Superb Smith vs Brilliant Pujara || Brilliant Test Cricket

This Test match has simply been battle of centuries with Steve Smith showing why he's the world's best test batsman.

Pujara and Saha have been what Smith and Maxwell were for Australia, plus India had that handy quick fire fifty from Jadeja, that helped India drag the lead.

It's fair to say there were a lot of half chances that didn't go in favor of the Aussies, but what a double ton by Pujara.

Kohli hasn't troubled the scorers in the test series, as he was out done by Pat Cummins.

Is Kohli's shoulder injury really impacting him?? Well it certainly didn't refrain him from clapping hands from the dressing room.

                                                  Saha and Pujara in Action (Image Source)

Pujara was brilliant in terms of dealing with the loose deliveries, he respected each ball and left it if it was threatening, especially when Pat Cummins was bowling short to him, he frustrated Cummins by not offering any shot, but when Cummins dropped his length a bit and tried something new and if it was loose, he dispatched it to boundary line.

On the other hand Saha had a mental battle with his technique, when he had a review save him from LBW decision, he was exposed by Pat Cummins as his leg was getting in the way of his bat and that prevented him from offering a shot.

Saha was quick on his feet and made the adjustment the very next over when Josh Hazlewood bowled a similar delivery angling in, Saha made the adjustment and could offer a shot, which was interestingly dissected by the on-Air commentators Michael Clarke, Sanjay Manjrekar, Sunil Gavaskar.This got Saha his well deserved centruy.

Jadeja's quickfire fifty followed by his sword celebration ensured India were in commanding position, and India declared on the call of Virat Kohli.

Soon the Australians entered the field and David Warner yet to make an impact in this test series started attacking the bowlers with 3 boundaries who soon was hunted by Ravi Jadeja.

The Aussies sent in Nathan Lyon as night watchman who was soon dismissed by Jadeja leaving Aussies 23-2 at the 7.2 overs

There was a bit of fun in the test match too

😲 pic.twitter.com/vdXNynDDs9

— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) 19 March 2017

What a Match and What a WIN!!!

What a Test Match it was and finally India had something to cheer about for the series.
This win will give India and boost and will pump them, probably set the momentum.

Here's how Twitterati reacted to India's fantastic win in Bangalore.

India 🇮🇳 to good. Congratulations on a brilliant win. What a Test match! What a series so far. 1-1

— Michael Clarke (@MClarke23) March 7, 2017

A perfect Test match in the recent past home season in India, all the other matches in this home season have been too one sided with Indian spin twins dominating the opposition, but Aussies bring in their own spin pair and have tormented India and that made this series exciting.

Also spice is added to the test match with a lot of banter going on between the players and also banter going on between the ex-players off the field.

Great Test match cricket #INDvsAUS Win, lose or draw being gracious is what a captain should be. Bring on the next Test!

— Mitchell Johnson (@MitchJohnson398) March 7, 2017

One such player is an ex-Australian wicket keeper, and no it's not Adam Gilchrist, it's Ian Healy, who said that he was losing his respect for the Indian Skipper Virat Kohli and also said that his captaincy was putting his bowlers under pressure, as a result they are not performing, Healy also indicated that one could see pressure on Ashwin's face.

Kohli retaliated as follows:

"We've got 1.2 billion people in India, one person doesn't make a difference to my life."
"Also you need to go and search on Youtube when he was given out down the leg side - I heard he said something about me not having good behavior with the umpires."
"I think you should all Youtube that video and i think that says it all."

By the way, This is the video he was talking about:


With a pitch where 200 would be a very difficult target, India posted a target of 187, thanks to Saha and Ishant as they held their nerve and dragged the target to 187 otherwise India would be a 20 short giving the Aussies a psychological advantage and eventually a victory in the 2nd Innings to come.

Indians started off with Ashwin and Ishant and soon Ishant go the wicket of Renshaw , from then the Aussies held a runrate of over 4 and close to 5.
The hosts started feeling the pressure, until Ashwin picked up the wicket of David Warner in the 10th over.

