India in England/Ireland/Scotland

[zub2005]

i would pick jaffer, i know he has not got the best scores but i will have to go with him. yuvraj dhoni laxman is a hard one, but i would go with laxman and dhoni

 

[Sureshot]

I just hope the Lords groundsman takes note of the last three Test matches at Lords; They've all been absolute deadpans. Whereas if you look at the Lords pitch from 2005 when the Australian's trounced us, there was always something in it for both batsmen and bowlers. Nowadays it's pretty much whoever bats first puts on 550, the other team follows suit and the game ends in a dull draw. These days it seems that if you don't take early wickets bowling first at Lords, then you don't take wickets full stop.

I'm just looking up the Lords stats on CricInfo, that site is getting so much slower of late!!!

http://statserver.cricket.org/guru?...ershigh=;event=0;submit=1;.cgifields=viewtype

Last team to bowl us out at Lords was Australia 3 back to back draws though! I don't really like the Lords pitch tbh, added to the fact we don't have a good record there.

 

[evertonfan]

Alastair Cook seems to love the place. Two hundreds and an 89.

 

[RoboRocks]

Sounds about right.
We need to get bowlers who can take wickets in the second innings, that seems to be the problem.

 

[Justcrazy]

if they drop dhoni i aint watchin this series....india sux guyz...

 

[SaiSrini]

I personally think that Jaffer should be dropped. Don't get me wrong, I like the guy a lot. And it's unfortunate, but if you put Jaffer vs Yuvraj, I'd pick Yuvraj any day of the week. Move Tendulkar up, making him open with Karthik. Then you have the strong middle order of Dravid, Ganguly, Yuvraj, Laxman, and Dhoni. Finally, the four bowlers are RP Singh, Zaheer, Kumble, and Sreesanth.

To me, that looks like a VERY strong batting line-up and pretty decent bowling too.

Chances are, it wont happen. They'll probably pick Jaffer over Yuvi.

Tendulkar cant open in tests. They also wont let him open. If they drop an opener, Dravid will take up the responsibility of opening. And its harsh on Gambhir when you drop Jaffer and pick Yuvraj. And Gambhir has scored in the first warm up match and if Jaffer is dropped, he deserves the chance.

Having read Sussex captain, Chris Adams's article in the paper yesterday, he seems to think if there isn't any swing Sreesanth will fall apart. Same with Zaheer and that your bowling is essentially just Kumble. He also seems to think that, Laxman, Ganguly, Dhoni, Jaffer are suseptable to the short quick ball. All for different reasons but all suseptable.

Hmm... Lets see. Ganguly has been batting well ever since he came back and he batted very well in South Africa. He used to be suspect against the short pitch ball, but he seems to counter that with a changed technique ever since he came back. Almost all of India's batting are suspect to short pitched bowling, but they are quite improving in recent times. is Adams trying to play mind games with us? We have masters at such games in our side (Dada).

if they drop dhoni i aint watchin this series....india sux guyz...

Can you also please stop from posting here? we wil be happy not having people like you. Dhoni is not all about India.

 

[cricket_lover]

Almost all of India's batting are suspect to short pitched bowling, but they are quite improving in recent times. is Adams trying to play mind games with us? We have masters at such games in our side (Dada).

the tendulkars, dravids and laxmans are not prone to short pitch bowling. Its just lack of practice.

See, players need to have technique to play such bowling. These guys have it, and have shown it. But if you play 1 or two tests, out of 15 on quality tracks and play 40 ODIs instead on batting beauties..i don't see why we can blame them.

 

[sohum]

Personally, I feel your best option would be to give KKD the gloves in the test. You need the extra batsman, just to make sure that you totally bat us out of the game to a position where your worst result would be a draw. As I'm not sure on your ability to bowl us out twice, barring Kumble of course.

Dhoni keeps over Karthik only because Karthik is better in the field than Dhoni. We are picking both as batsmen, I'm pretty sure.

I don't feel the extra bowler would be useful because I don't think the extra bowler we play will be too effective.

 

[manee]

Karthik cannot keep and open the batting since he could potentially be keeping for two days and have to go out and bat after a 10 minute break, this would take a horrible long term toll on him. Dropping him down the order would not make too much sense either as Karthik has done very well opening the batting for India.

