West Indian Tour of India, 2013: Sachin's 200th Test Appearance

[War]

Ye Ashwin's batting looks good, recall him scoring a 90 odd vs ENG in a test last year too. Maybe he could be the modern day Shastri for India.

 

[used2bcool]

Ye Ashwin's batting looks good, recall him scoring a 90 odd vs ENG in a test last year too. Maybe he could be the modern day Shastri for India.

I don't know if I would really want that. Shastri started as a spinner who could bat but then became a batsman who could bowl. I'd rather Ashwin stay a bowler who can bat. I think his breadwinning skill still has to be bowling. India have far too many batters who can spin the ball anyway.

Where now for West Indies? Considering that stripping Sammy of his captaincy and dropping him from the squad mid-series would be a terrible move, what team do you play for the next match? If Roach is fit, he has to come in for Best. Permaul was pretty useless in this Test, but I don't know who his replacement could be - I remember Deonarine as a batsman who can bowl, not a frontline spinner. Speaking of spinners, where are Bishoo/Narine/Nikita Miller?

I'd like to see more of Edwards, but he's only an option if they plan to drop Sammy.

 

[War]

I don't know if I would really want that. Shastri started as a spinner who could bat but then became a batsman who could bowl. I'd rather Ashwin stay a bowler who can bat. I think his breadwinning skill still has to be bowling. India have far too many batters who can spin the ball anyway.

Where now for West Indies? Considering that stripping Sammy of his captaincy and dropping him from the squad mid-series would be a terrible move, what team do you play for the next match? If Roach is fit, he has to come in for Best. Permaul was pretty useless in this Test, but I don't know who his replacement could be - I remember Deonarine as a batsman who can bowl, not a frontline spinner. Speaking of spinners, where are Bishoo/Narine/Nikita Miller?

I'd like to see more of Edwards, but he's only an option if they plan to drop Sammy.

Yea i meant a modern Shastri in the sense that he would be able to contribute consistently @ # 7 with that ball, while maintaining his abilities as an off-spinner instead of it dropping off.

On windies well it won't be unprecedented if they drop him as captain for the next test, have seen a few teams change captains mid series.

The windies selectors as stated before in the thread somehow conspired to leave Narine out of the test squad ridiculously. It was very possible that Narine in combo with Shillingford could have caused IND similar problems to what Swann/Panesar did last year.

Bishoo is on the domestic circuit, but i felt he was bowled into the ground as test spinner. That nonsense Sammy did in the 1st session with Shillingford by bowling him unchanged all session en route to 41 overs in the day is the kind of things they did to Bishoo, that could also cripple Shillingford as test spinner.

Bishoo remains a talent though, he wasn't ICC emerging player in 2011 for nothing i'd say.

And yea i think K Edwards is indeed worth promoting to the test captaincy role for them.

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India v West Indies, 1st Test, Kolkata, 3rd day : 'We were beaten on the mental side' - Darren Sammy | Cricket News | India v West Indies | ESPN Cricinfo

Other than Sammy not meriting a place, this is biggest problem with the Windies. Their mental approach (especially in the batting) when not playing t20 cricket.

While i wont say that their 2012 T20 W Cup win was a false dawn just like when they won the 2004 champs trophy & kept losing, watching them play 50 overs & now this abysmal test in 2013 since their world cup triumph at its clear their batsman mainly still bat with many T20 like traits.

I have lost count the amount of times i watch the windies play & hear their regular commentators Ian Bishop & Jeff Dujon complain about the windies batting inability to run singles. rotate the strike instead of solely depending on their power to hit boundaries.

Don't know if you coach batsmen to do such a thing, but as most have recognized Windies don't long have a talent issue, they need a total mental re-evaluation of how they approach 50 overs & test cricket along with selectors who can pick the best squads, since the current crop aren't doing that.

 

[macintosh]

If you consider Sammy bowling's record in the previous years, he has been a lot better than some of the other WI bowlers, plus his batting and leadership skills come into play. If you consider his overall contribution, than he deserves to be in the test team.

