INDOOR CRICKET WORLD

It's hard to make a case for India pressing Australia, and India will surely be looking no further than relishing this, their first taste of top class international competition.

Result (Teams mentioned in the order they batted):

Team	Skin 1	Skin 2	Skin 3	Skin 4	Total
India	- 7	- 18	17	0	- 8
Australia	51	34	50	33	168

Umpire: Tom Windscheffel (England)

As expected, India were no match for the Australians. Although there is obviously a good deal of batting talent amongst the Indians, they were too often unsure about their calling and running. Against a top team, such hesitation when batting is always going to be costly, and it was today.
The Indians were runout a total of 13 times, whereas the Australians only suffered 2 (in the 15th and 16th overs).
Add to that the 7 catches India gave up (compared to 2 from the Australians) and India were in deep trouble.
Perhaps surprisingly, the most expensive over from an Australian came from Corey Otto. It was very quick, but wayward (1 no ball, a searing bouncer, and 2 leg-side wides certainly helped the India batsmen), and cost eleven runs. The best over from an Australian came from Raverty, with -18 (Runout, - , runout, - , caught, stumped, - , 2). For India, the most expensive over came from Ajitabh Kumar Rajan (17 runs), and the best from both Sanjay Kumar (5 runs) and Veeral Patel (5 runs).

It is of special local interest that, with some Indian Men players still making their way to New Zealand, India have enlisted the help of two young local players, Sunnie Chan and Veeral Patel. Both young men played extremely well, teaming up for a team-high partnership of 17 runs.

The Australian batting was of a very high standard. The opening pair of Johnson and Raverty didn't lose a wicket, and put on a game destroying 51 (17 runs off their last over). The 3rd pair, representing both the old and new guard in Mills and Hollins respectively, also didn't lose a wicket and added 50 runs.

Another statistic indicative of the difference between the two sides was the 49 balls India faced without scoring, compared to the 23 for Australia.

Perhaps our main observation on India is that they display a lot of outdoor cricket technique--their batting is generally very good, but their choices of whether to run or not leads to too many runouts. They are very agile and skilled in the field, but often seem to resort to a style more suited to outdoor--most noticeable in taking just that little bit too long between grabbing the ball and releasing it. We're certain that improvement in these two aspects of their game will come, and the team's performance over this week of top competition should only improve as they adjust to the very high standard on display.

INDOOR CRICKET WORLD

Indoor Cricket

World Cup 2002

Indoor Cricket

World Cup 2002