***Official India in New Zealand***

[Polo23]

Saw that with a strange feeling and jesse was fiddling with it as though he was about to open it

Noticed that also...thought he was going to crack it and start skulling.

 

[profernity]

Saw that with a strange feeling and jesse was fiddling with it as though he was about to open it

I suspect the fiddling was an unconscious habit.

The first thing that went through my mind when I saw that, was that scene in the Simpsons episode when Homer becomes an astronaut. Barney (Jesse) wins the selection process and is handed a bottle of champagne by the aerospace engineer. He pops it open, takes one swig, then...

Jesse: *eyes bug out* IT BEGINS!!!!

He has to be restrained from drinking anymore, but he finishes the bottle, takes a jet pack and flies away.

Engineer: I don't understand it. That was non-alcoholic champagne.

 

[Craig]

I suspect the fiddling was an unconscious habit.

The first thing that went through my mind when I saw that, was that scene in the Simpsons episode when Homer becomes an astronaut. Barney (Jesse) wins the selection process and is handed a bottle of champagne by the aerospace engineer. He pops it open, takes one swig, then...

Jesse: *eyes bug out* IT BEGINS!!!!

He has to be restrained from drinking anymore, but he finishes the bottle, takes a jet pack and flies away.

Engineer: I don't understand it. That was non-alcoholic champagne.

 

[Cricket_God]

I recall reading that there is no intention to play Kulkarni and he is being taken to NZ as experience, similar to Ishant Sharma being taken to England.

Isant had more potential than kulkarni,i have no problems in taking kulkarni but selecting
balaji is like making a joke of ourselves.Sreesanth,Kumar all deserve far ahead of balaji.
Srikant has gone nuts .Next agarkar and nehra will come back to our team.

 

[Manee]

Isant had more potential than kulkarni,i have no problems in taking kulkarni but selecting
balaji is like making a joke of ourselves.Sreesanth,Kumar all deserve far ahead of balaji.
Srikant has gone nuts .Next agarkar and nehra will come back to our team.

Sreesanth can't string two games fit together whereas Praveen Kumar was outperformed in the domestic season by Balaji - I fail to see the issue.

 

[oitoitoi]

Balaji's earned his comeback, I'm very skeptical about Kulkarni, I can't see him ever becoming a fixture in the test side, medium pace just doesn't cut it.

 

[Manee]

Balaji's earned his comeback, I'm very skeptical about Kulkarni, I can't see him ever becoming a fixture in the test side, medium pace just doesn't cut it.

From what we've seen this domestic season, Kulkarni has more pace than Balaji.

 

[adharcric]

Balaji's earned his comeback, I'm very skeptical about Kulkarni, I can't see him ever becoming a fixture in the test side, medium pace just doesn't cut it.

Kulkarni's done just as much as, if not more than, Balaji to earn this call-up.

 

[Cricket_God]

Sreesanth can't string two games fit together whereas Praveen Kumar was outperformed in the domestic season by Balaji - I fail to see the issue.

I am happy for balaji as he has comeback,but really all of us will agree he has no future
in the indian team atleast 5 bowlers some with sucess at international are not being selected.Even dhoni does not have confidence in him remember srilanka,he will
just be luggage and kulkarni will surely play before him i bet.

 

[Arjun]

My concern is that we're seeing too many caps being handed out in too little time. Kulkarni may be one more example. Rather than drop, pick someone inferior, then drop, then pick someone, then drop during a lean phase, they need to stick to a core group. Frankly, Kulkarni doesn't have the pace, power or build to last four years in the team. We've seen as many as eight pace bowlers in the last four years in the Test team. Rather than give Dhawal Kulkarni a game here, then Manpreet Gony in the next series, then Dinda in the one after that, they should stick to the ones they already have, and get some of those dropped in the past back in the fold- they are a lot better than some current pacers.

 

[Cricket_God]

My concern is that we're seeing too many caps being handed out in too little time. Kulkarni may be one more example. Rather than drop, pick someone inferior, then drop, then pick someone, then drop during a lean phase, they need to stick to a core group. Frankly, Kulkarni doesn't have the pace, power or build to last four years in the team. We've seen as many as eight pace bowlers in the last four years in the Test team. Rather than give Dhawal Kulkarni a game here, then Manpreet Gony in the next series, then Dinda in the one after that, they should stick to the ones they already have, and get some of those dropped in the past back in the fold- they are a lot better than some current pacers.

