Which is the more noteworthy? Not sure. Not sure it matters. Both facts are pretty striking.
West Indies
West Indies’ tour of the subcontinent, while on the face of it relatively unsuccessful, has been fairly decent in our eyes. It’s a bit sad that expectations have dropped that much, but let’s face it, they have. There’s promise in this side and not the dumb, blind optimism kind of promise either, but real, gritty actually-going-to-make-some-effort promise.
When the Windies last toured England, their captain turned up about four minutes before the first Test. It wasn’t his fault his team were playing an away series in England in May, against opposition they’d finished playing a home series against about a week before, but it still didn’t set much of an example. His side promptly went through the motions in cold weather, in front of few fans and the series never captured the attention, let alone the imagination.
This summer, West Indies again arrive in England in May. We feel faint confidence that they’ll have more stomach for a fight.
India
Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina have mustered 69 runs between them in nine innings in this series. Our verdict on this is as follows: three good one-day players haven’t played very well.
Was nice seeing the Windies showing some proper backbone for the first time in a while.
I can’t help feel that the England tour is rather ill-timed. England have the best fast bowlers in the planet at the moment, and it would be a pity if they repeatedly dismantle the West-Indian batting order. The Windies have no prayer against the English, but I do hope they would put up a good fight.
Veering dangerously close to sensationalism in the final paragraph, but I agree with the sentiment.
KC, the scrolling widget on the right side is pretty distracting.
“danza hyatt”
jeez.
Virender Sehwag is a mediocre one-day player. He makes 35 runs in 33 balls in an average ODI innings. He has 14 centuries in 233 innings, despite being an opener for most of his career. Those are not the stats of a match-winner, but of an honest trier.
This is what a great ODI record looks like.
We totally agree with that. Commentators will often refer to Sehwag as a one-day type player or a Twenty20 type player, but he’s anything but.
It’s infuriating because it makes the assumption that attacking batsmanship is the preserve of the shorter formats, which is just bollocks.
Viv would walk into any side. When I was little, Viv and Botham were my favourite players. I even had the Viv-endorsed Slazenger V Caribbean.
Botham being arguably the best example of an aggressive batsman who was far better in Tests than one-dayers.
I think I may have offended Sehwag by calling him mediocre at one-day cricket. He has just responded by hitting an ODI 200 in 140 balls. In the 44th over.
Now if only I can similarly offend Suresh Raina in test cricket.
Aye, was just coming to mention Sehwag’s wee knock. Seems he did quite well.