Strauss edged it twice but Indians didn't appeal!

The Indian team seems to have a 'hearing problem' in addition to its bowling and fielding woes which led to its failure to defend a strong score of 338 in the World Cup match against England here last night.

Much has has been spoken and written about how poor bowling and fielding in addition to a late batting collapse that resulted in the fall of India's last seven wickets for 33 runs and nearly enabled England to win. But two huge blunders committed by skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his bowling spearhead Zaheer Khan appear to have gone unnoticed in the debate and discussion over the tied match.

England skipper Andrew Strauss, who was the architect of India's agony by hitting his highest ODI score of 158, should have been out when he has scored a mere 13 if wicket- keeper Dhoni, Zaheer or close-in fielders had appealed for a caught behind at that point. Strauss clearly nicked a Zaheer delivery but there was no appeal by the Indians. Ninety-eight runs later, the England skipper had another stroke of luck when he again edged Zaheer to Dhoni with his score at 111 but none of the Indians on the field appealed. Some of the television commentators, who heard the replays of the clear nicks, thought that the Indian players probably did not hear the edges because of the crowd noise, an unconvincing argument given the fact that Indian cricketers are used to noisy, boisterous crowds everytime they set foot on the field. No cricket ground in the world has as vocal spectators as Kolkata's Eden Gardens where over one lakh fans turn out for big matches.