A TEST IN TWEETS!

This is an attempt to capture the 2nd Test match between India and England at Trent Bridge. It contains all types - fascinating, forthright, funny, harsh, matter of the fact, amusing, meaningless - of tweets I came across during the Test match

Day - 1

Cricketer_Dan Daniel Brigham
So how long til us in the media start putting pressure on Cook to score some runs? I give it one more failure

Sajesh Sajesh
There is a cricket match. My manager is working from home. These two events may or may not be related.

BoredCricket BCC!
by goku_utd
Good to see that Bhajji has picked up where he left at Lord's

cricketwballs cricket with balls
Lalit Modi lives in the MRF blimp. #truefacts

the_topspin Lawrence Booth
Strauss throws it away - again. And England are in a spot of bother at 85-4...

bhogleharsha Harsha Bhogle
with sreesanth and praveen kumar the tradition of swing bowling is alive. it is movement not pace that troubles quality batsman

cricketaakash Aakash Chopra
Playing the swinging ball demands a lot of guesswork...regardless of d number of years you've practiced the craft...you still need to guess!

cricketwballs cricket with balls
Bell might have made more runs than most today, but he'll be blocking his future kids from ever lookin at this this on youtube.

sehwagology Sunny
by goku_utd
yuvi is just taking his afternoon nap. siesta time baby. #engvind

sehwagology Sunny
by goku_utd
somebody tell dhoni, its okay if they go for shots. don't give singles you moron. #engvind

goku_utd Dipankar
Good thing about Broad knock, our batsmen will have no excuses now. #engvind

cricketwballs cricket with balls
Fun fact time: Had Dravid batted first drop, he would have faced a ball quicker that he did opening the batting.

cricketaakash Aakash Chopra
Hint of uneven bounce on day 1 combined with prodigious movement off the surface...only two possible results, provided it doesn't rain!

venkatananth Venkat Ananth
India's brief for tomorrow: bat through the 3 sessions. May not be as easy as it sounds given the conditions etc, but a super opportunity


Day - 2

venkatananth Venkat Ananth
Sreesanth's bowling was so good yesterday that its almost as if the Ian Bell episode didn't happen. Until we're reminded by #Bobilli. Fail.

cricketwballs cricket with balls
BBC saying that Laxman must have a great bat, no, he's just fucking awesome. Laxman could time a drive with a used condom.

ESPNcricinfo ESPN Cricinfo
England 0 for 2 with the reviews. Asad Rauf maybe a candidate for man of the match.

Gulasahi Steve Dawson
Wow. VVS Laxman is a beast. Dude just took an Anderson delivery in the 'nads. Carried on like he'd just played it back down the pitch

the_topspin Lawrence Booth
Bumble making good point re Swann: we were told he was fine, just as we were told by Strauss that Tremlett would be fine for this game...

cricketwballs cricket with balls
Trott is on because Strauss likes watching Dravid late cut.

cricketwballs cricket with balls
Man of the series is now between the English and Indian Physio.

the_topspin Lawrence Booth
Yuvraj does his best to go the way of Raina, but KP spills it. He juggled the Mukund catch too yesterday...

ZaltzCricket Andy Zaltzman
by ESPNcricinfo
Raina and Yuvraj have played the short ball today with all the confidence of a zebra impersonator doing a gig in a lion enclosure.

the_topspin Lawrence Booth
Swann kicks off the bails. Though not quite as elegantly as Michael Holding 30 years ago in New Zealand...

piersmorgan Piers Morgan
Rahul Dravid has become the cricketing version of the Berlin Wall. Need to knock the damn thing down.

venkatananth Venkat Ananth
Plaha being Plaha failed to grease his bat with vaseline.

cricketwballs cricket with balls
Ian Bell is a bit over-qualified to be a nightwatchman.

cricketwballs cricket with balls
This Dravid press conference is turning into an epic. He'll need a change of gloves soon.


Day - 3

sport_oliver Oliver Brett
by TestMatchSofa
Would like to thank the @TestMatchSofa team for making yesterday so enjoyable. Hope I didn't make too much of an arse of myself

venkatananth Venkat Ananth
Yuvraj before Plaha? Ultimate insult.

knittins Nitin Sundar
by venkatananth
Thought this day couldn't get worse? Think again - @LalitKModi has resurfaced with his spam tweets.

venkatananth Venkat Ananth
Dudes, if you'll are waiting for that second new ball, might as well forfeit the Test match.

cricketwballs cricket with balls
Sreesanth bows to the crowd who have been abusing him, better than a send off.

stephenfry Stephen Fry
by Gulasahi
Dhoni transformed from dastardly villain to sporting hero in seconds. Hurrah for him and for test cricket. What human activity comes close?

gauravkapur gaurav kapur
Bell done Dhoni !

cricketwballs cricket with balls
Forget whether that was out or not, you should get wickets for balls like that.

venkatananth Venkat Ananth
Give me Aleem Dar for the next Test please. Aleem Dar and Asad Rauf. I hope we wouldn't be discussing the DRS then. Enough.

