Nemanja wrote:146 off 102 for Sehwag in an epic ODI. Another completely anti-competitive pitch. Not sure what the BCCI's problem is.

Nemanja wrote:146 off 102 for Sehwag in an epic ODI. Another completely anti-competitive pitch. Not sure what the BCCI's problem is.

That may be true but cricket is a spectator sport and spectators want to see loads of runs with boundaries and 6's galore...don't they??

No....most cricket fans would like to see a fair contest between bat and ball.....If you want to simply see the ball being hit into the crowd, then watch baseball.

The Indians are killing the game with their whole obsession of simply wanting the 'disposable' cricket of which we saw today, and which is seen in the farcical 20/20 version of the game.

I would rather see a fair contest between 2 good teams that provide entertainment for your money. Whilst a tight, tense 250ish all out for both sides can be interesting sometimes, I would rather see batsmen akin to Sehwag and Dilshan performing as they did, then a hard earned, dogged 75 run Atherton esque style knock! That is what test cricket is for, this is a ODI and it is supposed to be entertaining. The pitch is the same for both teams and both sets of bowlers took a hammering. A bowlers nightmare yes, a spectators dream if you ask me

What I don't agree with is when the toss largely dictates the result ie, day/night games. When it is clearly not the same conditions for both teams.

You are Lalit Modi and I claim my five pounds.
Seems to be the philosophy is that runs = entertainment, but that simply isn't true.

PAUL M wrote:Take a bow. 2nd fastest double century ever, 200 off 168 balls wow!! Take a bow indeed. This piece highlights his achievements to date.... http://www.cricinfo.com/decadereview200 ... 40712.html

PAUL M wrote:Take a bow. 2nd fastest double century ever, 200 off 168 balls wow!! Take a bow indeed. This piece highlights his achievements to date.... http://www.cricinfo.com/decadereview200 ... 40712.html

Spot on, lucky enough to see him a few times as you say a true great.

To call Sehwag a flat track bully is a bit unfair, even in todays era of relatively flat pitches. If Viv Richards had been around today people would have called him a flat track bully because he would have smashed Bangladesh for about 500 in a day.

Sehwag averages just short of 60 in Australia including 2 centuries and 3 fifties there, this is in an era where the Aussie bowling attack had Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and support bowlers like Lee, Gillespie etc in it, so he's not only a demolisher of crap attacks on flat wickets. Matthew Hayden gets the same accusation.

Yes Sehwag and Hayden are not quite in the league of Lara, Richards, Tendulkar etc, but they are certainly greats.

India has produced a crop of batsmen in the modern era who I think will be remembered like the West Indian fast bowling dynasty of the 70s and 80s, one after another great comes along, Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Sehwag. The underrated one who was dropped too early was Vinod Kambli who I thought looked great in the early 90s but they just seemed to fall out with him.

My personal favourite though, Lancashire bias aside, is VVS Laxman, best player of spin bowlers ever, Warne, Murali, Saqlain in his day, none of them have ever given Laxman problems, he's probably the only batsman around that can be said about.