Opening                3    4   0   270 129   63   56   67.50   1   2   0
7th position          11   14   1   283  93   46   38*  21.76   0   1   0

Add to that a 76 and 33 against Sussex and 5 and 51 against England Lions and you have some impressive stats. Taking those into consideration he has scored 435 runs at 54.38, which ain't too shabby.

I am in favour of keeping Dhoni in the side. So, what options does that leave? Well, VVS or Yuvraj, surely based on tour performances they are about equal, but VVS has the better overall record and Yuvraj Singh has not done enough to edge him out the side in my opinion.

So, this leaves the very risky but possible solution of three bowlers, obviously being Sreesanth, Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble. I believe India have been seriously considering this, hence the overuse of the part timers in the tour games but in my opinion, in the run fest that is the Lords Test match, you cannot do this since the extra batsman will be wasted and the extra bowler, needed. RP Singh is a shoe in for the fourth bowler role. He gets bounce from a lot of surfaces and his swinging yorker claims a lot of wickets, such traits are needed from a bowler in tough conditions. The 41 in the tour match against Sussex shows he is no mug with the bat either.

So, that leaves the batsman, I don't think Wasim Jaffer(see note) cannot be left out since his large scores at the top of the order are extremely handy in all situations while India are more than capable with dealing with the early loss that Jaffer often provides with Dravid, Tendulkar and Ganguly all capable of grinding out innings. And as mentioned earlier, VVS Laxman takes the final batsman slot as Yuvraj has not shown enough talent at the longer game to edge out the experienced Laxman.

1. Karthik
2. Jaffer
3. Dravid*
4. Tendulkar
5. Ganguly
6. VVS Laxman
7. Dhoni+
8. RP Singh
9. Kumble
10. Zaheer Khan
11. Sreesanth

Note: I do not think Jaffer is an opening batsman and would be far more suited to going further down the order in the middle, I am in the process of writing an article about this.

 

[Adarsh]

India are more than capable with dealing with the early loss that Jaffer often provides

Nope. India can't afford to go in with such a crazy stratergy. If they could, Sehwag would still be opening. At least he provided a lot of momentum, and kept the run rate high as well as scoring huge hundreds. I'm still a bit sore that he isn't in the team. However, leaving aside that, India can't afford to take someone who fails more often than not.

 

[RoboRocks]

I didn't think RP Singh could bat that high?
Kumble has made runs in that number 8 position so RP must be able to bat.

 

[manee]

Nope. India can't afford to go in with such a crazy stratergy. If they could, Sehwag would still be opening. At least he provided a lot of momentum, and kept the run rate high as well as scoring huge hundreds. I'm still a bit sore that he isn't in the team. However, leaving aside that, India can't afford to take someone who fails more often than not.

It is more of an he's all we have strategy, I am aware he is not an ideal choice. But you can hardly shove Gambhir there to open straight away in the Test and expect him to do well. It is a risky strategy, but not a disasterous one, and as I see it, he is due a large score (sounds unscientific, but you watch when he gets a century). On another note, why the hell was Sehwag dropped from Tests as a responce to poor ODI form? I would always have Sehwag opening in Tests. These days, I would have him opening with Karthik.

I didn't think RP Singh could bat that high?
Kumble has made runs in that number 8 position so RP must be able to bat.

No idea, but he made 41 off 46 against Sussex so he is no mug, given that is his top ever FC score.

 

[evertonfan]

Yeah, Kumble was a constant thorn in our side when we toured their last April. I seem to remember him preventing a follow on? He's definitely capable with the willow.

 

[Sureshot]

Hmm... Lets see. Ganguly has been batting well ever since he came back and he batted very well in South Africa. He used to be suspect against the short pitch ball, but he seems to counter that with a changed technique ever since he came back. Almost all of India's batting are suspect to short pitched bowling, but they are quite improving in recent times. is Adams trying to play mind games with us? We have masters at such games in our side (Dada).

Has anyone got this article yet?

Because to me it didn't sound like Grizzly.

 

[RoboRocks]

Yeah just thinking that, he has an ability to bat for a long time and build a partnership which India may need if there middle/lower order collapses like he did in India like evo says.