One thing where I do have a problem is that he is an experienced cricketer now, he needs to take more responsibility with both bat and ball. If possible he can bat up the order and try and stay there a bit longer. And he should also bowl more overs, his records suggests he isn't such a bad bowler for tests.

 

[Aalay]

The thing I don't understand is the ommison of certain players. As War has been saying that Narine might not be as good as Shilingford in tests but he can still cause more problems than what Permaul did. Eden Gardens is KKR's home ground for IPL and Narine has lots of experience of bowling in this ground. So he should have been in the squad. Another one is Ravi Rampaul. I think Roach and Rampaul has to be WI frontline bowler for tests. Especially when you consider Rampaul's wicket taking ability and he can also reverse swing the ball. Rampaul's average against India is also pretty decent. Kirk Edwards has higher List A and test average than Powell so there is an option of bringing him into the line-up to open the batting. Ramdin's batting is horrible. Is there any wicket-keeper in WI domestic circuit who can bat? I mean Ramdin might be good with gloves but his batting is just not good enough especially if you want to have Sammy in that line-up.aul

 

[surendar]

I guess, Windies keepers have always had problem with bat for long time now.

C Browne
Murray
Jacobs
Baugh
Ramdin


From these, I couldn't remember any regular WI keepers with consistent batting for 20 years almost? Jacobs was shaping up very good, with ability to pull some odd matches back but none of them, I remember to be consistent with bat to carry on for long terms. But it is understandable though as making a wicket keeper to bat well has always been a challenge.

 

[War]

Another one is Ravi Rampaul. I think Roach and Rampaul has to be WI frontline bowler for tests. Especially when you consider Rampaul's wicket taking ability and he can also reverse swing the ball. Rampaul's average against India is also pretty decent.

Ramdin's batting is horrible. Is there any wicket-keeper in WI domestic circuit who can bat? I mean Ramdin might be good with gloves but his batting is just not good enough especially if you want to have Sammy in that line-up.aul

Rampaul has been out injured for most of 2013 sadly. He just came back to cricket just in time for the trinidad team before the recent champions league tournament. So he really was not fit enough to make this test squad, so i give the selectors a pass on that. He most likely might be in India for the ODI matches though.

As mentioned before the back-up keeper in the squad Chadwick Walton can bat. He opens the batting domestically & the times i've seen him he looks good. Its just now giving him a chance in tests to see if he can replicate that domestic form @ international level for windies.

 

[War]

If you consider Sammy bowling's record in the previous years, he has been a lot better than some of the other WI bowlers, plus his batting and leadership skills come into play. If you consider his overall contribution, than he deserves to be in the test team.

One thing where I do have a problem is that he is an experienced cricketer now, he needs to take more responsibility with both bat and ball. If possible he can bat up the order and try and stay there a bit longer. And he should also bowl more overs, his records suggests he isn't such a bad bowler for tests.

Sry man, you have got it all wrong.

Firstly if you look at the stats of all the bowlers used (that have played more than 1 tests so thus Andre Russell & Cottrell would be ignored) by the windies since Sammy became captain officially during the Galle test of 2010 vs Sri Lanka to the just concluded Kolkotta test you would see Sammy's bowling average is among the worst.

Rampaul: 13 tests, 45 wickets @ 28.13

Roach: 16 tests, 59 wickets @ 26.84

Best: 7 tests, 20 wickets @ 23.30

Shillingford: 8 tests, 45 wickets @ 25.46

Edwards: 12 tests, 43 wickets @ 33.44

Gabriel: 3 tests, 10 wickets @ 17

Bishoo: 11 tests, 40 wickets @ 39 & was ICC emerging player before Sammy bowled him into the ground

Permaul: 10 wickets in 3 tests @ 32 - Veerasammy Permaul | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo

Narine: 15 wickets in 5 tests @ 48 - Sunil Narine | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo. However most cricket fans can appreciate he is better bowler than these figures suggests.

Sammy has 50 wickets @ 39.12 with ball in his 26 tests as captain, along with scoring 897 runs @ 23.00 .

