India Team Discussion

Researching some Indian bowlers, as you guys know I’ve rarely followed cricket for the last 4 yrs or so.

Exactly why these idiots havent picked the youngster Umran Malik? His action almost a carbon copy of Waqar Younis and on bouncy Aussies pitches he gonna be a handful! The guy from what I gathered consistently 155kph!
 
Shami
I agree he ought to have been given a look in post his hugely successful IPL. The CWC 2015- A factor that should have been considered but was conveniently ignored. Shami has shown that he carries the arsenal on such pitches. I have massive doubts over Bhuvi's capabilities and fear this could (I want to use should) be his swansong. Arshdeep and Harshal- certainly don't have much confidence in these guys.

Imran Malik
To those who want him in the side, please explain WHY? Risking a newbie in a World Cup isn't something that we as a team should be doing right now. Let him play a few games and then see where he's headed to. India, has, in the past taken gambles on Barinder Sran and Manpreet Gony. These have failed massively. On the basis of a singular IPL alone, I wouldn't risk selecting Malik
 
Shami
I agree he ought to have been given a look in post his hugely successful IPL. The CWC 2015- A factor that should have been considered but was conveniently ignored. Shami has shown that he carries the arsenal on such pitches. I have massive doubts over Bhuvi's capabilities and fear this could (I want to use should) be his swansong. Arshdeep and Harshal- certainly don't have much confidence in these guys.

Imran Malik
To those who want him in the side, please explain WHY? Risking a newbie in a World Cup isn't something that we as a team should be doing right now. Let him play a few games and then see where he's headed to. India, has, in the past taken gambles on Barinder Sran and Manpreet Gony. These have failed massively. On the basis of a singular IPL alone, I wouldn't risk selecting Malik

Other than the troll above I doubt anyone else wants Umran Malik in the side seriously. He can’t bowl in the powerplay, he’s easily going to be tonked at the death and is just a limited bowler at the moment (like half of our bowling attack) with boundless potential.
 
I wanted to talk about the rotational policy regarding Indian team before the ICC events about how much matches the players played a year before the main event took place.

I see people are disappointed with few players missing out many games off late so I have found out the number of matches that these players played in India's previous 2 successful campaigns (2011 WC & 2013 CT) and have tried to compare it with the current squad.

So here we talk about 2011 WC

India played about 32 ODIs from 1 year preceding the 2011WC

Player​
No. Of Matches​
Virender Sehwag12
Sachin Tendulkar4
Gautam Gambhir14
Virat Kohli30
Yuvraj Singh20
MS Dhoni23
Suresh Raina29
Yusuf Pathan15
Harbhajan Singh11
Zaheer Khan15
Munaf Patel11
Sreesanth10
Ashish Nehra24
Ravichandran Ashwin7
Piyush Chawla1

You could see from the above table that most of the players hardly played 25 games which shows that the players were kept fresh before the tournament so that they were not overburdened with the number of games played. The point to notice was that inexperienced players with a lot of potential like Virat Kohli and Raina played almost all games while settled/ageing players demanded rest.

Strange enough, but one of the leading spinners for India in this tournament in Piyush Chawla just played one game in a period stretching upto 12 months before the World Cup!

Now, this is a more interesting one i.e. 2013 Champions Trophy

India played about 24 ODIs in the year preceding the 2013 Champions Trophy

Players​
No. Of Matches​
Rohit Sharma 16
Shikhar Dhawan 0
Virat Kohli 24
Dinesh Karthik 0
Suresh Raina 24
MS Dhoni23
Ravindra Jadeja17
Ravichandran Ashwin 23
Bhuvneshwar Kumar 8
Umesh Yadav8
Ishant Sharma 8
Irfan Pathan 12
Murali Vijay0
R Vinay Kumar 7
Amit Mishra0

Some big surprises here! Leading run scorer of the tournament Shikhar Dhawan was completely out of sync playing his last ODI in 2011. Also Dinesh Karthik, Murali Vijay and Amit Mishra came up from no where. The bowling line-up looks completely weak on experience and game time.

Eventually this team was unbeaten in the tournament decimating their oppositions!

Proves my point that it's not only the game time that matters but the role clarity that plays a part.

Kohli & Raina were great young performers who had gained fair bit of experience before the tournament began. Dhawan had just scored fastest ever Test century in some 90-odd balls (you've got to be joking to keep him out from your OD-side). Ashwin & Jadeja was a great spin bowling pair back in the day!

