Irani Trophy 2008 Day 1
September 25th 2008 10:42
Long time no see folks. But lets see if we can make up for some lost time together.
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Dravid opened the innings for Rest of India. He started off looking resolute. Nothing much seemed wrong with him at that time. To my intense disappointment though, he continued to play a most uncharacteristic innings where he prodded, clawed and simply willed himself to 46 runs before Ishant Sharma put him out of his misery.
Simply put, no bowler other than Ishant Sharma looked like taking Dravid's wicket when he was defending. However, almost everybody, including dibbly dobbly medium pacer Rajat Bhatia looked like taking a wicket when Dravid tried playing shots. Even the trademark Dravid backfoot drives and square cuts went awry. The feet were not there and neither was the anticipation. In fact he looked a bit over-eager to punish the loose deliveries and that was hampering the timing.
I expected a much better showing from him after that sound knock he played in the last Test against SL. However, credit must be given to him for treating this match with utmost seriousness and attempting to draw out the maximum from the outing. In this respect, Dravid ranked better than Jaffer who played a very very poor shot to get out.
If anybody can will themselves out of such a bad patch, it is Dravid. It is upto him to keep this apart and take each ball as it comes. It is not that his batting or his reflexes have gone down. It is just that he seems to have let go of a little of his customary patience more than anything else. Two improvised pull shots off Nehra stood out in Dravid's essay. I thought that would turn the tide but Ishant did not let that happen and brought a fast delivery sharply back into Dravid to catch him in front of the stumps. Great bowling by Ishant and it must be said that that level of bowling was required to prise Dravid out of his vigil. It was a strange kind of innings really. He looked very good against everybody when defending. But he was not quite there when he attempted to play shots.
Laxman looked in fantastic touch for the period he was there. I did not get to see his dismissal though. Some of the drives and flicks off the faster bowlers were a treat to the eyes. Badrinath tried stonewalling but it did not seem to fetch any results for him.
Delhi's spinner Chaitanya Nanda is simply a leg cutter bowler. Playing defensively against him is something that I dont understand. He simply does not have the variety or the class to keep people quiet for long. At the same time he also does not have the penetration to get batsmen out even if they were looking to defend him. I would rate even Chawla a step ahead of Nanda.
Ashish Nehra looked good in patches while Ishant was the standout bowler for Delhi. Pradeep Sangwan really looked pedestrian in contrast.
Hmm... and Sangwan picks up Dhoni. What does one say? He was bowling absolute trash. According to Cricinfo, Dhoni followed one without moving his feet and nicked it to first slip. Not good batting.
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