Have India gone soft?

[Stag]

First of all, I am overjoyed about New Zealand's recent victory. It was a fantastic display from the lads with Ross Taylor and Scott Styris brilliant with the bat and then everyone chipping in with the ball, even Williamson who I think is destined to be a star.

However, I have read some comments lately which have made me outraged. MS Dhoni, in the light of the recent match, has the nerve to complain about the pitch, claiming it is spongy and impossible to score unless you are hitting pull shots and cut shots. Can somebody tell this joker to sit down? Did he not just see his bowling attack get decimated for 288 runs from the 50 overs? Scott Styris and Ross Taylor didn't seem to have a problem with it, no - it is only the poor Indians who need their subcontinental pitches.

Scott Styris responded with "Players in the subcontinent generally don't like the ball anywhere above the waist," which is 100% true and I have to commend Styris for finally saying what we've all been thinking. India need to stop whining about the pitch and start playing cricket.

 

[-D-S-B-]

I think it was a great pitch, absolutely great. If you got yourself in, you went on, if you bowled in the right place you got wickets. What's wrong with inconsistent bounce? I think it's good for the game to some extent. People moan when it has disadvantages towards the batsmen which baffles me :confused:

 

[Stag]

Completely agree, it was an excellent pitch for cricket. Everyone has been wanting pitches to have a bit more life, except India it seems who just want to bat out draws and watch totals of 700 build up over three days on flat pitches.

 

[SaiSrini]

At Dambulla, the side batting second under lights is definitely at a big disadvantage. And it has been proved quite a few times in the recent times. India won the Asia Cup final when SL batted second, and we lost one of the previous games at the same ground to SL when we batted second. It becomes so much harder. But I have to say that 88 all out is not something due to the pitch, its the application of the batsmen. We are capable of scoring atleast 200-250 even while batting second, we just didnt apply. But Dhoni was not completely wrong in his assessment. Styris was wrong because yesterday the Dambulla wicket didnt seem to have great bounce in it. It was inconsistent, it was not high enough to trouble the batsmen.

 

[sohum]

Also, if you look at the scorecards, apart from the half-centurions, the next highest score was 20 by Ravi Jadeja. Which demonstrates that it was definitely a tough pitch to get in on and required some patience.

 

[Cricketman]

Our team selection is ████.

 

[KBC]

Naw, They'd take no better blame I think. Players have to do with this. Partially maybe the case with the sudden change to ODIs from tests. But the batting was outclassed by NZ, have to admit though.

That's sort of a symbol for India. Go down early on and hit hard next time. So I think we can better wait than be concentrated into thinking of one poor performance. Your opinion may differ though.

 

[Cricketman]

Rohit Sharma is pure crap. I don't know why we keep going with him. He can't bat, his fielding has gone down the toilet, and he is retaining his spot because of performances vs Zimbabwe. :sarcasm: Yuvraj is a lump, getting him out of the team was a breath of fresh air...we won the Asia cup without him. Just drop him already.

Ok - I can understand that Yuvraj has at least performed for the better part of the decade and he can be selected. But Ravi Jadeja? The guy who lost us the T20 WC? Who is a crap batsman (seriously, he bats at number 8) and doesn't bowl well either? what is his role in the team???

Why did Mithun only bowl 4 overs when the pacers got so many wickets, so much assitance, from the track? Fast bowlers accounted for 7 NZ wickets - 13 wickets in the match - there was clearly some zip for the quicks. Why did Dhoni go with so many overs from crappy part timers like Jadeja, Yuvraj, and Sehwag when we had so many overs left available from a front line bowler? I'm starting to seriously doubt Dhonis captaincy here.

Our world cup preperations have been absolutely horrid so far.

I would personally go with (sachinless)

1. Virender Sehwag
2. Gautam Gambhir
3. Suresh Raina
4. Yuvraj Singh/Dinesh Karthik
5. MS Dhoni
6. Robin Uthappa
7. Irfan Pathan (at least give him a chance, the guy is so talented)
8. R Ashwin
9. Pragyan Ojha
10. Zaheer Khan
11. Ashish Nehra

Praveen too would be in with a shout to offer a right arm option w/ pace. Irfan is more than a capable batsman at number 7 imo.

Sachin would easily slot in Yuvraj's slot and open.

 

[Ahmad Shah]

Does Mithun really deserve to bowl? i mean there are so many goood indian bowlers then why they are going for him again and again he failed in test series and now on a fast bowling supporting track he couldn't produce anything special in his spell

 

[AngryPixel]

They should play sourabh tiwary instead of rohit sharma. Tiwari feeds on confidence and showed what he can do when Tendulkar trusted him. And Tendulkar, oh boy, don't we miss him more than ever now :crying.

What has Kohli done to deserve the benchwarming. He should be playing. Jadeja is worthless with bat, and with ball sehwag is way better than him. So we really don't need him

 

[Ahmad Shah]

i also support kohli instead of Sharma kohli has proved himself in a very short time but i think they selected him on the basis of Zimbabwe performances that's rubbish

 

[AngryPixel]

Get Irfan Pathan back in the team. He can't do worse than these pie chuckers can he

 

[Ahmad Shah]

Yeah a handy bowler and also can be dangerous with the bat as well

Thank God they didn't go this time for yousuf they really wanted to make him their genuine All rounder and Look at his career hitting centuries in IPL in not enough you have to perform at the international level

 

[RoboRocks]

India's decline has been surprising. Cricket is so popular and they have so many young players coming through. Surely, you would think they could maintain the good work of rising to the top.

 

[AngryPixel]

Here is my group of player to be relegated from the team and the players to be promoted to the national team ASAP.

The Relegation list:

Rohit Sharma
Yuvraj Singh
Ravindra Jadeja
Mithun(he's nothing special get someone else)

The Promotion list:

Saurabh Tiwary ( i know he's in the team but give him some games, Raina was in test team in 2006 but didn't got any chance due to yuvi)
Irfan Pathan.
Ajit Agarkar( On his bad day he can bowl worse than current crop of indian fast bowlers an on his day he is exceptional)
Robin Uthappa(why are selectors ignoring this lad. He's always played for the people. Great hitter and is as destructive as sehwg. Plus he is not prone to short pitch stuff, he hits them over mid on )


IF everyone is fit this is the squad i wanna see playing

Sachin Tendulkar
Virender Sehwag
Robin Uthappa
Suresh Raina
Saurabh Tiwary
MS Dhoni
Irfan Pathan
Ajit Agarkar
Harbhajan Singh
Praveen Kumar
Zaheer Khan

AngryPixel added 1 Minutes and 1 Seconds later...

Virat Kohli would be the 12th man and Manish Pandey, Shikhar Dhawan,Sreesanth would be extras.