Gautam Gambhir against Australia
And Gambhir wins!
That seems to be the way this is working. It was four years between Gautam Gambhir’s first and second Test hundreds. Now he’s hit two in two innings.
He’s basically an attacking batsman who doesn’t feel he HAS to attack, which is pretty much what you want in a Test opener. He can career along at near enough a run a ball alongside Virender Sehwag, like he did in the second innings of the last Test, or he can edge along safely like he did today, setting a platform for later mayhem.
He’s someone who knows not to get himself out, but who can impose himself on the opposition too – which is vital. Gambhir and Tendulkar decided they didn’t want Cameron White allowing the main bowlers a breather, so they removed him from the attack via the simple method of repeatedly carting him to the boundary.
Gambhir plays a good game off the field as well. “There was no way he could have got me out” he said about Shane Watson, before rather optimistically trying to encourage Australia to persevere with their part-timers: “The way Katich bowled, a couple of balls really spun.”
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"It’s not that I’m lazy - it’s that I just don’t care"
The fact that Katich got the ball to turn should worry the Aussies, it’s like Zaheer scoring 50. Wait til proper spinners get the ball.
He also seems adept at ruffling Australian feelings, had to have a snigger at Billy separating the warring parties
Katich actually bowled really really well. Pitched it up, turned it both ways, and Laxman failed to pick his wrongun.. can’t ask for more than that from a ‘part timer’.
katich turing the ball?? well then mishra will make this pitch a minefield!!
and yeah kumble will bowl his regular medium pacers!!
gambhir, you pain in the oz butt, now stop “crack”ing me up!!
Phenomenal ears – not visible in your chosen image, KC.
Kumble is not a proper spinner any longer.
Have been out of loop – is Harbhajan injured? If he’s been left out for Kumble, surely wrong? So Aussies will be okay.
And this is just a post to jinx Kumble into a 15-wicket haul. Or does that anti-jinx it? And is that now an anti-anti-jinx? And is that now an anti-anti-anti [etc etc etc - ad infinitum]?
Harbhajan has a toe injury, apparently. The toe has been put on a constant drip of one-liners and whimsical anecdotes, but remains in a serious condition.
Douglas, how can you be out of the loop? Don’t you work in a purely cricket related world?
You good for nothing!
A familiar sight for Australia today: VVS Laxman raising his bat in triumph.
Harbhajan is simply toeing the line. Get it? Get it? God I’m good. I such a weapon with humor that I shudder with awe at myself. I might be as good as Hayden — well may be not.
No I don’t Suave. I know some others who do, but i don’t really.
Gambhir’s ban is totally deserved – I don’t mind him and I hate Australia, but had it been an Australian doing the elbowing, man, the BCCI would be pushing for a life ban, and the media baying for blood. Baying for blood is actually too cool an expression to use for such subhuman activities….
And the Indian team really behave like assholes on the field, I have to say. We’re always complaining about Australia being assholes but when have you seen someone from the Indian team congratulate an opponent like Gambhir was congratuled after his 200? Not often.
Aussies are cry babies and go running to their ICC mommies after a good thrashing on the field. The funny thing is nobody gives a damn about the ICC today.