***Official*** England in India

[TT Boy]

well during his first year in International cricket (2004) he was good i'd say, he was bowling much faster plus swinging the ball. Now he is ordinary but still gets wickets odd really.

Not really because the guy has decent control, he still swings the white ball and has two or more different varieties of the slower ball, none of which the England boy's can pick. Not surprised he takes wickets, especially when people like Ian Blackwell are sent in to bat at number three.

 

[luckyeddie]

Gus Fraser is now pushing for a recall for the Clarkemeister!!

I always liked Angus.

Top bloke.

 

[silentstriker]

Not really because the guy has decent control, he still swings the white ball and has two or more different varieties of the slower ball, none of which the England boy's can pick. Not surprised he takes wickets, especially when people like Ian Blackwell are sent in to bat at number three.

Yes, but he consistently takes top order wickets with the new ball.

 

[silentstriker]

Also, his career average overseas is 23.97, slighly better than his overall average of 24.16. Seriously, this guy is weird. Either this is just a long *** lucky streak, or he has something that the batsman can't get their fingers on.

 

[kvemuri]

And didn't I say Sehwag should be dropped?

And Dhoni, And Pathan, And Dravid, And Yuvi, And Kaif...wait thats the entire frigging team

 

[silentstriker]

And Dhoni, And Pathan, And Dravid, And Yuvi, And Kaif...wait thats the entire frigging team

Hey now, I never said Dravid should be dropped. I did want Sehwag to be dropped, Dhoni to be punished for playing that shot (by sendnig him to domestic cricket for a while), Kaif for just having a bad patch, and Yuvi from the test squad (I am not convinced of his class in test cricket).

Dravid, I never said this. Show me where I even insinuated that Dravid should be dropped.

 

[adharcric]

There's no reason to be surprised about Pathan's success. He's evolved into a very good (not great until he does it outside the subcontinent against the Aussies) new-ball bowler in ODIs. Even in tests he can be dangerous but he hasn't gotten the same degree of consistency yet and will often bowl several mediocre spells between the lethal ones. We all ridicule him for his pace, but honestly he has great control and can swing the ball both ways at will (though he obviously favors one side) and now we've seen that he's an intelligent bowler who can pick up 4 big wickets on slower deliveries. Don't be so surprised about his success.

Also, he's excellent against most left-handed openers. That ball which pitches just outside the lefty's off-stump and lures the drive and gets the edge so often has made Butt a bunny, Tharanga a bunny and now Strauss to an extent. To the right-handers, he has the indipper, his original weapon.

 

[kvemuri]

Did I say it, or did I say it? Welcome to chapter 632 of 'How to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.'

God...I didn't read these posts last night and I know I am saying after the fact, but yet, dude come on you need to chill...

 

[adharcric]

Hey now, I never said Dravid should be dropped. I did want Sehwag to be dropped, Dhoni to be punished for playing that shot (by sendnig him to domestic cricket for a while), Kaif for just having a bad patch, and Yuvi from the test squad (I am not convinced of his class in test cricket).

Dravid, I never said this. Show me where I even insinuated that Dravid should be dropped.

I'm glad you're not a selector, because you clearly wouldn't be able to maintain a stable team for more than 1 series. Every player has bad patches, many players make mistakes (yes, even horrendous ones) but that doesn't mean they should be dropped. Don't adopt this new version of the typical Indian fan mentality, where opinions of players change from heaven to hell in a fortnight.

By the way, Kumble bowled rubbish in Pakistan when India needed him. Don't blame the dead pitches, he was straying in line perpetually. By this mentality, he should've been benched or dropped for letting the team down too. Expect and demand the best from your players because it's a privilege to represent India, but have faith in their ability to prove themselves too, at least for a little while. (and don't give me the same bull about "ok, they can prove this in domestic cricket")

 

[kvemuri]

Hey now, I never said Dravid should be dropped. I did want Sehwag to be dropped, Dhoni to be punished for playing that shot (by sendnig him to domestic cricket for a while), Kaif for just having a bad patch, and Yuvi from the test squad (I am not convinced of his class in test cricket).

Dravid, I never said this. Show me where I even insinuated that Dravid should be dropped.

dude the smileys are meant for sarcasm..you didn't, I was being sarcastic.

Edit: adharcric makes a brilliant point in the above post. Chill out players go through bad patches in some cases extended bad patches, you cannot replace an entire frigging team cause someone played a bad shot, not good for their confidence and not good for the team itself. I was like you 10/12 years ago, I am reaching 30 now, imagine watching games where you only had SRT scoring and the entire team falling like 9 pins to an Aquib Javed or a Chris Lewis or a Michael Whitney.

 

[silentstriker]

God...I didn't read these posts last night and I know I am saying after the fact, but yet, dude come on you need to chill...

I am very happy to be proven wrong on this account.

 

[kvemuri]

I hope gets selected tooo... BUT i don't think its going to happen with the current selection committe..

I hope he never gets selected ever...my reasons I already posted in the Sourav Ganguly recall thread. Gangs chapter should be a closed one, done and dusted.

 

[adharcric]

Well it sure does look like Ganguly is a done deal now. A return as an ODI opener was his best bet but they've opted for Uthappa, which is a good, forward-looking move. He may have been in contention for a test spot if Tendulkar didn't make it back, but a certain 19-year old phenom just might have ruined that as well. The test middle-order hierarchy now reads: Dravid, Tendulkar (injured atm), Yuvraj/Laxman, Yuvraj/Laxman, Kaif/Raina, Kaif/Raina.

