***Official*** England in India

[Pratters]

No don't get me wrong. I haven't been a supporter of Gambhir. But if he is retained in the test team despite his lack of scores, he should be given at least an opportunity in tests before being dropped IMO. Unrelated to his performances in LOIs recently.

Either do not pick a player for a version of the game. Or give him a run before dropping him.

This is about consistency of selections for me more than any thing.

 

[chicane]

good show by the bp11.

5 wickets for munaf, and 4 dismissals were bowled, wow. though the report did say vrv was impressive. i guess thats why they picked him over munaf.

seems like pietersen is playing well too....mightve scored big today. bad signs for india.

 

[chicane]

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

i think if chawla plays it will be in place of bhajji

 

[chicane]

Munaf Patel takes 5-59 as England are bowled out for 237 .

How quick is Munaf ?

Anway be interesting to see how England bowl now......

hes rated to be around 90 mph.

though i remember watching him in a ranji final game on tv.....didnt look extremely quick. though admittedly it was almost stumps that time.

 

[chicane]

but gambhir has looked quite poor off late. its not just the numbers. and im not really excited about either him or jaffer.

 

[Pratters]

but gambhir has looked quite poor off late. its not just the numbers. and im not really excited about either him or jaffer.

I am not debating regarding a specific player being there or not but pointing out the larger issue of inconsistencies in selection.

It was brought to the fore during the India-Sri Lanka series. I have stopped analyzing it as there have been so many inconsistencies off late.

 

[Tom Halsey]

What I'm most worried about is injuries, not the performance. We were rubbish last year in SA too, but hit the ground running in the 1st Test.

 

[pug]

Finally, the dinosaurs are back where they belong and out of the Indian team. Though, I must admit the selectors are damn inconsistent. When Ganguly plays badly they insist on keeping him for XYZ reasons and when he suddenly looks a bit solid they drop him for XYZ reasons. Not that I have much problems with his presence or absence, though a revamp of selection procedure seems critical to me.

Anyway, I agree with the team selection mentioned above. Going with 5 batsmen isn't so scary with Dhoni and Pathan emerging, at least in home conditions so far and make a strong addition to the batting line-up.

Jaffer
Sehwag
Dravid
Tendulkar
Laxman
Dhoni
Pathan
VRV Singh/Sreesanth
Kumble
Harbh
RP Singh

If Harbhajan wasn't so damn efficient at home, I would have picked Piyush even though it would mean less variety. Hmm... speaks something about India's pace (or lack of) department that Kumble has seen the faces and backs of so many medium pacers and still looks good for sometime.

 

[pug]

very good news that..

For you.

Got a glimpse of what's to come in India's sports channel. Pathetic commentators that will make me miss Waqar Younis's Ax-effect even. Seriously, did anyone hear Jadeja during the tour match this morning? And I'm no great fan of Charu Sharma either. Dammit, fourth umpire analysis is so bad that me and my buddies could perhaps do better. Gotta miss Nasser Hussein in the days to come. And not only that, I doubt if they'll have the ultra motion feature available.

Honestly, I think the BCCI should go ahead with whatever plans they had for producing the matches themselves with high quality stuff. I don't care if they make a mint out of it, as long as they improve from DD's standards.

Is there any other sports channel showing this series in India?

 

[pug]

Do any of you know how Munaf Patel and VR Singh are bowling in the BP XI vs England match? I know their figures, but does anyone know of their speed, line, length, etc. Cricinfo should be updating their bulletin soon enough anyways, but they don't say enough.

First spell, Munaf Patel was mediocre. Not that bad, considering AA and Zaheer were in the team not very long ago, but still mediocre compared to all the hype surrounding him. He was trying too hard to find a rhythm and was failing. VRV Singh was good. Stuck to a line and had good carry to the wicketkeeper, who caught the ball many times near his face. There was no speedometer or rather they showed the speeds very rarely. But the few times I did see the speed mentioned it was in the high 130s. For Munaf, he looked a bit slower than VRV. Paul, on the other hand was impressive. Mind, I only saw a few hours only. He looked more potent than the other two in the first hour though there's something about VRV that makes him look like a good pacer.

But then again, the figures speak a different story as you can see from cricinfo. So a lot must have changed in subsequent spells, especially Munaf's spell after tea.

 

[superkingdave]

opinion seems to be divided now about the tv rights, there's been no announcement as we were told would happen yesterday then this morning. Nimbus said it would make a joint announcement with the winning bidder.

