Tag: Gilchrist

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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”

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MS Dhoni Favors Fitness for Long Term

MS Dhoni says fitness is the only base for him to make the call of retirement.


Till he feels his running speed is up to the level he wants it to be, he would keep looking to represent India and it’s only when he starts having troubles achieving the same sort of speed in terms of his running, he would decide hanging his kit.

There has been a huge interrogation mark over the form of MS, but, as per the busty Jharkhand wicketkeeper, form can’t be the same all the time for anyone playing the game. It would fluctuate, but, what must be constant is the level of fitness especially when you get close to 35.

MS, who has normally kept himself away from the low profile tours like those of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in the recent times, is travelling to Zimbabwe this time around with the rookie players and that is perhaps because of the lesser workload that he would have on his shoulders in the coming season.

The Indians, going by the programme that the BCCI has released, are mostly playing the tests in 2016-17 and are hardly appearing in the coloured clothes.
MS, who has quitted the longest form already, will have abundant leisure time then and therefore, there’s no reason skipping the Zimbabwe tour.
Continue reading “MS Dhoni Favors Fitness for Long Term”

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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”

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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”

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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”

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Harbhajan Singh’s test career might have come to an end

Harbhajan Singh’s test career might have come to an end with his axing from the Indian playing XI for the second test match against Sri Lanka which was played at P Sara Oval, Sri Lanka.

Harbhajan had brought back into the Indian test side presumably on the insistence of the new captain Virat Kohli.

But, he failed to repay the faith put in him. He played in the one off game against Bangladesh and although, he got three wickets there, none of those wickets came when the batsman was trying to play a defensive shot.

However, despite that, he was retained for the Sri Lanka series and was even included in the playing XI for the Galle test match.

But, on a pitch, where the other two Indian spinners i.e. Ravichandran Ashwin and Amit Mishra enjoyed bowling a lot and shared 15 wickets between them, Harbhajan could get just one wicket in both the innings together and could not even manage to score some handy lower order runs.

India lost that game from a winning position and the think tank had no choice, but, to make some changes going further in the series and the first player whose place was found out to be quite vulnerable in the XI was Harbhajan.

The veteran off spinner was replaced by Stuart Binny and Binny, to his credit, made some crucial contributions in the remaining part of the series both with bat and ball. Continue reading “Harbhajan Singh’s test career might have come to an end”