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Brian Lara has failed to entertain in the two All Stars

Brian Lara has failed to entertain in the two All Stars games that he has played so far.

He has gotten out cheaply both times and that against the spinners.

Those people who followed Lara’s international career would know how good a player of spin he was. He had the capability to pummel even the best of spinners on the turning tracks.

But, playing in USA, he doesn’t seem to still have got that in him.

He showed a slight glimpse in the second game though when he danced down the track to a nicely lopped delivery and whacked it straight down the ground for a one bounce four, but, soon after that, he was taken down as Andrew Symonds, the former Aussie part time spinner, beat him in the air and got one past him to knock him over at a score of 19.

It was a shot which was bread and butter for Lara when he was on his roll, the loft over the spinner’s head. He was such an expert at that, but, not anymore. Even somebody like Andrew Symonds was good enough to outfox him.

In the first All-Stars game too which was played in New York, Lara had been dismissed on a shot which he would never fault at during his playing days, that is the sweep shot. Continue reading “Brian Lara has failed to entertain in the two All Stars”

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Virat Kohli reckons that with 5 fielders being allowed to be stationed outside the 30-yard circle in the third power play

Virat Kohli reckons that with 5 fielders being allowed to be stationed outside the 30-yard circle in the third power play, it’s not easy now to collect big runs at the end of the innings no matter who is batting.

So, it’s important for the top and middle order to take more responsibility and make sure that the run rate is always healthy.

Virat scored a century in the 4th One Day International game versus South Africa in Chennai and guided India to a score of 299 which turned out to be match winning.

The pace at which he played that knock earned him plaudits of the India skipper MS Dhoni and also, some of the former players.

It was one of the slowest wickets to have been produced in the series and Virat was not being able to score boundaries easily when he first walked in, but, rather than forcing the issue, he focussed on trying to look for singles every ball despite the fact that the weather was extremely humid.

He, however, made sure that he did not let the loose balls go by. Whenever the two South African spinners flighted the ball, Virat was down the track. Continue reading “Virat Kohli reckons that with 5 fielders being allowed to be stationed outside the 30-yard circle in the third power play”

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Harbhajan Singh’s test career might have come to an end

Harbhajan Singh’s test career might have come to an end with his axing from the Indian playing XI for the second test match against Sri Lanka which was played at P Sara Oval, Sri Lanka.

Harbhajan had brought back into the Indian test side presumably on the insistence of the new captain Virat Kohli.

But, he failed to repay the faith put in him. He played in the one off game against Bangladesh and although, he got three wickets there, none of those wickets came when the batsman was trying to play a defensive shot.

However, despite that, he was retained for the Sri Lanka series and was even included in the playing XI for the Galle test match.

But, on a pitch, where the other two Indian spinners i.e. Ravichandran Ashwin and Amit Mishra enjoyed bowling a lot and shared 15 wickets between them, Harbhajan could get just one wicket in both the innings together and could not even manage to score some handy lower order runs.

India lost that game from a winning position and the think tank had no choice, but, to make some changes going further in the series and the first player whose place was found out to be quite vulnerable in the XI was Harbhajan.

The veteran off spinner was replaced by Stuart Binny and Binny, to his credit, made some crucial contributions in the remaining part of the series both with bat and ball. Continue reading “Harbhajan Singh’s test career might have come to an end”

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Jonathan Trott has found himself opening the batting for England

Jonathan Trott has found himself opening the batting for England after his comeback.

And, there’s the possibility that he would continue at that position in the Ashes series too.

Trott used to bat one down until he was hit by that depression issue in the middle of the Australian tour 2013.

It took him one and half years to revive himself from that, but, during that period, Garry Ballance secured that no. 3 spot, scoring regular hundreds, leaving no option for the team management, but, to push Trott upwards to the opening slot.

Trott was actually lucky that there was a vacancy at the top of the order with Sam Robson failing the previous season.

If Robson had gone well and had established himself as the opening partner of Cook, Trott might not have got himself into the playing XI at all.

And, even now, Trott will have to go well to make sure that he stays in the XI for the Ashes games. Continue reading “Jonathan Trott has found himself opening the batting for England”

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Rohit Sharma opened the batting for the Mumbai Indians

Rohit Sharma opened the batting for the Mumbai Indians in the first game versus the Kolkata Knight Riders and scored 98 fabulous runs and then, for some reason, he demoted himself in the batting order and started coming at 3 or 4.

And, since the time he has done that, Mumbai’s overall batting has been all over the place.

Rohit is the most important batsman for the Mumbai Indians in the subcontinent conditions and that’s because he is a fine player of the spinners.

He can milk the spinners which the overseas batsmen or even some of the other Indian batsmen can’t do effectively.

In the limited over formats of the game, you want your best player to play the maximum no. of deliveries and in Mumbai’s case; it can happen only if Rohit opens the innings.

Also, Mumbai’s problem in the recent games has been that they have not been able to build a platform.

With Rohit opening, they might be able to do that and then, their big hitters can take over in the death.

And, Rohit opens for India as well quite regularly in the One day Internationals and the T20s.

Mumbai has lost 4 out of their 4 games and to have any chance of reaching the playoffs now, they need to win at least 7 out of their remaining 10. Continue reading “Rohit Sharma opened the batting for the Mumbai Indians”