13 September 2007

Zimbabwe on course...

Two teams with heaps of domestic T20 experience: West Indies and England. The former has been booted out by Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe is giving England a run for their money. And England have to face an angry Australia tomorow.

For a brief period today, Bangladesh showed glimpses of the role that spinners could potentially play in this format. Most teams though, seem to favour loading the side with medium pacers. And just to emphasize the point Dmitri Mascarenhas has just done what none of Broad, Anderson or Flintoff could do: threewickets down for Zim, all of a sudden.

And India will play their first match today, against Scotland. The World Cup rout still fresh in their minds, Dhoni will want to put his best foot forward today. Also helping India's case is that the team is crtain to be filled with batsmen who are crying out for a spot in the regular side. Hopefully the batting will thrive in an atmosphere of internal competition: Sehwag, Gambhir, Uthappa, Karthik and Rohit Sharma. The trouble however is with the bowling. Neither Agarkar nor Sreesanth are miserly customers in ODIs at the best of times. Both have a reputation for taking important wickets, though, and I'll be happy if both of them together can manage 8 overs for 60-70, if they take at least three wickets. The lefties, Pathan and Arpee, the former an unknown quantity, the latter on the back of an English tour where he has shown a surprising capacity for economical wickets. I say surprising, because he can look really tame at times.
Now comes the biggest decisions that Dhoni'll need to make. I don't see him keeping Harbhajan out of the side. Chawla though, is an intriguing question. And as I write this, Schofield, the English leg-spinner has taken two wickets off four balls. Wow.

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