Then Shaun Marsh followed, who got the wrong decision and you can't give any excuses since the Aussies had a couple of reviews but there was a story for not reviewing it and here's the drama:

Smith also says he didn't think S Marsh was out, told him to "go", meaning go for the review but Marsh misunderstood & walked off. #INDvAUS

— Melinda Farrell (@melindafarrell) March 7, 2017

Then it was the prized wicket of Captain Smith and here's the drama behind it when Smith wanted to decide whether to review, he took the help of non-striker Handscomb who redirected Smith to the Dressing Room and soon Kohli was infuriated and let Steve know about it and umpire Nigel let Steve know that he's not supposed to do something like that.

This is what Gilchrist tweeted:

I never played in the review era, but I'd suspect that's against the rules. Not a good thing. Sure he will be reprimanded and move on. https://t.co/PBThYai68l

— Adam Gilchrist (@gilly381) March 7, 2017

Virat Kohli adds more spice to already fiery series with extraordinary press conference after tense win: https://t.co/8CpRCdbKHt #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/fqUEhmRDsL

— cricket.com.au (@CricketAus) March 7, 2017

Virat Kohli's press conference is a must-watch: https://t.co/1eaM9vOvpe #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/4zszJHubNN

— cricket.com.au Video (@CricketVideo) March 7, 2017

And the Player of the match was KL Rahul for his 90 of 205 in his first innings and 51 of 85 in his second innings, but how crucial was that 92 of 221 by Pujara in second innings???

Terrific test match for the sport lovers!!!

Perfect 3rd Day Cricket (Top Class Bowling vs Resilient Batting)

Fair to say a perfect day for India and what a clash of Perfect Bowling vs Resilient  Batting.
A good day for India in the series so far, it's fair to say Pujara was lucky, but you need some luck when all the odds are against you.

At the start of Day 3 India came back into the game by picking early wickets but the lead was 87, in the series considering the conditions and the pitch, 87 lead is equivalent to 170 lead in Australian pitch conditions.

An early collapse was expected from India, but they some how survived for 10 overs before Aussie pacer Hazlewood  hunted down Abhinav Mukund with a peach of a delivery.

Once again KL Rahul stood up when the team needed the most and that wicket in the 11th over brought Pujara to the crease, KL soon brought up his 4th Fifty in the 23rd over.

Soon he perished to SOK, where Smith took an absolute blinder, I think this is where Aussies were so good, they held on to the half chances and made them count on the field, which India couldn't replicate.

The dismissal of KL brought the Indian Skipper into the crease, who put up a ten over partnership with Pujara worth 28 runs as he departed for a meager 15 of 25 balls, and once again he wasted another review for which was an absolute plumb LBW of Hazlewood's bowling.

                                                           Pujara and Rahane  (Image Source)

But the skipper had a plan, he promoted Jadeja, and the commentators expected it was a good move since he would be aggresive and India could get some runs in quick succession.

But the plan failed like many times in the series for Kohli, just like his DRS.

That brought Ajinkya Rahane who has had a tough time like many Indian Batsmen, who would know that this pair (Rahane and Pujara) would put up a series best partnership worth 93 runs of 203 balls before the stumps of Day 4.

The stumps of Day 4 left Pujara on 79 of 173 balls while Rahane looked solid with his 40 of 105 balls, leaving India with a lead of 126.

Safe to say a wonderful day of cricket for the Sport Lovers

When Umpire Dickie Bird gave Gavaskar a hair cut On The Field

During the Fifth over of Australian First Innings in the second test of Border Gavaskar Trophy in Bangalore, Mr. Gavaskar shared an anecdote.

In 1974 when India were in England and Gavaskar then had a little more hair back then and he had trouble as he had trouble watching the ball as his hair was getting in his eyes.

Mr.Gavaskar then asked the on field umpire Dickie Bird to give him a hair cut with the scissor he generally uses for the ball.

Umpire Dickie Bird accepted and gave Gavaskar a hair cut.

Here is the link to Scorecard back then.

(ImageSource)

Champions Trophy 2017 and Watch Out Players for Each Teams

ICC Champions trophy will take place in England from 1st June to 18th June 2017.

The top 8 teams in the ICC Rankings will participate in the tournament, with India being the defending champions.

There are two groups and Here are the participants from each group

Group 1: England, Bangladesh, Australia and New-Zealand.
Group 2: Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and South Africa.

If one doesn't have a look at the groups, picking the favorites would be Cake Walk.

