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Build-up to Indian Domestic Season 2008-09

Manee

Manee

Cricketer Of The Year
Arjun said:
And who's the top scorer here? Robin Uthappa. The same who was found wanting when he played for India. Such tournaments should never even be thought of for national selection.
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Why the Uthappa hate? I have come across it from many Indian fans and simply don't know the reason. Uthappa is a very talented opener. He has not found a great deal of consistency but when you are shuffled through the order, it is not easy to find consistency. 786 runs at 27.10 is not awful when you consider the strike rate of 91.92 and the shuffling throughout the batting order.

Many say he 'lacks intelligence' or has too many 'brainfarts' but I merely think that an armchair fan cannot simply make such a call. Getting out playing an attacking shot is not necessarily a sign of a poor mentality.
 
Arjun

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
Manee said:
Why the Uthappa hate? I have come across it from many Indian fans and simply don't know the reason. Uthappa is a very talented opener. He has not found a great deal of consistency but when you are shuffled through the order, it is not easy to find consistency. 786 runs at 27.10 is not awful when you consider the strike rate of 91.92 and the shuffling throughout the batting order.

Many say he 'lacks intelligence' or has too many 'brainfarts' but I merely think that an armchair fan cannot simply make such a call. Getting out playing an attacking shot is not necessarily a sign of a poor mentality.
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You can't excuse statistics as weak as those. An average of 27 is simply not good enough to find a place in an Indian top six. Yes he has a strike rate of 91, but Afridi has a strike rate over 100, and he's a leg-spinner. Yet Afridi is recognised as a waste of space. Uthappa is the Indian version of Ricardo Powell- a specialist six-hitter who won't last long at the crease, and doesn't even bowl. Any Indian bowler with decent batting ability will do as well as he has, if given as many chances, and even that's considered a risk.

I have seen him bat in this series, and he's looked reckless and streaky. Even when there's a wicket fallen lately, even when he's been dropped or out off a no-ball, he'll try to get out again. His technique is questionable, especially his wild swings over leg-side, which result in catches at mid-on or long-on. He keeps swishing outside off, an Asian mistake, but exaggerated. When common sense dictates he follow one risky shot with a series of singles, he plays yet another risky shot. And often gets out. The fielding of the other teams was so inconsistent, with so few catches, that he scored so heavily here.

Even Sehwag is considered a mediocre ODI batsman with his statistics, and technical weaknesses. And he has better statistics, and he's a lot more useful. You don't need to be a Mike Brearley to identify who's really good and who's really, just, streaky.
 
Precambrian

Precambrian

Banned
Hmm.. I think Uthappa is fairly early in his career to be dismissed as a six-hitter like Ricardo Powell. He has all the technical defects of a typical Asian batsman, and probably his worst thing is the shuffle across the stumps, which will be easily targeted by test-level teams. His FC record has to be improved before he can be said as a reliable one though.
 
honestbharani

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
Manee said:
Why the Uthappa hate? I have come across it from many Indian fans and simply don't know the reason. Uthappa is a very talented opener. He has not found a great deal of consistency but when you are shuffled through the order, it is not easy to find consistency. 786 runs at 27.10 is not awful when you consider the strike rate of 91.92 and the shuffling throughout the batting order.

Many say he 'lacks intelligence' or has too many 'brainfarts' but I merely think that an armchair fan cannot simply make such a call. Getting out playing an attacking shot is not necessarily a sign of a poor mentality.
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HATE is too strong a word, but I will tell you why I don't rate Uthappa at all... His defence is non-existent. He simply cannot defend decent deliveries for any length of time. He is a great guy to have coming in at 6 or 7 on flat tracks in ODIs and almost a definite pick for me in T20s, but in tests, "no, thanks"... And I have seen him hurried a lot by certain fastish medium pacers (say 137-138 kph mark)... And we cannot fit him into our best ODI XI as he can't bowl.. And his fielding is inconsistent, more than anything else... Sometimes he is great, sometimes he is just awful... And it is not like he is one more thing more often than the other.
 
Arjun

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
honestbharani said:
HATE is too strong a word, but I will tell you why I don't rate Uthappa at all... His defence is non-existent. He simply cannot defend decent deliveries for any length of time. He is a great guy to have coming in at 6 or 7 on flat tracks in ODIs and almost a definite pick for me in T20s, but in tests, "no, thanks"... And I have seen him hurried a lot by certain fastish medium pacers (say 137-138 kph mark)... And we cannot fit him into our best ODI XI as he can't bowl.. And his fielding is inconsistent, more than anything else... Sometimes he is great, sometimes he is just awful... And it is not like he is one more thing more often than the other.
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That apart, what is your opinion of the Challenger Series? What do you think the national team can gain from it?
 
Arjun

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
Elsewhere, a controversial (from the look of it) Maharashtra Ranji team has been announced. They have axed Moondeep Mungela (medium-pacer, ex-Mumbai) on 'disciplinary' grounds. Yogesh Takawale, the keeper from IPL, has also missed out, because he scored very few runs in the Challenger series and his keeping 'wasn't up to the mark'. Strange. Moreover, the captain of the team is some young tyke who's only played three FC matches, and the other contenders were completely unknown names. This is one team that promised a lot, with an Australian coach who became Director of Cricket, promises of overseas signings as well as some decent picks from around India- unfortunately, it's in a mess now. Even Sairaj Bahutule, who left Mumbai for Maharashtra since he got a raw deal from Mumbai, says he's been treated even worse here.
 
honestbharani

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
Arjun said:
That apart, what is your opinion of the Challenger Series? What do you think the national team can gain from it?
Click to expand...
It is not too useful, except as a tool to assemble some of the best performers in domestic cricket and allowing the selectors a look at all of them at the same time. I don't think you can read too much into the performances in these matches alone as it is very easy to be selfish and play for yourself and not for the team in such tournaments, and sometimes it is not even evident... I think they can judge the CLASS of some players who have got great numbers but haven't been seen by the selectors through such matches but beyond that it serves little purpose... Although, crowds were pretty big.. But not sure if it was free entrance or not...
 
B

brockley

International Captain
Arjun continue your tremendous blog :) .
Just let us know when you know who will play in the duleep trophy.Know england lions will be in nz next year so won't be them.
 
Arjun

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
I don't have a blog (I find it a bit unsafe, maybe in some time...).

With the first round of Ranji already started, I must ask- should we rename this thread as the official Domestic Season thread, or start a new one for the ongoing season?
 
Precambrian

Precambrian

Banned
In other matches,

Tamil Nadu off to a brilliant start scoring 377/0 :-O :wacko:. against Maharashtra. M Vijay - 202*, A Mukund 164*. Vijay, should he continue this form this season, can hope for a test cap.

Karnataka 264/6 Vs Railways, thanks to their skipper Uthappa's blistering 131. My punts are on C Raghu to have a decent run this season, but he's failed yesterday.

Gujarat, newly promoted to Super League off to a good start against Saurashtra scoring 304/4 at stumps, after being 160/4 at one stage. Sunny is not out on 90. Earlier Parthiv and Modi scored 42 each.

Other scores,

Hyd 228/7 Vs Orissa.

Andhra 222/4 vs UP

Punjab 237/5 Vs Delhi (Chetanya Nanda 2-36)
 
Arjun

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
Bad news for fans of the domestic scene- no live coverage of the matches on NEO, or even on Cricinfo!
 
viktor

viktor

State Vice-Captain
This is extremely poor. I would have thought at least Cricinfo would cover it. Anyway, M. Vijay to another big score. He is going to be banging at the Test team doors pretty soon if he keeps it up.
 
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