Transcendence

What a beginning ! Sehwag slashes the first ball, Swann gets a finger to it and then it flies for four. Next ball gets the top of Sehwag's bat and it flies over the fielder's head. Next ball Sehag chips one and it goes over Anderson's head. Three chances which could have been taken. Anderson swung the ball in the first over and Sehwag was lucky ! The first ball of the next over - Sehwag hits it through the covers for four ! Ajmal Shehzad is the bowler bowling at 83 mph ! He is generating fairly good pace, but is not known as a swing bowler like Anderson. The swing bowlers may get some help, as it was overcast conditions for the last two days. Chawla is playing. India will take advantage of the English weakness against spin on spin tracks ! Swann will of course be dangerous. Yardy also will be dangerous, if the pitch takes spin, but then Indian batsmen play spin well ! We had said in our columns that time before 0250 is adverse. Now India is 33/0. Sehwag looks confident and

Dashing middle order bat, Ravi Bopara, opined that facing India on Sunday is indeed tough. This is one of our toughest challenges in this tournament. We know what the Indian batsman are capable of but we do have our plans to keep them quiet. We will see on Sunday." "If it is a spinning deck, we have got our own spinners who can cause problems. A pitch that spins is going to cause trouble for any team. It is going to cause problems for India as well. A lot is going to depend on the conditions," he added. "Every match is big for us. Even the game the other night was also big for us. But against India in India is going to be huge. "We are not thinking too much about it. If you think too much about it you will get out of the mould. We want to stay relaxed." He said England has definite plans for the Sunday match. "We have plans against each bowler and every batsman but it is how the batsman feel on the day. We generally play aggressive cricket. We know in

Indian veteran pace bowler Sreenath told Indians not to crucify Sreeshant. Sreeshant gave 53 runs in the match against BD. The dew was very much there and the Indian bowlers could not grip the ball. Because of the dew factor only did Shakib elect to field. The dew factor weighed heavily on Shakib's mind, according to Imran. It is always better not to crucify anybody. Any player can have a bad day in office. Sreenath opined that the Indian bowling was always an area of concern and the Indian bowlers did overcome some challenges. One should know the mental state Sreeshant is in. He was not there in the fifteen and he came in as a replacement for Praveen. He was also not in the eleven and he came as a replacement for Nehra. So he is not fully prepared. His tendency to attack with pace and swing also proved futile. The ICC's decision to field only ten teams for 2015 WC was proved right by the performance of Kenya and Canada. Both were ousted by professional teams. Pietersen had att

Amir Sohail, ex batsman of Pak, feels that India has started her campaign on a flyer. She has given a great demonstration of her powerful batting strength. The only way is to restrict the current favourites to 280 odd and then have a go at their bowlers. Writing in his column for the 'News', the Pak batsman says " "If the teams who are yet to come up against India find a way to restrict their batting to around the 280 mark, I strongly believe they can upset the favourites." "If you look at the Indian side closely, you will find they need to improve their fielding and on occasions the bowling can be vulnerable on a decent pitch where they could go for runs." "Virender Sehwag who recently said that he would be looking to bat for the full 50 overs, made his intent clear by playing some exquisite strokes and settled down to gather singles with his partners, before a mix-up with Sachin Tendulkar saw the little master run out by the length of the wicket

The Pakis stunned the world with their ability to reverse swing the ball. Waqar and Wasim became deadly with the old ball. Now Umar Gul of Pak, Zaheer of India and Malinga of SL are known to be the experts of this sort of swing. Allan Donald, the new NZ coach, feels that the reverse swing can make or break a team Says he "The reverse swing is a massive thing and a huge key for me in this World Cup. That is where (the death overs) games are going to be won and lost." That the Kiwis have reverse swingers was proved in the second match of the WC, when they shot out Kenya for 69. Says the Kiwi skipper, Vettori "I think Tim Southee and Jacob Oram are probably the two best guys who have the ability to bowl both... Hopefully with Allan's knowledge, it will improve and we will find some result". So batsmen, beware !