• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

*Official* Group A Discussion - Pakistan, West Indies, Australia, India

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
Javed Mianded PWNED Chetan Sharma and India with the last ball six at Sharjah. He is a legend.
 

ret

International Debutant
Ind struggled against the Kiwis .... Nayar and Mishra did well though .... Tendulkar, Gambhir, Bhajji and Nehra did not play

Not a bad result though for India as now [hopefully] they will not only be focused against Pak but also work out a combination of guys who look/are in decent touch

For me, the 11 should be

- Tendulkar
- Gambhir
- Dravid
- UV
- Dhoni
- Nayar
- Bhajji
- Mishra
- RP / Praveen
- Ishant
- Nehra


The batting looks a little short of depth so the top 6 will not only have to take up the responsibility of batting for most of the overs and but also of scoring briskly. Bhajji and Mishra have to do well with the both the bat and the ball


If they need to strengthen the batting then bring in Karthik in place of one of the spinners .... No Raina and YP please for the first two games. May be try them out against WI as by that time its possible that India would have either gone through or got knocked out
 
Last edited:

Shri

Mr. Glass
Raina played reasonably well yesterday. Should play him at 6 and remove RP/Praveen. Raina, Yuvraj and Nayar can bowl the 5th bowler's 10 overs.
 

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
The top five is Gambhir, Tendulkar, Dravid, Yuvraj and Dhoni. We're decided on that.

This lunacy of having Yuvraj and Raina bowling should stop. Anything they can do, the likes of Mishra and Harbhajan and even Yusuf can do significantly better. On the other hand, they need conserve their energy for their batting, as the team needs big hundreds from them, not a few overs. Lesser batsmen like Yusuf and Nayar can do the hard work of sending down overs. Why Dhoni doesn't give Nayar any bowling, we don't know.

If the Indians rely on pace to do the job for them, they're in for a rude shock. All the pacers have leaked lots of runs, with the new ball or old, in the first few overs or last. Keeping either Bhajji or Mishra out for one of them makes no sense. For the value these pacers create, Nayar is good enough. He should be the third seamer, not RP/Praveen/Nehra.
 

godofcricket

State 12th Man
A good win for pakistan yesterday. I wanted to see how they get along when they are chasing, although they werent playing a international side but it would be extremely good for their confidence that they managed to easily get to the target with wickets in hand. I believe pakistan is well prepared now.
 

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
My XI would be as follows -

Tendulkar
Gambhir
Dravid
Raina
Yuvraj
Dhoni
Nayar
Bhajji
RP
Ishant
Nehra

Harsh on Mishra but I don't see two spinners working well in RSA. Nayar can be useful as the 5th bowler as he can bowl medium pace which would be better than the spin of Yuvraj in RSA.
 
Last edited:

Athlai

Not Terrible
My XI would be as follows -

Tendulkar
Gambhir
Dravid
Raina
Yuvraj
Dhoni
Nayar
Bhajji
RP
Ishant
Nehra

Harsh on Mishra but I don't see two spinners working well in RSA. Nayar can be useful as the 5th bowler as he can bowl medium pace which would be better than the spin of Yuvraj in RSA.
Would drop RP and play Mishra even in SA.
 

ret

International Debutant
some good points there by everyone

as someone said the top 5 are settled, Ishant and Nehra [who picks up wkts every now and then] pick themselves in, Bhajji for his decent performances in SL and usefulness with the bat .... 8 places decided for

the selection of the other 3 places is tricky as this would determine the overall depth of the side. I would usually go in with 3 pacers unless the pitch is a turner or the spinners are of Warne, Murali or Kumble's quality. So it's b/w RP and Praveen [too bad Zak is out] .... the next two places are amongst Raina, YP, Karthik and Mishra

too bad IP [Irfan Pathan] isn't included as he would have been a good #7 and also an useful 3rd seamer [considering India's options atm]. This would have also allowed India to play both Bhajji and Mishra w/o much thinking
 
Last edited:

ret

International Debutant
Btw, T20 seems to have made an impact on how we select teams. Take all-rounders' position for example for which we are selecting guys who are only good enough to bowl 4-5 overs as 5th bowler and score may be 20-25 runs!

Ideally, we should be going for someone who can either average around 30-35 or bowl at least 7-8 effective overs. If not then are we not better off selecting specialists?
 

Shri

Mr. Glass
Seeing RP and Nehra in action makes me want to shoot myself in the head for bashing Irfan Pathan.
 

Naumaan

First Class Debutant
A good win for pakistan yesterday. I wanted to see how they get along when they are chasing, although they werent playing a international side but it would be extremely good for their confidence that they managed to easily get to the target with wickets in hand. I believe pakistan is well prepared now.
Yeah i 'm feeling good now, & the good thing is people have written pakistan off, which is a good sign ;)
with Umer Akmal's inclusion in the side, batting looks great
but the prob here is that they have to pick two from these three: Malik, Misbah & Yousaf
with Malik scoring 130* yesterday (although agianst a club side) now they will have trouble in selection
 

Naumaan

First Class Debutant
Yeah. Javed Miandad shouldn't have tried to hit Lillee.:ph34r:
well i don't know about that incident, i never saw lilee playing, & just remember Miandad playing against india in 1996 quarterfinal
so i don't know if he tried to hit anyone or not
 

Shri

Mr. Glass
well i don't know about that incident, i never saw lilee playing, & just remember Miandad playing against india in 1996 quarterfinal
so i don't know if he tried to hit anyone or not
Dude, get a humour meter from e-bay.:p
 

Arjun

Cricketer Of The Year
My XI would be as follows -

Tendulkar
Gambhir
Dravid
Raina
Yuvraj
Dhoni
Nayar
Bhajji
RP
Ishant
Nehra

Harsh on Mishra but I don't see two spinners working well in RSA. Nayar can be useful as the 5th bowler as he can bowl medium pace which would be better than the spin of Yuvraj in RSA.
On the contrary, two spinners in South Africa may work to India's advantage, even a slender one. We've seen Mishra, a reserve, finish with one for 29 in his ten. Most batting teams won't play India's spinners as easily as they play the pacers, who may be a serious weakness here, with economies of seven, eight and nine. There's no way three of these pacers can play together; on form, they're just not good enough. Nayar as a change seamer can make a difference; he did when he played in the IPL earlier this year in South Africa.
 

ret

International Debutant
Coming back to the grp A, I would say Aus and Pak would be the favs, unless Pak played its best cricket in the warm ups. India would be the dark horse!
 

Top