Rahul's 100 !!!

When India takes on England on Saturday at Wankhede stadium the man of the momemtum is the Indian skipper, getting past the 90’s into the 100th Test match. As per his statement “It’s Just an another test match” but when you look into the history of Indian cricket he is only sixth player to do so, only legends as done before (Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, Kapildev, Tendulkar, Kumble). For a person who started his carrer at Lords’s and scoring typical 95 runs at position 7, from then on he went on to represent India to a record breaking  94 test appearances tells his physical and mental fitness and his consitencey in scoring runs. From the day making his debut he was always on the sublime because of some blazing cricket from Ganguly and Tendulkar he was always in the shade of this two, even though he score more as well as consistently than them, his orthodox style of batting kept him away from the lime light, But when he was dropped from one day team in 1998 after making his maiden ODI hundread at Madras, he came back strongly in 1999 on Newzeland tour from then onwards there was no looking back. After 2001 superb 180 plus score at   Eden garden which is again overshawdowed by Classy Laxman’s 281.he put heavy price on his wicket and now he is the Most Priced wicket at Indian Camp than any other.

The Following Stat shows how he bricked the nick Name “THE WALL” during is walk over to 100 tests

Debut v England, Lord's, 1996
An injury to Sanjay Manjrekar gives Dravid his India cap five years after his first-class debut. He and Sourav Ganguly then light up the arena with a 94-run partnership. Ganguly scores a memorable hundred, but Dravid misses out by 5 runs, walking on a thin edge. "I was a bit disappointed, sure, but not all that much. In the sense, I was happy I scored 95 runs, I looked at it as a cup half full, instead of half empty," Dravid says later.

Maiden hundred v South Africa, Wanderers, 1996
India enter the bullring for the third Test against South Africa after being walloped in the first two. Dravid, batting at No.3, settles down after a nervous start and cuts, pulls, and drives his way to a master class. His 148, with 21 fours, helps India post a healthy 410, and in the second innings he hits 81, with 11 fours, as India make a sporting declaration. Despite a valiant effort from Srinath, bad light allows South Africa, eight wickets down, to escape with a draw. But Dravid, adjudged the Man of the Match, had restored India's pride


Third Indian to score century in each innings v New Zealand, Hamilton, 1999
with another marathon effort - 490 minutes, 354 balls, and 31 fours - Dravid comes to India's rescue. From a shaky 17 for 2, Dravid, with Sachin Tendulkar, lifts India to 126 and after Tendulkar's dismissal he adds another 205 runs with the tailenders pulling India out of the hole. In the second essay, set an improbable 415, India stumble to 55 for 2 but Dravid stars again, with a 136-ball 103 and in the company of Ganguly helps India draw the game. Dravid becomes the third Indian after Vijay Hazare and Sunil Gavaskar to achieve the feat.

Down Under 2004
The Dravid and Laxman show hits the road again in the second Test against Australia. After Australia amass 556, the duo come together just after tea on the second day and are not separated till the last over before tea on the third, by which time they add 303 for the fifth wicket, and power India to 523. After Ajit Agarkar comes up with his best performance to lay the foundation for a win, Dravid again stars in the second essay, remaining unbeaten on 72, taking India to a famous win. He also hits 90 plus scores in the remaining two Tests to top the Indian averages - 619 runs at a staggering 123.80.

Pakistan run into the wall,  2004, 2005 & 2006
After two quiet Tests he explodes in the third Test as he said in the Pre match interview, with his highest score yet - a magnificent 270, paving the way for a Memorable and Historic series win against Pakistan. .
He lights up Eden Gardens again, with centuries in both innings (110 and 135) to charge India to a 195-run victory over Pakistan. A 122-run partnership with Tendulkar in the first innings and a stirring 165-run stand with Dinesh Karthik (93) in the second sets up an Indian win. In the second innings, Sehwag, Tendulkar and Ganguly fall early while Laxman retires hurt with a swollen left eyebrow, courtesy a snorter from Mohammad Sami, to leave India shaking at 156 for 4 before Dravid unleashes his special. He guides his young partner and they set up the game for Kumble, who sends Pakistan hurtling to a big defeat.
After become captain of the side and adjusting his batting position for his former captain and debut partner Ganguly he Hits a hundred in a run-fest at Lahore which threatned the 50 year old First wicket record partnership with Shewag, He follows up with another century in the next Test.