Pace is not a problem he will clock 130-140 easily at international level as he bowls in the 125-135 at domestic level and even improve to 135-142 in a year but does he deserve it?

 

[Manee]

I am happy for balaji as he has comeback,but really all of us will agree he has no future
in the indian team atleast 5 bowlers some with sucess at international are not being selected.Even dhoni does not have confidence in him remember srilanka,he will
just be luggage and kulkarni will surely play before him i bet.

I hate to do this, but I do agree that Balaji has no future in international cricket bowling at 125kph, as he did in the domestic season. The question is whether he can raise his pace to 130kph in international cricket as that is an acceptable pace considering the superb economy rates he maintained last season. Balaji was never and is not an ODI prospect, his potential lies in Test cricket, just to clarify. You talk of bowlers of international level not being selected but the fact is that they have not proved their fitness. Nehra, RP Singh and Sreesanth are constantly breaking down and Praveen Kumar could not string together a strong domestic season this year when he needed it most and his fitness too was under scrutiny, with him missing numerous matches. India's main issue with fast bowlers is not the lack of pace but the lack of consistent fitness; our bowlers are always breaking down and it cuts our talent pool down significantly. Add VRV Singh, who is currently injured, and Munaf Patel, who is always injured, to the list and we have half a dozen international prospects who have been injured constantly throughout the past year or two.

My concern is that we're seeing too many caps being handed out in too little time. Kulkarni may be one more example. Rather than drop, pick someone inferior, then drop, then pick someone, then drop during a lean phase, they need to stick to a core group. Frankly, Kulkarni doesn't have the pace, power or build to last four years in the team. We've seen as many as eight pace bowlers in the last four years in the Test team. Rather than give Dhawal Kulkarni a game here, then Manpreet Gony in the next series, then Dinda in the one after that, they should stick to the ones they already have, and get some of those dropped in the past back in the fold- they are a lot better than some current pacers.

I disagree about your assessment of Kulkarni, I feel he has all the tools to succeed at Test level and possibly ODI level - though he has only played 12 domestic OD matches so a proper judgement cannot be made. 49 FC wickets at 22.02 is a superb effort and shows the potential for Test cricket. Having watched him bowl, he bowls at 130kph and extracts genuine bounce and seam movement - there is nothing there stopping him from converting to Test cricket. The only issue I see is the no ball problem and the lack of experience (just 13 FC games), both of which should be solved quickly.

Gony looked the part in the IPL and had a strong Deodhar Trophy performance under his belt, it was hard to predict that he'd fail at ODI level. Dinda has not been given an international cap and he has been treated well, being catapulted into the India A team after displaying pace in the IPL and showing some good performances as well as some poor ones. He is raw, but I am sure most people can see the obvious talent there.

 

[SJS]

India - great team, shame about the board they're representing

 

[Flem274*]

India - great team, shame about the board they're representing

The media (especially NZ media in this case) will always cry foul over what they percieve as censorship etc. I pretty much agree with Cleaver.

Interestingly, Warren Lees says we have a C-team bowling attack. Not only do I enjoy the irony considering he had those tearaways Larsen, Harris and Patel but also, knee jerk much? O'Brien managed to get himself in the toppish end of most wickets last season, Vettori did the same and Franklin is a very good swing bowler.

Sorry to keep harping on about this but it ****s me off no end atm when the NZ public and media **** all over our highly inexperienced and easily collapsable batting then wrongly and ignorantly abuse our bowlers, who are the only reason we actualy have a test class team atm.

 

[SJS]

Sorry to keep harping on about this but it ****s me off no end atm when the NZ public and media **** all over our highly inexperienced and easily collapsable batting then wrongly and ignorantly abuse our bowlers, who are the only reason we actualy have a test class team atm.

I am not very familiar with what the NZ media writes but I agree with your point entirely. NZL batting has rarely had super stars but with decent batsmen (maybe with the odd one approaching greatness - Crowe), great fielding and a good attack have looked much more likely to win Test matches on the strength of their team's performance rather than rely heavily on external (wicket, whether etc) factors for the odd win at home.

