India vs Pakistan:Third one dayer at Jamshedpur

[the blue red devil]

Really a do or die situation for Pakistan.If they lose this match they will not be able to win the series and might not as well be able to draw it.The first thing Inzamam has to do is to win the toss and bat first and for a good total by his batsmen.Younis Khan's recovery must be a boost for the rest of the Pakistani players and we can expect them to be really fired up.As for India home ground for Dhoni and we'll see if he can produce the same magic.India do have the upper hand but we can expect Pakistan to make a come back in the series any time because the really are "unpredictables".

[Zainub]

I hope we win the toss.

[King Aragorn]

Mohammad Sami, Arshad Khan and Mohammad Hafeez have made way for Rao Iftikhar, Danish Kaneria and our VC, Younis Khan. Cricinfo report for these changes can be found here and the match preview here.

We will surely be in for another run galore as the average run rate at the ground in around 5.5. Hopefully we will be able to win the toss and post a big enough total on the board. Younis Khan will undoubtedly further strengthen our batting lineup.

Two things concern me for tomorrow's match:

1) Malik's slump: Shoaib Malik has not played a solid knock for quite some time now. He had been our most consistent batsman in 2004 but he seems to be out of form here. The team management has persisted with him and I do hope that he'll succeed this time round.

2) No sixth bowler: We will be going in with only 5 bowlers tomorrow, i.e. if Woolmer has not convinced Younis Khan or Salman Butt to bowl. This move could well backfire. What if one bowler has an off day? What if Kaneria goes for too many runs in his quest for wickets (He is after all a strike bowler)? That worries me. Younis Khan bowled a few overs in Mohali and I don't see why he can't bowl in ODIs just as a part timer. That could be well worth a try.

Good luck to Pakistan. Hopefully we will once again mount a strong comeback and start another winning spree against India in ODIs.

[workkey]

i still feel arshad should have played because he was not too bad with the ball in the last 2 matches getting 6 wickets.
Rao is a good change and if we can remember he bowled very well in australia and wellcome to younis also.

[King Aragorn]

Pakistan set India a total of 320 thanks to some very solid batting by the young Salman Butt and a resurgent Shoaib Malik. Salman Butt had been getting good starts since the very first ODI but today, he did very well to build on his start and get a sizeable score. He was eventually run out, courtesy Youhana, for 101. Shoaib Malik too had been in bad form recently which worried me but he showed everyone why he was our most consistent batsmen in 2004, scoring a near run a ball 75.

It was a Youhana blitz in the end (43 of 31) which propelled Pakistan to 319/9. On a belter of a wicket, this should have been a chaseable target, keeping in mind the strong Indian batting lineup.

Sehwag has been thrashing our bowlers since the very first day, in both tests and ODIs. When he gets going, it's very hard indeed to stop him. Sehwag and Dhoni were two players who could have easily taken the game away from Pakistan. But Rana Naved grabbed Sehwag's all important wicket in the very second over which earned him a crushing hug from a jubilant Inzamam.

Tendulkar too followed and so did his captain. Both these men have been out of form in the ODIs. Ganguly showed no signs of improvement once again. He batted just as woefully in the first two ODIs. He escaped the criticism as he had led his team to two consecutive wins. I'm quite sure though that the criticism will be even greater now. Ganguly has just made 13 runs in the last three matches...

Dravid and Dhoni batted well for some time and the balance seemed to be shifting slightly towards India's way. Dhoni was, naturally, cheered throughout by his home crowd and he did entertain them by playing some delightful strokes on his way to 28. The show was ended when a rampaging Rana Naved bowled a short delivery on middle and leg and Dhoni skied it into Akmal's gloves. A beautiful short delivery by Sami surprised Dravid, who has been in very good touch, and resulted in an edge which was well caught by Younis Khan. It was all over for India now.

Kaif, Pathan and Zaheer Khan did mount a little fight although a victory was never in sight. Afridi, Kaneria and Malik were at the receiving end.

And it was again Rana Naved who finished off India's resistance with the wickets of Pathan and Nehra, finishing with 6 wickets at an Economy rate of 3.2. He bowled his heart out today. One must really appreciate his hard work and his never say die attitude.

It's game on now. Pakistan will take heart from this victory and will surely push forward to level it in the next match. India, in the meanwhile, will have to do some serious thinking. It seems that they are too reliant on Sehwag and Dravid to score. SRT, Ganguly and Yuvraj all seem rather off colour. We'll surely see a tight contest between the two sides in Ahmedabad. I greatly hope that things will go perfectly well from a security point of view in Ahmedabad.

[Orchid]

It was a wonderful win indeed. Some of the positives for me were:
- Most of the top order contributed. It looked very much like a collective effort rather than just one person firing.
- Salman sacrificing his wicket for Youhana. This really helped our cause has Youhana was more effective than Salman could probably have been. I would have liked Razzak to have done that for Inzi in the last ODI, but well, its history now.
- Younis Khan taking the catches that were being offered.
- No Mohd Hafeez.

However, I'm not convinced about Afridi at the top, as soon as Razzak failed, there was a lull in scoring rate. We could have really used Afridi then.

[Occasional Fan]

Once again for a slow over rate - over-running by 30 minutes in bowling 50 overs in the recent ODI. No official announcement yet from the ICC, but team officials are indicating that Ganguly has been fined 100% of his match fee. Ganguly is a repeat offender in this matter: remember he was banned for two matches a few months ago, a ban which was lifted on appeal. No ban this time, but apparently a heavy penalty. Quite right too, in my opinion.

BBC report here.

[Saad]

I can't see either side winning this series, it's probably going to end 3-3, which I personally think in a way would be a fair result considering all the gung-ho there is about it in either countries.