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Cricket 30: World Twenty20 and beyond


ljkeane

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Australia looks set to drop its first selection bombshell of the India tour with Ussie left out of the warm-up match in favour of Shaun Marsh. Personally I'd have left Renshaw out instead, but I can see the logic of omitting Khawaja after his poor showing in Sri Lanka. Marsh probably has to play given his success in these conditions in the past...horses for courses!

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Great T20 series between Australia and Sri Lanka.

Even if the Australian side feels a bit like Australia A (given the absence of Smith, Warner et al) both games have gone right down to the last ball, and Sri Lanka have managed to be on the right side of it both times. You have to admire this Sri Lankan time for their ifghting spirit. No one would have given them a chance when they were 5/50 and well behind the rate, but with 36 needed off the last two overs, Gunaratne goes crazy and belts four sixes and two fours in the final two overs.

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Yeah that Sri Lanka series was a great T20 showcase. First two matches were absolute nailbiters.

Meanwhile...the Aussies have started solidly in Pune. I think Renshaw could be a great find for Australia - he's already showing much more stickability than Burns did in Sri Lanka.

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Yes, Renshaw's style is a good foil to most of the other batsmen. He's very young and one just hopes that he gets good coaching and advice from senior players that helps him stay on track. Together with Handscombe I think we've got a good look into the future of the Australian Test team.

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India definitely suffering from not having much experience with the DRS. They've wasted pretty much all their reviews in all innings this Test match, and now they're 2 down in the 4th innings and have no reviews left.

Both openers were out to LBWs that were umpire's call...I could understand the 2nd one (Rahul looked like he may have been hit outside the line) but to use both up in the first half a dozen overs is pretty reckless use of the review. Generally it's the teams that try to use it as an optimistic option as opposed to reserving it for the common type of howler (when you're sure you got an edge on an LBW, or when you're sure you didn't hit it on a caught behind).

As it is, India has now used up their reviews yet again right at the start of the innings. Kohli can't be happy being in there now with no reviews left.

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Well I don't think anyone saw that coming! Crushing victory for the Australians and now 1-0 up in the series.

India were, to put it mildly, pathetic. As Ravi Shastri pointed out in commentary, being bowled out for 100ish in both innings, they only lasted 74 overs in two whole innings put together. Not even enough to make the new ball even if they batted twice. Their bowling was okay (although one argues they should have done better in those conditions than let Australia get 250+ twice), but their batting was abysmal, their fielding even worse (they dropped Smith four times I think) and their use of the DRS even more laughable.

Great performances from O'Keefe and Smith, with good support from Nathan Lyon too.

I assume India will bounce back from this - they won't be able to stomach this sort of performance for long. But it was bad for them to let Australia into this series so easily. Now they will be harder to dislodge, with the knowledge that they can play in these conditions and have the players to do it.

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India weren't quite as bad as everyone makes out. If they hold their catches on Smith, then the real difference in the two teams was Renshaw's batting, Stark's innings and a few Australian batsmen making 10 odd extra runs. But effectively giving Smith an extra 80 odd runs really hurts them, both from the direct runs and the chance to get into the Australian side.

Apart from their fielding, the other major stuff up was the DRS and selections. If you're going to only bowl Sharma for 3 overs on a day 3 pitch, what was the point of him playing?

On batting, they clearly didn't get enough. But if you take out the Smith/Starc innings, then the major difference was 10-20 runs per key batsmen. We had a lot of guys make 20-30 runs, theirs got out less than 10. And without Smith in the second innings, would we have got as many runs? India obviously played nowhere near well enough, but I think the winning margin exaggerated the gap.

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I don't see India as a team in the midst of a change of guard or blooding new players for some upcoming series and that would be the only reason I could see of them not bouncing back in the upcoming test.  I understand it was the morning of the third day that the pitch in Bangalore started getting watered. A pitch that will hopefully be an improvement and the toss will be less important this time, I hope. There is a lot of fragility in the Australian team and if Smith doesn't fire (or get given a lot of chances) I expect to see the opposite result. Makes for interesting watching.

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The second India Australia test is shaping up to be pretty good too. Another surprisingly poor performance with the bat from India, KL Rahul aside, but Australia will have to bat last so how many runs ahead they can get ahead in the first innings will probably be vital.

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Hmm, I wasn't really bothering to watch this ODI because I thought England would chase down 226 pretty comfortably. Losing Billings early wasn't ideal but Root and Roy steadied the ship pretty well, this is definitely a bit of a wobble now though. They need someone to stick with Root.

And as I'm writing this Ali goes. It's not looking good.

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Aussies are doing surprisingly well. Renshaw has sealed his spot I reckon, he has shown a whole lot of maturity in tough conditions. He still has a way to go in his development, specially rotating the strike, but he has really impressed so far. The Marsh brothers are still the weakest lot in this group, despite Shaun Marsh's performance last innings. They need to do better if they want to keep their spot.

Also, is Kohli the new Watto, in terms of shit DRS reviews? Some fault probably lies with the team for convincing him to go for those shit reviews, but damn he has had an awful run.

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Shaun marsh doesnt deserve a lot of the shit he cops especially on the sub continent. I really dont see any justification for having mitch marsh in the team in general let alone in india. Dont see how he can get selected over a guy like faulkner who bowls decent seamers and can actually bat a bit as well.

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Pretty amazing performance from Smith and his team so far in this series. They already have enough of a lead now to put India under real pressure in the second innings. What a shock it would/will be to see Australia 2-0 up in India. I am still reeling from the first test result!

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