Day - 4

venkatananth Venkat Ananth
Dear @bhogleharsha, India are usually a bowler short with Harbhajan on the field and not when he's off it.

warne888 Shane Warne
Ball swinging lots today as it's very humid here at Trent Bridge... Very good bowling day...

the_topspin Lawrence Booth
India look a defeated side this morning: 73 runs in the first 11 overs...

AltCricket Alternative Cricket
by venkatananth
MIchael Holding has a point. You'd be embarrassed if you had to explain to someone that India are the no. 1 side in the world.

Cricketer_Dan Daniel Brigham
With every boundary England score another young Indian cricket fan sees T20 as the better option

andymcg_cricket Andrew McGlashan
by ESPNcricinfo
478 to win for India. If they bat the rest of the match they'll get them #engvind

the_topspin Lawrence Booth
Broad in this series is averaging 60 with the bat and 10 with the ball

ESPNcricinfo ESPN Cricinfo
It is suddenly the 90s all over again. Tendulkar playing some gorgeous shots, but the score is 37/4. #EngvInd

Nadir_Hassan Nadir Hassan
by venkatananth
This England side is scary. Two genuine all-rounders in Bresnan, Broad. Five excellent fast bowlers, best spinner, solid batting.

cricketwballs cricket with balls
Indians won't be leaving yet, Praveen and Bhajji batting together, how much fun will that be.

SpiceBoxofEarth Dileep Premachandran
by venkatananth
English fans should be down on their knees thanking the Lord for what happened to Stanford. Else, they'd be up the same shit creek.

THE 2000th TEST MATCH

Day 1: It is our habit. We won't start a series with a strong first day

By the time umpires called off first day's play, I started to get a feeling that MS Dhoni's decision to bowl first after winning the toss wasn't such an adventurous decision as everyone made us to believe. Rather it was a safe decision. Considering how sloppy and how much devoid of match practice we were in the field, it was a good thing that we were bowling. Bowling badly won't lose u a Test match. We would have been 8 down in those conditions if we were batting and that, almost certainly, would have what MSD thought. It turned out to England's day at the end with the loss of only 2 wickets but there is no reason that India will be unhappy with the situation. The only real concern was Zaheer Khan who went out of the field with what looked like a hamstring injury. It is not a pretty sight to watch your strike bowler pull up on the first day of the first Test match of a series where the No1 slot is at stake. India can still come back into this contest with early wickets tomorrow but their thinking process now will be different with the loss of Zaheer. Thinking positive is what makes a difference in close contests. Tomorrow will show if the No1 Test team has what it takes to fight what seems to be a collective gathering of Murphy's laws.

Day 2 : India are still in WestIndies

Just as in the last time India toured Kevin Pieterson started with a big score. The only difference was that he was in the form of his life them but was batting himself to form today. While KP and England pulped India to desperation, PK swung himself to the Lord's honours board, a proud achievement for someone who is said to be a misfit at Test level. India's bowling effort gave a feeling that they think they are still bowling against the mediocre WestIndies batsmen. England made a bold declaration at the end which will help to make sure that there will be a result in this Test. I can't see India winning this Test from here onwards with 3 days left, but then if winning was the only thing I was worried about, I wouldn't have been watching this game for the last 20 years.

Day 3: if they have KP, we have PK

The story of Rahul Dravid's life. At the end of the day some of my friends r talking about Praveen Kumar's 13 ball 16 as the innings which saved the follow on than the painstakingly compiled technically magnificent 103 from Dravid. England are firmly in driving seat by the end of the day. It would need an extra ordinary batting effort from the Indians to save this match, something which they are familiar with in the last 5 years.

Day 4 and Day 5: Bashed, battered and bruised

Day 4 and 5 of the Test followed the same pattern. Whenever India found either their collective strength or individual brilliance to make a peep hole opening, England, as is their wont, shut the door hard. Again and again. On day 4, Ishant Sharma's inspired spell opened the possibility of an even an Indian win, but Matt Prior and Stuard broad then scored enough runs as if they were playing in their backyard. On the last day, when several partnerships started to offer more resistance, England somehow found the right man for the right occasion to break them. As MSD said at the end of the match, whatever could go wrong, went wrong. India may take solace from the fact that they managed to drag the match to the final session despite the loss of their strike bowler on the first morning but deep inside their mind they know that, had England been more efficient with their catching and some contentious LBW decisions gone their way, the match would have been over by 4th day.

