India Vs Pakistan - Club mates turn foes in Tri Nation Series
June 9th, 2008In sports like soccer and basketball club format has been in for a long time. Team mates in the English Premier League sides or NBA squads are pitted against each other when playing for their countries but it’s a first timer for cricket.
Some players playing on opposite sides will know each others’ weaknesses and strengths. Whether this will have as huge an impact as has been speculated remains to be seen. These are all world class performers and such things can only raise the level of the game.
Let’s look at some of such interesting combinations in the second one day international of the tri nation’s series in Bangladesh between India and Pakistan.
Virender Sehwag v Shoaib Malik
Interestingly both of them are right handed batters and right arm off break bowlers. While Sehwag is a more attacking batsman, Shoaib is a more secure and compact type of batsman and a more regular bowler. He started his career as more of a bowling all rounder but has developed into a batting all rounder. Even after knowing everything about Sehwag there is not much that oppositions can plan because on his day he would thrash the best of bowlers and go down to some sheepishly tame dismissals on others.
Sehwag is likely to open the batting and having seen him all this while he has only a chance of one in ten of being still on crease when Malik comes to roll his arm over. We may still get to see some action between the two if Sehwag bowls to Malik or if this that one of the ten days for Sehwag.
Yusuf Pathan v Sohail Tanvir
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This would be an interesting battle. Yusuf Pathan is an attacking batsman with not the best techniques on show. Tanvir could apply himself or share with his mates some strategy to knock or contain Pathan.
On the other hand Tanvir has an unconventional bowling action and Yusuf could share a trick or two with his mates on how to pick his bowling, specially the well disguised slow yorkers.
Rohit Sharma v Shahid Afridi
Shahid is in excellent bowling form and Rohit is an excellent player of spin. He would have faced Afridi many a times in the nets during their stint at Hyderabad for Deccan Chargers. Shahid would definitely know a ball or two that Rohit doesn’t like as much as others. Afridi has shown that he gets out within ten balls if bowlers bowl on a good line and length but Rohit must have noticed couple of very weak points in his game.
Praveen Kumar v Misbah-ul-Haq
Praveen Kumar has bowled very intelligently in the last six months. He bowled an excellent last over in an IPL match for Bangalore against Chennai where he gave just one run with Suresh Raina on strike leading his side to a 13 run win. Misbah didn’t have the best of time at IPL failing to contribute substantially. Praveen must surely have grabbed a thing or two about his batting and batting technique.
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Tags: bangladesh, cricket, india, IPL, Pakistan, Tri NationPosted in Cricket News, IPL News |