ICC Cricket World Cup - May/July 2019

[SaiSrini]

India's selection has been absolutely haphazard. The decisions that they are making right now, gives it away that their initial WC squad selection was bad to start off with. Agarwal, who is not even among the official standby's, has been called up over an official standby Rayudu. The decision to bring in Agarwal at this moment is a good one because we need a backup opener to replace Dhawan and we also need an aggressive batter, but why was this not done when Dhawan was officially replaced? As Aakash Chopra says on Twitter, "a middle order batsman (Pant) replaces an opener (Dhawan), and an opener (Agarwal) replaces a middle order player (Shankar)". How messed up this is!! And as I said, Rayudu must be scratching his head (and his 3D glasses) seeing that he was on official standby list and someone else has leapfrogged him.

Anyways, Agarwal wont play tomorrow against Bangladesh. But if he can come in against Sri Lanka and open, Rahul moves to No. 4 (suddenly Rahul has become this new No. 4 everyone wants to see in that spot).

For tomorrow's game (India vs Bangladesh) - same pitch that was used against England and as a result, the same 59m short boundary size. Definite signs to drop a wrist spinner for Bhuvi. And maybe Jadeja for Kedar (Jadeja more as a batsman who can bowl a few overs). My XI would be this:

Rohit
Rahul
Kohli
Pant
Dhoni
Pandya
Jadeja
Bhuvi
Shami
Kuldeep
Bumrah

Waqar Younis

P.S- It seems that he's not the only one. There are quite a few.

What a bunch of fools!

I loved the way someone on Twitter pulled up Wasim Akram's comments on that "Kumble 10-fer" game where him and Waqar tried unsportsman like attempts to not give Kumble the 10th wicket. And this guy (Waqar) talks about India's sportsmanship now.

 

[Rehan_24]

No one is giving explanations here to anyone. We are having a discussion on Dhoni's approach, thats all.

And you only need to look up to Pakistani legends on social media with their insane theories on why there was alleged lack of intent

Dont follow those on any media. I had my observation. I haven't said they lost on purpose I was just surprized with it and I didn't enjoy to watch second innings at all. Anyhow I think time to move on and see how rest of the WC goes.

Talking specifically about Dhoni's approach, it wasn't a rocket science the kind of experience and ability Dhoni had with ordinary deliveries by English pacemen, it was a piece of cake

 

[aditya123]

Our selection policy is shambles. We tried several players for a game, two games here and there. Discarded all of them for Rayudu. Radyudu does`nt get picked (I don't rate him too highly). Pant flies in ahead of Rayudu and then plays ahead of the already in the squad DK. Mayank (who I rate as a batsman, for the record) flies in without having been remotely in ODI scheme of things. You don`t win WCs with patch-work sides. The reason we won in 2011 was that we could name the XI 1 year before the World Cup! This team has too many dead-weights but the insanely good individual efforts by a few is carrying them through. I would be surprised if we go past the semis here. Dhoni in 2011 took 3 years (from 2008-2011) to build the side. Kohli and Shastri were trying out Raina and Yuvraj till last year. Shows how messed up our selection process has been, despite all the riches. We could`ve stuck to Rahul for 2 years and told him he is the No.4. Had he (or anyone else like Iyer, Rahane or Mayank etc) failed after those 2 years of investment, so be it. We messed up with too many changes. Pant did`nt even play the ODIs in NZ! Why?

 

[aditya123]

Dont follow those on any media. I had my observation. I haven't said they lost on purpose I was just surprized with it and I didn't enjoy to watch second innings at all. Anyhow I think time to move on and see how rest of the WC goes.

Talking specifically about Dhoni's approach, it wasn't a rocket science the kind of experience and ability Dhoni had with ordinary deliveries by English pacemen, it was a piece of cake

He isn't the Dhoni of 2011. He has been struggling with any decent quality bowling in the last 3 years. It's just that you had more at stake today that makes you feel so.

 

[Aalay]

He isn't the Dhoni of 2011. He has been struggling with any decent quality bowling in the last 3 years. It's just that you had more at stake today that makes you feel so.

Touché Adi, touché!

 

[Bevab]

Dont follow those on any media. I had my observation. I haven't said they lost on purpose I was just surprized with it and I didn't enjoy to watch second innings at all. Anyhow I think time to move on and see how rest of the WC goes.

Talking specifically about Dhoni's approach, it wasn't a rocket science the kind of experience and ability Dhoni had with ordinary deliveries by English pacemen, it was a piece of cake

Would you have backed Sarfaraz Ahmed to have chased that total down from a similar situation? Because him and Dhoni have eerily similar ODI stats over the last four years.

