***Official*** India in England 2014

[Cabinet96]

Brilliant, Bell will play in the middle-order. A place he's been utterly useless at for the whole of his ODI career.

Don't worry, Hales won't last that long

Seriously though, you can't open with everyone. What would you do?

 

[grecian]

Don't worry, Hales won't last that long

Seriously though, you can't open with everyone. What would you do?

I wouldn't have Bell in the squad, he's 32 he can concentrate on Tests.

 

[wpdavid]

As has Dhoni. I find it easier to not take anything Social says seriously

Wise words mate.

btw just back from France. Have I missed much?

 

[Cabinet96]

Wise words mate.

btw just back from France. Have I missed much?

You saw the Old Trafford test right?

 

[GIMH]

Wise words mate.

btw just back from France. Have I missed much?

Just the usual, Anderson and Broad tearing **** up, batsmen looking at ease, England debuting the next new Gilchrist. All in 3 weeks work.

 

[wpdavid]

You saw the Old Trafford test right?

We left on day 3 of the OT test and came back on Day 3 of the Oval test.
As we travelled by train, it meant I could follow the whole thing on cricinfo at both ends of the trip.
I watched the C5 highlights last night. Interesting track on Day 1. The boy Root's looking OK, isn't he.

 

[Pothas]

Ravi.

Of all the times they brought him back for essentially no reason it seems strange that they have now basically dropped him for no reason.

Oh and Stokes, why?

 

[Furball]

Didn't Root ton up in the Windies? But I don't think he's got the power for Aussie pitches.

You don't necessarily need power for the role Root should play, just an ability to pick gaps and run like ****, combined with the occasional boundary.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Losing Ravi's bowling will hurt us. Nowadays he's really good for 10 overs.

Guess Moeen gives us a bit more flexibility, but, for all his wickets in the tests, he did go for quite a few runs per over. Sub optimal in limited overs, obvz.

&, If Hales and Morgan play, which one of Bell, Ballance or Root misses out? The former, one assumes, but were Cook not the skipper it'd be a no-brainer, IMHO.

Reckon we're looking at something like:

Cook*
Hales
Ballance
Morgan
Root
Moeen
Buttler+
Woakes
Jordan
Anderson
Finn

Tredders for Finn if a second (or third, if we count Root's offies) spinner is required.

 

[theegyptian]

Trying to read from this squad what their plans for the world cup are and can only assume they're gonna go back to their near best 5 bowlers. Try and contain teams to average scores through good bowling. Is probably their best option. Highly reliant on Anderson and Broad being fit and Finn returning to form.

So say Cook, Hales, Bell, Root/Ballance, Morgan, Buttler, Stokes/Woakes/Bresnan/Gurney(if Moeen plays instead of Tredwell)/Jordan, Broad, Finn, Tredwell/Moeen, Anderson

I mean dropping Bopara would seem to infer they're giving up on him and Root as the fifth bowler. Ravi imo is unfortunate even given his poor form in recent odis but I was getting quite bored with his 'I'd like to bat higher in the order' shtick. Fact is he failed earlier in his career up the order and has actually done ok at 6/7 and as 5th/6th bowler. Guess he'll get the chance to bat higher now - just not for England.

 

[Jono]

Why would he want to take over a team going nowhere?

IMO this is attitude not talent. Yeah they're not world beaters but you can't tell me there isn't potential in this team. No heart, but that can change with the right motivator.

Duncan clearly not that guy, and Dhoni not either but he's gotta stay just cos.

I'm all for kicking this team, bunch of weak pissants. But there is talent and a skeleton to make into a good team.

I remember how much of a joke Aus looked after 0-4 to India only 15 mths ago.

 

[Arachnodouche]

I honestly don't see the point in retaining Dhoni as captain for Tests. We're going to lose with him at the helm anyway; what we risk happening is making his defensive, zero-accountability style endemic in the system. I'd rather we saddle one of the young ones; Cheteshwar Pujara because I don't doubt his commitment or heart, in spite of his failings in the series. Or as an even more left-field choice, Ravi Ashwin who's erudite to an extent and obviously thinks about the game, albeit in logheaded fashion at times (he needs to be made a regular first). They won't do well to begin with but they'll be learning on the job and we'll be moving forward at least with some fresh minds.

 

[Jono]

Sure but would you throw him to the wolves in Aus?

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Sure but would you throw him to the wolves in Aus?

Beat WI at home (looked at FTP) and all will be forgotten. Heavy defeat in Australia and a half decent world cup and Dhoni would stay anyway. May as well cut and run now and give new man a few months in job before the expectation of results when you tour Bangladesh.

 

[Jono]

Well I think the only viable options are Kohli and Ashwin. Kohli is in the worst slump in his career to date and copping criticism everywhere. Ashwin is pretty much a batsman away from home.

I completely agree Dhoni should go. But he should have gone at the end of 2012 after 1-2 loss to England at home. Now the timing is so bad.

 

[harsh.ag]

Giving the captaincy to Bhuvi has 2 advantages IMO:

1) It sends out the message that performance will be rewarded over platitudes.

2) Quiet, confident leader who has been all heart taking over should instill some calm as opposed to Kohli.

I am not saying Bhuvi should be the long term captain, but a transitional one, until Kohli is back on his feet, and hopefully with a better head on his shoulder (and no, by that I don't mean Anushka Sharma's head )

 

[Daemon]

It's always a bit hard for us to debate about who'd be the best candidate for captaincy. There are guys who are natural leaders that we can somewhat spot by watching them but literally all the other important attributes of a captain are pretty much unknown to us. Yeah Ashwin speaks decently at press conferences and therefore seems like an intelligent bloke to us, while Kohli's been a captain at various different levels, but we don't actually know whether they have a good feel for the game. I'm sure tactics can be learnt and plans can be made while there's no play but there will be multiple times in a session when you may need to deviate from them a bit and we're just too far removed from the teams to actually know which players have the right attributes. Pretty tough to have a solid opinion on anyone without more facts.

 

[Adders]

I say hang in there Indian fans......your Ali Cook is out there somewhere for you.

 

[Scaly piscine]

No sadsack in the squad. Moores in doing something right shocker - he'll be bsolutely useless in World Cup conditions.
.

 

[eroticfishcake]

Dhoni will probably cling on to captaincy even after the upcoming whitewash in Australia later this year