India's tour of Australia - December/January 2015

[namin96]

People can blame Dhoni all they want but they have to realize that without a world class bowler, you can't win matches abroad. In India, he was successful because he had very good spinners in the team all the time. However, as soon as Zaheer's career went downhill, it was tough for him to win matches outside subcontinent because we didn't have a world class fast bowler. Ishant has bowled well in patches but is no where as consistent as Zaheer was in his prime. He has done his job of rebuilding the team and now it's upto the players to develop on their assigned role as soon as they can to move the team forward. Not the best test captain but still performed the job as well as he could with his unorthodox technique.

Exactly my point to all criticizers of Dhoni as our test captain. I firmly believe he was the best captain in both formats. Ian Chappell kept criticizing Dhoni in commentary as well and he should just really shut it. If he thinks he knows how to captain the best why doesn't he join the Indian team and try captaining a group of bowlers who leak runs consistently over 3 runs per over and apply no pressure whatsoever. He was complaining about Dhoni not attacking enough, well it's not easy to attack when your bowlers and consistently bowl in the channel outside off stump. When his spinners can consistently bowl good lines and lengths in India, we see his attacking abilities, but that is not the case overseas because he doesn't have the resources as Rahul Dravid pointed out today in his article. See when people criticize Dhoni's test captaincy overseas it makes me wonder if they actually understand cricket or not because there are deeper reasons for his poor overseas record if people take the time to think and realize that he simply does not have matching winning bowlers like Australia or South Africa. It is unfair and unjust to criticize Dhoni constantly, if people think his captaincy overseas was poor, well why don't you go step on the field and do it yourself with the bowlers we have got it's definitely not easy to do it and have fun.

 

[Yuvi.]

People can blame Dhoni all they want but they have to realize that without a world class bowler, you can't win matches abroad. In India, he was successful because he had very good spinners in the team all the time. However, as soon as Zaheer's career went downhill, it was tough for him to win matches outside subcontinent because we didn't have a world class fast bowler. Ishant has bowled well in patches but is no where as consistent as Zaheer was in his prime. He has done his job of rebuilding the team and now it's upto the players to develop on their assigned role as soon as they can to move the team forward. Not the best test captain but still performed the job as well as he could with his unorthodox technique.

He was great without a doubt.
But Its frustrating when You cant get a decent bowler out of the humangous population we have. Zaheer was a class apart. From his speed to his accuracy , action to his art , he was the perfectly skilled bowler for the international circuit and when India were no. 1 , he was in his supreme form. Not to mention that he was terrific in the 2011 WC too.
If RSA is the top team today , its only because of their trio of Steyn , Morkel and Vernon that they manage their team to win even on subcontinent pitches. Thus , we got to have to look for producing world class bowlers.

 

[abhi_jacko]

I could be wrong, but I believe Sachin is working on a proposal to promote sports (not just cricket) in the country. Remember reading an article where he mentioned he had presented a draft of the proposal to the Indian PM

 

[abhi_jacko]

I really dont want to criticize MSD, especially since he has retired. And I totally agree that the lack of a proper wicket taking bowler has really let him down as a captain. Something that was not under his control. His main criticism imo has been his team selection and stubborn on-field tactics.

When you go in with 4 specialist bowlers in an overseas Test match, you automatically bring down your chances of winning the game drastically. That imo is one of the main reasons we cannot press home the advantage. If our bowlers can get the top 6 wickets for 200 runs, then why do we struggle with the last 4 ? Maybe they get tired and drained, by the 60th over having bowled 10-15 overs without much break ? The intensity will obviously drop allowing the remaining batsmen to get easy settling periods - either thanks to some tired bowling or to some useless pie chucking by the "part timers".

The part-timer concept is a great one, and it would work if the part-timers can actually provide that critical breakthrough - Sachin, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Ganguly were excellent in that role. Vijay and Rohit are nowhere close to those 4 as bowlers.

Somehow everyone, from fans to analysts have figured this out. But MSD and the management just never figured out it, barring the odd Lord's test

.. not going to mention the stubborn on-field tactics because that has been discussed on length ..

 

[Epic]

How many teams out there are playing with 5 specialist bowlers tho, sure we're a "special" team that might need it, but in overseas conditions with a wicket-keeper batsman like Dhoni (no disrespect), we can't play 5 bowlers, just look at how we've been collapsing every other innings in the last year or so.

You either need a proper modern day wicket-keeper batsman (AB de Villiers) or a proper all-rounder to warrant playing 5 batsmen.

 

[grkrama]

proper modern day wicket-keeper batsman ALL TIME LEGEND

fixed

 

[grkrama]

#The_captain_we_needed_n_deserved

The best thing about MSD was how he has shielded the young team and kept them out of focus of media and criticism while taking a lot on himself, even the world cup defense even if india doesnt defend [hopefully not] it wont affect the incoming captain, guess that will be his final act.

