India Vs England

Late Night/Early Morning matches are simply killing for me. After a long tiring day, you stay awake all night and the next day is completely screwed - goodness me!!! Still, WC is WC and I decided to duke it out. Stayed awake all night to watch the match. Here's my take.

Pros

- The batting clicked once again
- Sachin was slow initially but later went really gung ho!!
- We tried to accelerate in the end even more despite losing wickets

Cons

- Sachin was slow early on. If he somehow was not able to accelerate in the later half of his innings (by getting out), he would have done the team a big disservice.
- Last 5-7 wickets were lost cheaply. Trying to milk the bowling and score as many runs as possible doesn't mean hitting blindly and getting out unnecessarily. I would prefer that those last 7 wickets had added atleast another 30-40 runs rather than go for a 4 or 6 on every ball and getting out in the process. Controlled agression is the key.
- The limitations of our bowling attack were in public display. Ugh!!!
- Fielding is so poor that even the commentators were saying "Indian team's age is showing in the fielding dept." Nothing much you can do here execpt cajole the players to try 10-20% harder in fielding. Any runs saved means more pressure on the opposition.

Eventually, India managed to get a Tie when it should have won comfortably. On the other hand, India were all set to lose the match but somehow miraculously pulled a Tie. Depends how you look at it. :)

Anyways, I felt like crap all of next day - too exhausted and sleepy. ended up sleeping most of the time.