Border Gavaskar Trophy, India v Australia, 1st Test 9-13 Feb, 1430hrs at Nagpur

[FreoRicci]

Watching India’s top order gives no reassurance that Australia can salvage tomorrow and beyond.
Warner and Khawaja has to put up a better effort and get the top order in a safe spot. There’s no excuses.

 

[The hands of stone]

The game was over before it began mate, India have 2 world class left hand orthodox spinners, we play 100 left handed batsmen, it’s no coincidence they doctored the pitch the way they did which has almost zapped energy I had in supporting test cricket as a whole, what gets my goat the most the ACB will be too s**t scared to do the same when they come to our shores, there’s a reason winning in India is hard and it nothing to do with talent.

Fact is without India world cricket would crumble, so they are given licence to do as they please without fear of punishment, s**t, it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a hand in preparing wickets abroad as well, even in Australia.

I fear it runs deeper than that even, see the way Warner went out, I was watching with 3 other pretty good batsmen and we all laughed at the same time, a fking park opener doesn’t miss that let alone a pro, the ball did nothing and walks off looking at the pitch, hmmm, they say boxings a dirty sport, it has nothing on cricket, no need to worry about Warners spot though, he’ll be selected for the next test no matter what.

Warner is cooked and his 200 has really cost us getting tests into the next gen .
They still should have tapped him the shoulder though.

But suggesting even the best 'park' opener could face Shami at 135kph and see him out is a huge stretch

 

[theiaofseed]

Only 7 players have scored more than 30, Sharma has been the difference. This test is done but we're still in this series. Green and Head in and Cummins can;t bowl worse.

 

[Drunkcat]

Boland bowled very well for no wickets.

 

[MelVilander]

After seeing most of the comments before start of play involved throwing shade on the pitch, and calling Indians sewer rats and such. I feel one way to assuage Aussie fear would be to play the series in Australian pitches, that way they will have a good chance of winning like what we saw when India travelled to Aus last two times…. NWM

 

[BGman]

You can't prepare to play in India

We are slack is all. Several years ago CA spent lots of effort and money, no doubt, constructing at our Cricket Academy a pair of pitches using imported Indian soil with a view to replicate decks you will find in, say, New Dellhi or Mumbai. They then assembled the best spinners in the country for annual spin camps, all in a concerted effort to turn round our deplorable record in India. Did we train on these pitches prior to touring for current series. No we trained on a North Sydney deck that had been messed up to try to resemble what the tourists could expect to be playing on. A poor alternative to the Academy decks. Did CA insist on a similar deck to the ones they may encounter in the series, as a suitable warm up game when they arrived. Not on your nellie. There are scared stiff of the BCCI.
Does CA still hold these spin camps and more importantly do they still send our most promising red ball spinners/spin players to the sub continent region to play in junior competitions. Who knows. BCCI probably stopped them.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

BanIndia deservedly on top. Better with the ball, bat and in catching (looking at you Smith)

NoHit Sharma belied his nickname with a great knock.

 

[FourthTimeAround]

The question of whether we should have played a practice game can only be answered after day 20 of this series, not day 2.

Isn’t the idea of a practice game to be ready for Day 1?

 

[Browney2006]

The game was over before it began mate, India have 2 world class left hand orthodox spinners, we play 100 left handed batsmen, it’s no coincidence they doctored the pitch the way they did which has almost zapped energy I had in supporting test cricket as a whole, what gets my goat the most the ACB will be too s**t scared to do the same when they come to our shores, there’s a reason winning in India is hard and it nothing to do with talent.

Fact is without India world cricket would crumble, so they are given licence to do as they please without fear of punishment, s**t, it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a hand in preparing wickets abroad as well, even in Australia.

I fear it runs deeper than that even, see the way Warner went out, I was watching with 3 other pretty good batsmen and we all laughed at the same time, a fking park opener doesn’t miss that let alone a pro, the ball did nothing and walks off looking at the pitch, hmmm, they say boxings a dirty sport, it has nothing on cricket, no need to worry about Warners spot though, he’ll be selected for the next test no matter what.

Don’t get too much use out of that tinfoil hat, you’ll need it for the Ashes as well

 

[Browney2006]

There are 4 games.... losing one isn't the end no matter how badly.

I'm sure you remember India being bundled out for 36 over here ..

Aim is really to qualify for the WTC and only need one draw somewhere for that.. or I guess NZ doesn't lose to Sri Lanka 2 - 0 in NZ which they won't

Sounds like you’re convincing yourself a recently made up, completely lopsided trophy created to try and market a dying format of cricket is the goal over the Border, Gavaskar trophy. You’re kidding yourself

 

[Pure_Ownage]

We miss Starc cleaning up the tail - it's a massively under valued talent.

Morris probably should've played, we lack weapons.

Boland has bowled very well..unfortunately for some stupid reason our slips wont stand closer to the wicket.

 

[StillAtLarge]

Regardless of the result the 2nd dig is enormously pivotal for our bats. If we can knock up a decent score with say three players making 50+ that'll give us a lot of confidence going into Delhi.

