Mind Blogging. Mind Boggling.

 4 of us watched the final, and pretty much ball by ball, till Australia started coasting. Well, one might say- where's the cricket fan- why aren't you watching a great cricketing knock by Travis Head - but well, ball by ball ODI for the full length of the innings is not doable. 

Anyway, my thoughts on what helped Aus get ahead: 

1. Australia getting the better of the conditions. They called the toss smartly, taking the counter intuitive decision to bowl first based on the 'black soil' as Ravichandran Ashwin put it in his vlog, which cricinfo also picked.  The decision bucked the common trend of 'putting up runs on the board' in a big match
2. Brilliant fielding of Australia vs Slightly below par by India. Travis Head's catch of Rohit was electric. And Warner, Head and Labuscagne were throwing themselves around. They looked fast on telly, and this was confirmed by a colleague who watched the match live in Ahmedabad.  India has fielders who have to be hidden, which is not the case with Australia. I am not even talking about errors here. 
3. Reliable tail of Australia, which includes Starc and Cummins, vs unreliable tail of India. The worry of the unreliable tail is probably what caused VK and Rahul to bat overcautiously and take very few risks. Hardi Pandya's injury hurt us here, but we have had ample notice of this defeciency.
4. Shreyas and Gill failing on the big day. Shreyas' technique when he was hopping against a length ball, was suspect. My friend said- was he expecting the short ball?    
5. On the day, their bowling was also outstanding while ours was good. They had a great strategy which is also described by Ravi Ashwin, who mentioned how Pat Cummins bowled without a mid off and bowled lot of cutters. He bowled only 3 out of his 60 balls in 6 meter mark or further up on the pitch. And apparently 50% cutters. (Ashwin's article)  He did not have a mid off in place and had a 5-4 legside field .

Anyhow, Olympics is coming, and we had a glorious Asian Games. FIFA WC qualifying campaign in full swing. Lots of other sports area currently heating up, and can shift focus there.   

Labels: Esprit de sports

# posted by Ashwin Ravikumar @ 5:33 PM