@hanna : yeah as i said we got out of jail in the first test match where the rain saved us, but the performance in the second was quite marvelous, the way the Indian team bounced back was very good to see....
Hopefully we will draw or win the second test and be the first team to beat england in england since 2001....

Seriously that jelly beans thing was quite immature on the part of the English players so was the shoulder push by sreesanth but continuous throwing jelly beans on the pitch is v sad on part of the English players....

P.S - Jelly Beans Brigade = English Cricket Team

At last, India manage to win a Test against some respectable opposition!

@ Valar - yes I agree about the jelly beans - I don't know if it was meant to be a joke or whether they really thought it would put the batsman off.
It was stupid and infantile in fact something you ould expect from Andrew Flintoff , and he wsn't even on the pitch :p

I am hoping that England will win the next match , but I think now that India are fired up England don't have much chance.

@Judas : We won the series in West Indies not long ago after they pwned us in the one dayers.

@hanna : England have a great chance if hoggard, harmison and flintoff come back into the side or even if two among them make a comeback....

@Valar: Man, West Indies have been a bit of a joke ever since the early 90s. Mind you, so have India, at least outside India, for innumerable years...

@hanna: England definitely have the players to win against India, and remember that India is always prone to royally screwing up winning opportunities. So is England, I know, but with two unpredictable teams it's very hard to say for sure who will win.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tms/2007/08/another_nail_in_the_coffin_of_1.shtml

How immature this article is where the author of the article says there needs to be a shift from 50 over cricket to 20 over one. Its lame really.

India has defn won the series now after scoring 650+ runs in the 1st innings, hopefully we will win this test to win the series 2-0
Hats off to Kumble for his maiden test century.

Written by Valar on 10.08.2007 at 21:02

India has defn won the series now after scoring 650+ runs in the 1st innings, hopefully we will win this test to win the series 2-0
Hats off to Kumble for his maiden test century.

And Kumble is the test cricketer that took longest to reach his maiden test century, surpassing Chaminda Vaas.

That was a very solid batting display by the Indian team as a whole. I can't believe Kumble finally got his century, he's always been a decent person to have in the lower order, and he deserves it. Dhoni's innings was a lot of fun to watch (as usual), and providing they don't screw this up royally (knowing India, this is always on the cards!), they should have the series in the bag.

That was a most enjoyable ODI between England and India! I watched until Tendulkar's dismissal for 99 (2nd time that's happened to him, and his 13th dismissal in the 90s) then went to bed, but caught the highlights this morning. Dravid managed to break the shackles for one of the few times in his career, and in general it was a splendid batting display from India. Credit must be given to England for getting so close to a large score, but in all fairness they were out-batted. It was a good comeback for India after being demolished in the first match.

Man the umpire was the spoilsport for Sachin's decision that asshole, he denied me and millions others the cherish able moment of Sachin Tendulkar scoring a ton.... What a pathetic decision, i bloody threw the remote control and it broke sadly
Umpire Gould should quit umpiring.
I didnt bother about the match from then on........

Written by Valar on 25.08.2007 at 16:55

Man the umpire was the spoilsport for Sachin's decision that asshole, he denied me and millions others the cherish able moment of Sachin Tendulkar scoring a ton.... What a pathetic decision, i bloody threw the remote control and it broke sadly
Umpire Gould should quit umpiring.
I didnt bother about the match from then on........

That sounds suspiciously familiar...

In all seriousness, it was a poor decision, but that happens in cricket. Still, it didn't stop me or my father from screaming at the TV about the "sala harami umpire, chutiya angrezi gandu (bloody cheating umpire, fucking English asshole)" and many more choice words in Hindi and Marathi. Nonetheless, it was a good game of cricket.

Strange there have been no posts in this thread now that England are 3-1 up in the series. :p

A very good partnership between Bopara and Broad giving England the victory.

@hanna: Funny that...

Last night's game was finished off brilliantly by England. Admittedly most of the Indian top order batted like crap, but they were forced to by some splendid bowling. Sachin and Yuvraj were the only two that actually looked like batsmen. They did pretty well to get to a reasonable total, and really looked like winning until Broad and Bopara played with maturity beyond their years.

