Indian tour of South Africa, December-January 2010/11

[Harshshah]

Happy with exclusion of Jadeja. Now Pathan for sure is in the squad

 

[icyman]

A leg-spinner always comes in handy. Chawla spins the ball way better than any other spinner. If he can chip in with some runs, it will be good.

In fact, Chawla is as good as Jadeja. Whereas Jadeja boasted of being an all-rounder, Chawla does not do so.

 

[SaiSrini]

Chawla is anyday a better option than Ravindra Jadeja. Only area where Jadeja might win is fielding, but then Chawla is a very agile and athletic fielder (even though he might not look brilliant with those dives and frills). Chawla is a specialist spin bowler. Jadeja is nowhere close.

 

[relentless_rock]

Happy that Piyush Chawla is in our selectors radar. He may not be successful on SA pitches, but very important addtion to the WC squad. Made vital contributions with bat and bowl for Haryana team. Just would be hard to fit him in 15, possibly omission of .. Kohli, as I would want Ashwin in as well. 3 specialists spinners operating with added left arm variation from Yuvraj would be quite a handful on spinner friendly tracks

 

[AkshayS]

Chawla is surely better than a Jadeja but he can't be a part of 15 man-squad and it is a 16 man-squad. He's not on WC radar I think. And it's also hard for him to get a game here.

 

[icyman]

Chawla will get more than one game. The selectors would want to rest Bhajji for 2 games atleast. Chawla could be very succesful against the South Africans and he can spin the ball a long way. Not many spinners can do so today and would be tough for the Saffers to put him away.

 

[relentless_rock]

^^If Chawla would have been completely written off from WC scheme of things (like Jadeja seems to be), there was absolutely no reason to select him in for SA series. He'll definetely get a game, and that might be the only game he gets. Too bad for this chap, if he does anything less than extra-ordinary, it would make selectors' job easy to discard him. Nice problem to have will be him doing well!!

 

[AkshayS]

The selectors would want to rest Bhajji for 2 games atleast.

And why would they rest him, they have to drop him I think if he continues the ████.
IMO, Chawla won't get a game or more than one because we're likely to go in with 3 seamers and 1 spinner and that will be either Bhajji/Ashwin. The only place I can see for him is Pathan's, the allrounder spot batting at no.7, and that's highly unlikely too.

 

[venom2011]

Anyway, sad to see Imran Tahir won't be playing for SA until 2012...

Where did this come from? As far as I know he'll be eligible very soon.

 

[War]

Where did this come from? As far as I know he'll be eligible very soon.

Pakistani spinner bowled by Home Affairs wrong

 

[Dare]

South Africa managed to take 10 wickets over the course of 130 overs (a day and a half) in the second innings of a Test match (meaning all the wear and tear on the pitch has been accounted for). While their bowlers are far better than India's, giving up 460-odd runs in the second day of the Test is definitely above average--which is why I think the pitch was pretty good for batting and the game would have been a draw if India had played better on the first day and the pitch wasn't as juicy.

Yes, India on average doesn't have the ability to consistently take 20 wickets. But matches are never played on average. You will always have performances that are below and above average. One such performance was Sreesanth's five-for in India's last tour. I can pretty much guarantee that no one, before the match, would have gone in saying Sree would take 5 wickets and that the Saffers would fold for 84 to set the match up nicely. But it happened.

The fact is that we don't know what's going to happen. All it took in this game was one solid spell of bowling on the first session of the game to set the game up perfectly for South Africa. Similarly, we may see a good session from one of the Indian bowlers completely out of the blue. It's not likely, but it's what makes the game worth watching.

There'd be no reason to watch the game, otherwise. If we knew the Saffers would be rolling us over easily 15 straight days of cricket then I wouldn't have watched the series (ignoring the fact that I didn't catch a single day of live action since the timings are so horrid). South Africa is very clearly the stronger team--I think anyone who doubted they were favorites were being delusional.

Dont blame it on the pitch, blame it on the inability of the Indian batsman to adapt to a pitch that offers something to the fast bowler. Every wicket in South Africa will be like that on the first day.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

I think bringing up this "inability" thing is a bit unfair, the wicket was moist and england, australia and south africa themselves have all had difficulties in the first innings in south africa.

no one brings up australia's "inability" to play the moving ball when south africa skittled them for 209 and then put on 650 at newlands. Or Englands when steyn and morkel put them out for 180 at the wanderers.

sure if india continue to fall apart for tiny scores throughout the series then yeah, there's a problem, but being put out for such a low score is not exactly a freakish thing for any team. It will never happen to south africa this series because there is a massive gulf in class between their pace attack and india's, but the saffers have fallen apart themselves quite a few times in the 1st innings of tests when against teams with decent pace attacks in the right conditions.

 

[Cricketman]

People just like to jump on the Indian team. Used to it by now

 

[aditya123]

I think bringing up this "inability" thing is a bit unfair, the wicket was moist and england, australia and south africa themselves have all had difficulties in the first innings in south africa.

no one brings up australia's "inability" to play the moving ball when south africa skittled them for 209 and then put on 650 at newlands. Or Englands when steyn and morkel put them out for 180 at the wanderers.

sure if india continue to fall apart for tiny scores throughout the series then yeah, there's a problem, but being put out for such a low score is not exactly a freakish thing for any team. It will never happen to south africa this series because there is a massive gulf in class between their pace attack and india's, but the saffers have fallen apart themselves quite a few times in the 1st innings of tests when against teams with decent pace attacks in the right conditions.

Exactly. People only pay attention when India get bowled out for a low total on a seamer friendly track without realizing that most sides are not comfortable on the moist seaming conditions. I`ll give a few examples of how sides have folded up cheaply even against Indian attacks which you call is mediocre. Perth 2008 where Australia struggled to get to 200 in the first innings and that was`nt even a green seamer. Remember, that was before the Aussie slump and they had the likes of Lee and Gilly still around those days.

Sydney, 2008. Before the unpleasant incidents on the last 2 days of the test, people tend to forget that Australia were 100/6 on day 1 and would have been in further trouble had it not been for those howlers in the first innings. It was by no means a green seamer and India piled up 500+ in their first innings.

Jo`burg 2006. SA got bundled out for 84 in the first innings against Sree and Zaheer. In fact, the Indian seamers troubled the SA batting right through the series and even managed to get a 50 run lead at Cape Town, only to waste it eventually.

Trent Bridge, 2007. Delayed start on Day 1 due to moist conditions and England got bowled out for 150-ish score against Zaheer, RP and Sree.

Even in India, sides have struggled against the reverse swinging ball. Noone has ever brought the inability of lack of skill point against other sides whereas with India playing their first innings in SA, without a warm up and struggling to cope on Day 1 of a moist track has attracted too much attention. I don`t think it was fair on the Indian side.

 

[mohit_dude10]

It happens, When Oz were no.1 side every time they failed or had a bad game it was said their no more invincible. Even before 2007 wcup they were written off after 3-0 whitewash to NZ. Same thing with India, whole year they have been performing splendidly, winning matches which they almost lost and yet just 1 bad game and they suddenly don't deserve the no.1 rank or the batting line up is filled with flat-track bullies.