Remember the games are played at Cardiff as well, which is in Wales.Also, why have they selected 3 spinners in the squad. Are they expecting rank turners in England or gonna play Jadeja as batsman ?
You mean the selectors might have stumbled upon a combination that is better suited to the conditions this time?The fact that it's these three grounds that have been selected mean the Sub Continent sides have a much greater chance than many would have you believe. They're no Eden Gardens but they're not quick or seam bowler friendly pitches. They're generally slow and flat ones, and they may turn. It would certainly be much tougher for the SC sides were the games at Trent Bridge, Chester-Le-Street and Headingley.
It's not a terrible squad, because they have a lot of bases (if not all) covered- their two best spinners (or at least two of their best), five seam options of which four are in form, four bowlers who can also score runs, six out of seven in-form batsmen, and even a backup wicketkeeper (but we wonder what he'll do in the outfield), so let's just hope the right folks get a game.You mean the selectors might have stumbled upon a combination that is better suited to the conditions this time?
Not really.Flat decks mean trouble for the Indians as a team. Their bowlers are weak on flat decks, so much that their batting has to cover a lot of ground to stay competitive- and their batting isn't particularly good on flat decks either. Nobody in this side has that breathtaking impact that a Gayle, ABdV, Watson, Hussey or Warner have. I'd prefer wickets that have something in it for the bowlers, seam or spin.
The 50 over world cup didn't negate bowling, apart from Bangalore (which is generally flat), all other grounds had enough it it for the bowlers (especially slow bowlers) to exploit and take wickets, apart from a bit of minnow bashing and games at Bangalore, most other major games in India involved reasonable scores being scored and chased down.Not really.
Indian bowling is ****e, so they'll hope for pitches that negate bowling. Like when India won the 50 over World Cup, which made the game about 90% batting, 6% bowling and 4% fielding.
There's a difference between negating bowling skill and flat pitches.The 50 over world cup didn't negate bowling, apart from Bangalore (which is generally flat), all other grounds had enough it it for the bowlers (especially slow bowlers) to exploit and take wickets, apart from a bit of minnow bashing and games at Bangalore, most other major games in India involved reasonable scores being scored and chased down.
Anything that makes Yuvraj compete with world class spinners is a slow pitch- and I wouldn't be surprised if those were cracked pitches that he made full use of.I still fail to understand how the pitches used at the world cup were "slow pitches", apart from a few games involving England @ Chennai I can't recall any other pitches which can be categorized as slow.
The Indians will fall short on flat decks, because their bowlers stand no chance whatsoever on these decks and flat-track bullies with brute force and power will smash them out of the match. Nobody in the Indian side can bat like that. We've seen decent Indian batting totals get chased down rapidly with few wickets down, and the Indian bowling concedes gargantuan totals that are beyond the reach of the batsmen, and they often implode each time they're facing a massive total. They're competitive on 50/50 pitches and pitches that are bowler-friendly, with extended batting.I think you're both right to an extent. The more bowler friendly a surface, the less bowling quality matters. It's on the flat pitches that the trump bowlers really made a difference. Obviously India not really having one, means their bowling suffers more than others when the pitches get a bit flatter.
That being said, I think pitches like these help the Indian batsman far more than they hinder the bowling. Going up to Durham against the Saffa's and they could have been toast, but I'd back most of them to get big runs in this comp. Dhoni in particular could be unstoppable at the death facing cricket balls that are only 20 overs old on good batting decks.