The man confuses me. Sometimes you watch him bat and admire how much he has worked on his game and how responsible he is at the crease, especially in the shorter form ... and then you get these moments where he seems to be trying to counterattack in the wrong situation. He's shown that he's capable of toughing it out too; it just seems like the old temperament comes back to bite him in the ass every once in a while.
Just as I was about to mention VRV as an option if Ishant still isn't fit ...
Didn't we take 20 wickets in Perth? England? South Africa? If our bowlers bowl like they can and should, four is enough. Zaheer, Ishant, Kumble, Harbhajan - that looks like a good attack to me. Pathan is not going to run through a side and honestly, Sehwag and Ganguly combined are probably as likely to get a breakthrough as he is. The hit you take with Dhoni at 6, Pathan at 7 and a waning Kumble at 8 clearly outweighs the benefits of 5 bowlers. One thing I do agree with - two spinners is a must at home.
I do agree that Dravid is still good enough to play for Ind and probably needs to lift his game .... Let's hope that he does well but if he is going to put on low scores at Kanpur then I would rather prefer to look to the future
Badrinath should have gotten the call on about five occasions in the past year-and-a-half, but Kaif is the man in form right now. He's made some real quality knocks as well, something he hadn't done much of throughout the earlier parts of his domestic career.
There is no debate on in India on those lines. A few stray articles here and there mean zilch. Verbal diarrhoea flowing from lack of a pragmatic thought process is characteristic of these armchair 'journalists'. Slowly phasing in new (as opposed to just young) players is accepted convention in all teams, and painting it as a 'senior vs junior' conundrum all the time is ridiculous.
so whats the happening on 'phasing in new players' front .... which are the names that are being thrown in?
Badrinath finds next to no mention in the print media, I hope he doesn't end up as Sriram version 2. Kaif has his fair share of advocates, as did Yuvraj who was annointed as the saviour of Indian Test cricket until the Australian tour had those 'journalists' scurrying for cover. Sehwag had his critics before the Australian tour, and he shut them up for good with his 151 and 319. Gambhir and Chopra are definitely in the frame. Praveen Kumar is a decent prospect too. RP Singh's poor performances find no mention in the papers surprisingly. Ganguly is given a lot of leeway in the print media too. I haven't read todays papers, but I'm pretty sure his innings yesterday will be given dispropotionate coverage, ignoring his poor form in the past 3 tests.
Yes, we have taken 20 wickets in the past. That doesn't mean we can do it consistently, especially if two of your best bowlers are out. Zaheer is by far the best bowler in the Indian team right now, and Ishant was the best at Perth, even though he didn't have the wickets to show for it.
Being a good fast bowler does not tell you anything about being a good bowling coach.
That'd be like treason to some of his Pakistani brethren - becoming the Indian bowling coach.
You have a point but if you look at the past few series, different bowlers have stepped up on each occasion but overall, our bowling unit has gotten the job done. Essentially, I think the crew we have right now (Zaheer, Ishant, Sreesanth, RP Singh, Kumble, Harbhajan) are good enough for us to play four bowlers, unless one or more of these guys is completely whack (ie RPS at the moment). Even if we only have three of these guys available, you bring in a fourth who isn't as good and you're still far better off than playing five bowlers and having a 6-7-8 reading Dhoni, Pathan and Kumble. Given that our top order isn't as reliable as Australia's, hell no.
