England in India - Oct to Jan 2012/13

[Aalay]

Cheteshwar Pujara can be tried in shorter format: Sunil Gavaskar - The Times of India

Interesting comment made by Gavaskar. The big question however is that who would he replace in the ODI team? We alredy have Manoj Tiwary traveling around the world with team India without playing a single match.

 

[SaiSrini]

Cheteshwar Pujara can be tried in shorter format: Sunil Gavaskar - The Times of India

Interesting comment made by Gavaskar. The big question however is that who would he replace in the ODI team? We alredy have Manoj Tiwary traveling around the world with team India without playing a single match.

Instead of thinking about Rohit Sharma, they can atleast have Pujara in his place in the ODI team. Even though Manoj Tiwary should get higher preference than Pujara in the ODI side, they can atleast keep Pujara in the reserves instead of Rohit who keeps failing too often. Pujara can be called upon to open too whenever needed (since he is a one down batsmen, he should be able to open which he did yesterday).

Dravid was a big success in ODI's, scoring 10,000+ runs. With his technique, he was particularly useful in overseas ODI's. Pujara might be tried in a similar way.

 

[barmyarmy]

Right. My team for Mumbai:
Cook
Compton
Trott
KP
Bairstow
Patel
Prior
Swann
Finn
Anderson
Panesar

Much longer tail but, as I've said a few times, you have to rely on the batsmen to score runs and the bowlers to take wickets not vice versa. I was tempted to drop Patel but I think a 5th bowler, even one with limited control, is useful.
Broad needs to be dropped imo. Poor with bat and ball for a while now the odd innings aside.

 

[shravi]

What has happened to Sudeep Tyagi? I was impressed with him when he first came onto the scene. Seems to have disappeared after some ODIs vs Sri Lanka. His development was curtailed over that period when he was constantly in the squad but never played. He could have gotten valuable domestic experience instead. His lack of gametime held him back from progressing from promise into performance, I feel.

 

[War]

Even a pitch like the one in Mumbai 2004 vs Australia would be good. Australia couldn't bat on that pitch, and so they adopted the "hit or miss" approach and were bundled out for 107.. On that same pitch, Sachin and Laxman scored valuable runs and set Australia a challenging target. Get a pitch like that again!

If i recall correctly, the reasons that 2004 ind vs aus mumbai pitch turned so much, was because of some major monsoon that was present in the city which severely hampered the mumbai groundsmen from preparing a proper pitch.

So given the unique red soil nature of the Mumbai pitch with assist the quicks and spinners equally - the monsoon caused a terribly substandard pitch to be present by ICC standards.

 

[Epic]

That match was one of a kind, 1st day wash out, 3rd day game over.

 

[War]

England in India 2012-13 : Steven Finn ruled out of second Test | Cricket News | India v England | ESPN Cricinfo

I'm the camp for Meaker play now. But damn this is big blow, especially given how lethargic Broad has looked.

 

[Fenil]

You want to be aggressive and be the best in the world, you have got to take all the conditions and not always ask for the conditions that suits your style of play. I was a bit surprised with that. I think if you are looking to be the best in the world you have got to learn to play in all conditions.

I've came across articles quoting MS Dhoni as saying that he hated the Ahmedabad pitch and wanted a pitch on which the ball would start turning on the first day itself and that he wants the tests to end in 3-4 days. While former Australian Captain's comment (as quoted above) on that is absolutely spot on. I'd like to see the performance of Indian batters if they do make such pitch, which obviously is not good for test cricket, and has to bat last. As far as the Motera pitch is concerned, the curator is known to make sporting wickets normally. At times BCCI gets him thick of things with last minute changes in the pitch type. I remember that on this very ground, a green top pitch was made to help Indian pacers rattle the RSA batsmen few years back but it backfired as India were shot out at 76 with Dale Steyn being the star performer. Dhoni should stop ridiculing the pitch, keep his head down and concentrate on his game first.

 

[Aalay]

England in India 2012-13 : Steven Finn ruled out of second Test | Cricket News | India v England | ESPN Cricinfo

I'm the camp for Meaker play now. But damn this is big blow, especially given how lethargic Broad has looked.

I don't think Meaker will make any impact tbh. I saw him when England toured India last year for 5 ODI's and read an article about him on Cricinfo. The article mentioned that he has pace but he wasn't bowling above 135 km/h plus had no movement. But by what I saw in the first test match, England seamers were looking completely out of the place. Neither of Broad or Bresnan were looking like taking wicket at any time. So as you said, they might want to try Meaker but I would still go for Onions as I feel that his wicket to wicket bowling will more helpful. It's definitely a big blow to loose Finn and I hope England play Panesar.

