India Post Mortem Thread

[Cevno]

Yep. They are taking it from a Newspaper, it seems.

 

[Cevno]

BCCI extends Team India coach Duncan Fletcher's contract for one-year | Cricket - News | NDTVSports.com

Urgghhh not sure what to make of this.

His tenure has been a disaster in terms of results but Australia have somehow saved his job.

 

[Cevno]

ESPNcricinfo @ESPNcricinfo
8-0, a 2-1 home loss against England, and ODI losses abroad notwithstanding... Duncan Fletcher gets an extension as India coach

Aakash Chopra @cricketaakash
So, all assumptions about Fletcher were grossly misplaced. He's indeed contributed to this team's performances. Contract extended by a year!


Aakash Chopra @cricketaakash
Expecting a comment on 'Dhoni's hand' in Duncan's renewal of contract soon

 

[Daemon]

If he gets picked up as the CSK coach then we'll know.

 

[Jono]

Haha this is disgraceful. Then again Dhoni wasn't sacked so why should Duncan be? You can't support Dhoni after 0-8 and 1-2 and not Duncan.

 

[silentstriker]

Haha this is disgraceful. Then again Dhoni wasn't sacked so why should Duncan be? You can't support Dhoni after 0-8 and 1-2 and not Duncan.

Well, Dhoni was there for the WC and India's rise to #1, Duncan wasn't...

Not saying either should be kept, but Dhoni was there for the rise - Fletcher has only been there for the fall.

 

[Salamuddin]

What odds do you want me to give you on India NOT becoming the top Test nation over the next two Years - or during the whole of 2013 and 2014 ?

Just think Manee. All our usual problems are resurfacing. Our attack is now completely devoid of any bowling of class. Yes Bhuvaneshwar looks good but it is far too early and he is just one guy. If we are going to predict a bright future based on untried talent, we should at least have a few of them for all will not fulfill the early promise. One, even if he does, doesn't even constitute an attack.

Can you count the number of pacers we have raved about in the last 6-7 years ? Let me recall . . .

Balaji, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan, RP Singh, VR Singh, Vinay Kumar, . . .Thats seven and I am sure I must have missed someone. We are still struggling and waiting for not just an injured but an ELDERLY Zaheer to come back and take lead of the attack. Zaheer is needed because our hyped up young talent remains just that . . . hype. (Edited and added later)

The opening batting slot is in complete disarray. Sehwag has hit a low point from which, I do think he is capable of recovering but time is not going to wait for him eternally. Gambhir has serious technical issues which have been there for some time and are now being exploited by each and every pacer in the world worth his salt. Unless we ensure we play on abslutely dead surfaces, at home and abroad, he is going to struggle until he goes to the drawing board and works on developing some sort of back foot defence. So far he doesn't seem to have taken even the first step towards it. This is where Sehwag and Gambhir differ from Sachin and Dravid. Those two would work on their problems and try to oversome them. These two want to brazen it out. That wont work against quality bowling on even slightly helpful tracks.

Finally the two areas where we never did have problems - spinners and the middle order - are looking very modest in comparison to what we have enjoyed since the early seventies. This is not to run down Kohli, Pujara, Yuvraj, Raina and company but just see how the present lot looks in comparison to what we have had in the last four decades

1970's

• Vengsarkar
• Vishwanath
• Amarnath
• Sardesai/Wadekar
• Brijesh Patel/Yashpal Sharma

1980's

• Amarnath
• Vengsarkar
• Azharuddin
• Yashal Sharma
• Shastri
• Kapil Dev
• Vishwanath

1990's

• Tendulkar
• Azharuddin
• Manjrekar
• Dravid
• Ganguly
• Siddhu
• Kapil Dev

2000's

• Dravid
• Tendulkar
• Ganguly
• Laxman

Compare this with what we have today. Pujara is the saving grace and Kohli has talent. Tendulkar is on his last legs. Rohit Sharma is yet to play his first Test match. Yuvraj has played nearly 50 and is considered not good enough yet! Rains, isn't good enough. This is not comparable to what we had - the best middle order seen in the world for a very long time which made up for a lot of our other deficiencies.