This is a test match to remember when we he walked into the match today, After all he is the highest test averaged indian with 58.16 and aggregated 8492 runs with 22 hundreads and 41 fifties. As Gavaskar said on the function that facilitating him on achieving the milestone he is the India’s MVP in last 5 years as he recived all the Cricketing awards in the Period.

Congratulations Dravid !!...

Congratulations Anil

Congratulations Anil

Anil Kumble has been India’s man for a while now, and he again responded the team's call on the second day at Mohali, cutting of England's tail to restrict them to total 300. As usual, Kumble's length was impeccable especially the one with dead straight main weapon in his armory to get 500 Priceless wickets- he hardly moved away from the good-length area, and importantly, he gave the batsmen no respite by dragging it short.

After becoming second Indian bowler next to the Legend Kapil Dev to play more than 100 Test three months ago, yesterday he becomes the first man in the country to claim 500 Test wickets. Batsman stellar performances which always drew attention of people in our country where we failed to recognize the stunning performance made by this man. We normally use to make unfavourable comparisons with other leading bowlers and also questioning his ability to spin, we know he is not a big turner of ball like Warne or Murali but his Flippers, Top spinners, Googly and his Dead Straight one never failed to create fear on opposition batsmen minds .The truth is he is the second quickest person (501 in 105 test matches) to achieve the feat next to the Srilankan spinning wizard Muralitharan. This could have been happened in Pakistan itself if they hadn’t prepared those killing Flat pitches for the first two tests.

Here is the Comparison with other Bowlers who achieve the same feat

Bowler           Matches      Overs      Wickets      Avg      SR
Muttiah Muralitharan     87     4970     505     22.89     59.0
Anil Kumble          105*     5493.1     501     28.87     65.7
Glenn McGrath          110     4286.4     509     21.01     50.6
Shane Warne          108     5037.1     501     25.51     60.3
Courtney Walsh          129     4835.1     504     24.56     57.5

Congratulations!!! Anil…

-- Raja Shanmugam

David Vs Goliath as Geoffrey Says

As the Nagpur test ends in draw what credit that both England and Team India would like take to the next in Mohali. As every body know Mohlai pitch is the best pitch in India for the Fast bowlers which offers more than any other pitches India (Except the Green top Pitch wich given to Austratlia on 2004) . What issue will both teams like to look into. When Geoffrey said on day one that this match was David (Eng batsmans) vs Goliath (Indian Spinners) and also suggests that fairytale might have a reverse climax that Goliath may end winning up the battle.But all Fairytales are having the same this time even the though the Honors are even by ending the test match draw we saw David holds the upper hand in the match except the First day.Indian Spinners failed to deliver in the first innings when England's top order was put on backfoot by pacers but some wayward bowling on the second day with lack of the fifth bowler and some spirited batting my Collingwood and Harminson saw England bailed out from the fire and gave england bowlers some thing to defend.

When your are having three persons making debut and makeup skipper before fewdays who donned the role for few times in the county and facing the BIG Indian team on their turf is always challenge but England team did their best to keep the spinners at bay also make Indian batsmans play below the par with their debutant spinners.Surely their stars were COOK who made an impressive debut inspite of added into the team lately and Kevin Pietersen makes a superb 83 in the second innigs which really changed the Englands ways in the second innings .England debutant spinner has also has reason to cheer with the wickets he picked up Sachin, Kaif, and Dravid.England bowlers also has Hoggard who always never failed to deliver when others in the list not up to the best.Even India performed below the expectation they do have some thing to cheer Kaif's 90 when most of the best batsmen are back in the hut and facing some good spell of swing bowling kaif has met his expectations along with kumble he produced one of the best late order innings after Azhar's sizzling at Kolkatta some years back against SouthAfrica with same willy legspinner. Apart from that Sreesanth made an impressive debut in the First innings and Jaffer made good comeback with Rahul live upto his tag "THE Wall" India also has some thing to Cheer.

But at the end of first test match David (England ) has holding slighter adavantage than Indians. and as we know Mohali assist for fastbowlers Indian batting needs to dig some thing from their bags to have the series and move up to second in the Test Ratings...

-- Raja Shanmugam

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