England's tour of India (Nov '16/Feb '17)

[Aalay]

Rahane is your best batsman tbh. Rahane has been the most consistent batsman for India for quite some time now.

Agreed

Agreed that it was a rash shot but that does not make him a bad player.

I have never said he is a bad player. In fact, he has been instrumental and one of the brightest players for India in their overseas tours. However, as I said in my last post he has this tendency to throw away his wicket very cheaply. For a player of his class, it just looks weird sometimes. This is not the first time he has done this. He gets out like this quite often which is why I brought up that point.

Kohli is a brilliant batsman in limited overs batsman but he is not equally good in test cricket. His aggressive batting style is more suited at #5 should there be a need of acceleration.

I don't mind him batting at number 4 because he moves the game forward as soon as he comes in after our top 3 players who are proper test match players. However, as you said he is still not at that level in tests. In limited overs format, no matter how bad the situation is, if the Indian fans see Kohli is still at the crease, we know he will finish the game for us. I don't get that same feeling from him in tests yet. On a good day, he will make it look tremendously easy. Like that double century he scored in West Indies, you could literally predict that because it was so effortless. But yes he still has to improve at the test level.

 

[asprin]

Kohli at #5 is probably not a good idea. That would put him under more pressure as 3 accomplished batsman will have perished by then. I do feel #4 is where he should be.

 

[Saroj padhy]

Everything is fine right now.
It would be stupidity to mess with the batting order.

 

[ParkedTheBus]

Kohli at 5 and Rahane at 4 is definitely the way forward when India have a consistent proactive opener to partner Vijay. A top 4 of Gambhir/Vijay/Pujara/Rahane simply won't score fast enough and would have a detrimental effect on the whole team. Wonder if India have anyone with the right profile to partner Vijay, though.

 

[Aalay]

Kohli at 5 and Rahane at 4 is definitely the way forward when India have a consistent proactive opener to partner Vijay. A top 4 of Gambhir/Vijay/Pujara/Rahane simply won't score fast enough and would have a detrimental effect on the whole team. Wonder if India have anyone with the right profile to partner Vijay, though.

I don't agree with Kohli at 5 and Rahane at 4 but and I wouldn't change the batting order to what we have right now. For opening position, my preferred pair would be Murli Vijay and KL Rahul. I feel Rahul can learn a lot from Murli Vijay because even though Murli Vijay is a naturally aggressive player, he can keep his head down and has the ability to grind it out in tough conditions. I feel if Rahul can learn that from Vijay, it will be great for India going overseas.

 

[Rehan_24]

Thats what you get when you go over-confident. I can recall Ganguly said as an expert that we will go 3-0 and somewhat meant that India is unstoppable in home pitches. Well does that over-confidence reflected the team's actual situation as well? I think this test match was the result of that. England gave a head on fight and categorically performed better than India so far. Though I see a draw here but who knows?

 

[Velocity]

NO Sachin Tendulkar in Brisbane 2008 CB series(one dayers though)

Well I heard one of the commentators talking about it so I think it was last Indian hit wicket in a TEST match.

 

[ParkedTheBus]

I don't agree with Kohli at 5 and Rahane at 4 but and I wouldn't change the batting order to what we have right now. For opening position, my preferred pair would be Murli Vijay and KL Rahul. I feel Rahul can learn a lot from Murli Vijay because even though Murli Vijay is a naturally aggressive player, he can keep his head down and has the ability to grind it out in tough conditions. I feel if Rahul can learn that from Vijay, it will be great for India going overseas.

It's important that Rahul continues playing his natural game. Having both Rahul and Vijay plodding along at 2.5 rpo wouldn't give the team any momentum at all. Vijay changed his game to complement the naturally aggressive Dhawan, having another grinder playing alongside him wouldn't work.

 

[Bigby Wolf]

Same old story for gambhir.
He might get another chance in the next test.

 

[CerealKiller]

Pujara forgot about DRS as well. Dharmasena has had a terrible 3 matches.

 

[MUFC1987]

I think our major problem seems to be that Ansari isn't a very good bowler. It's great to see Hameed coming in and doing well, just a shame that the selectors don't have that much faith in the spinners that have done well domestically.

 

[MUFC1987]

Nice to have India worried enough that the ball boys are being told to slow down though.

 

[Aalay]

Well it is a draw as expected but India definitely need to up their game in rest of the series. My two main concern from this game were our fielding and spinner's bowling. Our fielding from the very first session was terrible, it improved slightly over the rest of the game but ground fielding was still very poor through the course of the game. Our spinners I feel could have bowled much better than they did. Ashwin started well in the inning and bowled well even when the conditions were not in favour of him but I think once Root came in, he went too full. He was bowling decently in the second inning but he changed his action and went to the more side arm action. I would rather have him stick to his original action rather than making changes so quickly. Jadeja was definitely disappointing however and did not look threatening at all. Mishra's case is very confusing and I have talked about this a lot in the past. As soon as batsmen go after him, you can literally see his confidence coming down and him getting frustrated. This also messes up with his line and he starts bowling very poorly. When he is in full flow, he is one of finest leg spinners I have seen but that sight has been very rare off late. Our fast bowlers bowled very well int he first inning. They didn't bowl too badly in the second inning as well but there was no help for them from the surface.

KL Rahul is fit and just scored 76 in the Ranji trophy game. I don't think selectors will rush him back however and I see Gambhir getting one more opportunity at Vizag. It was good to see Virat Kohli the captain under pressure after long time since that draw game in WI.

 

[SaiSrini]

India just managed to avoid defeat here. Though I must say India might have lost it if this was played in England. Which is worrying. And in this test, our spinners were mighty ineffective. When the pitch doesn't help, Ashwin looks completely different. Thankfully his batting saved us from defeat here (his 70 was massively invaluable in averting defeat here, for India he is the Man of the Match). Ashwin needs persistence when his overseas performance does not live up. He can counter it with batting while he gains the experience. Kumble knows it all, for Kumble also went through his initial career not living upto expectations overseas and then he turned it around in 2003 or so with that Australia tour. Indian spinners will not do that well overseas when conditions are not at all in favor. As long as they keep things tight and help the fast bowlers, they would've done their job (same that fast bowlers do on turning wickets). If they leak runs big time, then its a problem for sure.

P.s: Someone says the batting order is fine and we need not mess with it. Oh yes, we have disregarded the duck by our second opener (the 'Delhi's Khoon Mein Aag Ka Jawaan') in this game, whose followers think that the world is against him for no reason

 

[CerealKiller]

I can see this series having a similar script to the 2014 one.