Finally the spin. Kumble is gone. Harbhajan had been on decline and played a few years only on past hype and the fond hope that he would come back. That hope is finished. Ashwin is not the world class spinner that India is known for. Ojha is not bad but no Kumble and no Bhajji as Bhajji once was.

So what do we have to claim we will be number one in next two years?

Hope? Sure. But confidence . . . . ???

.
I'd argue India's batting reserves now are no worse and quite possibly better than in the 90's.
Back then Azharuddin, Manjrekar and Sidhu were all players who were only good at home. And Manjrekar wasn't even that good.
Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly were still establishing themselves.




India's problem now isn't the batting - they do need to weed the dead wood out Sehwag, Gambhir and dare I say it Tendulkar.

But in Vijay, Chand, Koli, Pujara, Rahane, Rohit, Rayudu and Mandeep, they have enough talent to forge a reasonably decent batting unit.
It'll take 3-4 years for these guys to become really top notch in the same way that Laxman and Dravid did but they'll get there.

Watching India's junior sides, their A and u-19 its obvious they are still continuing to produce very good batsmen relative to those of other countries.
Rayudu and Mandeep Singh looked very good on the A tour to NZ last year and at the u-19 world cup last year, India probably had 3-4 batsmen at a pretty decent technical level. Most of the other competing sides only had 1.

The question with India and its pretty much the issue that has plagued them for the 80 odd years of their test history is whether they can field bowlers good enough to take 20 wickets.

It's not even the spin tbh - India's spin attack is still good enough to win tests at home IMO. Away from home spin is virtually useless. The key to India's competitiveness away is whether they can find a group of 3-5 seamers decent enough to given them a fighting chance.

Seems to me they have a systemic issue in the way their pace bowlers are handled - its not that India aren't producng better pace bowlers than they used to - I think its obvious the Ranji trophy is producing seamers with some ability they are but so many of them have faded away fro promising starts - Munaf, Sree, RP. If they can't rectify this and get sustained performance out of their most promising seamers I think it'll be hard for India to achieve consistent success at test level.

 

[Jono]

Well, Dhoni was there for the WC and India's rise to #1, Duncan wasn't...

Not saying either should be kept, but Dhoni was there for the rise - Fletcher has only been there for the fall.

Yep, good counter-argument. Fair play.

 

[Furball]

Haha this is disgraceful. Then again Dhoni wasn't sacked so why should Duncan be? You can't support Dhoni after 0-8 and 1-2 and not Duncan.

This is the first series where the over-hyped, past it 'stars' have been ditched in favour of younger talent.

Fletcher didn't have the greatest start as England coach, it took 3 or 4 years before he'd moulded his own players into the side that rose to number 2 and who won the Ashes.

If you actually look at where Indian cricket was when Kirsten left there was always going to be a sticky couple of years whilst the greats declined and the younger players stepped up to become good, potentially great players. Sure, the two series against England and the away series against Australia were unacceptable but if the BCCI have been happy with the team's progress in the year since being gubbed in Australia then I don't think renewing his contract is a terrible call.

Particularly for a team in transition, results aren't the sole barometer by which progress should be judged.

 

[Jono]

Yep, good counter-argument. Fair play.

This is the first series where the over-hyped, past it 'stars' have been ditched in favour of younger talent.

Fletcher didn't have the greatest start as England coach, it took 3 or 4 years before he'd moulded his own players into the side that rose to number 2 and who won the Ashes.

If you actually look at where Indian cricket was when Kirsten left there was always going to be a sticky couple of years whilst the greats declined and the younger players stepped up to become good, potentially great players. Sure, the two series against England and the away series against Australia were unacceptable but if the BCCI have been happy with the team's progress in the year since being gubbed in Australia then I don't think renewing his contract is a terrible call.

Particularly for a team in transition, results aren't the sole barometer by which progress should be judged.

Also a good argument.

SS and GF making good points. GF less of a **** though so I'm going to agree with him.