Thats why I mentioned the bits and pieces players policy as flawed. It affects bowling skills in the long run much more. Batting skills just reflect bowling strengths of the times and stats in any event improve for batsmen with declining bowling standards.

 

[Flem274*]

^Dempster, Donelly, Crowe, Sutcliffe, both Reids, Turner, Fleming because I'm biased, thats it.

Anywho, the NZ team I want to see on Wednesday:

McIntosh (don't rate him, but he deserves his chance)
Guptill
Flynn
Taylor (score some runs though bud)
Ryder
McCullum
Franklin
Vettori
Mills
Arnel
O'Brien

Don't rate Martin at all still, plus Arnel is a decent enough bowler, not sure he has a long term future when you look at his competition (Southee, Butler, Boult, Wagner, Davidson), but his domestic record is pretty decent.

Don't like Franklin batting so high, hopefuly his finest asset (his bowling) is back up to speed. his spell against Brendan Nash was promising. If it swings and he's at full fitness again, then I'd back him to grab a 5-fer.

O'Brien looks to have lost rythym, hopefuly he can get it back quick.

Mills I don't think much of for tests when the ball isn't new, but he's better than Martin and when Oram is fit he'll probably drop out.

Looking for our hyped up batting order to show what they can do, hopefuly they're consistently good this time.

Looking forward to Zaheer Khan bowling in tests, especially if its swinging.

 

[honestbharani]

HB, you know this has nothing to do with this being a dead rubber. Its just poor batting.

I think India did the right thing by playing to win the rubber outright. Its just that they were done in by conditions that helped bowlers and they were not equipped to cope with them.

I know you dont mean it but when we talk of dead rubber in this situation it gives the impression that w are making an excuse for the loss. There IS no excuse just an explanation which is what I have written about earlier.

As for the bench doing better because they are hungry, well it is the batting that has failed us here and we have only one proper batsman sitting outside and that is Dinesh Karthik. It is highly unlikely that if Dinesh had replaced any of the batsmen on view (chances are that they may have rested Sehwag since he has had maximum exposure and needs a rest the most or Dhoni), that one change would have dramatically altered what happened.

I am not saying it was the ONLY reason, SJS... But I am sure it was part of it. The stroke of Raina is my case in point. But anyways, I just got the feeling that we were unwilling to knuckle down on a wicket which was proving slightly more difficult than the flat as pancake tracks we have had earlier. I put it down to some amount of lack of intensity due to the series already being decided and yet all first XI players playing as much as due to lack of technique... My gut feeling is that had it been a LIVE encounter we would seen a bit more effort from our boys.. I don't think it was a co-incidence that the only guy who applied himself was Rohit Sharma, who had the most to gain out of a decent knock and the most to lose from a failure... Granted, NZ would probably have still won, because they played better cricket and also seemed more adaptable to the conditions but I am sure we would have seen better than the 150 all out from our boys..

Had we had the team that adharcric (I think) put out before the game, I think we would have had more intensity from the bowlers and perhaps with a different captain, the approach may have been different. Obviously, I can see why you think it is highly unlikely... Even I think it won't have been certain but at least it would have made more sense than to play the same XI again and ground them down to dust...

Just my two cents...

 

[thierry henry]

Yeah he did look good. Wonder how bad his dodgy back is. Man all our bowlers seem to have dodgy backs.

Very bad. Bad enough that afaik it would be silly to select him for tests ever again.

 

[thierry henry]

btw, interesting that Arnel is 30 and made his FC debut at 27. What's his story? Apparently he was a basketball player of some repute and I suppose this hampered his prospects of taking his cricket too seriously early on.

I've seen him a bit on TV and am not super-stoked by his selection. Kinda reminds me of Michael Mason, tall, high action and a bit ungainly, a very poor man's Glenn McGrath. I expect him to fail basically.

 

[Howsie]

btw, interesting that Arnel is 30 and made his FC debut at 27. What's his story? Apparently he was a basketball player of some repute and I suppose this hampered his prospects of taking his cricket too seriously early on.

I've seen him a bit on TV and am not super-stoked by his selection. Kinda reminds me of Michael Mason, tall, high action and a bit ungainly, a very poor man's Glenn McGrath. I expect him to fail basically.

Yeah I can't see him doing very well. I would like to see him prove me wrong, but I just can't seem him taking too many wickets.