 

[Aalay]

Talking specifically about Dhoni's approach, it wasn't a rocket science the kind of experience and ability Dhoni had with ordinary deliveries by English pacemen, it was a piece of cake

It was a flat pitch which got slower as the game progressed which is why the slower balls bowled into the surface were not coming onto the bat as sweetly as the batsmen would have liked. England found this out by having Plunkett in the side who mainly bowls those cross seam deliveries and cutters during middle overs. England was very smart in last 10 overs once they had figured out how slow the pitch has become. The problem was India left a bit too much at the end because they didn't realize that pitch would get as slow as it did. When they did realize, the game was already out of their hands and they had to play for their NRR. If English pacemen were bowling "ordinary deliveries" and they were "piece of cake", we would have won the match with Dhoni's experience.

 

[asprin]

Have a feeling that Rayudu's "3D" jibe didn't go down well with the selectors. Sure, they downplayed the incident in the media but wouldn't be surprised if that is what is coming back to bite him now.

 

[Rehan_24]

Fair enough guys if you are satisfied with this performance of Dhoni then you should send a request to Virat sooner or later otherwise Dhoni gone a ruin this World Cup for you in the coming matches if such situation arise again.

Also please don't compare sarfraz and dhoni. There is no comparison, the kind of exposure MS carries, he has a legacy while Sarfraz hasn't set a proper number for himself over the past years and relied heavily on other batsmen than his own ability so Sarfraz is clealry rusty at the moment.

Someone said go read social media, I just went and saw espn cricinfo there. Please go and make this understand to Sourav Ganguly and Naseer Hussain as well as the credible espn cricinfo and honestly speakingI I aint just talking about dhoni here Sharma and Virat also, played sluggish cricket and it was just not indian batting style of play

Don't just hand pick Waqar Younis and call him a fool. Respect the game and respect free view. Its a democratic world isnt it ?

 

[Bevab]

Also please don't compare sarfraz and dhoni. There is no comparison, the kind of exposure MS carries, he has a legacy while Sarfraz hasn't set a proper number for himself over the past years and relied heavily on other batsmen than his own ability so Sarfraz is clealry rusty at the moment.

There is no point in any sort of legacy or myth whilst chasing targets in a World Cup game though. By the numbers, Dhoni and Sarfaraz have been largely at a similar level of performance with the bat over the last four years, which is exactly why I asked the previous question. The criticism that you’ve aimed at Sarfaraz could be aimed at Dhoni too, I don’t remember a single game in recent times where had it not been for Dhoni, we wouldn’t have won the game. He has been performing the role as a batsman that any below average player in the Indian side would be doing. Even when he won the MoS versus Aussies, players like Jadhav and DK were scoring at a faster rate than him.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/24507849/why-there-no-such-thing-finisher-odi-cricket

Unlike me, this article includes Dhoni’s peak period too and it clearly shows that Dhoni hasn’t actually been the man to constantly press the throttle, others do it for him while he sticks around and delivers the killing blow at the end. If you were expecting a Dhoni that is way past his prime and an out of form Jadhav who isn’t a pure slogger to take India home from a situation that has only been successful twice ever in the history of ODIs, you haven’t been watching the Indian side or Dhoni’s performances over the last few years.

 

[Aalay]

Fair enough guys if you are satisfied with this performance of Dhoni then you should send a request to Virat sooner or later otherwise Dhoni gone a ruin this World Cup for you in the coming matches if such situation arise again.

It's not about satisfaction or, it's about doing what's right for team India in that situation. Once they knew we can't chase the target, they went for the next option which was to make sure our NRR don't take a hit.

I aint just talking about dhoni here Sharma and Virat also, played sluggish cricket and it was just not indian batting style of play

There is a reason why they were not going for big shots which was they wanted to save wickets which is exactly the way India has played in ODI's in last few years. As I said in my previous posts, the pitch got slower as the game progressed and became a bit two paced. Kohli and Rohit did not take any risks at all in the first 10 overs and therefore we didn't get enough runs. However, as the inning progressed, if you were actually watching the match you might have seen that Rohit did take risk a couple of times. He tried to hit over hit the ball but survived both the times because the ball fell between the fielders. To Virat, the pitch doesn't really matter and he can adapt as he did yesterday but he got out to a soft dismissal which can happen. I posted this yesterday that this is one of the worse centuries of Rohit that I have seen because he never quite looked in control.

Its a democratic world isnt it ?

No it's not. Have you heard of China?

