by With yesterday's match abandoned, the reserve day forecast does not
look that bad, Yahoo reports partly cloudy but no rain today but
about 30% chance of rain tommorow. We hope we get another crack to
see Salvi and Mishra the new-comers. Yahoo report as follows:
Feels Like : 79 o F
Dewpoint : 73 o F
Barometer : 29.91 in and steady
Winds : calm
Humidity : 83%
Pitch : Will do a bit with rain and moisture.
Swing : Highly humid, possible movement in the air
Seam : Early signs of seam movement possible
Prediction : SA will win a close one
Like I have mentioned several times before, the development of a
bowler in the mold of Warne or Subash Gupte is very critical for
India's performance outside the sub-continent in Test matches and
both Salvi and Mishra potentially will be playing a key role in the
teams interest. With some helpful conditions for the seamers and
spinners later during the day, the 2 + 2 split of seam and spin sounds
like a logical choice. Mishra in humid conditions can also get the
ball to drift or dip and being a wristy spinner he can impart
a lot of spin or revolutions causing it to drift.
Being the final, again India has to concentrate on the basics :-)
Meaning bowling and pitching the ball in the right areas with
control because the conditions are helpful for the seamers and
spinners both. we have been seeing a pattern or a trend with India
where trying to get centuries and 4fers is not what you should be
trying to do because you are getting paid as professionals to win
and winning comes when you concentrate on the basics while batting
and bowling. The SA team will put a clinic on winning ugly, taking
singles in the middle overs and bowling a good line and length.
As far as the clinic goes the SA batting in the last ODI did put
a clinic in the middle overs milking the part time bowlers where
cricinfo showed something like:
| . 1 1 1 1 1 | 1 1 . 1 1 1 | . . 1 1 1 1 | 1 1 1 1 1 1 |
This was an amazing display of restraint to just win the match.
Again at 42-3 SA came back and that calls for a need to rekindle
the India bowling attack with variety like Mishra.
The probables for the Indian eleven tonight:
Shewag Gambhir Ganguly Yuvraj Kaif Mongia Parthiv
Salvi Agarkar Harbhajan Mishra
Mongia still continues to get the nod because Kale is relatively
unknown to the team and may ganguly is more comfortable with Mongia
let us what he does with the selection of the final eleven.
Regard
Nikhil