On a side note, how much freaking political pull must Ajit Agarkar have? He takes wickets, OK, but he gets carted around without fail every single match, and still manages to worm his way back into the team! Bring back Irfan Pathan, dammit, he can bat well too!

@hanna I thought we had the match, i didnt know england had batting till no 9 :|

Irfan Pathan has totally lost it, he isnt a good bowler anymore man, Ajit Agarkar has a nack of picking up wickets which is very important in ODI's.

@ Valar - neither did we !

I thought we had lost too , I was expecting either batsman to get out with every ball bowled.
It was very heartening to see an English team with some fight and determination for once.

@Maulik: I haven't seen Irfan play for at least a year, so I figured he'd just been left by the wayside (as often happens to Indian cricketers). Agarkar IMO is a liability, because even though he does pick up wickets in flurries on occasion, every other match he gets thrashed around. I'd expect that he'd have learned something after 9 years of international cricket, but it would appear not. He overpitches the ball way too often. My dislike of Agarkar is sort of like yours for Sehwag.

@hanna: Damn straight that you guys fought back. I suppose even India were thinking "Hmm, this is England, we've gotten some wickets now they'll just collapse as usual" but it looks like your chaps took a leaf out of Australia's book.

India should learn something as well: you CANNOT have MS Dhoni coming in at no.6 with no-one even half-decent after him. Come on, bring in another batsman...

wohoo with 3-1 down we win two on a trot to make it 3-3....Sachin with his 71 and 94 has been inspirational....
We gotta win at Lords now, i am just jumping all around my house

@ Valar - yes the final game is now set up nicely.


I hope it's a nice close game , but obviously I wish for the opposite result to you :p

What a match. I watched until Sachin got out, then went to bed as it was 1.30am here. I didn't know what to expect when checking Cricinfo for the result, since it really could have gone either way, but was ecstatic upon learning that India won. The Lord's match will be a cracker, I'm sure of it. Oh, and Maulik, for the record, Ajit Agarkar is crap!

Incidentally, Sachin may retire from ODIs after the next two home series that India have against Australia and Pakistan. He wasn't even able to get up the steps to the dressing room properly yesterday, and he always seems to cramp up when he's in the 80s and 90s, so he reckons it's time to pull up stumps in the shorter version of the game so he can keep playing Tests for a while. The full story may be read here.

EDIT: Sachin has since refuted those rumours. The follow-up story is here.

A nice match this one.

Last weekend saw the first ever play-offs of the competition in Holland
VRA beat Quick Hague to proceed into the finals but now the other semi-final...

VOC were dismissed for 168
VCC chased it and this is how the match concluded:

specially the first one......a little bit of detail about the situation as it stood after the end of 47th over,
VCC needs 10 to win, 18 balls to go, 3 wickets in hand.....enters X (xavier), bowling with is Cap on (as he did in his last 7 overs of his spell),field set.....Point, cover, extra cover and mid off, short fine leg, deep square leg (behind square), short midwicket, deep midwicket and mid on facing him was Tim de Leede (42*), all 6 balls pitching on Middle/off and finishing just outside off, with a clever mix of dip/curve, a faster one again on off , de Leede cutting it hard, behind point, Ernst fielding there (a left hander), gd fielding, no chance of a single.....a real tight finish to the over to a batsman well set and a maiden!!!!!,
2 overs to go 10 to win, Ernst in the attack, left arm over, fast medium.....no. 9 Bins facing....sequel reads..... dot, single, dot, double, dot, and the last ball de Leede facing, pitching on off going away slightly, de Leede crashes it over extra cover, FOUR......VCC takes a huge sigh of relief, supporters clapping their palms off, whistles, cat calls flying all around the ground but not inside the ground.....X moves in, small conversation with Zuiderent, everyone called inside the circle, Zuiderent egging the team on.....X, left arm over, Bins facing, flighted on the middle stump, Bins charges, ends up yorking himself, middle stump disturbed, bails flying high, VCC stunned a bit, Dormits moves in, helmet on, takes guard, X in again, lower trajectory one...... on Middle curving away from right hander, a suicidal cross batted effort, ball goes up high in the air, swerving a bit, Nabeel at short fineleg under it, gathers himself, looks settled to take the catch, still a last millisecond adjustment to get his hands just under the ball as it swerved out just there......Dormits c Nabeel b X,
crucially Tim crosses and can take strike, on 49*,.........last man in.....VCC hopeful nonetheless VOC supporters in the balcony....shouting "Come on Coachy".....and the coach INDEED comes on, and in some way.....On Middle stump....quicker one, de Leede tries to sweep, gets in a bit of tumble, hit on pad, HUGE shout from X n all VOC team.....de Leede looking to pinch the leg bye, looking desperately at the umpire....finger goes up......X runs towards midwicket boundary, whole team after him, trying to catch him.....just caught outside midwicket inner circle......whole team in a huge huddle, piled on each other.....De Leede/Kroonenberg still pondering over what might have been a easy walk in the park, turned into a nightmare by that Man....X......VOC get themselves untangled from the huddle, X emerges out....both fist pumping.... close to his chest.....Runs in to shake hands with Tim and a small chat, a pat on the back by Tim......Tim walking out, a warm and uncluttered healthy sound of clapping for the man who brought VCC so close....yet so far........
WHAT A GAME.......

