***Official*** England in India

[alternative]

just a little bit of swing, and hoggard is very dangerous.. i think he would be terrific..

 

[TT Boy]

just a little bit of swing, and hoggard is very dangerous.. i think he would be terrific..

Maybe so but on a Indian dust bowl or even a flat track (aka Pak wicket) his a luxury England can do without.

 

[TT Boy]

Blackwell has struck, Jaffer (48) out LBW. At stumps India are 93-1.

 

[George.Hinton]

India pick 17 year old leggie to face England - Ganguly dropped !!!

Team: Wasim Jaffer, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid (capt) Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Mohammad Kaif, Suresh Raina, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Sreesanth, RP Singh, VRV Singh

Btw, the teenage leggie is Piyush Chawla.....man lots of new faces in that side.

 

[wpdavid]

As I'm not watching it, it's impossible to say whether the track is green, the bowling was excellent on the Indians' behalf, the English batting was poor or their early bowling has been awful. Just dont read too much into a tour match.

Isn't that what we were told in Pakistan? I know the conditions won't be the same in the tests, but I just don't buy this idea that our lads can turn it on from nowhere when it counts. And yes, I know about SA last winter, but India won't oblige by picking 3 players who are palpably not test quality.

As for Hoggard, he'll play and do his usual honest supporting role

Oh, he'll play alright, but that doesn't make it the right decision. Hopefully he'll make better use of the new ball than he did in Pakistan, but I'm not optimistic. And hopefully "his usual honest supporting role" won't mean having a short spell with the new balls and spending the rest of the innings on the boundary.

 

[wpdavid]

Team: Wasim Jaffer, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid (capt) Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Mohammad Kaif, Suresh Raina, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Sreesanth, RP Singh, VRV Singh

Btw, the teenage leggie is Piyush Chawla.....man lots of new faces in that side.

Not to mention a v. large squad for a home test.

 

[IqbalJaved]

Some interesting selections....

1) Must admit it's good to see the back of both Agarkar and Zaheer.
2) Chawla is a huge gamble but he will be a totally unknown quanitity to the English.
3) I would have opted for Venugopala Rao ahead of Raina and Munaf ahead of Sreesanth.
4) Agree with the non selection of Ganguly - I hope Wasim Jaffer can come good. The selectors have offered hima lifeline to salvage his career - he needs to take it with both hands.

 

[SJS]

The team is good. I am surprised at the two exclamation marks after "Ganguly dropped"

It is neither a surprise nor a disaster.

It will be intersting to see if India plays four or five bowlers. two or one spinner and who bowls the new ball with Pathan ?

 

[Pratters]

No Gambhir and preference for Jaffer? While I am a Jaffer fan I don't understand what Gambhir did wrong.

 

[IqbalJaved]

The team is good. I am surprised at the two exclamation marks after "Ganguly dropped"

It is neither a surprise nor a disaster.

It will be intersting to see if India plays four or five bowlers. two or one spinner and who bowls the new ball with Pathan ?

SJS I get the feeling the X1 for Nagpur will be:
1. Jaffer
2. Sehwag
3. Dravid
4. Tendulkar
5. Laxman
6. MS Dhoni
7. Pathan
8. Kumble
9. Harbhajan
10. VRV Singh
11. RP Singh

 

[IqbalJaved]

No Gambhir and preference for Jaffer? While I am a Jaffer fan I don't understand what Gambhir did wrong.

It was a 5-50 call.......I think selectors felt Jaffer was in better nick so they opted for him.

 

[SJS]

Seven bowlers in the fifteen, of these three have never played a test match and one has played only two. Clearly the bowling, which has been India's perennial problem, is being given special attention. Great.

I doubt if Raina, Chawla and VRV will play the first test but I would love to see India playing five bowlers - Kumle, Harbhajan, Pathan, RP and Sreesanth and let Kaif be 12th man.

But they may play safe and drop one of the bowlers and keep Kaif.

