Cricket Deewana : For The Fans, By The Fans

When Australia lost the 2005 Ashes, the scapegoating and finger pointing was immediate, fierce and frantic. Billy Bowden. Ricky Ponting. Breath mints. WAGS. God.

Team India had their first shock, and hopefully their only, when Gautam
Gambhir was ruled out of the tri series in Sri Lanka with a groin
injury.
<!--more--> Gambhir joins Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan on the
injured list and while Sehwag will miss the ICC Champions Trophy in
South Africa, Gambhir has a better chance with ten day’s rest
recommended.
Now India may fall back on makeshift opener, Dinesh
Karthik, or recall M. Vijay, or even Rohit Sharma of Virat Kohli if the
team management deems it necessary for the tri series that also
includes New Zealand.

The last two seasons have been good for us in Test cricket, and it
shows in how we have moved up to the No. 2 spot. But we now move into
an area of our game that has caused us concern in recent times and
needs more focus.

Over the last year, we have been patchy and inconsistent in ODIs.
That's the best way to put it. We have won matches, but at the same
time we have lost many. Our No. 7 rank in the ICC ratings is a fair
indicator of where we stand. When a team is not consistent and ruthless
- we beat Pakistan 3-2, we probably should have beaten them by a bigger
margin after having won the first three - it's difficult to move up the
rankings.

Michael Clarke has ruled himself out of the Champions League Twenty20
but New South Wales have still been able to name a squad with 10
international players. Simon Katich will captain the 15-man group,
which features a world-class attack of Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Nathan
Bracken, Doug Bollinger and Nathan Hauritz.

However, the absence of Clarke, who is likely to
become Australia's permanent Twenty20 captain, will disappoint the
Blues, who won Australia's domestic competition last summer. Clarke
advised New South Wales of his unavailability due to his playing
workload with the Australian team.

Twice England's bowlers have restricted the Australians to
reasonable scores and twice the batsmen have lost their way in pursuit.

Andrew Strauss' team appeared to be cruising at 74 without loss, having been set 250 on Sunday, only to lose by 39 runs.

Collingwood, who hit 56 to signal something of a return to form,
admitted the problems at the Oval and most latterly Lord's, were
glaringly obvious.

"We definitely should have won both games," he said. "We can't beat about the bush.

"We didn't take advantage of the position we were in. In both games,
we have bowled pretty well but we must be honest with ourselves. We're
getting ourselves into winning positions and not taking them.