ICC Champions Trophy 2013 - England & Wales

[SaiSrini]

Whoa, these bunch of selectors are a little too bold.... I never thought they would drop both Gambhir and Yuvraj. I thought Yuvraj would probably get his chance again. Leaving both of them out makes the batting order look weak on paper. Seems like Tiwary is injured (why he gets injured too often?) and they dont want to risk Pujara who is recovering from his finger injury and Rahane has lost favor due to his ordinary performances, so Rohit. Makes sense!

I like the look of our bowling attack though. Good mix of fast bowlers. I prefer Vinay over Praveen - better attitude seperating both, who are similar kind of bowlers. But taking three spinners to England seems a mighty luxury. I would have fitted an additional batsman in. If you don't consider Karthik and Dhoni as specialist batsmen due to their keeping, then we have only 5 specialist batsmen out of which Vijay and Rohit Sharma are part of.

Interesting side! Good thing is, India wont start off as favorites. Can be good for us.

 

[Satan666]

Whoa, these bunch of selectors are a little too bold.... I never thought they would drop both Gambhir and Yuvraj. I thought Yuvraj would probably get his chance again. Leaving both of them out makes the batting order look weak on paper. Seems like Tiwary is injured (why he gets injured too often?) and they dont want to risk Pujara who is recovering from his finger injury and Rahane has lost favor due to his ordinary performances, so Rohit. Makes sense!

I like the look of our bowling attack though. Good mix of fast bowlers. I prefer Vinay over Praveen - better attitude seperating both, who are similar kind of bowlers. But taking three spinners to England seems a mighty luxury. I would have fitted an additional batsman in. If you don't consider Karthik and Dhoni as specialist batsmen due to their keeping, then we have only 5 specialist batsmen out of which Vijay and Rohit Sharma are part of.

Interesting side! Good thing is, India wont start off as favorites. Can be good for us.

Lets see India are ranked number one in ODI cricket atm, knowing guys like you trust this as your gods then by all rights India should be regarded as favourites. Glad to see Sachin is no more in ODI, I am beginning to think that Sachin's retirement was forced by the selectors since we see that theyve made bold moves in dropping Yuvraj and Ghambhir, the team is better off with Sachin but Yuvraj shouldve been selected!

 

[zeustrojanstark]

They could have preferred Subramaniam Badrinath actually.Sad that he is not getting his chance in any format.Espically in conditions like England,Badri's temprament and technique will prove worthy as MSD cant really be his own in those conditions.Dhawan and Vijay are not tested but both are not 100% technicians but good in their own ways.Rohit always has a great IPL but a terrible international run.I think in CT,Rohit's part will be the main,he can stay,build and attack.I just hope he justifies it.He should be the crux of our batting actually.

 

[SaiSrini]

They could have preferred Subramaniam Badrinath actually.Sad that he is not getting his chance in any format.Espically in conditions like England,Badri's temprament and technique will prove worthy as MSD cant really be his own in those conditions.Dhawan and Vijay are not tested but both are not 100% technicians but good in their own ways.Rohit always has a great IPL but a terrible international run.I think in CT,Rohit's part will be the main,he can stay,build and attack.I just hope he justifies it.He should be the crux of our batting actually.

Badri for whom? And the thing is, Badri shouldn't bat anywhere other than No.3 and the No.3 spot is sealed by Kohli. Badri should not open, as he has never opened before and it would be a bad gamble by the selectors to pick Badri as the makeshift opener when you have the likes of Rahane or Gambhir whom you have dropped.

Badri didn't take his chances, cant blame anyone else.

----------

Lets see India are ranked number one in ODI cricket atm, knowing guys like you trust this as your gods then by all rights India should be regarded as favourites. Glad to see Sachin is no more in ODI, I am beginning to think that Sachin's retirement was forced by the selectors since we see that theyve made bold moves in dropping Yuvraj and Ghambhir, the team is better off with Sachin but Yuvraj shouldve been selected!

