Story The Dominators - Global Challenge

[MWaugh]

Good day for AUS, but considering their strength i would have loved to see them score 300 on the first day.

Congrats Ponting.

to be honest so would i. i didnt go out trying to go smashing and pakistan bowled really well. very tight. but ponting and clarke batted very well. only one chance, akmal let a stumping opportunity of afridi go for byes, spun a long way.

 

[MWaugh]

with the captain dismissed with the score at 313 pakistan may have sniffed a chance to get on top of new batsmen katich and gilchrist. tight bowling from sami and razzaq, along with kaneria, allowed katich to be pinned down, however gilchrist, as is so often the case, came out swinging and middled the ball with extreme power on his way to a run a ball 41 before being caught in the deep of the bowling of sami.

with the gilchrist dismissed the australian tail crumbled, loosing the last 4 wickets for 25 runs. australia finished their innings on 411. an imposing target for a pakistan batting lineup that has struggled in the past against australia. as i said before i will unfortunatly have to auto play the bowling because of the fact that the last few times ive bowled with the patch they have been bowled out for under 60. we will have to see if pakistan can make australia bat again.

images below:
pontings wagon wheel
gilchrist hits out
clarke wagon wheel

 

[MWaugh]

scorecards from australias first innings

by the way guys let me know your thoughts on this. this is the first time ive tried anything like this so i dont know if its any good or not. if its not... my bad

 

[MWaugh]

post innings analysis featuring captains ricky ponting and inzimam ul haq. interview from tony greig and special commentator waqar younis.

tg - thanks and welcome to the post innings analysis, i have both captains here with me and also pakistan fast bowling great waqar younis. how are you waqar

wy - very good thanks tony.

tg - we will start with ricky ponting now, ricky you must be very happy with your own performance today, how about the teams play?

rp - oh definatly tony. i was very pleased with my own peformance. it was great to get the 100 under the belt and get some confidence to build on. as for the team, i thought we did relatively well. the innings was dominated by only 2 batsmen. some bigger contributions from the rest of the batsmen would have been nice, however having said that we did score 400. a total that should put alot of pressure on pakistan

tg - speaking of only 2 batsmen, michael clarke, what about his kid ricky hes just coming along so well

rp - thats it tony hes just so mature for his age. the way he goes about his cricket. the youth out there makes batting so much more enjoyable. such a hard worker and he was really forced to earn his runs out there today.

tg - what did you make of the pakistan bowlers out there? for me they did a very good job

rp - very much so. i thought shahid bowled very very well. we had planned to face danish kaneria more but shahid with his quicker leg spin suited a pitch that turned and bounced quiet well. the quicks did a good job but for me sami and afridi were the class bowlers.

tg - thank you very much ricky now over to you waqar

wq - thank you tony, yes i have inzimam ul-haq down here with me now, inzi what do you make of your performance today?

inzi - hello waqar, i have to say coming off the field we are all reasonably happy with the way we bowled. we restricted the batsmen well, had to maybe take a stranglehold when australia were 3 down but it wasnt to be. the young players played well, shahid for me was great.

wq - now its your turn to bat

inzi - yes thats true, its our turn to get our heads down and work hard. we said all along that the big test was taking on the bowlers in their own backyard. it will be very difficult be we will have to wait and see.

tg - well best of luck to both of you. back to the studio

below: ricky ponting gleaming with delight after his superb 144 and inzimam ul haq, satisfied with a tight bowling performance from his young guns

 

[The Champ]

There u see Inzy with a worried look on his face and a happy Ponting, this shows it all

 

[m_vaughan]

Welcome to the Stories section mate.

I must say I am really impressed by your story. Keep up the good work.
You could however post larger screens (especially of the stats like scorecard, worm, etc.) as the readers will otherwise have to really strain their eyes.

As far as the match is concerned. Thats a good performance from Australia, with the captain leading from the front. Michael Clarke proving his mettle again with a fine hundred. Useful contributions at the end from Katich and Gilly.

 

[MWaugh]

Welcome to the Stories section mate.

I must say I am really impressed by your story. Keep up the good work.
You could however post larger screens (especially of the stats like scorecard, worm, etc.) as the readers will otherwise have to really strain their eyes.

As far as the match is concerned. Thats a good performance from Australia, with the captain leading from the front. Michael Clarke proving his mettle again with a fine hundred. Useful contributions at the end from Katich and Gilly.

yeh sorry about the pictures. im still trying to find my feet with that. which size do you generally post them at? what i have been doing is taking my screen shots and reducing them to 40% of their size and then saving them in jpg format. but yer the scorecards will be bigger. i might up date them this afternoon actually. thanks for the reply

 

[SaiSrini]

yeh sorry about the pictures. im still trying to find my feet with that. which size do you generally post them at? what i have been doing is taking my screen shots and reducing them to 40% of their size and then saving them in jpg format. but yer the scorecards will be bigger. i might up date them this afternoon actually. thanks for the reply

You can do one thing. Create an account (free) with Imageshack.us and upload your pics there. This way, they give you thumbnail codes so that it doesnt take up huge size in the messages and people can click on the thumbnail to see the larger version. I would recommend the screen shots to be at least 600x450 in size! This would allow viewers to see it comfortably!