 

[Aalay]

I remember that on this very ground, a green top pitch was made to help Indian pacers rattle the RSA batsmen few years back but it backfired as India were shot out at 76 with Dale Steyn being the star performer. Dhoni should stop ridiculing the pitch, keep his head down and concentrate on his game first.

LOL. Do you really think that green top wicket was made for our bowlers?

 

[War]

I don't think Meaker will make any impact tbh. I saw him when England toured India last year for 5 ODI's and read an article about him on Cricinfo. The article mentioned that he has pace but he wasn't bowling above 135 km/h plus had no movement. But by what I saw in the first test match, England seamers were looking completely out of the place. Neither of Broad or Bresnan were looking like taking wicket at any time. So as you said, they might want to try Meaker but I would still go for Onions as I feel that his wicket to wicket bowling will more helpful. It's definitely a big blow to loose Finn and I hope England play Panesar.

Well yea, Meaker certainly didn't set the world on fire when he toured india last year for the ODIs, but i've seen alot of him in the just concluded English county season & he the fastest bowler on the domestic circuit. So i'd be willing to wager with his pace & ability to reverse swing it - he could be an asset.

Onions like Tremlett who isn't on tour, are the two English fast-men who are weakest at bowling on flat/sub-continent wickets. Onions is very much your archetypical English conditions bowler like Matt Hoggard, Angus Fraser, Geoff Arnold, Dominic Cork etc etc - who would be rendered useless on unresponsive surfaces. While Tremlett strengths on asian wickets, is severely reduced because he thrives on wickets with a decent amount of bounce.

I don't mind Monty playing. But as i mentioned before, since India became a force @ home, none of the teams that have won/drawn series in India have done it with a two-man spin attack.

Its the quicks that take prominence & typically the lone spinner backs them up. So for me if Monty plays its bad sign for England of how poor the quicks would be bowling. Once the 3 quicks bowl to potential - Swann is all the spinners England need really.

 

[barmyarmy]

The Finn news is a blow. Hmm. Broad or Meaker?
Clearly Broad has a massively over-inflated view of his own self-importance but, unlike KP, he's rarely put in the performances to back it up.
Panesar for Bresnan is a definite. Despite my current lack of love for Broad I'd still feel happier with him in than Meaker. Close call though.

 

[puddleduck]

Yeah I think Broad probably has to play ahead of Meaker, and if Monty is coming in then he probably plays ahead of Onions. I do feel Onions is the sort of wicket to wicket bowler who could pick up a fair few LBW decisions in sub-continental conditions.

It's a shame they keep trying to put more responsibilty on Broad though, as he seems to be getting worse as a player with it. Just leave him to concentrate on his bowling, his pace (seriously, where has it gone?!?) and his batting (it's actually getting silly that he bats ahead of Swann now).

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Also, good performance overall from India. Shocking first innings batting display from England left them far too much to do in the end.

Certainly agree with Dhoni, let's at least see a pitch with some life in it for the second test.

 

[SaiSrini]

Don't understand the calls for Harbhajan to replace Ashwin. Its just one innings where he looked ineffective, and already you want to replace him? Yes Ojha did well the entire game, but still Ashwin started the rut in England's first innings, and picked up 4 wkts in the game. One innings does not make Ashwin bad overnight. He is still the fastest Indian to 50 wkts and he broke this record in this just concluded test match. He is an extremely potent force at home, and his combo with Ojha is excellent.

And I am sure Harbhajan can't match Ashwin in the batting stakes. Ashwin always scores some runs and valuable at that too.

 

[Epic]

"I don't even want to see this wicket," he said. "There wasn't enough turn and bounce for the spinners? Hopefully in the coming matches we'll see the wicket turn, right from start, or as soon as possible so that the toss doesn't become vital."

Dhoni went on to add that groundsmen need not worry about the match referee's objection to such pitches. "I don't think the match referee can question a pitch just because it's turning," he said. "When the wicket seams right from the first delivery, nobody asks questions. What you don't want is ridges in the wicket and then one ball hits your head and next your toe. At times, in the subcontinent, on pitches like this, the toss becomes vital. The only way to take the toss out of the equation is to have pitches that turn right from the start. The game may end in three-and-a-half days, but both teams will have an equal opportunity to win the game."

This is Dhoni's point, right now, the way the pitches are done, win toss, bat first and you should just about win the match 9/10 times.