What lineup of current player would you pick to beat India at home (Tests)?

[Paranoid Kendroid]

Title gore. My bad. Well, I hope everyone understood the question.

My XI:
01. Tom Latham / Dimuth Karunaratne
02. Devon Conway / Usman Khawaja
03. Dinesh Chandimal
04. Steve Smith
05. Joe Root
06. Tom Blundell / Mohammad Rizwan / Sarfraz Ahmed
07. Ben Stokes
08. Shaheen Afridi
09. Ajaz Patel
10. Nathan Lyon
11. James Anderson / Anrich Nortje


Haven't put much thought into this but the middle-order of Chandimal-Smith-Root is mandatory

 

[pillowprocter]

Luckily I don't need to put much effort into this, because my lineup would just be the England team bar Crawley.

 

[Na Maloom Afraad]

03. Dinesh Chandimal

Oh, the Babar erasure

 

[Bevab]

Yeah you can have both Babar and Chandimal in the same side, just give the gloves to Chandi-gun. He’s a tidy gloveman.

 

[Verified Enigma]

Virender Sehwag
Gautam Gambhir
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
Sourav Ganguly
VVS Laxman
MS Dhoni
Irfan Pathan
Harbhajan Singh
Anil Kumble
Zaheer Khan

All retired

 

[Paranoid Kendroid]

Oh, the Babar erasure

Babar could come in place of Smith or as a sixth batsman.

 

[Bevab]

Without any sort of extended analysis, this would probably be my side at face value.

Conway
Khawaja
Babar
Smith
Root
Chandimal
Shakib
Afridi
Lyon
Jayasuriya
Anderson

• Latham misses out as he’s suspect to high quality pace which India have in plenty and Khawaja seems to have a more balanced game.
• Chandimal keeps as I believe the upside with the bat is far more compared to other keepers than any downside with other keepers. Blundell and perhaps Foakes are the only other players I’d have considered here anyway, Rizwan hasn’t kicked on in the manner I expected him to and Sarfaraz isn’t a good gloveman. Maybe Litton if you want a dark horse.
• Stokes is an outstanding captain but he leaves a lot to be desired with his current meme approach to batting and his bowling workload. I suspect Shakib doesn’t have a good record against India but how much of that is just because Bangladesh aren’t on the same level as India though? If he can do a poor man’s impression of Jadeja he’d already be a success in this unit.
• Afridi is a gut pick with his left arm angle helping. Cummins is probably unlucky that this thread is happening right now after he’s flopped in two tests here (under understandable circumstances).
• Jayasuriya was rampant against Australia and Pakistan. I’d use his newcomer boost against India who are suspect to it. Ajaz at present hasn’t been NZ’s best spinner and despite that magical 10-fer I’d harshly exclude him.

Post automatically merged: Feb 26, 2023

Virender Sehwag
Gautam Gambhir
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
Sourav Ganguly
VVS Laxman
MS Dhoni
Irfan Pathan
Harbhajan Singh
Anil Kumble
Zaheer Khan

All retired

Kumble would have been so good on some of these pitches we’ve had in recent times.

 

[Aislabie]

This is actually a really fun exercise. I'm going to assume everyone is fully fit for this one:

1. Kraigg Brathwaite
2. Tom Blundell
3. Babar Azam
4. Steven Smith
5. Joe Root
6. Ben Stokes
7. Ben Foakes
8. Pat Cummins
9. Rashid Khan
10. Prabath Jayasuriya
11. Jimmy Anderson

• Kane Williamson
• Daryl Mitchell
• Shaheen Shah Afridi
• Nathan Lyon

There's probably some picks in there that look completely insane, but here are my reasons:

• Kraigg Brathwaite puts the highest possible price on his wicket. He's also been quietly averaging about 60 for the last 18 months or so.
• I really don't like left-handed openers in India; Tom Blundell averages 35 as an opener out of 45 in his overall career; good against pace and spin.
• Babar-Smith-Root picks itself.
• A fully-fit Stokes walks into this side as captain. An injured one hobbles into it as captain.
• Cummins and Jimmy as my two-man seam attack is pretty self-explanatory.
• I really liked @Bevab suggesting Prabath as a left-arm spinner, so I stole his idea. For my wrist-spinner, it has to be Rashid Khan.
• My squad players are Kane Williamson, Daryl Mitchell, Shaheen Afridi and Nathan Lyon. None quite make it into my team, but wouldn't particularly weaken it either.

 

[Bevab]

Williamson's record in India isn't really good and it's also poor in Sri Lanka, two of the most hostile spin environments around. I'd wager a guess that there are other better options out there. I also like the idea of eschewing the off-spinner given Pant and Jadeja are not really susceptible to them. I'd love to see how Rashid fares against the current Indian team at the moment, he was taken to the cleaners on debut but that was a different side and he's also improved in tests since then.

 

[Till Valhalla]

Only if I had 10 clones of mine.

 

[Aislabie]

Williamson's record in India isn't really good and it's also poor in Sri Lanka, two of the most hostile spin environments around. I'd wager a guess that there are other better options out there. I also like the idea of eschewing the off-spinner given Pant and Jadeja are not really susceptible to them. I'd love to see how Rashid fares against the current Indian team at the moment, he was taken to the cleaners on debut but that was a different side and he's also improved in tests since then.

Looking at the last couple of Tests, I should have picked Usman Khawaja

 

[Paranoid Kendroid]

I think we found the answer (for now).

 

[icyman]

Khawaja
Babar
Root
Williamson
Bairstow
Stokes
Cummins/Rashid Khan
Nortje
Mehidy Hasan Miraz
Lyon
Wood

Reserves:
Todd Murphy
Rehan Ahmed
Litton


Choice of reserves can be perplexing, but a new guy usually does very well versus India. Litton, cause he brings his A-game versus India.

 

[Umair7]

Khawaja
Babar
Root
Williamson
Bairstow
Stokes
Cummins/Rashid Khan
Nortje
Mehidy Hasan Miraz
Lyon
Wood

Reserves:
Todd Murphy
Rehan Ahmed
Litton


Choice of reserves can be perplexing, but a new guy usually does very well versus India. Litton, cause he brings his A-game versus India.

The batting here is basically top 3 + Stokes & Inshallah!

 

[Umair7]

Babar could come in place of Smith