It almost seems like a repeat of the previous test with India on top at the end of Day 1. The top order shone and the Rain God stayed away. He probably watched the first session of play from afar and was too bored to pay a visit 🙂
But the most important thing for a batting team on day 1 is to not loose any wickets before lunch. With the threat of new ball gone, they can then accelerate freely, which is what Karthik and Jaffar did. The Karthik-Jaffar partnership seems to be an all or nothing affair. They have so far had 2 partnerships over 150 and 2 partnerships worth nothing! Karthik really led the way after lunch, before Jaffar joined the party, thanks to some innocuous bowling from Bangladesh. The heat and humidity were far more threatening than the bowling and it got rid of both Karthik and Jaffar. Jaffar got a hundred, but Karthik must be ruing his missed opportunity. He still has a chance of coming back tomorrow to finish off what he started.
India eventually finished at 326 without the loss of any wickets and Bashar must be cursing himself for putting India in to bat. Dravid on the other hand must be a happy man, having helped himself to 88* – He was also scoring at a healthy clip of four an over.
Tendulkar replaced Jaffar at the other end and he crawled to 9 of 31 balls. He must have decided to not give away his wicket so late in the evening, so as to come back in the morning and start fresh. Still, I am not a big fan of this slow over-defensive approach – he has to back himself and get out of this defensive mindset or teams like England and Australia will have him for breakfast.
At the end of the day though, India are sitting pretty and the aim must be to declare tomorrow around Tea.
-Mahesh-
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Mahesh:
I won’t read too much into Tendulkar’s 9 off 31. All that’d needed to “get it up there” is 2 4’s off his four balls tomorrow and then it will be 17 off 35 — ie., a near-50% strike-rate!
The state-of-play dictated a do-not-take-your-foot-off-the-pedal approach and that’s exactly what happened, in my view. The team did not want to lose a wicket. They did not! And they have scored at a healthy rate too.
The platform exists for major acceleration on day-2.
I did not like that approach of Sachin too and it made him look vulnerable even against the innocuous Bangla bowlers. Why not come and play your natural game? But perhaps he can’t do anything about the strategy already formed!!
I think we are reading far too much into the way Tendulkar played today. He seemed to fine and in no real bother (except for a couple of slow bouncers from Mortaza). As Mohan said, he is very likely to increase that run rate very quickly. Seems like the tolerance levels for Tendulkar are significantly lower than the others. Anyways, I wouldn’t bother too much and as I have repeatedly said in the past, India’s batting is not the issue.. We do just fine.
Another interesting point to note is that it was Whatmore’s decision to bowl first, a ridiculous decision that. Hope the BCCI has made a note of that. I am not a big fan of Whatmore’s.
Srikanth and Mohan – I do agree that Tendulkar’s go slow approach was probably planned, plus the new ball was just taken and it takes a while to get to terms with the slowness and the bounce of the pitch. We may see a completely new Tendulkar in the morning.
But of late Tendulkar does start very slowly and tentatively….I am not sure whether he is just being careful or whether it is a sign of his reflexes and age catching up with him…
I think it is us that need to adjust to the new Tendulkar. He has!
I have been watching the last two sessions, the one before lunch was quite interesting. Tendulkar got affected by the weather after lunch and crawled to his 100. I agree with Mohan, he is the not the same Tendulkar anymore, but he is still scoring hundreds. Isn’t that what we want? India is not in a bad position after all at tea.
Still watching Sachin so tentative, was not good. Maybe he is getting dehydrated and thats not good at all. Remember his back problem? He was advised to watch against dehydration.
Sachin should retire and give chance to a fresh jaffer maybe?
Chandan
I hope you meant “retire” as in “retire hurt”…Under the current context it can be easily misconstrued 🙂
🙂