Cricket Blog

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This is going to be India’s final chance before the first test match. Sachin Tendulkar has been confirmed as captain in place of an injured Rahul Dravid nursing a strained calf. After coming close to a win against Sussex, India would love to win this match, or atleast perform even better than that match. With Sachin and Ganguly back in the team, I would expect them to go in and score heavily. I would also expect Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma and Ramesh Powar to get a match. India would have to test all these players to make a final judgement on the 11-man team for the first test.

I think, Gautam Gambhir and Ranadeb Bose will be the ones to get the cut. For Gambhir this would be plain injustice if he gets to sit out and Jaffer gets to play. This would be pure bias from the team management, but I am not going to be surprised as that’s how the Indian team selection almost always works. The board may pick the squad but it is the captain and coach/manager who decide on the the final playing XI. Ranadeb Bose’s exclusion would be self-inflicted as he did not show any evidence of his domestic form in conditions favoring him. It may be nerves. But at this level you are supposed to deal with it.

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Well well well. Who the hell would have thought that 17 wickets would fall on the final day of India’s first tour match played against Sussex. After a spirited comeback yesterday by Sussex, this match was heading to be an boring draw. But as so happens when India is playing, something had to give. India lost wickets in order to score quickly and finished their second innings at 184-8 declared. This gave the touring side a final lead of 272 runs. The surprise with the bat was the performance was No 10 batsman, RP Singh, who smashed 41 runs in only 46 balls and was the team’s top scorer.

With the ball, too, he got the crucial wickets of Sussex skipper Yardy and Rayner. However, it was the final interval that really made things interesting. Sitting comfortably at 46-3, who would have thought that Sussex would end up scraping through for a draw. India picked up 9 Sussex wickets in less than 2 sessions, and with Zaheer Khan to spearhead the attack, things are looking very interesting from England’s point of view. Martin-Jenkins was stubborn as usual and helped his side avoid an embarassing defeat.

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Here is the official list of the teams and players as per ICC rankings. I will try to keep this updated as regularly as possible. However the latest and most updated rankings can be found here.

For full Player ratings, click here.

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With the Indian tour to England underway and the first ball going to be bowled in less than 24 hours, I wanted to check out on what Sehwag and Harbhajan were upto. The last I heard was that Sehwag was destroying the opposition in the domestic circuit and Harbhajan had been called to join county team Surrey. Both players had been dropped from the Indian squad for both ODIs and Tests due to a string of poor to average performances. They were also dealt a double blow when the BCCI demoted them in the new contracts assigned to the Indian players.

Sehwag, it seems, has gone back to his roots and has started to correct his flaws. There was plenty of evidence that things have started to change in the recently concluded DDCA Hot Weather tournament. Sehwag led the ONGC team to an emphatic title victory over Indian Airlines(IA). He blasted 168 from only 117 balls, including 19 boundaries and 4 sixes, in the quarter finals. He then went on to smash 59 from 57 balls in the semi-final. It seems that he has been recalled to play county cricket as well.

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