***Official*** England in India

[dhillon28]

As metioned earlier, I think Nagpur will be a rank tuner like Kanpur 2008. They will play only one pacer and Jadeja as the extra spinner and to sure up the batting. Likely team

Sehwag
Gambhir
Pujara
SRT
Kohli
RAHANE
Jadeja
Dhoni
Ashwin
Ishant/Awana
Ohja

 

[harsh.ag]

I think a lot of the problems stem back to winning the World Cup on home soil, nothing left for many to achieve and they have played an awful lot of cricket since then. An old side which lacks desire spells problems.

Its easy to understand where things have gone wrong. Their best batsmen have all either retired or gone over the hill. Gambhir and Dhoni were never that great, and the rest were inexperienced. And their bowling always relied on Zaheer Khan, who is now too old and unfit to be of any use. And Harbhajan has honestly been pretty rubbish for years now.

That's way too much simplification for me. I have always felt that the harder the players work on improving themselves (especially while preparing themselves for certain oppositions in certain ways), the better they will be. Gambhir and Dhoni always were quite good (I have actually seen Gambhir bat since his school days, and he was one talented guy), but in Dhoni's case, it just seems he has personally as a player not been preparing well for the series at all. Same with Zaheer; looks like a shadow of the man who could send down a testing spell at will using reverse swing. The talk of India's batsmen being over the hill just gives them more excuses to not prepare better off field. Gambhir, Che, Kohli, Yuvraj, Dhoni - 5 of the top 7 are in no way over the hill. Sehwag might be, and Tendulkar is close, but it's not like the younger ones, apart from Pujara, took up the mantle. Kohli looked like he was sulking over not being offered the number 3 slot. Yuvraj was anyway not fit to be selected as a test batsman. Rohit Sharma would be a better candidate. Ashwin as a bowler looks to be completely out of his depth. Tries a lot of different variations, but really seems to not be able to extract bounce off the surface. It is obvious that Monty is putting in way more hard work when bowling, putting in the extra effort in his action and ball delivery to extract more juice out of the pitch. The team just needs to work harder. My biggest fear with this side is that they actually do not like playing test cricket as much as other forms of the game. They don't enjoy it, and treat it more as a chore than anything else. If that's true, there is no way they will have the self-motivation to do better.

"Winning the world cup leading to loss of desire" theory does not explain why every other previous winner, apart from perhaps Pak 1992, have gone on to do greater things in the aftermath of their WC win. By that logic, having won the '83 WC by beating the great Windies at Lords should have led to that Indian team doing woefully over the next few years. They, in fact, ended up World Series champions, and had a very good test run as well. Same for WI '75 and 79, Aus '87, Sri '96, Aus '99 and '03 ('07 was an exception because of the end of a golden generation, perhaps that's true for Pak '92 as well).

 

[silentstriker]

You can't dislike Test cricket and get to where they were before the past year and a half. It's hard work winning any Test match.

 

[harsh.ag]

You can't dislike Test cricket and get to where they were before the past year and a half. It's hard work winning any Test match.

Simpler times, those. Sachin and Sehwag were playing well. Zaheer was playing well. With the first two definitely declining, not in effort, but in skill and the latter taking a massive hit in the fitness and pace department, this team lost 25% of its juice. It's the other guys I am talking about here (apart form Pujara).

 

[Prince EWS]

You can't dislike Test cricket and get to where they were before the past year and a half. It's hard work winning any Test match.

But even when you win Dhoni whinges that it was too hard

 

[silentstriker]

Well, he might be a player who doesn't care about Tests. At least from his statements.

 

[silentstriker]

Simpler times, those. Sachin and Sehwag were playing well. Zaheer was playing well. With the first two definitely declining, not in effort, but in skill and the latter taking a massive hit in the fitness and pace department, this team lost 25% of its juice. It's the other guys I am talking about here (apart form Pujara).

Who are those? Yuvraj clearly cares about Test cricket - he just sucks at it. Gambhir does as well. Kohli - he's one of the few people to come out of an overseas tour with any positives....

 

[harsh.ag]

Who are those? Yuvraj clearly cares about Test cricket - he just sucks at it. Gambhir does as well. Kohli - he's one of the few people to come out of an overseas tour with any positives....

Kohli seems to care only about himself and his hero, Tendulkar, to be honest. Just ask yourself, how many of the Indian team members look as happy as Cook, Pietersen, Monty, Swann, Finn etc. while playing/taking a wicket/scoring a 50 and so on?

