JohnnyG said:
Is Patel the left hand seamer? & Where the hell has Jaffer been, I thought he was excellent throughout!
When Monty bowled Dravid there was a massive cheer, were they cheering for Monty
Munaf Patel is a right hand seamer. A few years back he was hailed as the next big thing because unlike most of the pie chuckers that come out of India he could bowl quite fast, there had been talk of him bowling in the mid nineties so there was lots of hype about him. Problem was he couldn't control his line or length and at the top stage as players like Akhtar and Lee have found out when they are off colour, it doesn't matter if you bowl at 95mph because top players will smack it to the boundary faster than you bowled it! Recently he got injured and he had his bowling action remodelled. Now he is in more control of his action. He played against England just a few weeks ago and he had match figures of 10-91 which is pretty good. Though that was just a warm up match for him. He spent some time with Dennis Lillee, who as everyone knows is a great bowling coach, and he helped him focus on how to bowl i.e. to worry about his line and length and make sure his fitness was up to scratch. Looks like he has taken his advice and hope that he becomes a top bowler because it is a joke India does not have even one world class seamer in their team. Shambolic considering they liked to think they are 2nd only to the Aussies!
As for Wasim Jaffer he was once tipped for great things and drafted into the national side when they weren't exactly at their best. He was then introduced to a rampant Alan Donald and Shaun Pollock who were just too good for him. He did have some okish knocks but I think test cricket was too much for him then, he has played against England in England as well but didn't do that well. Now recently his domestic form has been very very good and he has ironed out many of his problems so he has been bought in because except for Sehwag the rest of the Indian openers just aren't good enough, so considering his domestic form he deserved his chance and I hope he keeps it going. Opening with Dravid is just stupid because he has been the most consistent no.3 in the world over the last 5 years.
As for Monty, are you sure they cheered when he bowled him or they cheered when Pathan came out? Maybe they were getting bored and were happy he was out
I doubt they were cheering for Monty though, in Mohali maybe I could understand some cheers for him but not in Nagpur.