 

[kvemuri]

If Kaif and Sehwag aint scoring and are still in the team, i don't see why not ganguly get another go.. afterall the record speaks for itself..

Doesn't matter for what the record speaks, Gang's performance before being axed from the team was hardly worth speaking about and on top of it watching him shiver, i literally mean this, facing Shane Bond against NZL in the tri-series final in Zimbabwe was pathetic enough, then watch him scratch a 51 against SLK was...words are failing me here, anyways I would rather we brought in fresh blood. Also i think we should persist with Viru till SRT gets back, once SRT is in drop Viru till he gets his form back, you can't have both openers gone and also the back up opener gone.

 

[adharcric]

India A Team

The India A Team for the 6-nation tournament in UAE has also been named, and it's a very promising one.

Venugopal Rao*, Robin Uthappa, Shikhar Dhawan, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan, S Badrinath, A Jhunjhunwala, Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja, SS Paul, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, RP Singh, VRV Singh, Piyush Chawla

Venu, RPS, VRV and Chawla aren't too surprising. Good that they've gone to Karthik instead of Parthiv finally. Sodhi hasn't even been mentioned in the past few years despite showing some good signs for Punjabi, now he'll get another chance. SS Paul deserves it as always, Sharma is a young talent, Jhunjhunwala a solid wild-card pick, Uthappa and Dhawan are the two best reserve ODI openers, followed by Vidyut. Badrinath is a so-so pick, but no one else really merits it apart from Yashpal or Sunny Singh perhaps. There were better options than Jadeja as well, a spinner in Mishra and a tearaway quick in Nabi.

 

[kvemuri]

If someone's expensive and not taking wickets, it's better to have one who might be expensive, but at least takes wickets.

Takes whose wkts, the likes of James Anderson and Liam Plunkett, or the likes of Mohammed Asif and Rao Iftikar, while gets smashed apart by the likes of Butt, Akmal, Atapattu, Greame Smith, Andrew Hall etc and I am not even talking about Afridi, Flintoff, Gilchrist etc. Time to kick AA out too...well to be honest the time has gone a long time ago.

 

[kvemuri]

He can surprise us, Freddie is trying to copy Dravid's move. Bloddy copycat, be creative, think of your own strategy.

Well actually that was something i had posted in yesterday's thread that Eng should experiment for long run with Blackwell and play him at 3 as they lose nothing and might pay off as Pathan for India. His promotion came true yesterday, boy am I glad he flunked.

 

[Neil Pickup]

The India A Team for the 6-nation tournament in UAE has also been named, and it's a very promising one.

Venugopal Rao*, Robin Uthappa, Shikhar Dhawan, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan, S Badrinath, A Jhunjhunwala, Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja, SS Paul, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, RP Singh, VRV Singh, Piyush Chawla

Venu, RPS, VRV and Chawla aren't too surprising. Good that they've gone to Karthik instead of Parthiv finally. Sodhi hasn't even been mentioned in the past few years despite showing some good signs for Punjabi, now he'll get another chance. SS Paul deserves it as always, Sharma is a young talent, Jhunjhunwala a solid wild-card pick, Uthappa and Dhawan are the two best reserve ODI openers, followed by Vidyut. Badrinath is a so-so pick, but no one else really merits it apart from Yashpal or Sunny Singh perhaps. There were better options than Jadeja as well, a spinner in Mishra and a tearaway quick in Nabi.

Could someone please tell me who these unpronounceables are?!

I've managed to get rostered the India World Cup Top 40 and can manage 25 reasonably, but then it all gets a bit ropey.

 

[silentstriker]

Could someone please tell me who these unpronounceables are?!

I've managed to get rostered the India World Cup Top 40 and can manage 25 reasonably, but then it all gets a bit ropey.

Haha, don't worry. I'm originally from India, and when I see "Jhunjhunwala", I can only think "WTF?, I thought that was a curry dish".

 

[Jono]

I think Pathan is definatly a pretty ordinary bowler. Yet, he keeps taking wickets. I don't get it, can someone explain to me why he keeps doing this?

He has played 55 ODI's, and his stats are:

After 55 matches, he's bowled 2837 balls with 96 wickets, at an average of 24.16 (!) at an economy rate of 4.90. That average is better than Flintoff, and its close to Waqar Younis (WTF?) in ODI's.

Has he just been lucky? His stats remain good even after removing Bangladesh/Zimbabwe (his ODI stats, not test stats). Or maybe its because hes played a lot of ODI's at home lately?

I truly don't get it, Pathan is not that good. Why does he keep taking wickets?

Oh yes, because of course its much easier to take wickets and be a good fast bowler in India than outside the sub-continent.

So let me get this straight, when a batsman performs in the sub-continent its "Well he's only done well in the sub-continent where heaps of runs are scored and pitches have less bounce", and then when a fast bowler performs there its "Well, he's bowled well in the sub-continent, but can he bowl better outside of it... you know... in that place where much less runs are scored and there is more help for fast bowlers!".

Its time people start being consistent when talking about sub-continental pitches.

Pathan is a very good ODI opening bowler, he's not a great ODI bowler, he's not a very good test bowler, but he is a very good ODI bowler and he's been doing what he does for over 2 years now, and he's won India many games with his new-ball break throughs. Since when did you have to be a quick bowler to be a good ODI bowler? Speed has nothing to do with it.