England Pietersened Australia

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:51 am

A new verb has been added by the English Tabloid after yesterday's match between Aus Vs Eng.

Some info about that word

Word : Pietersen
Tense : Pietersen (Present) - Pietersened (Past) - Pietersened (Past Participle)
Meaning : Mauling your opponent and defeating them badly without any contest.

Day before yesterday I bought Set Top Box and the first match I saw was between Best ODI team in the world and Last ranked ODI team (if you go by ICC ratings). I thought it would be a dull match and would be a cakewalk for the Kangaroos. But a 19 year old Bengali had other ideas. He played very sensibly and steered his team to a historic and miraculous win against one of the invincible team of Postwar era. Md. Ashraful played very well and he deserved all kind of accolades. Aus bowling looked very blunt and they lacked bite in their attack. Just go through the bowling line up of Aus. Glen McGrath , one the greatest bowler of all time, won't be getting any younger and he is already 35. Warny has already quited ODI. Bret Lee, in my opinion, is overrated bowler than he actually is. Jason Gillespie is a rhythm bowler. If he don't get it right then batsmen can sneak some runs from him too. Shocking thing is that they went down to Bangladesh without any fight and they didn't plan well too. Evidently, Ricky Pointing's batting has been affected by his poor strategy as captain and by the pressure applied by the world's powerful media.

Yesterday match was a ripper and the innings played by the South African born Kevin Pietersen was a skimmer. Eng, chasing Aussie's 252, needed 105 runs from 15 overs and they lost all the important batsmen. Then came Pietersen and he took the Aussie bowlers to all parts of the ground. He was particularly severe on Jason Gillespie and and he sealed the match for Eng with 2.3 overs to spare. He scored an unbeaten 91 from 65 ball as he pierced the field 8 times and cleared the field 4 times. He scored his last 52 runs in just 25 balls. Really a new star has born.

I can't imagine the state of the bowling team when Pietersen and Flintoff start to find their touch in the same match.

Final comment: India should not tour England now with the quality of the bowler that we have. Otherwise we will be butchered by this new Springbok who adopted England as his country.

Kangaroos Vs Springboks

Note : Written on my office blogs on 21st Dec of 2007

A report on the just concluded test match between Australia and South Africa in Perth, WACA.

In cricket, match between Australia and South Africa can be compared to the game of chess between Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. They both employ lot of tactics and they do their homework well. Both are very fit teams and do their basics right (though in this match SA dropped as many as 6-7 catches which go along with one wrong decision given by Umpire Doctrove). Aussies has spontaneous thinkers while African team lacks that. Most of the time Aussie wins just because of the Shiekh of Tweak - Shane Kieth Warne - who never fails to exploit the Proteas's inability to play spin. The concluded test match is no exception to this.

There are lot of positives for SA. First to start with A B de Villiers, a 21 year old, who is forming a very good opening combo with 'ever consistent' Graeme Smith. He has a very good stance like English Michael Vaughan, though not that much elegant as Michael but has more attacking horizontal bat shots than the English captain. To go with this he is a trained wicket keeper. A real under study for Mark Boucher. Graeme Smith showing good promises and I feel, at any time he may fire. We cannot expect Gibbs to play with caution. He is an instinctive player, just like Sehwag. If he clicks, he will destroy the opposition attack and will be a treat for the spectators. Saying all these things, they have to improve their fielding, mainly catching, a lot in the next two tests. One can't expect to win a test by dropping 7 sitters. Just replace Ashwell Prince, who is slowly becoming the Daryl Cullinan (ie.. bunny) of Warne , with solid Jacques Kallis. Jacques Rudolph played an innings of his life and it is an epitome of concentration. This knock reminds me of the knock played by Kallis in 1998-99 series in Melbourne which was the turning point in his life. I expect the same for Rudolph so that we can see a lot of his trademark cover drives which pierce the field like a sharp knife on butter. Really a clinical player. Kemp's knock is an enigmatic one. One expects Justin Kemp do set the stadium ablaze. But he was contented with defensive strokes and gave a very good support to Jacques Rudolph. Also not to forget their ever improving pace attack.

As for as Aussies, they will just pull their hairs for letting the match go in SA's favour. I am not at all impressed with Punter's captaincy. He is not at all aggressive unlike his batting. Hussey's skills are really threating to all the bowlers around the world. Brad Hodge is just a clone of Damien Martyn. It is really amazing how Aus selectors find a correct replacements. Hodge for Martyn, Hussey for Bevan. Symonds is a disappointment. It's time for them to bring the talented Michael Clarke in the team. Their bowling attack is not the 'Usual' threating one. May be due to the reason that McGrath is down with flu. But there is no respite for batsmen from Lee and Warne.

Umpires had a very good game, specifically Billy Doctrove, who just made only one mistake but made amend with lot of good decisions in the final day.

However, in my opinion Proteas lost their brightest chance to beat Aussie in Perth which assist fast bowling - a strong area for SA. It is going to be very hard for them even to snatch a draw in the Sydney test, a pitch which will assist spin from day three, where they have to handle the deadly spin twins - Shane and Stuart. So they have to work very hard to win the boxing day test match in 'very neutral pitch' Melbourne.

Final say: One of the very best test match in recent times. One of the finest knock in recent times by Jacques Rudolph, which changed the result of the match, who should have been awarded the Man of Match which in my opinion wrongly given to Brad Hodge though his knock is not a less mean effort.