- As you mentioned, batting with Laxman hardly helped him yesterday. As VVS started wondrously, he felt obliged to run the quick single and turn the strike over to him but Laxman was not quick enough for that. The longer Laxman was away from the strike, the more the pressure built on Dravid. This is why he would have been better off batting in between Yuvraj and Dhoni and scraping together a partnership.
- Yesterday’s runs will not go a long way in helping him regain his confidence. He left too many deliveries and kept going after the wrong ones after a drought. He still hasn’t found the balance between attack and defence.
- When the crowd started booing, it almost seemed like he told himself to be more determined not to play shots just because they were unhappy. After getting the single and receiving ironic cheers, he raised his bat and smiled to himself. That seemed to calm him in a it can’t get any worse way. He seemed to go for his shots (Hogg coming into the attack also helped) and became much more prolific after that.
- The cliche about the game being a great leveller will have to be given the obligatory nod. Here’s Dravid groping outside off and getting into an almighty tangle and then there’s Ganguly shouldering arms confidently and picking off Lee on the up through cover.
Posted by srivaths
Filed in Cricket
January 4, 2008 at 2:15 am
Yes, his shot selection was dodgy and he wasn’t looking very secure. In fact, I thought he was much tighter in defence during the second innings in Melbourne. Laxman’s poor running compounded the problems (it must be said that Laxman’s probably gone ahead of Ganguly in the running between the wickets stakes in this team; so many threes converted to twos).
Ganguly was playing quite beautifully today by the way. He is finally living up to his billing as a genuine member of this great middle order. This renaissance of the past year is more important to his career than most people realize.