England In India - October 2011/12

[War]

I think the England team is fine, no real complaints.

I would have picked both Bairstow and Buttler in the ODI, so its interesting that the selectors only selected Bairstow.

Important series for Patel & Borthwick. Failure or lack of real consistency from Patel will certainly see him dropped, while the mirror opposite from Borthwick could see him become a long-term member.

Good to see Woakes back, during the summer i was beginning to wonder if the selectors had forgotten about him.

 

[Aalay]

Sehwag, Sachin, Yuvraj, Rhit all are still doubtful for this ODI series. I think Rahane and Parthiv will keep their places in the squad. Expecting Ashish Nehra back in the squad with Varun Aaron and Praveen Kumar will keep their places in the squad. Spin department should include Ashwin, Bhajji and Ojha. Manoj Tiwary can come in and Jadeja is likely to stay as an all rounder. Still not sure who will they pick as a 4th fast bowler. Don't want to see Vinay Kumar again. Hopefully Umesh Yadav or Ishant Sharma or RP Singh

So most likely team will look like this:

Gambhir
Parthiv/Rahane
Kohli
Manoj
Raina
Dhoni
Jadeja
Bhajji/Ashwin/Ojha
RP Singh/ Varun Aaron/ Ishant
Nehra
Praveen

 

[_Nabeel_]

I think Yusuf Pathan or Irfan Pathan will be chosen back into the squad...Don't know but have some gut feeling about this...
for Fast bowlers,Laxmi Balaji is a good option for the selectors,for spinners I think Pragyan Ojha will be most probably dropped and R Ashwin,Harbhajan and a new spinner will enter in the team(maybe Iqbal Abdullah)

Ashish Nehra is just another waste in Indian team...never liked his bowling.They need to find someone better than him.already said,Balaji is a nice option for it.He has some experience also.

 

[SaiSrini]

Nehra will most likely make it back due to his experience. I hope and pray Aaron is retained. Praveen, Nehra, Aaron and Umesh Yadav would be good enough. Ashwin, Bhajji and Jadeja are enough in the spin department. Rahane, Gambhir, Parthiv, Kohli, Raina, Dhoni, Tiwary and Yusuf Pathan should be the batsmen (Yusuf just because this series is played on Indian wickets)

 

[swacker]

Pietersen will be desperate to get some runs at-least. I heard Nasser Hussain saying he struggled playing against left-arm spin and that's the reason he was dropped from the side for one-day against India in England.

Or perhaps there must be some other reason why there's a story about Pietersen possibly not being picked?

 

[SLICKR392]

They gotta give a Rahane a shot too...though he is pretty inexperienced to fit in this Line Up.
BTW!...No Sehwag or Sachin?
Sachin's injury doesn't look like a big one, and his resting throughout the CPLT20 as well.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

What the hell is wrong with Sehwag when.will he be back? It seems we need to go to his place and find out about what is he upto..

Zak will miss the Australia series too i suppose so no chance.of seeing him until march when the australia series ends...

 

[Aalay]

Zak will miss the Australia series too i suppose so no chance.of seeing him until march when the australia series ends...

I don't think so. He is recovering fast. I am pretty sure he will be available after first 2 Tests I think.

I would give Manoj Tiwary a chance rather than Yusuf Pathan.

 

[harrisb]

Even as an England fan, I can see this series being tough, but you'll have the same advantage that we have just had, and both players are going to be missing players so I don't see how either of these ODI series can justify who is better.

 

[Owzat]

Whats the use of 4 tests? Either have 5, or have 3. Chances of a tied series are a lot and thats not what we want. We want a winner!

Well that is a common lack of logic, that odd numbers of Tests/matches makes for a result. You can draw matches so actually three matches can as easily end 1-1 or 0-0 as a four match series can end 0-0, 1-1 or 2-2. In fact the chances of a positive result in every match is pretty small.

Just remind me of the result in the 2011 four match series between England and India.........................

I did have a record of all results ever and summary by series length, I may try and find or resurrect that. But of England's last three series draws TWO were three match series to one four match series

And since 2000 England have drawn five series, three of them three match series and two of them four match series. While England have played more of three match series than four, the proportion of draws is the same

England series results by series length (2000-2011)

2 Tests : P9 W7 D1 L1 (Won 77.78%)
3 Tests : P15 W7 D3 L5 (Won 46.67%)
4 Tests : P9 W6 D2 L1 (Won 66.67%)
5 Tests : P10 W5 D1 L4 (Won 50.00%)

So the percentage of draws for three Tests is 20% compared to 22% for four Tests, massive difference. Five match series have only produced 10% draws, but England have narrowly won three of those 2-1 and it could so easily have ended even (two 2-1 Ashes wins in 2005 and 2009)

Or to make my point another way, there have been either nine or ten 2, 4 and 5 match series and with little difference in numbers of series there is also little difference in numbers of draws ie 9 or 10 series, 1 or 2 draws.

ODIs generally get played in odd numbers so it is hard to make a comparison of 'what if' they played four ODIs, rain being the major contributor to draws of which England have had a few.