btw Xavier Doherty bowls slow left-arm orthodox

so HATTRICK for Doherty and match tied and had to be played again the next day which was won by VCC so porceeds to play VRA this Saturday in the final

^wow man Xavier(X) really nailed that team, awesome finale.

Written by Valar on 07.09.2007 at 07:59

^wow man Xavier(X) really nailed that team, awesome finale.

I was there watching, it was unbelievable. Xavier being jumped upon by everyone in his team hahahaha.
But VCC were sporting enough to congratulate Xavier on his awesome performance.

@Marcel: Holy crap, that's what I call 'right down to the wire,' scintillating stuff! Incidentally, how old is Tim de Leede now? And Zuiderent would be none other than national representative Bas Zuiderent? Oh, and India need this Xavier Doherty to bowl slow left arm in the final over so Yuvraj doesn't get hit for 5 consecutive sixes.

Written by Judas on 07.09.2007 at 16:40

@Marcel: Holy crap, that's what I call 'right down to the wire,' scintillating stuff! Incidentally, how old is Tim de Leede now? And Zuiderent would be none other than national representative Bas Zuiderent? Oh, and India need this Xavier Doherty to bowl slow left arm in the final over so Yuvraj doesn't get hit for 5 consecutive sixes.

Tim de Leede is a couple of months older than me so he is either still 39 or just truned 40

Zuiderent is the same one so it is Bas Zuiderent, batsman, keeper, part time bowler of VOC and head groudsman as well
but then again head groundsman for VRA is also an ex-international
and head groundsman for Kampong is Peter Cantrell former Queensland, 12th Australia cs England, Dutch internation, and the dutch coach for the 2007 WC

Marcel, you should totally make a comeback, if Timmy can do it that so can you! I can just see it now, 2011 CWC, captaining Holland Marcel Hubregtse...

Written by Judas on 07.09.2007 at 17:07

Marcel, you should totally make a comeback, if Timmy can do it that so can you! I can just see it now, 2011 CWC, captaining Holland Marcel Hubregtse...

Hahahaha well Tim was always more talented than me. That was already the case when we both attended youth cricket camp in 1983 and played against other quite a number of times for our clubs' youth teams.
Btw Tim isn't retiring althogether, but will be doing stuff for VOC next year and I think he'll still be playing in the Hoofdklasse as well.

Aleem Dar is a c**t, that fucking asshole cost us the match and the series....I hope he fucking dies.....Terribly upset....

Twenty20 is starting tomorrow so who all like me are "not" at all excited about the same, atleast i think its lame and should be scrapped.
I seriously hope India do badly in the tournament so that there creates no following for this ridiculous version of cricket in India. I completely understand why people can find it entertaining but for me there is just no scope spin bowling and pace bowling too will be all about pitching it full so that its difficult to hit. Batting will require no technique whatsoever and all one needs to do is play with a horizontal bat and just not bother about the wicket just about the fucking strike rate.

@ Valar - people said the same when the one day matches were first played :p

But I do agree with you - 20/20 isn't really cricket at all.