I like the way this team management gives prolonged exposure and then if performances are not forthcoming, players are sent to the cold storage.

I think Zaheer, Agarkar, Gambhir fall in this category. We may not see a come back from them in this series at least. I wont be surprised if we have seen the last of Agarkar and maybe even Zaheer.

 

[SJS]

SJS I get the feeling the X1 for Nagpur will be:
1. Jaffer
2. Sehwag
3. Dravid
4. Tendulkar
5. Laxman
6. MS Dhoni
7. Pathan
8. Kumble
9. Harbhajan
10. VRV Singh
11. RP Singh

I totally agree except that I may play Sreesanth before VRV in the first game.

 

[Autobahn]

I think the way that some of indian pacers performed in the ODIs against Pakistan has pursuded them that they don't need to carry Agarkar anymore hoping he might return to his previous magic.

I think Chawla's in there in for the event of a dead match, it would silly to play him in a live test because despite his wonderful performance at the Under-19 cup we still don't know if he can do it at test level.

I think Jaffer ahead of Gambhir was basically decided on a coin toss to be fair not much between them.

Hasn't Nagpur got a rep for being one of the few green-tops in india?

 

[SJS]

I think the way that some of indian pacers performed in the ODIs against Pakistan has pursuded them that they don't need to carry Agarkar anymore hoping he might return to his previous magic.

I think Chawla's in there in for the event of a dead match, it would silly to play him in a live test because despite his wonderful performance at the Under-19 cup we still don't know if he can do it at test level.

I think Jaffer ahead of Gambhir was basically decided on a coin toss to be fair not much between them.

Hasn't Nagpur got a rep for being one of the few green-tops in india?

I think the idea is to give the youngsters a feel of the dressing room and test match atmosphere.

They are also trying to give the squad the feeel of a touring squad. All fifteen will be together and they may wish to use just these fifteen for the entire series. Which , of course, means that Jaffer will get an extended run.

I feel this is a good strategy. Most players would be knowing they are going to be around through out the series and that should make for more confident performances from the youngsters.

 

[TT Boy]

No Gambhir and preference for Jaffer? While I am a Jaffer fan I don't understand what Gambhir did wrong.

Not score any runs?

 

[aussie]

According to The Times and Cricinfo.com BSkyB will secure the TV rights to England's tour of India.

http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/indveng/content/current/story/238314.html

very good news that..

 

[aussie]

i really dont know how much we can take out of warm-up games these days, but i'll wait until the 1st test, hopefully Vaughan knee injury doesn't rule him out.

For India surprised that Ganguly & Khan have been dropped, probably the last of them we'll be seeing in international cricket i guess..

 

[SJS]

I like Gambhir's but we need to be fair.

Take away Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and Gambhirs test innings read :

3, 1, 96, 7, 26, 41, 32*, 29, 1, 24, 52, 0, 2, 3, 19, 30

This is not an earth shattering performance.

He has also been given chance now in one dayers and if you go back to the Sri Lankan one day series when he played ODI's after a long gap of 31 months !

After scoring 103 in the first match he played against Sri Lanka he has the following string of scores in all international matches.(red being the test innings.

28
1
38
11
0
0
2
3
19
30
2
21
38

This is 193 runs in 13 innings at an average of 14.8 and a top score of 38. Surely, Jaffer, who hasnt been played an international game since August 2002 deserves another chance after so many to Gambhir.

Jaffers average of 20 is not great compared to Gambhir's 24.4 against non-minnows but Jaffer last played nearly four years ago.

PS All of Jaffer's three fifties have come away from home. 51 and 86 in India's disastrous tour of Windies in 2002 and 53 in a losing cause at Lord's the same year.

I think Jaffer deserves another chance and Gambhir's inconsistency has provided that.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Very, very interesting to see Piyush Chawla picked. Not sure how they'd fit him in unless they played three spinners though:

Sehwag
Jaffer
Dravid*
Tendulkar
Laxman
Dhoni+
Pathan
Chawla
Harbhajan
Kumble
RP Singh