Behind The Wicket:Runs and Ruins from South Africa

India had gone to conquer South Africa after completion of 150 years of migration of Indians there.But one of the migrant Hasim Amla batted superbly and saved his new home country from disaster.The score line (2-3) shows that their is a strong fight in between these two teams,but our jobless cricket expert BP thinks the other way.At first what is the reason behind touring fast and furious protea's before the WC.When WC will be on slow tracks this tour gave nothing except criticism to those poor guys(no need to mention who are they) who failed to perform.Batting both top and middle order failed completely before the South African pace battery.The SACHIN 'storm', LAXMAN 'luck' and SEHWAG 'strokeplay' saved the test series,but the youth(oh,emerging promising youth) failed severely at the ODI series.Where's bench strength when M.Vijay failing consistantly and playing and playing again.This tour warned that their is nothing in batting line up except Sachin,Sehwag and Laxman.Only Kohli showed some resistance.MSD the Indian skipper scored only 75 runs@15.00 and walked out from the pitch like his SONATA ad 'WAIT MAT KAR'. Dhoni consistantly avoided himself to promote up the order. Yuvi has just 91 runs in his account and Raina also failed.Another trend we saw in this series that INDIAN TEAM relyed on bowlers to score the runs and to win the match.With out of form batsmans we are dreaming of winning World Cup.And also the in-form batsmans are not playing.Bowler bowled well in this series but some attacking spin is expected in the WC from our tweakers.

African Safari:Mission Unaccomplished

After 5 days uncertainity the final test between INDIA and SA ended on a draw.The hope of making history in south african soil remained unfulfilled.We saw some brillient classy batting displays of Sachin and Kallis,good stroke making of Gauti,firebrand seambowling from Dale Steyn and Bhaji's attacking spin.1-1 is a good performance from the touring side after playing in home turf.Seamers could have done more disciplined and consistant bowling.As doubted before the middle order failed in this series.Lack of experience costs Pujara.Shewag was struggling for form.Indian batting still relying on top order.Sachin scored his 51th ton on new year test.Kallis,the calm customer made his 40th century surpassing ponting on the ton's table.In the 3rd test SA was struggling at 138-6,but Kallis showed his extreme talent despite of an injury and earned a highly aclaimed ton.Loose bowling of Indian seamers gave the proteas to post a fighting total of 341.Again chasing 340 runs in day five was not difficult for number 1 team,especially when you have Sachin in full flow.Recent news: Shewag is out of the ODI encouter against the proteas and Murali Vijay will open with Sachin in the limited version of the game.Let's see whether he will cement his WC place by grabing this chance.Pakistan is playing at New zeland but making news in South Africa and Australia.Taheer,a pakistan born cricketer got selected for ODI's against India and Usman Khawaja, a pakistani origin guy replaced Ricky Ponting in Sydney test.

Race for world cup ticket:game on......

After a humiliating defeat at centurian despite of Sachin's 50th ton,finally team India beat the proteos at Durban.Team India played very well in each and every department than their counter part South Africa.The test will be remembered for 'Very Very Special' Laxman's heroic innings,full flow of Indian seamers and also Bhajji's classics.Again this test will remind the failure of Murali Vijay and Cheteswar Pujara.However India gained its overall 2nd victory at the SA soil.On Last 2006 tour we won the 1st test at j'berg after a ODI brown wash 0-4 aganist the host SA.That test had the memorable peformances of dada and malabar express(sreesanth).But India lost the remaining tests.Hope MSD will not repeat those mistakes.Now we should proceed towards the team selection of world cup.Two tests has been played after the announcement of priliminary squad.People may say that it is unjustified to judge players for just 1 or 2 games,but if yusuf picked for one century at final game then why not ?Before the selection India will play 1 T20 and 3 ODI's aganist SA.I had earlier doubted that lower middle order will face problems at South Africa and that happens. Both Raina(ODI specialist, but forced to display test temperament) and Pujara(future Laxman) both failed to make a mark.But I think it's not over for Pujara as am sure that he will get another chance in the 3rd test.Raina will have to wait for the T20 and ODI's to justify his WC candidature.Vijay missed his oppertunity but still a contender for WC berth as it will depend on selectors whether they will pick keeper-batsman parthiv(Chota Hayden) or batsman Vijay(Tamilnadu-lobby ) as additional opener.Yuvraj,who has been struggling for form benefited for not playing this test series and will be given preference over Raina in the middle order in upcoming ODI series.Sreesanth and Ishant played good but with expensive average.They have to work hard to break the ice.It is my personal opinion that selectors will face difficulty to pick seamer for the world cup.Finally congratulation to 'god' Sachin for 50th ton and best of luck to men-in-blue for 3rd test.HAPPY NEW YEAR.