 

[The Champ]

Waugh the links for imageshack is in my signature friend

bye
cheers

 

[MWaugh]

with the australian innings over, it was now time for the australian bowlers to ply their trade infront of a packed mcg crowed. australia had indicated two players they would target in this game to ensure they could get on top of a pakistan top order somewhat lacking the conviction and confidence at this early stage of this season. it appeared inzimam ul haq (due to his leadership) and shahid afridi (the explosive and upredictable flair and power) had been named to be targeted by aussie quicks mcgrath, gillespie and lee.

pakistans 1st innings in this international season started with dissapointment as salman butt was bowled by jason gillespie for 5. this brought about a strong younis khan and shahid afridi partnership in which khan scored a gritty 42 (c&b lee) and afridi equal top scored with 46 (c warne bowled mcgrath). the captain inzimam also made a strong contribution with a 46 of his own before he was trapped in front by warne.

with the loss of afridi and kahn, inzimam was unfrotunatly left without any real support. youhana and shoab malik both fell for single figures while kamran akmal and abdul razzaq could only manage sub 20 scores. in the end an intially promising start by pakistan ended with pakistan being dismissed for 198. warne gillespie and mcgrath all chiming in with 3 wickets.

given the option of enforcing the follow on ricky ponting took full advantage of a confident and aggressive mood between his bowlers and sent pakistan back to the crease. again salman butt struggled against the pace combination of mcgrath, caught behind for 7. afridi (17) and younis khan (15) also felt the effects of a focused mcgrath.

again it was inzimam who provided stability to the pakistan batting order making a well compiled 44 before being again picked up by warne. unfortunatly for pakistan the only other significant contribution was a solid 24 to shoab malik. in the end pakistan were rolled for 171, mcgrath taking 5/64 to leave the tourists still 42 runs from making australia bat again.

scorecards from pakistans 1st innings

 

[MWaugh]

scorecard from the pakistan 2nd innings

 

[MWaugh]

post match interviews and presentation with tony greig:

greig - well i am down here on the ground after another resounding victory by the australians. so if i could get ricky ponting to come to the stage. ricky, you must be delited after that performance

ponting - yes tony, couldnt have asked for a better display from the bowlers. we always new that 400 would be a tough total to chase on this pitch with our lineup.

greig - what did you think of the pakistan batting here today ricky

ponting - i thought the top order really batted well. in the first innings shahid, younis khan and inzimam batted really well. its just a little unfortunate that the lower order couldnt keep up the pressure they had on our bowlers.

greig - and the second innings?

ponting - we always thought that this pitch would be more difficult to bat on later on in the match. that was shown today. a little bit of inconsistent movement off the wicket saw pigeon bowl really well and take 5 for. couldnt have asked for anything more. an innings win, im just delighted.

greig - while your here ricky congratulations on your man of the match peformance

ricky - thanks very much tony, thank you to cricket australia, this was one of my more satisfying knocks, taking us out of a bit of trouble, full credit to my team though and especially clarkey, great knock mate

greig - thank you ricky, now inzimam, your thoughts on the game

inzimam - yes tony to be honest right now i am not overly happy. we had a great chance to match it with australia in the first innings with three of us getting good starts. we needed a couple to go on and make a big 100. but we will keep improving, i think this team will get better with each game it looks promising for the future.

greig - well there you had it folks, great game by australia but pakistan can take a bit away from this game

 

[MWaugh]

World Record Wicket Chase

Through this international season there will also be the chase for both the bowling record for most wickets by both muralitharan and warne.
the statistics at the beginning of this season were (correct at 18/3/2005)
S. Warne 576 wickets
M. Muralitharan 532 wickets
G. McGrath 492 wickets

while this is alot of wickets with muralitharan coming back from injury, the fact that warne plays little cricket on the turning wickets should help muralitharan in the race for the world record and 600 wickets.

updated record chase
S. Warne 576 + 4 wickets v pakistan = 580 wickets
M. Muralitharan 532 wickets
G. McGrath 492 + 8 wickets v pakistan = 500 wickets

Note - Glenn McGrath celebrated his 500th test dismissal when he captured Danish Kaneria c D.Martyn b G. McGrath 4 --- now chasing muralitheran

 

[MWaugh]

let me know what you think guys. any comments would be appreciated.

 

[The Champ]

I think Murali too can win the race ahead of Mcgrath, but beating warne is not easy.