India in South Africa

[SaiSrini]

As much as I agree that Ganguly has made a good comeback and should be considered for ODI selection I have to say that it was right to, first, stripping him of captaincy, and then on the basis of his form, dropping him from the team.

Its good that someone stood up and decided to put performances and form ahead of past laurels. And Ganguly before he was dropped was playing very ordinary cricket.

Yeah, ur rite. Well I used those points to put it forward that Ganguly does not need to prove anything to the coach. Thats the least important. Selectors and the captain come first!

Stripping him of captaincy was right, but the way he was brought into the team and then dropped when he didnt do anything wrong and wasnt worser than the other players performing in the middle, was totally unfair of him. But well, it helped him become more stronger and we have now seen him fight back against the odds, and only the extreme hard hearted can stop him now from not boarding the World Cup flight!

 

[Gunner786]

shouldnt this be in past tours now?

 

[SaiSrini]

shouldnt this be in past tours now?

It has been moved now!

 

[andrew_nixon]

shouldnt this be in past tours now?

Well I usually leave them for a while, but in future, please be aware that if we need your advice on moderating, we'll ask you for it.

 

[Adarsh]

That's very polite of you :

I don't think Ganguly should be the captain. You can't really blame Dravid for the series loss and I think he's done pretty well. I really do think that Sachin should be more aggressive. He gets himself into a shell very very often in the second innings of a game. In fact, it's happened ever since that test in Chennai against Pakistan in 1999 where he got out trying to slog Saqlain with only a few runs to get and then India lost it. Do you think that affected him ?

 

[sohum]

Reinstating Ganguly as captain may be a case of taking one step forward and two steps back. Also, I think the first problem we need to address is getting both our departments working at the same time (batting and bowling) and starting up the fielding department.

 

[SaiSrini]

That's very polite of you :

I don't think Ganguly should be the captain. You can't really blame Dravid for the series loss and I think he's done pretty well. I really do think that Sachin should be more aggressive. He gets himself into a shell very very often in the second innings of a game. In fact, it's happened ever since that test in Chennai against Pakistan in 1999 where he got out trying to slog Saqlain with only a few runs to get and then India lost it. Do you think that affected him ?

What has Dravid really done as captain? Most of the time, he hasnt really taken the bull by the horn, and more often, he has paid the price for it. Ganguly takes bold decisions and has reaped success for most of it.

Meanwhile, Sachin has been aggressive after that 1999 unfortunate and freak defeat against Pakistan. He is focussing on maximising his playing years because he thinks that would benefit the team. But its not helping the team when he plays like how he did in the final innings of the tour!

 

[Gunner786]

even though im not an indian

its clear dravid cant bring the best out of other players as captain

while ganguly always got at least 90% out of all the players

 

[sohum]

even though im not an indian

its clear dravid cant bring the best out of other players as captain

while ganguly always got at least 90% out of all the players

How would Dravid get the best out of the batsmen, though? It's them who have been failing mainly, in this tour. There's only a certain amount he can tell them, but once they're out there, it's just the 2 of them.

 

[harishankar]

Talking of Dravid's captaincy, I have a few things to note here:

* His field placings are very dismal. He doesn't know when to attack and when to defend. For instance in the Durban test match when India desperately had to save the game, he allowed SA to bat freely and score runs well in time to declare between lunch and tea on day 4. His continuous insistence on having gullies, but no third man is quite surprising since not many Indian seamers get the batsmen to play to gully as they simply don't have enough pace and they leaked far too many boundaries to third man. Again, he put immense pressure on the young seamers, VRV Singh and Sreesanth by having 7-2 fields when quite clearly he should have had a 6-3 field.

* His batting order is quite rigid. He doesn't seem to have a good idea of "current form" and so a lot of pressure is put on the top order when he himself, Sehwag and Tendulkar failed over and over again. To me, he should have promoted Laxman up at #3 early in the tour and gone down to batting order himself to give it some stability.

* His insistence on remaining orthodox when it comes to changing the bowlers around. Quite simply, when it was a case of bowling two spinners in tandem at Cape Town, he didn't read the situation well. He continued bowling the seamers in spite of the fact that runs were scored freely off them. He couldn't quite use his bowling resources effectively.

* Team selection - I know the coach has a say in this, but ultimately Dravid made a huge blunder in allowing unfit players into the playing 11. How Munaf Patel passed the fitness test before Cape Town will remain a mystery to most Indian fans. He played as a dead-weight to the team and the strain showed...

 

[m_vaughan]

I said it before he was made captain and have been saying all throughout, that as great a player he is, he is always gonna be a very ordinary captain.

Munaf Patel's selection was nothing short of a joke imo.

 

[Cricket_god]

I think it was a series as greg chappel put it-"Which gave more questions than answers"

 

[hindustani]

yea i guess he is a pretty ordinary captain after leading india up the rankings beating lanka pakistan england and zimbabwe.

 

[Adarsh]

I said it before he was made captain and have been saying all throughout, that as great a player he is, he is always gonna be a very ordinary captain.

Munaf Patel's selection was nothing short of a joke imo.

Actually few people disagreed with that decision before that match. You can't blame the selectors or Dravid for that. He passed the fitness test and played very well in the ODIs. Munaf Patel is the one who everybody needs to kill!

 

[Cricket_god]

Talking of Dravid's captaincy, I have a few things to note here:

* His field placings are very dismal. He doesn't know when to attack and when to defend. For instance in the Durban test match when India desperately had to save the game, he allowed SA to bat freely and score runs well in time to declare between lunch and tea on day 4. His continuous insistence on having gullies, but no third man is quite surprising since not many Indian seamers get the batsmen to play to gully as they simply don't have enough pace and they leaked far too many boundaries to third man. Again, he put immense pressure on the young seamers, VRV Singh and Sreesanth by having 7-2 fields when quite clearly he should have had a 6-3 field.

* His batting order is quite rigid. He doesn't seem to have a good idea of "current form" and so a lot of pressure is put on the top order when he himself, Sehwag and Tendulkar failed over and over again. To me, he should have promoted Laxman up at #3 early in the tour and gone down to batting order himself to give it some stability.

* His insistence on remaining orthodox when it comes to changing the bowlers around. Quite simply, when it was a case of bowling two spinners in tandem at Cape Town, he didn't read the situation well. He continued bowling the seamers in spite of the fact that runs were scored freely off them. He couldn't quite use his bowling resources effectively.

* Team selection - I know the coach has a say in this, but ultimately Dravid made a huge blunder in allowing unfit players into the playing 11. How Munaf Patel passed the fitness test before Cape Town will remain a mystery to most Indian fans. He played as a dead-weight to the team and the strain showed...

A Captain is as good as his team .The bowlers deserved 7-2 field because
they were bowling well.Why the hue and cry about munaf patel he was never a good fielder but he bowled quite well in this match too.He failed in one series with the bat which shows indias batting deficiency no captain could have helped india win.