Trust who as 'your gods'? Can I have a translator please?

Yuvraj was looking tired and listless after the comeback from cancer. Can't just let him play based on emotions. The hunger he showed to come back from cancer and play cricket, he didn't show the same hunger in performing again on the cricket field. He deserved it. And with Ravindra Jadeja gaining momentum as the new spinning allrounder, Yuvraj isn't needed anymore for his spin.

 

[sifter132]

I think the Indian selectors have got it mostly right here. My only real question is about Irfan Pathan. I think there has proven to be better fast bowlers out there (eg. Praveen Kumar would be similar style, but better bowler IMHO), and surely he's not going to be the all-rounder ahead of Jadeja. If India wants a backup all-rounder and squad flexibility, then fair enough, but I don't think he's done enough to get picked personally.

And I would have picked Gambhir. Sure he wasn't particularly effective vs England and Pakistan in January, but he wasn't alone eg. Kohli had a few failures too. It seemed to be a blip to me. In the series before that Gambhir was good vs Sri Lanka. He's got a great ODI record, not wise to just push someone like that aside so quickly in my view.

Interesting that they've seemingly rewarded Vijay for his Test form rather than any IPL runs. Not sure that's what I would do, given IPL is more recent history, but Vijay's certainly got the talent to do very well.

 

[Cricketman]

iirc Irfan took a 5-fer in the last ODI series he played (in fact the last ODI match he played: 5th ODI: Sri Lanka v India at Pallekele, Aug 4, 2012 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo) I've been impressed with his comeback and I think he can do well for India in English conditions. However, I'm not sure where he fits into the XI. Jadeja has 7 sealed up now and the 3 main seamers are probably going to be Bhuvi, Yadav, and Vinay or Ishant.

Bold moves by dropping GG and Yuvi. Didn't expect Yuvraj to be dropped. Hope Dhawan keeps up his form when the ball is moving around.

 

[zeustrojanstark]

When Murali Vijay was picked for the test series the people said he is not a good player,he is in the team because of CSK etc..When the same batsman scored 400 odd runs with 2 hundreds,same people told he has matured,he is a real talent etc..Now again the same people say he is picked because of CSK and IPL should not be a platform.If IPL is the platform then Vijay would not have been picked.He is being rewarded for his performance against the Mighty Aussies in the test series.Hope and wish Murali Vijay proves the people wrong who claim that he is picked because he plays for CSK.

 

[vaibhavtewatia]

IPL performances do matter, but ' x is selected because he plays for y' sounds foolish!!
Tbh, yes, there has been a lack of batsmen who play the swinging ball well, not only for the Indians, but this is a problem around the world IMO.
The concern for me would be the death bowling, and trust me, Irfan Pathan is one who cannot contain batsmen in the last few overs, neither would Bhuvanesh (highly doubtful).
I'd like 3 pacers one spinner + Jadeja combination for ODI's, which has generally been the case. But if Pathan is preferred over Jadeja, this would make a huge difference with Pathan leaking alot more runs, and none of the fast bowlers I think can cover up.
Although, high expectations from Yadav, really hoped Aaron was fit too!!

 

[War]

Now that basically all the teams have been picked. This tournament is quite open, all the teams have an equal chance to win because despite what the faulty ranking systems say their hasn't been a clear # 1 ODI team since Australia failed the defend the 2011 world cup.

Only thing i might say is that the asian teams could possibly struggle if the conditions are really seamer friendly, but given that Sri Lanka rolled Australia for 74 just a few months back - the asian teams may not be so ill-equipped if the ball moves alot.

I still can't get over the fact that this tournament won't have Bangladesh. Its a grave insult to them by the ICC.