 

[grkrama]

MSD's last press conf talks about new era and stuff [HASHTAG]#biggestmediatroll[/HASHTAG] before announcing retirement..

cricket.com.au - embed

 

[Fenil]

He was great without a doubt.
But Its frustrating when You cant get a decent bowler out of the humangous population we have. Zaheer was a class apart. From his speed to his accuracy , action to his art , he was the perfectly skilled bowler for the international circuit and when India were no. 1 , he was in his supreme form. Not to mention that he was terrific in the 2011 WC too.
If RSA is the top team today , its only because of their trio of Steyn , Morkel and Vernon that they manage their team to win even on subcontinent pitches. Thus , we got to have to look for producing world class bowlers.

Everybody has known that for ages but the question that we are still searching from the answer is how?

 

[Yuvi.]

Everybody has known that for ages but the question that we are still searching from the answer is how?

Cant our retired legends play a role in this job?
Its not like that we dont have raw talent but the culprits who ruin our talent are the unexperienced coaches who just tell them to bowl fast. Line and especially Length is like it doesn't has a meaning for most of them. This is where the retired stars can help the country by selecting some talented young players and coaching them.

 

[grkrama]

no the prob is like harbhajan stated recently pitches..earlier we used to have spinning pitches which made both our spin bowling and batting aginst spin strong but didnt help cultivting pace men who wnat to bowl fast but stick military pace with line andlength and try to get reverse, but what happend recently is someone said we need to give wickets that aid pacers to cultivate our bowlers to bowl pace but what our curators have done is leave extra ordinary amount of grass that doesnt improve our weak pace bowlers but amke them look threatening at domestic level and give false sense of security but also take our strength spinners out of game and make both our spin stock as well as batting aginst spin weak.

 

[Fenil]

Cant our retired legends play a role in this job?
Its not like that we dont have raw talent but the culprits who ruin our talent are the unexperienced coaches who just tell them to bowl fast. Line and especially Length is like it doesn't has a meaning for most of them. This is where the retired stars can help the country by selecting some talented young players and coaching them.

1. We don't have our own fast bowling stars. Yes, there is Kapil Dev and more recently we have had Srinath and Zaheer but they are nowhere near the world stars.
2. We have had world class coaches in MRF Pace Academy where our bowlers hone their skills but it hasn't helped much.
3. We can't go back to our age old but failed formula of line and length. We've lost plenty of good fast bowlers due to that. Munaf Patel is a good example of that. He was said to be bowling 150kmph+ consistently before being picked for India, then he bowled at around 140kmph and was bowling beautiful reverse swingers in his debut test against England (I remember Dravid said in the press conference that our batsmen had faced a lot of reverse inswingers and now was our time to give some back) but we all know what happened when he was forced changed into a line and length bowler. There are plenty of such cases so a big no to this strategy as of now.
4. One might think that preparing green wickets might help. BCCI has produced some of the greenest pitches ever witnessed in Ranji Trophy history in the past couple of years. It has produced good results and the quality of average fast bowler in India has slightly improved. Also, our batsmen have started to play fast bowlers a lot better now. Hooking and pulling was restricted to only few Indian batsmen which is no more the case now. That said, we have to wait for some years to reap good results. A drawback of it is starting to show is that the quality of spinners in India have gone down but you have to lose something inorder to win something.

 

[icyman]

I agree with the fact that we dont have our own fast bowlers. But,we do have legends among our spinners. As I see it now, even the spin attack needs to come up else we wont be left with anything in the foreseeable future.

An interesting point about Munaf has been mentioned here; yes, once upon a time he was the fastest bowler in India. Mahindra had then started a competition ' India's Search for the fastest'. Something of that sort could be tried out.

Another thing that can be done is to encourage our fast bowlers (the leading wicket takers in Ranji) to go and play in England/ Aus/ RSA, turn out for their domestic teams and maybe they may learn a thing or two.

 

[PokerAce]

Sportskeeda - Photos du journal | Facebook

 

[lion100lion]

Yeah does anyone know what Sachin is planning on doing?

I think we will see him in the commentary box in the World cup...
Meanwhile, his World Cup ad...

I'd like Ravi Shastri to stay on long term; for the purely selfish reason that it'd keep him away from the commentary box :P

ha ha.....

Another thing- Virat may not be the long term Test captain. If that was to be the case, the BCCI would have announced that Virat is the natural successor to the post. As a vice-captain, he is expected to lead in Sydney, but I think the BCCI is going to spring a surprise here.

? ? You literally suprised me there.