ARTHUR: WE WOULD HAVE TO PLAY EXCEPTIONALLY WELL
Mickey Arthur believes that it won’t take so much more time now before the Australian Cricket team rebounds from their Test Cricket crisis.
The last time the Aussies hit rock bottom, Arthur had been in charge as the coach, where they went down 4-0 in 2013 to India, with the homework-gate saga that followed and the lack of discipline that pervaded over the team as of that period.
These factors accompanied by the Champions Trophy game in England, ensured that Arthur’s time as the national coach of the Australian team, came to a premature end. With Arthur not taking it lying down, he instituted legal action against his employers, Cricket Australia, which in the end, led to a private settlement between both parties.
Arthur has however come out to speak about the situation of the Australian team, where they lost Five Tests in a row, and dropped so many players after the Hobart Test, a situation which he attributed to being a natural part of cricket in the international scene. Continue reading “ARTHUR: WE WOULD HAVE TO PLAY EXCEPTIONALLY WELL”
Mashrafe Mortaza is very impressed with how his young bower Mustafizur Rahman
Mashrafe Mortaza is very impressed with how his young bower Mustafizur Rahman has carried himself after having a sensational first season in international Cricket.
According to Mortaza, the name and fame has not got Mustafizur fascinated at all and he is just enjoying his game.
The rookie left arm seam bowler destroyed the powerful batting line ups of India and South Africa on the home pitches in back-to-back One Day International series in 2015.
His exploits brought him in the limelight in the Cricketing world as he even managed to earn a contract in the Indian Premier League.
Mustafizur’s slower balls and cutters which he disguised with expertise caught a lot of accomplished players in awkward positions.
Most of the wickets that he got were the soft dismissals and that’s because the batsmen were finding it almost impossible to pick his variations.
However, as nobody had played him at that time, it all came as an element of surprise, but, it would be slightly tougher for Mustafizur from here onwards as the batsmen would be better prepared to take him on. Continue reading “Mashrafe Mortaza is very impressed with how his young bower Mustafizur Rahman”
Brian Lara has failed to entertain in the two All Stars
Brian Lara has failed to entertain in the two All Stars games that he has played so far.
He has gotten out cheaply both times and that against the spinners.
Those people who followed Lara’s international career would know how good a player of spin he was. He had the capability to pummel even the best of spinners on the turning tracks.
But, playing in USA, he doesn’t seem to still have got that in him.
He showed a slight glimpse in the second game though when he danced down the track to a nicely lopped delivery and whacked it straight down the ground for a one bounce four, but, soon after that, he was taken down as Andrew Symonds, the former Aussie part time spinner, beat him in the air and got one past him to knock him over at a score of 19.
It was a shot which was bread and butter for Lara when he was on his roll, the loft over the spinner’s head. He was such an expert at that, but, not anymore. Even somebody like Andrew Symonds was good enough to outfox him.
In the first All-Stars game too which was played in New York, Lara had been dismissed on a shot which he would never fault at during his playing days, that is the sweep shot. Continue reading “Brian Lara has failed to entertain in the two All Stars”
Virat Kohli reckons that with 5 fielders being allowed to be stationed outside the 30-yard circle in the third power play
Virat Kohli reckons that with 5 fielders being allowed to be stationed outside the 30-yard circle in the third power play, it’s not easy now to collect big runs at the end of the innings no matter who is batting.
So, it’s important for the top and middle order to take more responsibility and make sure that the run rate is always healthy.
Virat scored a century in the 4th One Day International game versus South Africa in Chennai and guided India to a score of 299 which turned out to be match winning.
The pace at which he played that knock earned him plaudits of the India skipper MS Dhoni and also, some of the former players.
It was one of the slowest wickets to have been produced in the series and Virat was not being able to score boundaries easily when he first walked in, but, rather than forcing the issue, he focussed on trying to look for singles every ball despite the fact that the weather was extremely humid.
He, however, made sure that he did not let the loose balls go by. Whenever the two South African spinners flighted the ball, Virat was down the track. Continue reading “Virat Kohli reckons that with 5 fielders being allowed to be stationed outside the 30-yard circle in the third power play”
Rohit Sharma opened the batting for the Mumbai Indians
Rohit Sharma opened the batting for the Mumbai Indians in the first game versus the Kolkata Knight Riders and scored 98 fabulous runs and then, for some reason, he demoted himself in the batting order and started coming at 3 or 4.
And, since the time he has done that, Mumbai’s overall batting has been all over the place.
Rohit is the most important batsman for the Mumbai Indians in the subcontinent conditions and that’s because he is a fine player of the spinners.
He can milk the spinners which the overseas batsmen or even some of the other Indian batsmen can’t do effectively.
In the limited over formats of the game, you want your best player to play the maximum no. of deliveries and in Mumbai’s case; it can happen only if Rohit opens the innings.
Also, Mumbai’s problem in the recent games has been that they have not been able to build a platform.
With Rohit opening, they might be able to do that and then, their big hitters can take over in the death.
And, Rohit opens for India as well quite regularly in the One day Internationals and the T20s.
Mumbai has lost 4 out of their 4 games and to have any chance of reaching the playoffs now, they need to win at least 7 out of their remaining 10. Continue reading “Rohit Sharma opened the batting for the Mumbai Indians”