*Official* India in South Africa

[Jarquis]

Why don't India a) pick their best team b) make the most of their strengths.
I mean Kartik is much better than Ojha and there's at least a few other spinners better than Ishant.
Prepare dustbowls and play 3 spinners ftw.

 

[Jono]

Please explain?

I've followed Indian cricket closely over the last 10 years, and every fan has always dreaded the day when we lost Sachin, Dravid and Laxman (Sehwag has recently been added to the bunch, whilst I never thought we'd miss Ganguly's batting much). Obviously the loss of these 4 players will still be extremely hard to cover, but never have we at any one time had players as talented as Vijay, Pujara, Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Badrinath all at the same time. It's gotten to the point where, on merit, Yuvraj (who is obviously isn't very good, but would walk into NZ, SL, WI and would be very close to making SL's team) should not even be near making the Indian batting lineup.

The ironic thing of course is despite all this depth, we're still playing Raina, who looks out of his league at test level when facing quality bowling.

But if you carefully look at some of the first choice backup batsman India has had in the past (Jaffer, Chopra, Karthik, Kaif (even though I liked him)) they have been far less talented.

 

[Prince EWS]

Why don't India a) pick their best team b) make the most of their strengths.
I mean Kartik is much better than Ojha and there's at least a few other spinners better than Ishant.
Prepare dustbowls and play 3 spinners ftw.

Well it's not like they've been having problems at home. Hard to prepare pitches to your liking abroad...

 

[Contra]

Omfg

 

[Jono]

My God that is absolutely ********!

 

[Jono]

I can feel Harris breaking this partnership. And God will that be annoying.

Called it. **** **** ****

 

[BoyBrumby]

Lol. Augustus calls it.

 

[Contra]

Gifted this wicket.. absolutely gifted. Why can't you just keep doing what you've been doing the last 10 odd overs man <_<

 

[chicane]

I can feel Harris breaking this partnership. And God will that be annoying.

Damn it!

 

[Jono]

That's the test match. If we were 0 down at the close of play with predicted rain over the next 2 days we'd have been favourites to save it.

Now we're in deep **** again.

 

[Prince EWS]

Harris has bowled pretty well today. He's even got his arm up a little higher. I know that this was basically a case of "he happened to be bowling when a wicket fell" rather than him actually taking the wicket as such but he deserved that.

 

[Jarquis]

Well it's not like they've been having problems at home. Hard to prepare pitches to your liking abroad...

Well its not like they've been winning every test at home. Whilst they're doing well, they could do better/make it easier for themselves.
No need to be facetious about overseas pitches either.

 

[Ruckus]

I've followed Indian cricket closely over the last 10 years, and every fan has always dreaded the day when we lost Sachin, Dravid and Laxman (Sehwag has recently been added to the bunch, whilst I never thought we'd miss Ganguly's batting much). Obviously the loss of these 4 players will still be extremely hard to cover, but never have we at any one time had players as talented as Vijay, Pujara, Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Badrinath all at the same time. It's gotten to the point where, on merit, Yuvraj (who is obviously isn't very good, but would walk into NZ, SL, WI and would be very close to making SL's team) should not even be near making the Indian batting lineup.

The ironic thing of course is despite all this depth, we're still playing Raina, who looks out of his league at test level when facing quality bowling.

But if you carefully look at some of the first choice backup batsman India has had in the past (Jaffer, Chopra, Karthik, Kaif (even though I liked him)) they have been far less talented.

Are you talking about batting depth as the number of quality batsmen in the current team or how many you potentially have in reserve?

 

[Jono]

Nope sorry, the "that's Sehwag" line, which I've used many times as well when he does this, doesn't cut it here.

This is the 2nd time his ****house dismissal this year will cost us a test match against South Africa.

The first time was this match.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Harris has bowled pretty well today. He's even got his arm up a little higher. I know that this was basically a case of "he happened to be bowling when a wicket fell" rather than him actually taking the wicket as such but he deserved that.

Comms suggesting Harris did Sehwag in the flight, but I think that's quite a charitable reading for the (non)twirler.

 

[Contra]

I hate this. As soon as Viru goes the bowlers starting looking like they can take a wicket every ball

And now Dravid's got a nasty one

 

[Jono]

Are you talking about batting depth as the number of quality batsmen in the current team or how many you potentially have in reserve?

Reserve obviously, that's what we were talking about. The whole discussion was about depth of Indian cricket, and how the spin bowling (Kartik, Mishra) and batting (Pujara, Vijay etc.) depth was the best it's ever been. But the fast bowling depth is awful

 

[Jarquis]

Not sure you can blame him for the result in that match. Or this one. You got bowled out for 130 odd ffs..

 

[Teja.]

Lol @ people changing their opinions about the Indian test team drastically due to one match which we still have a 5% chance of drawing anyway. Would absolutely love it if we draw this one and emerge as equals. Would be a nice egg on the face for the haters.

Won't happen though.

 

[Jono]

Not sure you can blame him for the result in that match. Or this one. You got bowled out for 130 odd ffs..

You know what I mean.