Game Day [India vs England - 1st Test]

A flat track that has lots of runs, Dish network like every other game offered the first days play FREE. The person in charge of live feeds was busy taking a quick nap, thank god, his alarm woke him up, and we went live after the first over.

Indian bowlers kept breaking coconuts than the usual numbers. May be around Green park oval there are many Ganesh temples than the usual. Anyways, with a non stop spree of short balls and bad line, English openers did not miss the opportunity, cooked a load of “thenga barbi” [Coconut Cake] and its count touched 50 in about 5 overs.

It was simply lack of experience in the English side, by close of play they were 7 wickets down, I would never agree that Indian bowling was devastating etc. Indians spin duo kept the batsmen pinned, however to my surprise the English ran out of patience. If they had taken the good old Gooch approach the score card would read 300+ for no loss at close. However Collingwood made sure he followed Boycott, he played a real slow innings with an strike rate of around 33.x , , in fact extras had a better strike rate.

VVS and Dravid took great slip catches. The response time for both the catches was less than a second.

Kumble was lucky to get a wicket, first he appealed screaming at 102db for a bat/pad catch for Flintoff, “bat was clearly away from the pad”, next ball Flint off was wrapped on the pad, and Kumble increased his appealing to 500db and almost threatened the umpire, who in turn raised his finger for a ball that was clearly leaving the leg stump. Flintoff was totally disappointed, who would not be - he was well set to score about 300 runs.

Kaif is another lucky dude, on what basis he is inside the eleven, Only Mr. More has to explain it in his golden words. Dada Bhai Gangully must be wondering the same;

Indians would play tomorrow, sure good "Gajju" ensured, Sachin Averages about 105 in this arena, while Viru is fit and raring to go, with power of Pathan & Dhoni, strength of Dravid and VVS, hope our formidable batting lineup bats just once. Currently bookies are taking bets on how much Kaif would score here.

Commentary team, Wow! It was totally unbiased and very professional; Ian Botham, David Gower, Nasser Hussein, Dean Jones, Srinath and L.Siva. Nasser Hussein’s expert comments in particular, he knows what he is talking and does not mince words, in fact the entire commentating crew was shrewd, and their experience on the field and in front of the microphone was visible.
L.Siva needs a limiter, he suddenly screams without any warning for nothing. The producer should stuff him with pacifier to clam him down. TV coverage in general was fantastic. Close up shorts in particular. A welcome relief from what we had in Pakistan.

Finally, however I don’t think I would be watching this series in full, because price fixed by Dish Network is absolute Day-Time, Night-Time, Full-Time, Part-time Robbery.

This habit of watching Cricket for money is slowly turning to be a greator evil than going to “Guindy” .

Good day