Are you listening Merseyside..?

This is my first post in almost a year. The fact is that I was too tensed to write anything and jinx United’s chanced of winning the 19th title! Yeah, you read it right. There is a connection between a want-to-be-software-engineer (even after 6 years, that is!) in Bangalore and a millions-earning Wayne Rooney scoring goals in Manchester! Call this fan’s fanatical crap, and you can’t be far from truth! I wrote a post at the start of the season and Rooney almost quit Old Trafford!

Now with the title in bag, the Scousers beyond horizon in the points table, Stamford Bridge in absolute chaos, Eastlands learning that it is more difficult to handle success than failure, what better time to start writing again. It is a prelude to tonight’s title party, when the number 19 starts reverberating around the hallowed turf of Old Trafford.

It wasn’t an easy title to win by any means. The start of the season saw Chelsea pulling ahead of the pack, carrying the same form which saw them winning the title in the previous season while United were struggling to put a series of results, throwing leads at Fulham and Everton. As many as 4 teams were fighting for the title, although Manchester City were always going to be outsiders with a defensive manager at the helm. Chelsea were banging goals (and John Terry still banging team mates’ wives) when the biggest news of the season broke out, that Wayne Rooney wants to leave Manchester United because he thought United were lacking ambition to win trophies. Being in software industry, I have seen many tricks to get a pay hike, but this was beyond me too. Lack of ambition in a team which is winning titles for fun with the best manager in the world? You must have had a big hard hangover Wayne! Fans were understandably livid, the manager appeared down-cast and the club image in tatters. Then, even before I could collect all the dirty jokes about Rooney and publish in Facebook, he did a U-turn and signed a 5-year deal. Very good crisis management from Wayne Rooney.

From there onwards, United’s season took off. Slowly but steadily they got their aura back, despite a poor away record. They did just what is needed to win matches. No flamboyance, no bulldozing, just efficient heads-down-and-get-3-points attitude. Meantime Chelsea went into a winter slumber, Rooney’s moment of genius killed City’s fading title hopes and Arsenal’s bubble was always expected to implode when the ‘squeaky bum time’ arrives. There were moments when United looked down and out, at Blackpool and West Ham. But something is their DNA just won’t allow them to accept defeat when that appears the obvious outcome. Berbatov and Rooney got them out of trouble almost always, but they also had a lethal weapon in Hernandez. The little Mexican’s first season in England was nothing short of sensational. He popped up with important goals, whenever called upon. Fergie, the magician, has un-earthed one more gem, out of thin air.

“We will be just fine” was Fergie's response when the team dropped points at Newcasle, which showed his immense faith in the team and he believed that only an almighty muck up will prevent his side lift the trophy for a record 19th time. Chelsea’s late season form meant that it all came down to their showdown at Old Trafford. Fergie’s fledglings chose that game to produce their most assured performance of the season and Chelsea were blown away in the first half itself in magnificent fashion so much so that, even after three days, John Terry was unable to fathom what hit them. Fergie’s salute to the Stretford End at the end of the game showed that the title is coming back home and what it means for the head honcho.

It will be a carnival atmosphere tonight at Old Trafford and I just can’t wait to see Vidic lifting the coveted trophy. “To knock Liverpool of their fucking perch” announced a younger and fierier Ferguson 25 years ago and finally they have been well and truly knocked off. What better song than “Are you listening Merseyside..?” to sing tonight. It is going to be a truly memorable occasion.

Epilogue: Anyone who believes that winning the 19th title will make Sir Alex Ferguson’s to think about retirement is an idiot and doesn’t know how success is viewed at this club. At Manchester United success is a passing moment which is enjoyed for the shortest of time. The moment the trophy is put in the cabinet, the journey of excellence towards the next destination begins. There is a beautiful story in the book ‘Manchester United: The Biography’ by Jim White. The next morning after United won the Champions League, defeating Chelsea, in 2008 , Danny Welback, a 17 year member of United youth team slept through the alarm and missed the team bus, exhausted by the morning exertions. He had to scramble his way into a cab to meet up with the rest of the team at the airport. Just as they touched down in England, Welback was summoned to Sir Alex Ferguson’s office in Carrington to explain. At Manchester United, it never stops. Ever.