 

[Owzat]

Pietersen will be desperate to get some runs at-least. I heard Nasser Hussain saying he struggled playing against left-arm spin and that's the reason he was dropped from the side for one-day against India in England.

Or perhaps there must be some other reason why there's a story about Pietersen possibly not being picked?

Wouldn't listen to anything Hussain says, not terribly logical considering spin should be more of a problem in India than England ........................... If anything you'd think playing it on a less condusive surface and so getting used to the bowlers would make more sense, more sense than Nasser

It will be interesting if he travels to India for the series donkeys vs England



BBC Sport - Surrey's Stuart Meaker is selected for England's tour of India

England squad:

Alastair Cook (capt, Essex) - 36 ODIs, 1325 runs @ 38.97 (SR 78.45)
Craig Kieswetter (WK, Somerset) - 23 ODIs, 674 runs @ 30.64 (SR 92.97)
Jonathan Trott (Warwickshire) - 35 ODIs, 1596 runs @ 51.48 (SR 78.35) & 2 wkts @ 83.00 (ER 5.44)
Ravi Bopara (Essex) - 64 ODIs, 1480 runs @ 30.83 (SR 75.82)
Ian Bell (Warwickshire) - 107 ODIs, 3232 runs @ 34.38 (SR 73.37)
Kevin Pietersen (Surrey) - 119 ODIs, 3733 runs @ 40.14 (SR 87.14) & 7 wkts @ 50.43 (ER 5.62)
Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire) - 1 ODI, 41 runs @ n/a (SR 195.24)

Samit Patel (Notts) - 16 ODIs, 146 runs @ 20.86 (SR 91.82) & 14 wkts @ 34.86 (ER 5.57)
Tim Bresnan (Yorkshire) - 52 ODIs, 608 runs @ 21.71 (SR 92.54) & 63 wkts @ 36.60 (ER 5.32)
Graeme Swann (Notts) - 60 ODIs, 430 runs @ 14.33 (SR 89.21) & 88 wkts @ 23.84 (ER 4.44)
Scott Borthwick (Durham) - 1 ODI, 15 runs @ 15.00 (SR 166.67) & 1-0-13-0
Chris Woakes (Warwickshire) - 4 ODIs, 39 runs @ 19.50 (SR 73.58) & 7 wkts @ 24.14 (ER 5.23)

Jade Dernbach (Surrey) - 10 ODIs, 15 wkts @ 33.13 (ER 6.14)
Steven Finn (Middlesex) - 6 ODIs, 7 wkts @ 40.43 (ER 5.18)
Stuart Meaker (Surrey) - 0 ODIs

Bold are the Test players, something you may know I monitor. Down from the usual eight to seven, but I'm guessing Broad and Anderson will at some point boost that back up How can England complain about fatigue if they keep playing the same players in two formats?!?!? ("easy" is the answer, but they shouldn't)

Just a quick look at SRs for the batsmen bar Bairstow, a way to see what impact SR has in reality. I've based it on 50 balls so you can see what difference it makes if any

Runs per 50 balls (average in brackets)

Kieswetter - 46 (30.64)
Pietersen - 44 (40.14)
Cook - 39 (38.97)
Trott - 39 (51.48)
Bopara - 38 (30.83)
Bell - 37 (34.38)

Bopara neither scores particularly fast nor heavily, although he may still improve. Bell scores reasonably heavily but not fast while Kieswetter scores quickly enough, but do we not want more from our openers in terms of big scores compared to quick scores? Why 50 balls? Well how often are batsmen going to bat more than 50 balls? And as you can see the runs are close to their averages so it makes sense to use that to compare speed and averages (didn't know that until after I'd picked 50, it just seemed the right number of balls)

You can deduce that Kieswetter faces less than 50 balls average per innings, in fact he averages 31.5 balls per innings faced. 18 of those 23 innings he faced less than 45 balls. Why 45? Because if he faces half of the first 15 overs then it is 45 balls.

Kieswetter balls faced

01-18 : 8
19-35 : 7
36-53 : 4
54-71 : 3
72-89 : 0
90+ : 1

30 at nearly a run a ball doesn't build a solid platform and for the extra quick runs do we gain that much? Off 31.5 balls Trott would score 25 runs to Kieswetter's 30, a whopping five more runs but for Kieswetter out and Trott not. I'd rather use Kieswetter's batting pace later in the innings when quick but short cameos are better and make bigger impact, like Bairstow's. The loss of the wicket early on can be counterproductive to the ensuing pace of innings ie what you gain in the early quick runs you lose in the early loss of wicket

 

[Aalay]

A little bit surprised by the selection but all the young players that I wanted are in the team. Umesh, Varun, Rahul, Sreenath. Hopefully they can do well.

England in India 2011: Harbhajan Singh dropped for first two ODIs | Cricket News | India v England | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[Bevab]

The board has done a weird choice selecting Aravind.

 

[Haarithan]

Awesome. Five seniors from the WC winning squad injured in Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Sehwag, Munaf Patel and Zaheer Khan. England, here's your present, lose this ODI series and you'll never win one in the SC for years to come.

 

[War]

Haaa @ this thread being called the "revenge series"