart Broad 4-51, James Anderson 3-38)
England 213-7 (Stuart Broad 45 not out, Ravi Bopara 43 not out, Ajit Agarkar 4-60)

Ian Bell – ink him in at three

We’d planned to write something about how Ian Bell supplied the padding in the ‘meal’ of an England innings – the bulk that everyone takes for granted, without really paying any attention to it. Slightly dull, but integral to the construction of the meal.

There were going to be lots of foodstuffs likened to various cricketers, but then we imagined seeing it all on screen and imagined our readers’ disappointed reactions, so we didn’t bother. All you need to know is that Ian Bell was either potatoes, rice, pasta or bread.

We’ve pretty much written the thing anyway, haven’t we? We’ve probably written more about not writing it than we would have written in the first place.

James Anderson and Stuart Broad were really good too. What culinary ingredients would they be?

England v India, third one-day international at Edgbaston
England 281-8 (Ian Bell 79, RP Singh 3-55)
India 239 all out (Sourav Ganguly 72, Rahul Dravid 56, James Anderson 3-32)

Rahul Dravid’s cool destruction

Some observers seemed surprised by Rahul Dravid‘s innings of 92 off 63 balls as India won the second one-day international yesterday. Why? Dravid’s more than capable of doing this.

People get blinded by his careful approach to Test cricket, but he only plays like that because he thinks that’s the best way to score as many runs as possible. In Test cricket, scoring as many runs as possible is the best way for a batsman to influence the game.

In one-day cricket scoring as many runs as possible is also a good approach, but time is of the essence, so you have to try and cram as many as you can into a short span of time.

If we were Rahul Dravid, we’d rail at our being pigeon-holed as a ‘careful’ batsman. ‘It’s rubbish in this pigeon hole’ we’d say and everyone would listen; help us out of the pigeon-hole; and high-five us for no real reason.

Rahul Dravid should do that.

England should have played a spinner, by the way.

England v India, second one-day international at Bristol
India 329-7 (Sachin Tendulkar 99, Rahul Dravid 92, Andrew Flintoff 5-56)
England 320-8 (Ian Bell 64, Dimitri Mascarenhas 52, Piyush Chawla 3-60, Munaf Patel 3-70)

Ajit Agarkar: Seriously, what is the point?

If you’re only going to pick four bowlers in a one-day game, you’d think you’d want four good ones. Yet in an era where India’s pace bowling resources have never run deeper, there’s been one conspicuous survivor from an earlier period. Ajit Agarkar.

His survival is inexplicable. Even more inexplicable is the fact that his record stands up to scrutiny. Okay, maybe the latter explains the former, but have you seen the man bowl recently? How you can take 281 wickets at 27.66 bowling sub-medium-pace leg-side wides, we don’t know.

Agarkar used to bowl quite quickly, but not any more. He’s also without guile or accuracy. There’s been a long-standing rumour that he’s an all-rounder. He does have a Test hundred against England to his name, although with no Test fifties and only three one-day international fifties from 110 innings, that century screams ‘statistical aberration’ in a hoarse but insistent voice.

England wallop India in a one-day game – honestly

What in blazes? What, what… THE DICKENS is going on?

An England player scores a one-day hundred. ANOTHER England player scores a one-day hundred. England tot up 288 for the loss of only two wickets. James Anderson bowls at 90mph and takes 4-23. Andrew Flintoff‘s back and he’s also bowling at 90mph.

It’s like the good old days, except even in the good old days India were rarely all out for 184 and England never managed three run outs. Wait. What’s this? One of the run outs was brought about by Monty Panesar?

Call off the next six one-dayers. We’re done. This’ll do us just fine.

All it took was some spirited fate-tempting.

England v India, first one-day international at The Rose Bowl
England 288-2 (Alastair Cook 102, Ian Bell 126 not out)
India 184 (James Anderson 4-23)

Gautam Gamhbir impersonates a cricket ball

Here we see Gautam Gambhir sidling up to a cricket ball in disguise.

[At least we used to, but now the image has been removed...]

If Gautam’s deception is successful, perhaps he’ll get to mate with the ball