Sammy is good captain, but as others have articulated also he is no Mike Brearley type brilliant captain that the windies can do like what England did in 70s/80s & can simply just pick on the sense of some amazing tactical & man management skills that he has. This theory of "Sammy the captain" has been disproved already many times.

He simply is not or has never been good enough for test cricket. He is only good enough to captain & play in the T20/ODI teams. Simple stuff.

 

[Aalay]

Ranji Trophy 2013-14, Group B, 2nd round, 2nd day Report : Badrinath 248 powers Tamil Nadu | Cricket News | ESPN Cricinfo

Another solid knock from Badrinath. I hope selectors still have him in the radar for tests.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

there was a time in there when the windies were doing quite well, in that period replacing Sammy would have been mad, you don't mess about with a winning team, especially not dumping the captain.

but now they're not doing that well again and it's telling.

personally, I can't understand why teams with obvious batting problems, i.e. australia and the west indies, insist on picking all rounders at no.6. bravo and powell look potentially decent, but there's a lot of work to do on their game, then you've got gayle who is hit or miss and Ramdin who is, for want of a better word, crap. it's not the sort of lineup that can carry a luxury bowling option.

for comparison india's 6,7 and 8 scored over 350 runs. in those positions west indies have sammy, ramdin and shillingford. it's not that difficult to see where west indies were heavily outgunned in that match.

 

[AngryPixel]

If selectors have some sense, they'll pick Yadav, Shami, Bhuvi, Zaheer and Mohit for the SA tour. They should not even look toward the likes of Munaf/Ishant/Vinay Kumar etc. These five are the best 5 India has at them moment and they have the variety too. Ashwin and Jadeja would fight for the single spinners slot and rest of the batsmen gonna be a automatic selection.

 

[surendar]

After seeing Shami now, I guess he would be safely making into XI for SA. Yadav, Shami & Zaheer is what I would be interested to see along with Ashwin.
One experienced pacer would be making it sure in the team XI. If Zaheer( for some reasons like fitness ) is not making into the tour, we can expect a gamble on Ishant.

 

[icyman]

I guess, Windies keepers have always had problem with bat for long time now.

But it is understandable though as making a wicket keeper to bat well has always been a challenge.

They could look at bringing in Lendl Simmons or Johnson Charles, both powerful hitters of the ball and can open as well. We have seen them open in ODIS and they could be tried out for the longer version as well.

 

[Aalay]

If selectors have some sense, they'll pick Yadav, Shami, Bhuvi, Zaheer and Mohit for the SA tour. They should not even look toward the likes of Munaf/Ishant/Vinay Kumar etc. These five are the best 5 India has at them moment and they have the variety too. Ashwin and Jadeja would fight for the single spinners slot and rest of the batsmen gonna be a automatic selection.

I don't think Mohit is that close to test call-up yet. I still believe Ishant Sharma and Varun Aaron should be ahead of him. As I have been saying from some time now, these are the 5 fast bowlers that I am expecting to make it to the squad of South Africa: Zaheer Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shami Ahmed, Umesh Yadav and, Ishant Sharma/Varun Aaron. Varun Aaron has just came back from the injury and is playing for Jharkhand right now so if he can pick up few wickets than he might be in the reckoning again. Otherwise I am expecting Ishant to stay there even though he is not in a good form.

I posted this on last page that they should send Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma to play in the ranji trophy so they can get some match practice. We know that they won't be picked for the send test match so it is better to send them to Ranji trophy and allow them to get match fit and gain some form. We all know Ishant has been in horrible form and Umesh was also wayward in the challenger trophy so both of them definitely needs more match practice.

If Shami does well in the second test than he is likely to be ahead than Umesh Yadav in terms of featuring in the final 11 in South Africa. So the bowling attack would be something like:

Ravi Ashwin
Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Zaheer khan
Shami Ahmed

 

[AngryPixel]

Still i'd pick Umesh over Ishant. Umesh has that extra pace and he moves the ball. Ishant just drop it short and hopes pitch does something.