India in England Jun-Sept 2014

[Skater]

It's going to be a warm one at Lord's tomorrow.

 

[used2bcool]

To say that this game is evenly poised is to put too much faith in the ability of our bowlers, faith that they have scarcely repaid.

I would say England have a real chance to stamp their authority over this match now.

 

[SaiSrini]

To say that this game is evenly poised is to put too much faith in the ability of our bowlers, faith that they have scarcely repaid.

I would say England have a real chance to stamp their authority over this match now.

India bowled pretty well last game when conditions were helping them. They put England on the mat with 7 wkts down, only for Root and the tail to recover as the pitch eased out. Indian bowlers look worser than others on a flat pitch, but when it comes to a pitch which has help, they can do well for us. And this also includes Ishant Sharma.

 

[Epic]

For me Jadeja and Binny should be no where near the Indian team and so is Ashwin. We need some fresh talent into the side. Ojha was super against England and he should have been there for the series. But if only presented Jadeja Ashwin Binny, I would have played Ashwin in place of Jadeja and Gambhir/Rohit in place of Binny.

3 Fast bowlers one spinner and medium pace of Kohli and part time spin of Vijay/Sharma would be more then enough. Luckily we had Rahane who played sensible knocks or else we would have been struggling. With 290 on board, if we could add another 25-30 runs we would be comfortable this match given how the pitch has played.

It obviously wasn't enough, I'm a big fan of the 6 batsmen, 1 keeper and 4 bowler combination, and in a perfect world, that's what I would have us play, but the 4 bowlers obviously weren't doing the job for us, and I'm not saying Binny will just run through teams, but on pitches like the one we're playing on right now, he can at the very least hold up an end and keep our pacers from tiring easily, which I think has been a problem in our previous 2 overseas Test series'.

This whole thing is a cop out though, if you really were worried about taking 20 wickets and better optimizing your bowling options, you'd play Aaron instead of Rohit (in the first place), often captains don't want to prioritize one department over the other, so they pick the all-rounder, Stokes for Jordan for example.

 

[aditya123]

It obviously wasn't enough, I'm a big fan of the 6 batsmen, 1 keeper and 4 bowler combination, and in a perfect world, that's what I would have us play, but the 4 bowlers obviously weren't doing the job for us, and I'm not saying Binny will just run through teams, but on pitches like the one we're playing on right now, he can at the very least hold up an end and keep our pacers from tiring easily, which I think has been a problem in our previous 2 overseas Test series'.

This whole thing is a cop out though, if you really were worried about taking 20 wickets and better optimizing your bowling options, you'd play Aaron instead of Rohit (in the first place), often captains don't want to prioritize one department over the other, so they pick the all-rounder, Stokes for Jordan for example.

In India`s case, the bigger problem is the batting of Dhoni and Jadeja. They are not stable test match batsmen by any stretch of imagination. If they were, we could have afforded to play Bhuvi at No.8 and then Aaron in place of Binny. Ashwin is a better batsman than Jadeja and thus makes a strong case for being selected ahead of him if Jadeja does not fire with the ball here.

Moeen Ali could have got 2 wickets here had Prior not grassed that chance of Kohli. So Jadeja is under real pressure here.

 

[Skater]

I feel nervous for Alastair Cook this morning. God knows what he must be like.

 

[Epic]

Our slip catching.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

Robson gets the dropped sitter and Cook, who needs some luck, gets the safe hands. aint it always the way?

his figures are going to be rubbish for this series, aren't they?

 

[T.J.Hooker]

The thing about Cook is that he's fundamentally weak offside on the front foot, so he needs to leave the ball really well to make runs. Especially in England.

For all the runs he's scored, apart from his pull shot he's not a great ball striker and his footwork is pretty stiff. His judgement has been his key weapon, and it's not surprising that he's struggling with it given the huge pressure he's under.

 

[War]

Too early. I have not seen GRV (Vishwanath) play, but have heard that he was in an altogether different league than even the guys in our Fab Four (Sachin, Dravid, Laxman).

I meant the comparison more in batting style sense, that performances of course. I know few old school Indians in UK, who saw Vishwanath bat & have been saying since hiss S Africa tour batting, that Rahane reminds them o Vishy.

Based on the videos i've seen of Vishy, i see what they mean.

 

[Skater]

Robson has had the flaw in his technique exposed within his first 4 Tests. That's the nature of international cricket. He's got work to do.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

The thing about Cook is that he's fundamentally weak offside on the front foot, so he needs to leave the ball really well to make runs. Especially in England.

For all the runs he's scored, apart from his pull shot he's not a great ball striker and his footwork is pretty stiff. His judgement has been his key weapon, and it's not surprising that he's struggling with it given the huge pressure he's under.

it's always something with Cook, before it was his head movement, his footwork was OK and he wasn't getting over the ball and coming onto it late. He's just not built to score high on typical swinging conditions, and the fact that he does so is actually a testament to how mentally strong he can be.

improving his technique will probably only help him mentally, give him confidence he can make a score on a tough pitch, because he is a very good run scorer but he'll never be planting silky cover drives to the boundary. I wouldn't drop him, but the pressure of captaincy isn't doing him any favours as I feel right now he'd probably rather just focus on himself.

 

[Skater]

Trouble is I can't think of who would take over the captaincy is Cook lost it. Broad or Root are possibilities but I wouldn't be delighted with either.

 

[War]

When i see Cook struggle since last year, it makes me appreciate Mike Atherton more and more. Cook has essentially played on weak bowling era, although things have improved since 2010. His poor streaks in his career are far more than his peak. Yet he statistically has so much batting records.

Atherton played in tough era & never failed like Cook did so regularly.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

Trouble is I can't think of who would take over the captaincy is Cook lost it. Broad or Root are possibilities but I wouldn't be delighted with either.

I had this conversation with someone last week and said Matt Prior about 50 times only for them to still to keep saying "I just don't see an obvious candidate." without ever telling me why Prior couldn't do it.

it was barmy on here that I first saw it suggested but really, why not? guy frequently knuckles down, he's good with the gloves and involved in both the fielding and batting efforts, he seems to have a lot of respect in the dressing room as he was named as one of the people that tried to sort KP out last year, he's world class, experienced and still has 3-4 years in him.