The third day of the fourth test, played at the Wankhede Stadium last week Saturday, saw Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara, share a century stand as India started out strong in reply to England’s total of 400 on Friday, the second day of the fourth test played at the Wankhede Stadium.

After Lokesh Rahul had fallen following an opening stand of 39 with Vijay, the right handed pair added 107 runs for the second wicket.

From both ends after seven overs, Alastair Cook, England’s captain introduced spin which saw a considerable turn on over from Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali.

In his 24, Rahul went on to hit four crisp boundaries, before Moeen, off spinner, breached his defences to bowl him.

Twice, Vijay mis-hit Rashid, with the ball landing safely beyond the reach of the fielders on the two occasions. And over the long-off boundary, the opener hit the leg spinner for six. Continue reading 'INDIA IN STRONG START TO FIRST INNINGS IN BID TO REPLY ENGLAND’S 400'»

Whenever India loses in the One Day Internationals, all the attention is paid to the bowling and the fans start ruing the fact that the team does not have quality bowlers.

But, the reason behind most of the India’s losses in the recent ODI series against Australia was not their bowling, but, their middle order batting.

The bowlers were bound to go for runs on flat pitches. The Australia bowlers did too.

But, India could have won at least 3 games if the platform set by the top order would have been used by the batsmen coming in at 4, 5 and 6, but, it wasn’t to be.

And, the captain MS Dhoni will have to take responsibility for that as he had the most amount of experience in that middle order and thus, it was him who had that responsibility of making it big at the end for India which obviously he failed in.

But, the selectors are a little bit at fault as well in this. The players that they have picked to play at 4 and 5, they are largely the touch players, whether you talk about Rahane or Gurkeerat Mann.

Yes, Rahane has been consistent and has been scoring fifties, but, he scores those runs at under a run a ball or maybe at a run a ball at best which is not good enough for someone batting at his position. Continue reading 'Every Indian Cricket Loss is due to Poor Bowling'»

The two legends of Indian Cricket i.e. Zaheer Khan and Virender Sehwag decided to end their international careers this month.

Both were World Cup winners for India, but, had not been in the scheme of things for the last couple of seasons.

While, in Zaheer’s case, fitness was the main issue, Sehwag had been out because of his poor form.

The last time that Zaheer appeared in India jersey was at the start of the previous year when the team was on the tour of New Zealand.

Sehwag’s last game was against Australia in March 2013. The 37-year old Delhi dasher will now take part in the Masters League that is going to be organized pretty soon in United Arab Emirates and the United States of America.

Sehwag had actually been in pretty good form in the domestic Cricket this season and he could have brought himself in contention for a comeback in the national team with a couple of more big knocks for Haryana, but, he surprised everyone with this announcement.

Many thought he still had to offer a little bit to India.

As far as Zaheer is concerned, his retirement was on the expected lines. He had struggled to be fit for a large part of the last season and even the season before that. His speed had come down quite considerably.

Even in that series against New Zealand in which he had played in January 2014, he was bowling at 65-70 miles per hour. Continue reading 'Zaheer Khan and Virender Sehwag decided to end their international careers this month'»

The new ball bowling has become a serious headache for India of late.

In the three One Day Internationals against South Africa so far, the fast bowlers have proved to be unable to provide a single breakthrough to the team in the first power play and MS Dhoni, the Indian captain, has had to turn to the spinners who, in comparison, have bowled much better.

The Indian quicks have actually not hit the length that’s needed to get the new white Kookaburra swing in the air. They have been on the shorter side instead making it easy for the batsman to chip away.

Somebody like Bhuvneshwar Kumar, whose strength has always been the swing bowling, has also relied mostly on banging the ball in.

India’s problem is that they don’t have too many options at the moment.

Mohammad Shami, their premier bowler in the World Cup, has been nursing Knee injury for a few months and he is not a possibility to return to action at any point of time in the South Africa series.

And, there is no youngster in the domestic circuit either who is going great guns with his fast bowling. Continue reading 'New ball bowling has become a serious headache for India of late'»

Rahul Dravid has welcomed the fact that the Bangladesh Cricket Board has sent a pretty strong ‘A’ team to the tour of India.

Bangladesh ‘A’ will be playing three One Day games and a 4-day game against India ‘A’, while, a 4-day game against India’s domestic champions Karnataka as well.

Almost all the players in their squad have the international experience and thus, Dravid reckons this is a good opportunity for the fringe players of India to make their claims for selection in the national squad.

According to Dravid, the selectors will be paying attention to this series and good performances will not go unnoticed.

Speaking to the press yesterday, the former India no. 3, who is now the head coach of the ‘A’ team, said, “If you look at their squad, you would not find too many uncapped players in there. In fact, there is only one. So, they are pretty strong and balanced for these conditions and I believe all the games are going to be closely fought.”

“As far as our guys are concerned, they can’t have a better opportunity than this to press their claims. If they perform well against the internationals, they will definitely be able to catch the eyes of the selectors.” Continue reading 'Rahul Dravid has welcomed the fact that the Bangladesh Cricket Board has sent a pretty strong'»