Favorites: England, South Africa, Australia,  New Zealand

Since England, New Zealand, Australia come from same group, there'll be only 2 of them.

Leaving England out would be hard.

The favorites from Group 1:
England and Australia

The favorites from Group 2:
South Africa and India (Only if Pakistan continue their bad fielding).

If Pakistan continue their bad fielding, their good bowling won't help.

Pakistan are a good team and had some success in English conditions in the Test Matches against the likes Anderson

India's issues: Opening Pair

When India won CT 2013, India had a solid opening and also both were in Fantastic form,
Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan who decimated opposition bowling attacks with ease and flair.
Now, with injured Rohit Sharma and uncertain Shikhar Dhawan, the opening might become an issue.

Watch Out Players

Image Source

India's Watch out players:

Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kohli

Australia's Watch out Players:

Steve Smith, David Warner, Mitchell Starc

England's Watch out Players:

Ben Stokes, Joe Root, David Willey

Proteas Watch out players :

Quinton De Kock, Chris Morris, AB Devilliers, Du Plessis

Black-Caps Watch out players:

Trent Boult, Kane Williamson, Mitchell Santner

Bangladesh Watch out players:

Mustafizur Rahman, Mushfiqur Rahim, Soumya Sarkar

Pakistan Watch out players:

Mohammed Amir, Sarfraz Ahmed, Asad Shafiq

Srilanka Watch Out Players:

Niroshan Dickwella, Angelo Matthews, Gunaratne

Why Harbhajan was Right about Ashwin

Harbhajan Singh, the name we all know and we also know he's pretty bad at predicting results, i would never put money on his pick, that's for sure.

He Predicted the Aussies could lose 3-0 too, while some predicted 4-0 victory for India, anyhow as Steve Smith mentioned that cant happen anymore.


This was Harbhajan's Take on Ashwin's fake purple patch

Only 2 in my 103 tests.. Kumble and my test wicket count would have been something else if we got wickets like last 4 years we playing on👊 https://t.co/fvkdVw1I1v

— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) October 9, 2016

This is where Bhajji got it right, Ashwin is so pitch dependent,we can say that from the way he bowled in South Africa, Australia and in English conditions, again when the conditions were favoring him in Srilanka, he absolutely threatened each and every Srilankan player and made pitch a mine field.

Although it's too soon to judge him from one bad game, but clearly as even Shane Warne mentioned, Ashwin didn't look threatening on a pitch that favored spinners, Jadeja looked extremely threatening, it looked as if every over he would get a wicket.

So probably the pitches would be flat from next game on and atleast we wouldn't get rank turners, This is the pitch:

pic.twitter.com/s5G8eKo1hX

— Indo Trends (@_IndoTrends) 1 March 2017

The second Test match between India and Australia will begin on March 4 in Bengaluru

Steve Smith Stamps His Authority With a Brilliant Second Innings Hundred

Steve Smith Stamps His Authority How Good was his century  in second innings of the first Test Match Between India and Australia in Pune. Most Importantly the century came in second innings, that's the reason he's so different from the other players like Kane Williamson, Joe Root, Virat Kohli.

Now I Know all people keep saying that India is going to bounce back, but Steve Smith is in a different league now, he has evolved as a captain too, he's infact a complete player, he achieved what no captain since last few series in India could.

Image Source (Reuters)

But still it's too quick to judge his success just from one match, but if any team can beat India in India it's this Australian Team

The Kiwis were whitewashed , The Proteas were whitewashed, the English were clean swept, but this man (Steve Smith) might actually change that and turn the tables against the hosts I Feel.

Talking about captaincy and batting, you also got to look at the way Steve O'Keefe bowled, he out bowled Ashwin by Gigantic Proportions, and i think Ravi Jadeja bowled well from Indians.

It's fair to say Indians got the taste of their own medicine now for preparing the rank turners, this is very similar to what happened when English Toured India in 2012-2013 and won a historic test series with the help of quality spinners like Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar , if Australia win this series, its very fair to say "This Would be a Career High for Steve Smith".

Many Captains only dreamed to win a test match in India and Steve Smith did it with such flair along with his spin twins Nathan Lyon and Steve O'Keefe.

Steve also mentioned in his tweet and post match press conference that the Australians recorded their last win in India 4502 days back.

What a win!!! Good luck Aussies!!! Cheering for You!!!