*Official* Group A Discussion - Pakistan, West Indies, Australia, India

[Pratters]

Watson's ODI game seems to have suffered since his good performance in Test cricket.

Watson tries to hit the ball pitching outside off stump a bit too much and misses too. The missing is a major flaw in his batting which he has to sort out.

 

[pasag]

Longest stretch of cricket Watto's probably ever played, needs a bit of rest I imagine. Not being able to convert starts over the past couple of months not helping. Should be good to go for the home series, though hope he comes good in the remaining games of the series.

 

[Sylvester]

Watson tries to hit the ball pitching outside off stump a bit too much and misses too. The missing is a major flaw in his batting which he has to sort out.

Agree, hes getting LBW/Bowled far too often, somehow he got through the Ashes with it and even got a few starts at the start of the ODI series but didn't convert. Now the pressure is building and hes got 3 ducks in a row.

 

[Johnners]

So wishing i could watch this

 

[silentstriker]

Need to bring back the Wheel of Mediocrity with a few more faces? I'll have to wait until Tests start again, but this is not promising.

 

[Faisal1985]

Its like a 5th day of a test match pitch..................270-280, considering OZ bowling should be challenging for India.....

 

[Faisal1985]

Paine is raping Indian bowlers.......

 

[Sylvester]

Impressive stuff by Paine, his best 50 I've seen, go on and make a 100 son.

 

[ret]

There is something in the pitch for the spinners, if Bhajji can't do well here then it won't be a bad idea to kick him out of the team

OZ 84/1 after 16 .... a solid start, esp considering a total around 280 could be a match winning one

Ind has to go for wkts, get OZ in to 140/4 kind of situation

 

[Pratters]

Agree with you ret regarding Harbhajan. Ojha>Harbhajan on recent form if we discount the five wickets Harbhajan Singh took in the Compaq Cup final.

Also, India loves making careers of players. This time it is Paine.

 

[Faisal1985]

^ Is Munaf Patel injured or something?

 

[ret]

Meanwhile Mishra picks up Paine, who is no longer a pain for Ind

Key pair of OZ at the crease .... Focus India focus

 

[ret]

If Bhajji picks up Ponting and Hussey quickly, he would have made up for his misadventure in the last game

 

[Pratters]

If Bhajji picks up Ponting and Hussey quickly, he would have made up for his misadventure in the last game

A huge IF.

 

[ret]

A huge IF.

That shows how expensive Bhajji's misadventures are and how tough it is to make up for them

 

[ret]

May be they should have a slip when Mishra's bowling

 

[Shri]

Mishra should have played in the last game.

 

[Naumaan]

WOW Hussey is playing well
Currently Australia are 143/2 in 27 overs
means they can score around 280
that's a good news for Pakistan, cuz then it will be a close game, therefore NNR wont kick Pakistan out of the tournament
by the way PAINE played well
& for me Nehra & Mishra bowled well

 

[Dissector]

It looks like Australia will get a total near 300 and this is a fairly average batting lineup with a ridiculously weak lower order with Mishra at 7 and Bhajji at 8. My guess is that India will be sent packing tonight. I know that Sehwag and Yuvraj help with the bowling and Zaheer helps a bit with the batting but even with a full-strength team, we need at least one more bowler who can bat a bit. And without a genuine all-rounder we really can't afford to pick 5 bowlers especially when most of them are so mediocre anyway. And ultimately it's no use complaining about injuries. These days one or two injuries are common and there is no telling when you get a third. We simply need a deeper bench with 2-3 bowlers who can contribute with the bat and in the field. There is no way we can be no.1 with the likes of RP Singh and Nehra in the mix.

Of course the really depressing thing is that after a year of promise, Ishant Sharma is looking increasingly like yet another entry into SS's infamous wheel of mediocrity. I still have some hope that he is in fact the real thing at least in test cricket but at the moment it's looking a bit bleak.

 

[pasag]

Things can change very quickly, this one is far from in the bag.