PreviewCrick VeneerGabba Gabba Hey What?!?Day OneSorry DayCrises? What Crises?Pepper SprayOn The Wrong TrackDay TwoTit For TaitHawkward SilenceDay Three------------------------------------------------------PREVIEW #Apart from the obvious, what do Paul Reiffel, Merv Hughes, Craig McDermott and Mike Whitney have in common? Hint: It's not umpiring, Test selecting, homemade porn or crap reality TV; as far as I know, anyway. No?  read more »

India won the toss and elected to bat first on a Perth wicket which everyone expected would be fast and bouncy and tailor made for Australia's four man pace attack. With all that had gone on before, and with the Australians promising a fiery bowling effort it seemed as though India would have their hands full.

The Indians fielded Virender Sehwag at the top of the order and the effect was immediate. Lee went for 22 in his first 3 overs as Sehwag aimed cuts and drives at nearly everything around off stump. The Australians eventually reined him in, but India had 50 on the board for the first wicket. Just when India seemed to have negotiated the new ball successfully, both openers fell within 3 runs of each other. This brought Tendulkar and Dravid together against a genunely quick Aussie bowling line up. 3 of their bowlers were comfortably quicker than 14o kph, and the 4th (Clark) was metronomically accurate as usual. Tendulkar and Dravid shared a stand of 139. The Australian bowling had been consistently good and it was the class of Tendulkar and Dravid (and a some luck in Dravid's case) which got India to Tea time just two wickets down. India dominated the afternoon session in which 103 runs came without the loss of a wicket.  read more »

What a series it has been! The two most experienced test teams in the world today met in the best venue for Test cricket in the world, and produced a contest for the ages. This contest may not possess the glamorous history of the Ashes, but in this new year, it is clear that this has become the pre-eminent clash in the cricket world. I don't subscribe to historical rivalries, for when a generation of players retire, and a new generation takes over, the carry over to the next generation of contestants is purely symbolic. One need look no further than the Frank Worrell Trophy which was instituted in honour of the West Indies' first black captain Frank Worrell, who took a group of talented West Indian cricketers to Australia in 1960-61, and forged a great team. They played a series to remember, and the team Worrell built team dominated Test cricket for the next six or seven years. Since then the Frank Worrell Trophy has only rarely produced truly competitive series. It has invariably been either the West Indies who were dominant, or as has been the case in recent times, Australia. It is the series which marked the handing over of the reigns of power which have tended to be most exciting. The best comparison one can offer for the current India - Australia series, are the Pakistan - West Indies contests in the 1980's. In a decade where both England and Australia were regularly hammered by Viv Richards's pace battery, only Imran Khan's Pakistan could compete with them. They produced three thrilling 1-1 draws in the late 1980's.  read more »

Australia vs West Indies 2008: First Test: Day Two

Could this be a new book waiting to be opened?

Before this battle between a giant and a once-upon-a-time giant commenced, I posted a message of best wishes at a Caribbean forum.

It went something like this -

Ahead of what I expect to turn out to be a gripping series with Australia as the first test commences today.  read more »

India lost the Sydney test due to a bunch of umpiring and tactical errors. Throughout the test match it was clear that the Australian team had plans for every situation in the game and never flagged from their plans.

When the Indian tail was going gang-busters, the Australian bowlers were clear in their plans. Bowl no loose balls to Sachin, let him score nothing more than a single, get the tailender on strike and feed him balls to hit and induce an error. They executed it very well, despite the plan itself not ending the innings early. India on the other hand, with Sachin batting didn't decide to do anything except play into Aussie plans. There was no attempt to the quick doubles, no attempt to flay the bowling, no attempt to pile more runs and bat Australia out of the game or even bat out more time to force the pace on the fourth morning.  read more »

If Day 2 was good for India, Day 3 was even better. Starting at 3/216 with Tendulkar and Ganguly at the wicket, India batted almost through out the day to end with a first innings score of 532, a lead of 69 runs. Tendulkar remained unbeaten with 154, Ganguly made a strokeful 67 and Harbhajan Singh made 63 - an innings which got better and better as it progressed. Tendulkar nearly made a century after the sixth wicket fell, and the last four Indian wickets added 202. Brett Lee bowled magnificiently for Australia. He was clearly their designated strike weapon, and he delivered in champion fashion taking 5/119 in the innings. Australia's openers walked out to bat for about 15 minutes (thanks in large part to Australia's ridiculously poor over rate - they had bowled 51 overs in the day by Tea time) facing a rare first innings deficit.  read more »

Author: ahmadbilal
Subject: Australia Tour to Pakistan
Posted: 04 February 2008 at 10:30am

Hi friends,

Australia tour to Pakistan is just uncleared. According to today sports news on HiPaksitan, Zimbabwe?s safe Pakistan tour raises Australia hopes. Zimbabwe?s stand-in captain Hamilton Masakadza has praised security arrangements in Pakistan, raising hopes among cricket officials that it will convince Australia to tour next month.

On the other end the Australian fast bowler Brett Lee said Sunday that any decision on whether or not the world champions tour Pakistan next month was in the hands of Australian officials. Lee was responding to reports from Pakistan that Zimbabwe?s successful tour there showed that it would be safe for Australia to undertake their scheduled visit in March and April. Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief operating officer Shafqat Naghmi said the Zimbabwe tour had been a test case for Australia.  read more »

The Racing Post's Ed Hawkins looks ahead to Wednesday's big one...

While Australia's series with India has attracted attention for alleged racism, accusations of cheating and Ricky Ponting's popularity with his countrymen plummeting fast, it may have escaped punters' attention that one thing of more importance has happened: India have been written off.

The hullabaloo that has gone on should be forgotten and instead we need to be focusing on whether the tourists really are [9.8] shots to win in Perth in the third Test, which starts early on Wednesday.

For if you can block out the cries of claim and counter claim, there have been nagging voices mumbling away that India will be blown away on a WACA pitch that has pace and bounce. With the match almost upon us, they have got increasingly louder.  read more »