England’s Ashes Pacemen Struggling for Form

England’s chances of winning the second Ashes Test in Adelaide this coming week look increasingly slim after their fast bowlers toiled to a forgettable draw against a Cricket Australia XI in Alice Springs. Following a quite humiliating 381-run defeat in the first Test in Brisbane, there was hope among cricket betting fans that England would regain some sort of credibility in their between-Tests fixture.

India vs England - The Dhoni Backfire

The dinner menu for MS Dhoni this week will be a nice large slice of humble pie.

India were back on track in 'The Revenge Series', having been drubbed in England and Australia in last year they got their home formula nicely sorted:

• Prepare a pitch with less life than Valle de Luna
• The batsmen smash a total of 500+
• The spinners do the rest

I am Dhoni, hear me roar. © AFP

And there you have it, twirl the ball in the same place all day long and wait for mistakes, it worked gloriously all throughout the nineties and even Australia couldn't do anything about it. The Ganguly era was a rare time when India learned to compete overseas, but last years 8-0 saw a revert back to old school tactics to at least make sure that they could wallop teams in their playground and feel a bit better about life.

Only it wasn't enough, not for a 'frustrated' MS Dhoni. 

He wanted more. The test match dragged on until the fifth day thanks to Alistair Cook, who is the real deal. The spinners had to bowl mammoth spells, and unlike the lion hearted Kumble who used to do it without fuss, our captain was

Monty Got A Raw Deal

It's amazing how a players stock can rise when they're not even involved in a game of cricket. It's like the value of gold rising when equity markets are in crisis.

The trouble with using Monty Panesar as the golden boy in our investment analogy here is that he's far from being the perfectly safe investment England should revert to when their normal game plan defaults.

With England toiling as India reached 521 for 8 on Friday, long before their catastrophic capitulation with the bat to 41/3 at stumps on day two, the age old debate of England sub-continent tours of old has already re-surfaced: where is Monty? 

A run a ball 117 from Virendra Sehwag as well as a spritely 74 from Yuvraj, returning to test cricket after his battle with cancer, helped India into a position of power during their first innings. But it was the stand out performance of India’s new number three, Che Pujara, whose 206 was full of classical shots his predecessor Rahul Dravid would have been proud of, that really drove home India’s advantage.

A lot of the talk in England before this series focussed on the retirements of Dravid and the sublime VVS Laxman, not to mention the fading force of Sachin Tendulkar. But with Pujara delivering in Ahmedabad and the emergence of Virat Kohli as a genuine test cricketer over the past 12 months, India are re-generating their batting line-up. And mighty impressive it looks too.

England’s decision to maintain a three man seam attack resulted in Monty missing out in the first Test, with Samit Patel’s ability to bat well against spin giving him the nod over Jonny Bairstow.