Would now drop Raina or Yuvraj (probably Raina because of Yuvraj's bowling, sad as that is) for Yusuf Pathan.
Cant see Yuvraj being overlooked for the starting eleven. Guess he will make the cut despite his poor form. Raina is no better in any case. Yuvraj at least will provide something with his bowling. Wrt to the bowling i would go with munaf.
Any of our bowlers can get pasted on SC wickets. It's equally likely that both Zaheer and Munaf can end up with 10 overs for 65 runs with no wickets or 10 overs 40 runs with 3 wickets. Zaheer will still be considered the better bowler (because he is) but the result is the same. That's just how it works in the SC. None of our bowlers are significantly better than the other so one guy doesn't have a higher chance of performing more than the other.
Haha AWTA. Arjun definitely has a funny way of deciding what's wrong with the team before a ball is bowled and, if the team loses, blaming the loss on that regardless of what actually happened.Is it just me, or do others also disagree with Arjun's suggestion for 5 bowlers on subcontinent pitches?
Arjun, I really like you and all, you're a great poster and I respect you, but dude you've got some whack ass theories at times. Most of the times when I read your posts, you have something really different to offer in terms of suggestion, but I can't seem to wrap my mind around as to how you come up with these things. I am not just speaking about the 5 bowler theory, but a lot of the other different opinions you've provided over the past few years. I don't recall too many posts of yours that I could agree with.
But that's the beauty of it, love hearing different insights into the game and expanding my knowledge while at it. Allows us to look at the game from a different perspective.
I'd like him to offer more of a wicket-taking threat with the new ball, TBH. But maybe that's just asking him to become a different bowler, and hence pretty unreasonable.
AWTA....think praveen kumar can be quite a handful....but with his injury i would take munaf in place of nehra as back up
Actually I'd say it is if you look at it from SA's prospective. It's quite fascinating actually. One team played 5 specialist bowlers right throughout and the other played 7 bats. And I'd have to say there were mixed results for both teams. India bowled well with 4 bowlers (part timers really contributed this time around) but didn't do well with the bat and part of it is because SA played 5 bowlers. On the flip-side SA's extended tail made so they collapsed very fast in a few games.Haha AWTA. Arjun definitely has a funny way of deciding what's wrong with the team before a ball is bowled and, if the team loses, blaming the loss on that regardless of what actually happened.
The part-time bowlers did an awesome job in this series, particularly given the conditions, and India won one game and almost another on the back of innings from the seventh batsman. If you think five bowlers are the way to go then fair enough, there's merit in it, but this series is not a great endorsement for it.
It's not as simple as who won though. That was my entire point. India lost because their top order kept getting destroyed. That had nothing to do with the fifth bowler or the seventh batsman of either team. India's fifth bowling combination of part-timers comfortably outperformed South Africa's specialists in Parnell and Peterson and their seventh batsman was arguably their best of the whole series.
I just hope it's safe.Part of me wants to have a laugh if India fail in this WC, but I do concede that:
On paper India has a very, very strong side.
All of the hosts, but especially India, will put on a colourful and exciting show.
No total will be easily defendable against the non-minnows.
I'd argue that with the IPL, India has impacted cricket nearly as much as Kerry Packer.
Good luck to the Indian/SL/Bangla people - hope you have a thrilling and safe time of it.
PS: Go Australia!
Dammit!!