If you see the current squad, it doesn't look as bad when we talk about not having game time

India have played 34 T20Is in the last 12 months

Players​
No. Of Matches​
Rohit Sharma 25
KL Rahul 12
Virat Kohli 14
SKY24
Dinesh Karthik 18
Hardik Pandya21
Axar Patel 14
Bhuvneshwar Kumar 26
Harshal Patel 17
Jasprit Bumrah 8
Yuzvendra Chahal 17
Rishabh Pant25
Ravichandran Ashwin 10
Arshdeep Singh11
Deepak Hooda12

KL came back from a surgery, Rohit Sharma wasn't as fit off late, Kohli looked out of touch. On the other hand, the likes of Bhuvi, SKY, Pant, DK, Hardik, Axar, etc. They all got plenty of games. So I am pretty sure we are going with a settled side this time around.

However, given the poor knockouts record, I don't even want to think about that title but confident that certainly there would be moments to enjoy!
 
@NILAYSHAH60 a majority of the games prior to 2011 and 2013 were played vs Sri Lanka and a few smaller teams. I wouldn't read too much into this analysis here. The common element you see in the above games is that we played a somewhat settled line up in terms of role definition. We had clarity over the Top3, middle order and wicket keepers.

Comparing apples to apples may not be the right way forth as in the current scenario we have no idea on what the final XI is going to look like.
 
However, given the poor knockouts record, I don't even want to think about that title but confident that certainly there would be moments to enjoy!
It is soon going to turn into 'given the poor group stages record' - we haven't made the knockouts in the last two multi nation tournaments

What's the point of having players settled in their roles if they are not able to deliver even a basic level of success
 
However, given the poor knockouts record, I don't even want to think about that title but confident that certainly there would be moments to enjoy!

I genuinely fail to understand this logic of the team, over the last few years. Maybe, it is a generation-gap thingy, but I am all for 'Playing to Win' and not for enjoyment/ pleasure.

Every game will have its momentous milestones. If we are living for those, then pray tell, what is the logic of even entering the team into multi-nation events? (bar the ICC contracts though). Dhoni pioneered this term of enjoying the game, but guess Kohli's XI took it way too far. The term enjoyment- as coined back then, basically was to play wit freedom. without restriction, without any stress.

For me, I would only be overjoyed should we end up winning the trophy, nothing else.
 
What's the point of having players settled in their roles if they are not able to deliver even a basic level of success
You missed the point that we did not have enough of role clarity during 2015-2021 and most of the players were part of a random musical chairs where everyone was clueless.

Apart from a back-up opener, our squad for 2022 WT20 is prepared for everything. If India don't undermine the oppositions and play their best brand of Cricket we can be successful.
 
@NILAYSHAH60 a majority of the games prior to 2011 and 2013 were played vs Sri Lanka and a few smaller teams. I wouldn't read too much into this analysis here. The common element you see in the above games is that we played a somewhat settled line up in terms of role definition. We had clarity over the Top3, middle order and wicket keepers.

Comparing apples to apples may not be the right way forth as in the current scenario we have no idea on what the final XI is going to look like.
@NILAYSHAH60

This.

Players back then knew their role & position.

Between 2009-2011 Sachin took the most rest given his age.

In his absence Sehwag, Gambhir & Kohli were top 3 and when back Tendulkar open the innings and Gambhir , Kohli played at 3 & 4 then.

India knew their lineup two years before the WC.

In the middle order we had Dhoni and Yuvraj and during that phase Rohit Sharma and Raina battled for a spot in the playing 11, it was only due to Yusuf Pathan had a very good domestic season in 2010 and couple of hundreds against New Zealand and South Africa he got picked over Rohit Sharma who was terrible for India those days.

Compared this to now.

Top three are settled but the remaining still a big question with Pandya the only certainity.

Pant and DK have been in and out of the Sqaud, Both SKY and Pant batted as openers and also in the middle order.

Same for Deepak Hooda played as top order player before and now his role is finisher, altleast pick players give them a certain position & role which is not happening.
 
@Bigby Wolf pretty sure Hooda is a backup for the Playing XI in case Axar is not available.

Our top 3 looks settled but I don't see a reason why SKY cannot be treated as look-in at 4 considering he has played most of his innings at that spot and has delivered on most occasions.

The only string missing is the Wicket-keeper which I think the remaining 2 series would give a clearer picture.
 

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