There are reasons for that. Yousuf was more of a HTB than Inzi. But here you are comparing two players specifically at home and who played the same opponents together. Then you say one is clearly better than the other. Ashwin is very marginally perhaps better than Jadeja purely on bowling at home but definitely not 'clearly'. And Jadeja's value in other disciplines eclipse that fine margin.
We can agree to disagree. If it was a tailender at no.8 I would say you had a point but then you already have Wasim. Or if the bowling difference was minute like Hadlee vs McGrath then yes Hadlee's batting takes the cake.
And that is managing and shuffling a lot of people from their positions just to accomodate an unknown quantity. Instead just have Inzy/Yuvi at 5 and you know what you will get from them. They are proven match-winners at that position.
I personally think 1-2 years more and Babar's case will be solid enough that either Zaheer is dropped or Zaheer/Kohli go down the order.
It's interesting more teams don't do this somewhat fluid formation - at least from time to time, or from country to country. Like surely Sehwag was a bit of a bust in England/NZ, why keep trying him there opening? He was also probably a good enough player to come in lower down and smash it around a bit.
They should IMO. India totally should have rolled with
*Under single white ball
The bowling difference is not bigger than Hadlee vs Mcgrath.
That's not correct though because if Ashwin is McGrath, Jadeja isn't Pollock - which is the very point. It's definitely more like McGrath/Hadlee (at home).
Babar's case is quite solid. He could be a great pairing for Sachin at the top too.
Yeah I think that's fair. I like the idea of having the sixth bowler with Shakib, but I think Babar's career is on track to have Zaheer dropped, and I say that as a huge Zaheer booster in ODIs. He's really underappreciated for being ahead of his time. If I was picking it now I'd have Babar as first reserve top order bat though.
I believe it is because Kumble has run through sides outside of the SC on 4th, 5th day wickets which Ashwin/Jadeja havent, which is the biggest reason to have them in the side there, otherwise you might as well as have an extra bat or pace bowler.
Alpha move tbf.
I was talking about Kumble and Jadeja and overall, not at home. Even I would give Ashwin/Jadeja the edge over Kumble in SC.
Good point.
How many bowling options do you reckon are required for an ODI team?
Yes. If I am taking a odi team, I will go with 4 bowling options and 3 0.5 type bowlers, totaling to 5.5 bowlers.
