The Fortune could swung to either side....

The mighty come back....

    It could be much earlier, to dodge England batting order. But soon after lunch Indian, bowlers changed their plans, what they have done to England top order batsmen. Indian seamers pitched it up and seamed it away from the English batsmen till tea; got the result for it plumbing England to 124/8. But after tea, they inexplicably abandoned plans, they resorted to shorter length with wider balls, this gave Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann to free their arms and scored around seven runs per over that resulted them to a decent score of 221 runs in their first innings.
  At the same time, Indian skipper Dhoni's fielding arrangement also astonished me a bit. Rather then setting up an attacking one he resorted much on defence. This gave more advantage to the England tail-enders. Broad's some shorts went tantalizingly over the Indian fielders while others fell too short. Indian fielders' "snail-like" movement also helped them a lot. Finally a full slaughter from Praveen Kumar ended Swann's anguish at gully. There were no celebrations,only angry relief. Two sessions of good play by the Indian bowlers completely unraveled by these two players in just 12 overs.
  Earlier winning the toss, Dhoni again chosen to field first seeing the mighty conditions prevailing then and bowlers did a fantastic job to back captain's decision. ZaheerKhan's replacement in this test, Sresanth bowled enthusiastically at right places and swung away which wrecked English middle order. Also he joined in formidable alliance with Ishant and Praveen who well utilized their pace and swing. The result was that England were down to 124/8 at tea.
  England bowlers in reply started off flamboyantly as Anderson knicked Indian opener Abhinav Mukund to gully which clearly showed that he didn't learned anything from the Lord's test. At stumps on day-1 Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman carried the Indian first innings score to 24/1 without much loss.

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DO OR DIE....

I'm sure today Kolkata will be in really a situation like this as a lose in this game will make them out of the semi-final hopes in the third edition of IPL.Toady Kolkata will be taking on Rajasthan Royals in their home ground of Eden Gardens.The good news to the Kolkata side is that they have won three out of five matches played in this ground and above the crowd support they will get in this field especially for the skipper Sourav Ganguly.
KKR is having a good number of options even then they fail to find which is the best combination.The West-Indian star striker Chris Gayle had shown only some glimpses of his talent as he scored only 2 half-centuries in this IPL.The other foreign players like Brendon Mccullum and David Hussey is also not in form.Though the leading run-scorer is the skipper himself Ganguly has exposed his inability to strike the ball hard at situations and also failed to increase the run-rate.
With a legend ,Akram as their bowling coach,the pace attack is also not at all "attacking".Ishant Sharma and Ajit Agarkar still lack their " killing" ability.
For Rajasthan Royals they are having their last league match and to enter in to the semis they have to win this match.In short we can imagine that both these teams are in the same boat .The team which loses this match will surely be drowned in the water....

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DRAVID IN, ROHIT OUT....

Yesterday the Indian team for ICC Champions Trophy and for the Tri-nation series in Srilanka was declared. As everyone expected Rohit Sharma who was trying hard to come back in his rythm was excluded and "Mr.Cool" Dravid was included in the Indian squad.After 2 years Dravid was included in the Indian team where he last played was in Nagpur in October 27 against Australia.With Dravid in the middle order hopes are strong for a good Indian total.Dravid with risky wristy shots and and his leaning shot in his toes would definitely help the Indian middle.On the other hand Rohit was troubling to cope with the short pitches were he was tested by the west Indian pace attack last month.
Beside Dravid;Meastro Sachin Tendulkar was also back in the squad which would also help the Indian team to a great extent.Ansewring to the press chief selector Krishnamachari Srikanth reveals that this team has the fine chance for winning both tournaments who pick the same team for the ICC Champions Trophy and Triseries.

The squad: Sachin,Rahul,Yuvraj,Raina,Yousaf Pathan,Harbhajan,R.P.Singh,Ishant,Amit Mishra,Dinesh Karthik,Abhishek Nair,Nehra,Praveen Kumar.

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