Two games into its World Cup campaign, India has reason to worry.
Failing to beat England over the weekend should not prevent it from qualifying for the later stages, but India, a co-host, wants to win the Cup. And its opening games have exposed problems potentially fatal to that hope.
Its batsmen are performing brilliantly, scoring an average of 354 in its first two games. The problem is that its bowling and fielding limitations, exposed in early matches, mean the batsmen will have to maintain that form if it hopes to win it all. “We could have defended this total if we had a better fielding side, but we have to make do with what we have got,” India’s captain, Mahindra Singh Dhoni, said with an air of resignation after the match.
Making do has many virtues, but it is rarely the attribute of champions.
But in its role as chief host, India can rejoice. After a slow start, the tournament came to life over its second weekend. Pakistan’s victory over Sri Lanka in a fine match in Colombo confirmed that cricket’s most unpredictable team can be counted among the serious contenders.
Then came India vs. England at Bangalore, a lift not only for the tournament, but for the much-criticized one-day match format under which it is played.
It remains true that a poor one-day match is neither one thing nor the other, lacking either the brash immediacy of the shorter Twenty20 format or the range and subtlety of five-day tests.
But a good one-day game is another matter entirely. And few have ever been better than the match played in Bangalore on Sunday.
Nearly 700 runs were scored. There were two outstanding long, attacking innings. Amid the deluge of runs were crucial moments when bowlers struck back. There were a huge, passionate crowd, wild fluctuations in fortune and a climax of excruciating tension. And any of three results seemed equally possible as the last of 600 deliveries was bowled.
Two runs would have brought England victory. An out would have given India a triumph.
Instead, England’s Graeme Swann struck a single run off a delivery by India’s Munaf Patel, and the match was tied.
It was the right result, not only because its rarity — it was only the 24th tie in more than 3,000 one-day internationals — was the fitting final touch for an epic contest, but because it was a just outcome for both squads.
Neither team deserved a loss after contributing to such a compelling contest. But neither did quite enough to merit a victory.
“We were in a great position to win,” said England captain Andrew Strauss. “In the end we did well to salvage a tie.” England will be the happier of the two teams. Like India it expects to reach the playoffs, but holding the second-ranked one-day team on its own ground reinforced England’s confidence, which has been battered recently by poor results in the one-day format.
It was also a weekend when the old guys proved their worth, with four superb innings by batsmen well into their thirties. Pakistan’s winning total relied on a partnership worth 108 runs between its former skipper, Younis Khan, 33, and Misbah ul-Haq, 36. Pakistan’s current captain, Shahid Afridi, had spoken of altering the batting order to keep these two apart, fearing slow scoring if they were together. Instead they displayed the vital art of building and pacing an innings, keeping the score moving without playing rash strokes.
India’s total of 338 against England was propelled by the greatest veteran of them all, the 37-year-old national idol Sachin Tendulkar, whose 120 was his 98th score of 100 or more in international cricket.
Yet even he was outshone by the unlikely figure of Strauss, who turns 34 Wednesday. It is not long since Strauss was left off of England’s one-day team.
In any film about the England team, Strauss’s clean-cut looks would make Oscar winner Colin Firth the natural casting, and some of his past one-day efforts had the diffident awkwardness of a Firth character. He lacked the flexibility and variety of strokes needed to score fast enough.
Only when he became captain of the five-day team in 2009 was he recalled for the one-dayers — not out of any real belief that he had improved, but because England dislikes splitting the captaincy. But, as former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly said during the match, “Some players are improved by responsibility.”
Strauss certainly has been.
Since his recall he has scored close to 90 runs per 100 balls, excellent for an opening batsman.
England’s innovation of pushing the flamboyant Kevin Pietersen to the top of its order has already produced two long and brilliant innings — from Strauss. His 88 in the victory over the Netherlands was followed by a magnificent 158 from only 145 deliveries against India. It was, he said, “one of the best innings I have played in my career and certainly the best in one-day internationals.”
England was cruising to victory until India’s best quick bowler, Zaheer Khan, dismissed Strauss and his partner, Ian Bell, with consecutive deliveries, then rapidly removed the veteran Paul Collingwood.
From there it took some spirited late hitting, in particular the final-over six struck by specialist bowler Ajmal Shahzad from the first delivery he faced, to get England back into contention again.
