A Good Time To Be A Cricket Lover!

India 136/9 in less than 3 hours in South Africa . . .

And the South African batsmen still have the chance to clobber the Aussies for England in Perth . . .

136/9 my my how embarassing
Sehwag out for a duck

You shant have much trouble with Australia,
with dinosaurs like Chappel as selectors.
Proving cricket is still political,
India chucked him out and we have to suffer him.

In a way I am glad Australia is getting spanked,
we may then have some of the younger fellows considered
the boys recently in the team, whilst didn't really shine,
at least gave it more heart than dangling the bat
outside offstump with the likes of ponting and clarke.

Top marks for the english bowling attack, it was
nice to see tremlett work wonders with the six stitcher.
Well deserved and that catch by collingwood, a scorcher!

Dare I say it, England looks like the Australian team of old.
Well done to Mr. cricket and Brad Hadden, face savers.

I agree about the Oz selectors - which planet are they on? The crazy thing is that England have learnt from Australia (and South Africa and India) the value of a settled squad, trusting in true quality through poor patches - an approach which Australia seem to have thrown away.

And also to drop great players when they are no longer quite up to it (eg how Steve Waugh was dropped) - instead of the way that Oz have hung on to Ponting so his final series (as I guess this will be) is pretty dire. Shame, as he has been one of the true greats.

But hey, where would England's batting have been in this series or over the past few years without all their South African imports (Pietersen, Strauss, Trott, Prior, Kieswetter? It's provided the stability for someone like Cook to get through a poor patch.

And if SA are as good as they are with so much talent playing for England, it shows how well cricket is doing there at the moment. Here's for a great series with India (and hopefully not too many one sided days like today, as long as SA wins 3-0). (PLEASE!!)

what dont be silly zaheer was not fit. once he comes back we will teach sa a lesson in swing bowling they will never forget. if they dont win this first test they will lose the series. sehwag is not going to fail 6 times is he? the moment he starts SA will stop.

i am getting ready for test 2 already although dravid has promised that he will stand like the wall and SA wont win this test. I dont see that happening, but lets say india manage to make int he second innings what sa does int he first and sa crumble int he chase of 150 that would be 2001 part 2

they need to get the idiot raina out of the team and bring back yuvraj singh even pujara will do and gambhir needs to go out to make way for vijay and then with zaheer khan in we can look forward to test no 2 on a proper cricketing wicket not a swimming pool where the toss decides the match

darn it both the openers are back in the hut. what a shame. this is going to go down in embarrassment.

Well, there's always the second test - but what is surprising is how thin the Indian bowling is without Zaheer. They way the South Africans hit the bowling around this morning was astonishing.

yes even I couldnt believe it daresay even ic an bowl better.

well if they manage to bat all day today I would say the second test would be better.

all right we are waiting with baited breath to see if he gets his 100 no 50

ok we should change this thread to spock talks to hiself he got 50 hundreds alright but dhoni is out and so is india

Sorry, I've been away for a while. Great fightback from Tendulkar and Dhoni, but I can't see them stopping SA from winning. But it's closer than I thought would happen first thing this morning.

well its bad luck but both gambhir and dhoni got out at the wrong time and india lost the match. they couldn get tendulkar out though. what a shame the rule must be changed so that you have ot get all 11 batsmen out :)

Another classic innings by the little master it seems.

Short men are always great batsmen,
I wonder who was taller, Bradman or Tendulkar?

Sachin 5'5" Bradman 5'7"

if it rea;;y was a classic dear rod then pray answer this question

why was he not farming the strike to make sure south africa batted again instead of putting the tailenders to the sword?

I have no evidence to prove my point,
but I have always felt that farming the strike doesn't work.
That brings into play, some classic run outs.
Modern cricket almost demands tail enders to be accountable,
defend the three stakes with your bat, and everything else with
your body. You gotta take a few bruises for your country :)

I agree with you, Spock - Sreethanth faced 18 of the 40 balls for the ninth wicket stand, and Unadkhat 10 of the 14 balls for the last wicket. So it's almost as if Tendulkar was letting the others farm the strike!

none was thinking he could save the test farming the strike all day but at least he should have tried to get the 25 runs to make sa bat again, wha tme and david are upset about is that he did not try ont he 5th mrning like he tried on all of the fourth day