However there are reports that none of the other broadcasters are willing to bid more than sky has, that Nimbus are trying to force sky to bid higher even though no one else will match even them, Sky look like they will call their bluff so we'll have to wait and see. Certainly it looks like this is the reason the announcement has been postponed, Nimbus thought they could force sky into increasing their bid by saying they had a deal with someone else, sky didn't increase their bid and now Nimbus is stuck.

 

[marc71178]

You could also add to your list of woes: in the last game before the 1st test Strauss looking completely out of touch today, Tresco running himself out & Fred giving catching practice to the bloke at mid-off.

But on the positive side, Geraint looks to have batted quite sensibly.

 

[superkingdave]

1. Really?, clearly you haven't been watching Jone's that well...

Its quite clear that Read is by far the better limited overs batsman than Jones. Jones struggles to average 20 in Domestic Limited overs cricket, Internationally his record is boosted by 2 fifties against Zimbabwe, (17.8 not including matches against Zimbabwe). There are many keepers in England that could probably do a better job than Geriant Jones in ODI's

If Jones doesn't have a good tour in India, i think we should be replacing him, his batting has really not produced much in either form for the last year. However, Fletcher thinks he is a good lad, so i can't see it happening

 

[Neil Pickup]

Did he really put an apostrophe in "Jones"?

Words fail me.

 

[Armadillo]

Did he really put an apostrophe in "Jones"?

Words fail me.

Now come on, Neil, he is an Aussie.

 

[superkingdave]

Now come on, Neil, he is an Aussie.

He isn't an Aussie

 

[Pratters]

This is what I wrote in my blog few minutes ago after analyzing my thoughts -

Inconsistencies in selection have made me immune

There was a time when I used to think hard on who should be there in the Indian test team and who shouldn't. There was a time when I thought there was at least some basis for selection for the test team.

With the recent inconsistencies in the selection -

Most famously choosing Ganguly to play as an all rounder in the team,
Dropping/choosing him regardless of form
The treatment to Yuvraj, Kaif
Choosing Parthiv Patel above Dinesh Karthik for no reason at all

And we haven't even gone to the bowlers yet.. The first two tests in Pakistan were on flat tracks and no bowler should be judged based on that. So the selectors needed just one test to fathom that they were wrong in selecting bowlers who are now axed from the test team as they now show little faith in them?

I am finally immune to the selection of the test team it seems, at least for the time being. When I looked at Gautam Gambhir out of the team despite him being given no opportunities in the test matches (as also Jaffer wasn't), I finally gave up on my last effort to find a reason in all the madness. I am a huge Wasim Jaffer fan and was delighted at him being chosen for the test team's tour of Pakistan. Despite the low scores of Gambhir in the recent past, despite the promise of Jaffer, I do not find any fathomable reason why one should be in the team and one should not.

Also, why announce teams on Day 1 of tour games. This is a repeat of what happened recently. Ganguly was playing in a pressure test versus Pakistan and batting. The one day team was announced while the test was being conducted and Ganguly was left out. Why not wait for a day so that the match at hand is over until absolutely unavoidable.

I am not pointing out regarding a specific player being there or not but on the larger issue of the inconsistencies in the selection policy at large.

Want to bring in young players? I am all for it. But deciding chop and change with no method, no meaning is not the way to go about things. It is still highly unlikely that India will loose to England but it wouldn't take away from the poor methods applied to achieve end results.

 

[open365]

Its quite clear that Read is by far the better limited overs batsman than Jones. Jones struggles to average 20 in Domestic Limited overs cricket, Internationally his record is boosted by 2 fifties against Zimbabwe, (17.8 not including matches against Zimbabwe). There are many keepers in England that could probably do a better job than Geriant Jones in ODI's

If Jones doesn't have a good tour in India, i think we should be replacing him, his batting has really not produced much in either form for the last year. However, Fletcher thinks he is a good lad, so i can't see it happening

That bad?Christ,i thought he was at least averaging 25.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Now come on, Neil, he is an Aussie.

He's actually not, he merely glory-hunts in the cricket and supports Australia.

His spelling ability is similar to what most Aussies would be at though, so an easy mistake to make...

 

[Armadillo]

He's actually not, he merely glory-hunts in the cricket and supports Australia.

His spelling ability is similar to what most Aussies would be at though, so an easy mistake to make...

Actually Halsey, I am aware that he is English and was joking.