Failing to beat England over the weekend should not prevent it from qualifying for the later stages, but India, a co-host, wants to win the Cup. And its opening games have exposed problems potentially fatal to that hope.
Its batsmen are performing brilliantly, scoring an average of 354 in its first two games. The problem is that its bowling and fielding limitations, exposed in early matches, mean the batsmen will have to maintain that form if it hopes to win it all. “We could have defended this total if we had a better fielding side, but we have to make do with what we have got,” India’s captain, Mahindra Singh Dhoni, said with an air of resignation after the match.
Making do has many virtues, but it is rarely the attribute of champions.
But in its role as chief host, India can rejoice. After a slow start, the tournament came to life over its second weekend. Pakistan’s victory over Sri Lanka in a fine match in Colombo confirmed that cricket’s most unpredictable team can be counted among the serious contenders.
Then came India vs. England at Bangalore, a lift not only for the tournament, but for the much-criticized one-day match format under which it is played.
It remains true that a poor one-day match is neither one thing nor the other, lacking either the brash immediacy of the shorter Twenty20 format or the range and subtlety of five-day tests.
But a good one-day game is another matter entirely. And few have ever been better than the match played in Bangalore on Sunday.
Nearly 700 runs were scored. There were two outstanding long, attacking innings. Amid the deluge of runs were crucial moments when bowlers struck back. There were a huge, passionate crowd, wild fluctuations in fortune and a climax of excruciating tension. And any of three results seemed equally possible as the last of 600 deliveries was bowled.
Two runs would have brought England victory. An out would have given India a triumph.
Instead, England’s Graeme Swann struck a single run off a delivery by India’s Munaf Patel, and the match was tied.
It was the right result, not only because its rarity — it was only the 24th tie in more than 3,000 one-day internationals — was the fitting final touch for an epic contest, but because it was a just outcome for both squads.
Neither team deserved a loss after contributing to such a compelling contest. But neither did quite enough to merit a victory.
“We were in a great position to win,” said England captain Andrew Strauss. “In the end we did well to salvage a tie.” England will be the happier of the two teams. Like India it expects to reach the playoffs, but holding the second-ranked one-day team on its own ground reinforced England’s confidence, which has been battered recently by poor results in the one-day format.
It was also a weekend when the old guys proved their worth, with four superb innings by batsmen well into their thirties. Pakistan’s winning total relied on a partnership worth 108 runs between its former skipper, Younis Khan, 33, and Misbah ul-Haq, 36. Pakistan’s current captain, Shahid Afridi, had spoken of altering the batting order to keep these two apart, fearing slow scoring if they were together. Instead they displayed the vital art of building and pacing an innings, keeping the score moving without playing rash strokes.
India’s total of 338 against England was propelled by the greatest veteran of them all, the 37-year-old national idol Sachin Tendulkar, whose 120 was his 98th score of 100 or more in international cricket.
Yet even he was outshone by the unlikely figure of Strauss, who turns 34 Wednesday. It is not long since Strauss was left off of England’s one-day team.
In any film about the England team, Strauss’s clean-cut looks would make Oscar winner Colin Firth the natural casting, and some of his past one-day efforts had the diffident awkwardness of a Firth character. He lacked the flexibility and variety of strokes needed to score fast enough.
Only when he became captain of the five-day team in 2009 was he recalled for the one-dayers — not out of any real belief that he had improved, but because England dislikes splitting the captaincy. But, as former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly said during the match, “Some players are improved by responsibility.”
Strauss certainly has been.
Since his recall he has scored close to 90 runs per 100 balls, excellent for an opening batsman.
England’s innovation of pushing the flamboyant Kevin Pietersen to the top of its order has already produced two long and brilliant innings — from Strauss. His 88 in the victory over the Netherlands was followed by a magnificent 158 from only 145 deliveries against India. It was, he said, “one of the best innings I have played in my career and certainly the best in one-day internationals.”
England was cruising to victory until India’s best quick bowler, Zaheer Khan, dismissed Strauss and his partner, Ian Bell, with consecutive deliveries, then rapidly removed the veteran Paul Collingwood.
From there it took some spirited late hitting, in particular the final-over six struck by specialist bowler Ajmal Shahzad from the first delivery he faced, to get England back into contention again.
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