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

I'm not a great believer of loading the team with extra batsmen because of previous batting failure of the team. I would like to see India going for the kill and play 4 proper bowlers in addition of Jadeja as extra 5th and think he is capable of handling 6th spot. As much as I would like to see Rahane in the team but this would be my team selection-

Sehwag
Gambhir
Pujara
SRT
Kohli
Jadeja
Dhoni
Ashwin
Chawla/Ishant
Awana
Ojha

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Who are those? Yuvraj clearly cares about Test cricket - he just sucks at it. Gambhir does as well. Kohli - he's one of the few people to come out of an overseas tour with any positives....

Yuvraj should never have been recalled, Gambhir is lucky to be in the side still and Kohli is a good player who is one of many hopelessly out of form in this series. Apart from that Harsh has a point.

 

[silentstriker]

Kohli seems to care only about himself and his hero, Tendulkar, to be honest. Just ask yourself, how many of the Indian team members look as happy as Cook, Pietersen, Monty, Swann, Finn etc. while playing/taking a wicket/scoring a 50 and so on?

Meh, plenty of "selfish" batsmen have scored runs in Test cricket.

 

[NasserFan207]

Tendulkar is almost 40. I don't find it that hard to believe he is over the hill. Sehwag is a see ball hit ball player. Guys like that always tend to lose their abilities quicker than others. I certainly doubt that in Tendulkar's case he 'doesn't like playing tests'. The guy is probably sick of all the expectation, but no man with a career that long dislikes his job. His skills have just waned.

And I'm sorry but I've never rated Dhoni in tests. He's a great limited overs player, maybe even ATG, but he's never looked like a test batsman and his keeping is average at best. Whether thats down to technical faults or lack of motivation is open to debate.

Kohli, Pujara etc are all fairly talented and will come good eventually. They are just new to international cricket. Indian fans expect far more of their young batsmen than other countries, you just need to reign in your expectations a bit. You aren't going to just instantly replace guys like Sachin, Dravid and Laxman.

India are going through a transitional phase. I'm fairly sure they will make it out a fairly good test side, if not particularly special. I think their problems are simpler than people think. They main issue in recent times has been the denial of such problems even existing, which makes solving them impossible.

 

[Satyanash89]

I think a lot of the problems stem back to winning the World Cup on home soil, nothing left for many to achieve and they have played an awful lot of cricket since then. An old side which lacks desire spells problems.

I dunno about this... VVS and Dravid didnt even play the WC. And a series win in Australia would have been as big as the world cup for the seniors, i have no doubt.
Hard to believe they all began their decline together but thats what happened ... no lack of desire imo

 

[Prince EWS]

Give Kohli the gloves IMO.

Sehwag
Gambhir
Pujara
Tendulkar
Kohli *+
Rahane
Jadeja
Ashwin
Sharma
Ojha
Awana

Lets do this.










(YES, THIS POST IS IN JEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

 

[harsh.ag]

Yuvraj should never have been recalled, Gambhir is lucky to be in the side still and Kohli is a good player who is one of many hopelessly out of form in this series. Apart from that Harsh has a point.

All I am saying is that if you are not happy, that means you don't really like playing the game. Remember all the good sides. The players looked happy when they achieved something, or were on the field trying to get the opposition out quickly. There was a sense of purpose and energy. India has had that too of course, just not happening now. Rare to get a smile out of any face there. How are they going to win the goddamn thing?

 

[silentstriker]

Cause they're losing and India are going through one of their worst phases in over a decade?

 

[smash84]

I think the indian batsmen age twice as fast those of other nations due to the ****ness of Indian bowlers

 

[smash84]

All I am saying is that if you are not happy, that means you don't really like playing the game. Remember all the good sides. The players looked happy when they achieved something, or were on the field trying to get the opposition out quickly. There was a sense of purpose and energy. India has had that too of course, just not happening now. Rare to get a smile out of any face there. How are they going to win the goddamn thing?

Oh....you mean the point that Wasim Akram never fails to bring up i.e. body language

 

[NasserFan207]

All I am saying is that if you are not happy, that means you don't really like playing the game. Remember all the good sides. The players looked happy when they achieved something, or were on the field trying to get the opposition out quickly. There was a sense of purpose and energy. India has had that too of course, just not happening now. Rare to get a smile out of any face there. How are they going to win the goddamn thing?

Most teams look pretty miserable when they are getting trashed. Particularly at home in front of your home crowd.

You do have a point re: India's body language in the field though. Its bad.

 

[shankar]

Awana's scored 74 and gone for 0/51 in 10 today.