Badri bats

dcsiva — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:19:00 GMT

India stumble to a win against Sri Lanka. Dhoni and S. Badrinath took India to victory with 39 and 27 not out, respectively. The real damage was done by that all too mercurial talent, Zaheer Khan, and Praveen Kumar. But all the attention was on Badrinath after he finally got a chance to show his skills on the big stage.

Samir Chopra wished him well as he began his innings:

India have batted deep in this second one-day and in so doing, have shoved a newbie, S. Badrinath, down to number seven. After watching his team lurch to 75-5, he finally got his chance. Though the required target is not that far away, the tension isn't absent.

And Soulberry couldn't see the game on TV and so called for assistance (see the comments) on how Badri was playing:

But the questions remain which the live text commentator chose not to answer, or did not recieve, How did Badri play today? Did he earn his keep? Did he plug a hole? Did he debunk a growing neo-gen myth? Can Amit Misra take hope from this?

It's a small innings, but of course it could easily have all gone wrong for India without him.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Asif is busy challenging the positive "B" sample. And Will notes that the irony-challenged BCCI have chosen this url for their new website: bcci.tv.

Lanka progress and Fab Four decline

dcsiva — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:57:00 GMT

As England wrap up a final Test win against South Africa, with that cynical little man back in action, Sri Lanka win the series against India. Straight Point breaks out a statistics analysis against sleepy Fab Four supporters to argue that the Fab Four are in permanent decline not just in a temporary dip:

i wanted to put stats of other two (sehwag and gambirs) but i dropped the idea coz figures were embarrassing to compare...

if you further break it series per series basis...i.e. starting from Oz series to SA to SL series or breaking it from last 20 innings to last 15 to last 10 to even last 5 innings...

whichever way you wanna look at it...i am sure that...the decline will appear more continuously downwards...almost like a pattern...indicating that the fall in form is not temporary...or sudden...as we are being made to believe...

I'm not sure I'm awake yet. Mohan meanwhile sees a silver lining in Tendulkar getting injured---Badrinath gets a recall. But as Ottayan points out, the Vir-Gati opening combination that Tendulkar would have disrupted means that Badrinath is unlikely to play.

Lastly, a quiz from Patrick Kidd to help wake me up.

Cover Points : S. Badrinath

Badri bats

Lanka progress and Fab Four decline