India : What next??

[smash84]

What next for India?

Defeat at Edgbaston probably.

Well done Agent Fletcher.

You are right. This thread should not exist. No one should talk about what can India possibly do better. They lost the right to do that after TB.

haha.......good point

 

[Burgey]

Hope both Sehwag and Gambhir play in the next match. A full strength XI in Sehwag, Gambhir, Dravid, Sachin,Laxman, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Mishra, Zaheer, Praveen, Ishant/Sree should atleast be able to draw the next test.

btw, will Dhoni be playing the next match? Or would he banned for the slow over rate in the first innings?

England will most assuredly be hoping Dhoni plays.

 

[Top_Cat]

well india know that hv already lost it. So better bleed some youngs.

Just got a disturbing image of Dravid, Tendulkar, etc. drinking Sharma's blood to gain his youthful power.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Bumble & Manjrekar both said after the game they saw Gambhir having a full net on day one of this test and asked the (fair, IMHO) question that if his elbow allowed him to do that why couldn't he play?

Manjrekar also said Sehwag had delayed his shoulder op by a month to play some IPL (he said it was known to need surgery before the world cup, but was understandably delayed then); obviously the IPL is worth a lot of money to players, but it does raise the question of priorities.

With more than one player reporting for duty in less than svelte nick too (step forward Sree, Zaheer and Sachin) has perhaps Kirsten leaving left a vacuum where complacency crept in before Fletcher took over?

 

[centurymaker]

Bumble & Manjrekar both said after the game they saw Gambhir having a full net on day one of this test and asked the (fair, IMHO) question that if his elbow allowed him to do that why couldn't he play?

Manjrekar also said Sehwag had delayed his shoulder op by a month to play some IPL (he said it was known to need surgery before the world cup, but was understandably delayed then); obviously the IPL is worth a lot of money to players, but it does raise the question of priorities.

With more than one player reporting for duty in less than svelte nick too (step forward Sree, Zaheer and Sachin) has perhaps Kirsten leaving left a vacuum where complacency crept in before Fletcher took over?

I knew it!!! Gambhir chickened out like last time. minus rep

 

[Cevno]

Gambhir played on with a injury in south africa and had a very crucial knock in that match.

He may have had a net during the game but still be feeling the effects and pain of it at the start which the team management wouldn't have wanted to risk after the Zaheer incident.

What i didn't understand was why was Harbhajan fielding but not bowling?

 

[GotSpin]

Didn't look injured at all when he was batting either

 

[miscer]

Can the run of low scores (<300 4 times in a row) really be blamed on missing 1 and a half batsmen though? Seems a bit simplistic to me.

really though think of it this way: if we had zaheer then in atleast one of the 4 times we had england in trouble, we would have crushed them, right? I mean really, in each innings we've had them in some (and at times a lot of ) trouble and they come out of it guns blazing.

if we had our 2 batsman fit then in atleast one of the 4 innings we would have turned things around right? so the series would be looking like 1 england 0 india or 1 england 1 india.

im sure u will agree to that. Im not saying we would be winning because england outplayed us but we missed zaheer especially and the openers as well.

 

[GotSpin]

How about you get more than one bowler that is marginally useful. ****s sake. Tremlett was injured for England but they covered for that just fine. Depth is part of a great side

 

[Cevno]

Made the same prediction months in advance of the South African series after he had a stellar Srilanka series.
The same things were said ,but then he had a poor NZ series and looked completely clueless both in SA tests and ODI's and got dropped after one test.

He may do better against England specially on the tracks where there is less swing and bounce but can't see him doing too much on seaming tracks or when he is needed the most.

He is a type of player who is pretty good ,infact maybe better than the alternatives perhaps on certain slowish lowish and two paced surfaces.
But is way behind the alternatives on Bouncy tracks or against Swing bowling.
So got to be careful and wary of that in selections. Can see Tremlett troubling him a lot and him being caught in the slips on a few occasions as Morkel got him.

Said this about Raina way ahead of the series and he is staying true to it. As soon as it starts to bounce extra and move he starts to look completely clueless.
Now will probably struggle at Edgbaston but do better at the Oval.

Infact even when he started the first test in west indies was worried he will perform there and get selected for the England tour.
And as a result of him getting selected ahead of Badrinath there along with Kohli, Yuvraj managed to claw his way back into the test team.

 

[Top_Cat]

How about you get more than one bowler that is marginally useful. ****s sake. Tremlett was injured for England but they covered for that just fine. Depth is part of a great side

Covered for it so well there's doubt as to whether Tremlett will come straight back in.

 

[Cevno]

im sure u will agree to that. Im not saying we would be winning because england outplayed us but we missed zaheer especially and the openers as well.

No chance of that happening tbh.

 

[Burgey]

really though think of it this way: if we had zaheer then in atleast one of the 4 times we had england in trouble, we would have crushed them, right? I mean really, in each innings we've had them in some (and at times a lot of ) trouble and they come out of it guns blazing.

if we had our 2 batsman fit then in atleast one of the 4 innings we would have turned things around right? so the series would be looking like 1 england 0 india or 1 england 1 india.

im sure u will agree to that. Im not saying we would be winning because england outplayed us but we missed zaheer especially and the openers as well.

That's tosh really. Especially with regards to the batting. FFS Sehwag with the ball hooping everywhere? Gambhir? Come on mate.

Agree Zaheer's loss is a savage blow to India though. As GS said though, might be handy to have more than one good bowler.

Just saying.

 

[Spark]

Since you know Zaheer is going to be injured half the time anyway, I don't see how you can complain too loudly about it.

 

[scorpio1990]

If India is going to depend upon Zaheer to even challenge other teams in a substantial manner
then I don't think they deserve to be no. 1 team.

 

[miscer]

yea good points you guys. obviously the number 1 team can't have such an atrocious bowling attack that we fail to take 20 wickets in one match and only do so in the other (in helpful conditions!) after conceding 544 in one innings. so yea im sure the rankings will reflect that after this series is over.

hopefully we can still win one and draw another because if im not mistaken we share number 1 if it's 2-1?

 

[Prince EWS]

Zaheer being injured isn't unlucky; it's something that happens all the time. It's a persistent problem that's always relevant to the strength of India across a series. Losing Sehwag and Gambhir was pretty unlucky as it's rare for them to miss Test matches, but saying "if we had Zaheer we would have played better" would be a bit like England saying that Morgan wasn't a crap Test batsman he would've scored a lot more runs.

 

[Anku31]

Zaheer being injured isn't unlucky; it's something that happens all the time. It's a persistent problem that's always relevant to the strength of India across a series. Losing Sehwag and Gambhir was pretty unlucky as it's rare for them to miss Test matches, but saying "if we had Zaheer we would have played better" would be a bit like England saying that Morgan wasn't a crap Test batsman he would've scored a lot more runs.

Those were other times.Now has been quite fit for major tournaments.We did miss him badly in this series.Although likes of Sreesanth did help in taking 10 England wickets but after giving away 544 runs.That's why it's irrelevant.We need Zaheer for the 3rd test.

 

[hang on]

It took a brilliant innings from Bell to achieve it.

undercooked indian pies gave england's belly the runs.


i'll get me coat.

 

[hang on]

but, less seriously, why don't india consider going in to the edgbaston test with 4 seamers? assuming, of course, that khan regains fitness. singh is woeful.