----------

I guess my point was that a month or 2 out, we don't know exactly what the conditions are - so your squad has to have at least a little bit of flexibility. Would look really foolish if Aussies get a pitch where the ball is turning, against a team that might play multiple spinners eg. Sri Lanka, and they haven't even named one in the squad. Because as much as I don't really like Doherty, I think on a receptive pitch his value goes up to at least the value of a 4th/5th fast bowler eg. Doherty on receptive pitches in the West Indies last year did quite well - pretty sure he was the leading wicket taker in that series (equal leading with Narine and Roach I discover...)

Not really. We just have two spinners (Doherty & Maxwell) in tests in India & they were useless on turners.

Its hihgly unlikely even if a turning/slow pitch is found in the c-trophy that is going to turn that alarmingly anyway. So i reckon Maxwell/Voges/Clarke could do a job in such conditions.

But if they wanted a spinner, they could have given O'Keefe a shot cause Doherty has looked short of international quality since the 2012 tour to the windies.

 

[War]

Champions Trophy 2013 : Ravi Bopara earns Champions Trophy recall | Cricket News | ICC Champions Trophy | ESPN Cricinfo

The fact that Bopara has been picked with no form behind him continues to show that England still are not sure about who to play in the # 7 spot in ODIs. The ghost of Flintoff lives on.

I still believe that Peter Trego is the best man equipped to fill the roll, too bad he is not on the selectors radar.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

Dwayne Bravo as West Indian captain with Sammy continuing to in the team, is an interesting move and tbh a very bold move. They were doing perfectly fine with Sammy's leadership.and again to start with base zero should not come to haunt them.

England being the home side start as favorites. Won't be sad to see Sri Lanka not doing well as they have a great ODI record in thesr championships, no matter what the conditions are

 

[sifter132]

I don't mind them changing to Bravo - it might work, you never know. They quoted the recent results in the article I read. Losing to Bangladesh a few months back in an ODI series was not good...and getting rolled 5-0 in Australia wasn't either. In theory they should be a decent team, given their T20 abilities. I think a team high on talent but low on results is usually the perfect team to change captains or coaches.

 

[vaibhavtewatia]

I'd say the team has never been stable since Hooper left. Be it captaincy, performances, controversies and Board issues, they have been inconsistent ever since. Whosoever might be the captain, it is not going to change much, as has been been the case usually.
They have not matched the balance, middle order being the root of the problem (whenever Gayle failed). Though they did give some good performances in England last year. Happy to see Sarwan being retained!!

 

[War]

I'd say the team has never been stable since Hooper left. Be it captaincy, performances, controversies and Board issues, they have been inconsistent ever since. Whosoever might be the captain, it is not going to change much, as has been been the case usually.
They have not matched the balance, middle order being the root of the problem (whenever Gayle failed). Though they did give some good performances in England last year. Happy to see Sarwan being retained!!

Ye good point about Hooper, he was the best inspirational + Tactical captain Windies had since Richie Richardson left really. The word before Australia toured windies in 2003, that Lara used his influence to get back the captaincy from Hopper & hooper just left the windies team totally because of it - instead of opting to play under Lara.

----------

Dwayne Bravo as West Indian captain with Sammy continuing to in the team, is an interesting move and tbh a very bold move. They were doing perfectly fine with Sammy's leadership.and again to start with base zero should not come to haunt them.

We must never forget that Sammy never deserved to be captain. A former St.Lucian board & CEO of the WICB in Julian Hunte & Ernest Hilaire basically took it away from Gayle due to dumb controversies & gave him that job.

But having said, that i'd say the windies took the captaincy away from him from the wrong format. Sammy should have only stayed as ODI/T20 or just T20 captain alone.

His record as test captain since became skipper in the 2010 Galle test to 2013 Dominca test is: 50 wickets at 38.20 with an economy rate of 2.75 while tallying 864 runs at an average of 24.00. As a supposed Test all-rounder, it is an inadequate CV. Gayle, Ramdin or Samuels (wildcard) should be test captain.

 

[Beamer]

I think ENG and AUS have the edge to go through from group A. Their fast bowlers should get good assistance. Group B is tricky