Reverse Swing

2nd ODI India v England at Faridabad

Slow and low it was never going to be England’s kind of wicket, but there was a spell when they were in with a chance, when India were five wickets down. However, a cool Dhoni and an inspired Suresh Raina saw India home.

The pluses for England was Pietersen’s continued good form with the bat, some economical bowling from Blackwell and some sharp fielding, particularly Collingwood’s run out of Dravid.

For the next match Mahmood must be in with a chance of playing, and Hoggard, denied his Goa beach holiday, must be expecting the call back to work.

I’ve just added a new poll to the sidebar on the right: Geraint Jones or Matt Prior for England’s ODI keeper? Voting closes at the end of the ODI series against India.

Some more live action here from the Google beta video. The quality is better on this one, especially after the intro. Covers the different types of deliveries in fast bowling, and shows a great shot of Thommo at his best – you can clearly see the strain on his back. It also has Glenn McGrath talking about reverse swing.

Somerset’s signing of Dan Cullen looked a good move. The good news for him and the bad news for Somerset is that the Australian Cricket Board have named him in the squad for the one-day series in Bangladesh. He now won’t be arriving in England until May.

Call-up for Dan Cullen

Lawrence Booth from “The Guardian” reports on more breast beating from Kevin Pietersen on his ill-advised slog-sweep at Delhi.

The slog-sweep looks like being the enduring theme of the one-day series for England .
On Friday at Faridabad we’ll find out whether it’s been

• expunged from the repertoire
• played more judiciously
• played as usual

My money is on the last of these, but where would you place your bet?

This comes courtesy of the Beta Google video service and it features a selection of action shots from Pakistan’s ODIs. If you’re looking at this in an open-plan office then you’ll probably need to turn down the sound.

The first part features a smorgsboard of yorkers and clean-bowled deliveries from Waquar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar. If you like to see stumps violently knocked from the ground and bewildered batsmen then you’ll like this.

I’m not sure what the other action shots are about nor the presence of an invasive soundtrack, but the whole video is only around three minutes long.

Why are test matches more popular than the ODIs in England? Because England are far more likely to win in a test match? Not since 1997 in Sharjah have England won an overseas series, and their performances in recent World Cups are usually best forgotten.

No one was really expecting too much today, not even with a returned refreshed Freddie and some young guns, newish to the team and ready for the fray. But most supporters allowed a small corner of hope somewhere even if they were keeping it to themselves.

With India restricted to 203 on a wicket of variable bounce, and with Flintoff and Pietersen scoring freely in reply you felt they were on the way to home and dry, even though you wouldn’t say it out aloud. However, a series of injudicious sweep shots and before you know it Harbhajan has picked up 5-31 and it’s game over.

Credit to Harbhajan and Yuvraj Singh for keeping their nerve and a great catch on the boundary from Gambhir, but at the end of you felt that this was a game England could and should have won. The opportunity was there and it wasn’t taken.

There was something of a comeback for Irfan Pathan today when he picked up two wickets in his first over in the ODI against England, in front of 40,000 cheering Indian supporters in Delhi.

Lacking in rhythm in the test series he often looked innocuous, but today in his first over, with a new white ball in his hand, he looked the business. There was some away movement against the left-handed Strauss who feathered the ball behind for a catch, and then he straightened one up on a confident Shah who was out lbw. Suddenly you could see how Pathan had taken that hat-trick in the first over against Pakistan.

Pietersen played him differently, taking that usual step down the wicket, bottom-handing the ball away on the on-side. The first time he did this Pathan sent down a stare in response, but as is his wont, Pietersen blithely carried on doing it, just as he did with the other quicker bowlers from the other end.

Pathan’s final ball was a bouncer, pitched very short in order to get it up on this wicket, but it really needed more pace to trouble Pietersen.

If you’ve ever thought the British media lays it on with a trowel when England loses then you need to read this. It goes so far though you feel that by the end it’s undermined itself. Thanks to Samir Chopra.

This is another one that continues to feature highly on the search strings. If you want to know more about the “what is” of reverse swing then I don’t think you can do any better than look at the BBC resources which tackle the subject. As well as some pretty clear description with diagrams there’s an excellent video with Troy Cooley giving the lowdown.