 

[The Sultan]

I don't know why people bother clinically analysing what we need or what we lack. Bottom line... CA is not prepared to invest what is necessary to create a winning series in India.

Was having a think about this, places conspiracy hat on… is there any real incentive for ACB to invest in training talent for the 1 in every five year tour of India? We win 9 out of 10 series at home, which is the cash cow in terms of revenue..

 

[Doggy]

Sounds like you’re convincing yourself a recently made up, completely lopsided trophy created to try and market a dying format of cricket is the goal over the Border, Gavaskar trophy. You’re kidding yourself

I don't need to "kid myself".

It's something Australia has not yet won and they have made noise about wanting to, just like they did rhe T20WC before winning that.

I'm not saying they don't want to win in India, but noone really does for a reason. The best they could do is to draw the series and that would be am awesome result.

There's a reason most teams struggle away from home and moreso in India

 

[Jamurp]

Match might be lost, but I hope we can still bat well in the second dig, may not make enough at all, but a decent 300+ score will give us confidence for the second test. Honestly reckon we only have two blokes who can bat well overseas though..

 

[Cleavy]

Question mark over Dharamsala as venue for Border-Gavaskar Trophy

Ground to be inspected, to see if it is fit to host a Test match after a recent renovation, before the BCCI takes a final call

www.espncricinfo.com

moving it to a venue/pitch that spins a lot more?

 

[Jim Prideaux]

Not out of this just yet. Need to knock them over quickly in the 1st session today and then bat out of our skins. Not going to be easy by any stretch, but it can be done.

Murphy - outstanding debut. Looks like he’s being playing tests for years. Amazing control all day.

 

[The 747]

The difference so far is their three spinners who also bat. Huge weapons in Indian conditions.

 

[Jim Prideaux]

Question mark over Dharamsala as venue for Border-Gavaskar Trophy

Ground to be inspected, to see if it is fit to host a Test match after a recent renovation, before the BCCI takes a final call

www.espncricinfo.com

moving it to a venue/pitch that spins a lot more?

I mean we got rolled there last time.

 

[akkaps]

Wasn’t able to watch a lot of last night, and just realized both Jadeja and Axar are Left Handed Bats. Now wasn’t the pitch meant to be made worse for left handed bats? So why do Axar and Jadeja have 50s?

 

[Drunkcat]

We are going to need about 5 new players soon, half this side is coming to an end.

 

[Doggy]

Wasn’t able to watch a lot of last night, and just realized both Jadeja and Axar are Left Handed Bats. Now wasn’t the pitch meant to be made worse for left handed bats? So why do Axar and Jadeja have 50s?

Jadeja owns more 4 leaf clovers than the whole of Ireland

 

[melanChronic]

Only session we've really blown is the 2nd on day one, that huge collapse and nothing from the tail. But India have probably broken even or inched ahead in every other one to now be in a commanding position.

As much as it frustrated me to watch, I love Jadeja's arc towards becoming a top 6 bat whilst still maintaining his incredibly threatening bowling in home conditions. Hope he can get his career average up above 40 and become the first since Faulkner to be the 4x-2x allrounder. He has been the bane of Australian touring teams for the last decade with both bat and ball, and now he has a clone coming through who will continue the pain.

That dropped catch is brutal and pretty disappointing that Smith was not switched on until stumps. The umpires were also very reluctant to give anything out, there were two wickets via overturning LBW shouts and two umpires calls. Hopefully they are consistent with that throughout the test.

Have been pretty good so far at starting days and sessions anew and coming out with a plan, so hopefully can blast out the last 3 and then bat all day. A long way back into the match but we have to believe we are still in it.

 

[Gough]

Wasn’t able to watch a lot of last night, and just realized both Jadeja and Axar are Left Handed Bats. Now wasn’t the pitch meant to be made worse for left handed bats? So why do Axar and Jadeja have 50s?

Chalk an early win up for the Indians in the mind games. The pitch had us spooked before a ball was bowled.

 

[mesky]

I can't believe someone out here questioning Lyons quality, 400 wickets for a conventional off spinner, no doosra or other variations is incredible, his numbers in aus are terrific, relaid aussie pitches of this era are not even close to the pitches in which warne bowled in the 90s and early 2000s, symmonds, Clarke etc would find turn on most days, I would compare Lyons numbers with visiting teams finger spinners for each series he played, he has been terrific. Swann averages 52 in aus and 32 in SA, Lyon 32 in England and 39, Lyon has done better marginally in wi, Lyon a lot better in bang. Swann played the 2012 series in India against a aging India team sehwag, tendulkar, gambhir, yuvraj were all passed it and struggled, against pujara, kohli, dhoni that series swann was average. Lyon bowled in much tougher wickets against Vijay, peak pujara, kohli, 2016 Rahul who was in great form, jadeja and Ashwin another good player of spin. Wickets which Lyon got in uae were flat roads, nothing in it for the spinner, swann bowled on turning tracks in 2012, plus swann had abled support in panesar during Asia tours, Lyon had Doherty, O'Keefe, agar clearly not the Same