Don't just hand pick Waqar Younis and call him a fool. Respect the game and respect free view

I respect the game and respect the views but if he comes up with theories like this which can influence an entire nation in a negative manner, he is a fool.

 

[Rehan_24]

There is no point in any sort of legacy or myth whilst chasing targets in a World Cup game though. By the numbers, Dhoni and Sarfaraz have been largely at a similar level of performance with the bat over the last four years, which is exactly why I asked the previous question. The criticism that you’ve aimed at Sarfaraz could be aimed at Dhoni too, I don’t remember a single game in recent times where had it not been for Dhoni, we wouldn’t have won the game. He has been performing the role as a batsman that any below average player in the Indian side would be doing. Even when he won the MoS versus Aussies, players like Jadhav and DK were scoring at a faster rate than him.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/24507849/why-there-no-such-thing-finisher-odi-cricket

Unlike me, this article includes Dhoni’s peak period too and it clearly shows that Dhoni hasn’t actually been the man to constantly press the throttle, others do it for him while he sticks around and delivers the killing blow at the end. If you were expecting a Dhoni that is way past his prime and an out of form Jadhav who isn’t a pure slogger to take India home from a situation that has only been successful twice ever in the history of ODIs, you haven’t been watching the Indian side or Dhoni’s performances over the last few years.

Fair enough what I meant with legacy and exposure is when a great of the game counters such situation he improvise and show a lot of intent and efforts to win a game. I expected far better from MS and this is my opinion and the way I see the game.

It was certainly not in plans then to go for winning the game after 45 overs so India thought lets just improve the NRR rather than trying hard to win a game. Okay, I buy this logic but Virat said otherwise, he said dhoni tried too hard but it wasnt coming off.

I would again say dont compare a great player a legend so to speak with just a good player whom I have given you enough reasons he cant be compared with MS at all. Ms tradmark has been power hitting and taking the game away from the opposition, he has been disappointing for sure thus far he was also below par against Afghanistan

 

[Aalay]

Ms tradmark has been power hitting and taking the game away from the opposition, he has been disappointing for sure thus far he was also below par against Afghanistan

Man are you not reading what people have said on this page and previous page. This is not the same Dhoni. Dhoni that you are talking about disappeared in 2015. He has been on a downward slop since 2015 but he is still the best keeper in India and tactically probably the smartest cricketing person I have seen since I have started watching cricket. He is in this team for his keeping, his tactical knowledge/general game awareness and his batting. If it was just Dhoni the batsman, he would have been dropped after 2015 WC.

 

[Rehan_24]

It's not about satisfaction or, it's about doing what's right for team India in that situation. Once they knew we can't chase the target, they went for the next option which was to make sure our NRR don't take a hit.



There is a reason why they were not going for big shots which was they wanted to save wickets which is exactly the way India has played in ODI's in last few years. As I said in my previous posts, the pitch got slower as the game progressed and became a bit two paced. Kohli and Rohit did not take any risks at all in the first 10 overs and therefore we didn't get enough runs. However, as the inning progressed, if you were actually watching the match you might have seen that Rohit did take risk a couple of times. He tried to hit over hit the ball but survived both the times because the ball fell between the fielders. To Virat, the pitch doesn't really matter and he can adapt as he did yesterday but he got out to a soft dismissal which can happen. I posted this yesterday that this is one of the worse centuries of Rohit that I have seen because he never quite looked in control.



No it's not. Have you heard of China?



I respect the game and respect the views but if he comes up with theories like this which can influence an entire nation in a negative manner, he is a fool.

I did watch the game, the slowness of wicket was so much that Rohit and Virat forgot to hit a single six. I must say what a bad wicket ICC prepared then for such a big game between two top teams that second innings team got such a huge disadvantage and I agree it was no doubt worst batting performance.

Regarding Waqar Younis, I dont agree with his view at all nor how he portrayed it but he had his own observation and we can simply ignore it

 

[Rehan_24]

Man are you not reading what people have said on this page and previous page. This is not the same Dhoni. Dhoni that you are talking about disappeared in 2015. He has been on a downward slop since 2015 but he is still the best keeper in India and tactically probably the smartest cricketing person I have seen since I have started watching cricket. He is in this team for his keeping, his tactical knowledge/general game awareness and his batting. If it was just Dhoni the batsman, he would have been dropped after 2015 WC.

He has been in the team just because of the smartness and good cricketing brain and rightly so but his batting form is quite a burden Indian team is taking up on its shoulders for sure then.

As a matter of fact I questioned the entire batting unit intent rather than just MS. You said pitch was slow and all. Fine