*Official* India in South Africa

[Evermind]

Isn't part of the idea of the wheel of mediocrity that the bowlers actually show some promise and get the fans all excited for a while before flaming out. Like Ishant in particular. Unadkat was just hopeless from the very beginning, more like Xavier Doherty.

And this is something of a pet peeve of mine, mediocre is often used as a synonym for terrible but it's not. It means average or a bit below average. Unadkat isn't medicore; he is just crap.

Check out his bio from cricinfo tho:

A left-arm fast bowler, Jaidev Unadkat was named in India's Under-19 squad for the 2010 World Cup in New Zealand as the pace spearhead.

After the World Cup, Unadkat was handed an IPL contract with Kolkata Knight Riders and he impressed the bowling coach Wasim Akram, who identified him as one for the future. He was picked for India A's tour of England in June 2010 and had a dream first-class debut, taking a match-winning 13 for 103 against West Indies A at Grace Road.

You'd think he's the next Wasim, FFS.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Indian cricket should really consider not picking any bowler Wasim rates.

Or alternately, we could just produce better bowlers.

 

[Dissector]

Well, to be fair he is only 19 years old and he could emerge as a test-class bowler later on. He certainly isn't one now and it's ridiculous that he was picked for such an important series.

 

[Evermind]

Well, to be fair he is only 19 years old and he could emerge as a test-class bowler later on. He certainly isn't one now and it's ridiculous that he was picked for such an important series.

Can't see it happening unless he doubles his weight in muscle. Boycott's grandma is more solidly built, I reckon.

 

[shankar]

Based on the typical Indian bowler progression curve, he is at his physical peak and will only become slower from this point onwards.

 

[Zinzan]

Bit harsh considering we lost our best bowler, but no doubt this has been a poor performance from Ishant and Sree.

Unadkat really shouldn't be playing.

But I think we're even. I said batting would be India's main concern, you said bowler. Both have been piss poor :ph34r:

Haha, nice try Jono. What I've maintained for a while now is the Indian bowling attack is toothless & would struggle to get 20 wickets in SA, which early-on appears to be 100% on the money. Just because their batting absolutely sucked as well doesn't make me wrong in any respect what-so-ever.

To remind you, here's what you said in response to my comment about their bowling attack

Yeah, how the hell are we going to get 20 wickets in the most bowler friendly conditions in the world

We got 20 wickets there last time, we can do it again. We may not win, but lol @ the idea that our bowling attack will be our concern.

 

[Cruxdude]

Well this tour is becoming a horror tour indeed. Good thing that the game starts at midnight for me, I am spared of watching this. The bowling has been bad but it still doesn't change the fact that almost the same attack has taken 20 wickets in worse conditions. We have had a horror start but still I won't be too quick to jump on the bandwagon rubbishing the team.

 

[Zinzan]

We definitely rely way too much on Zaheer. Not one Indian fan will deny it.

But to say India were always going to struggle to take 20 wickets is a little bit harsh considering the reason Indian fans had any hope going into this series was the fact we had a top 5 fast bowler in the world, on form, ready to attack SA. Instead we have a 19 year old stick man who only had one good season last season.

Can you honestly say hand-on-heart that Zaheer would have made much of a difference to this SA batting innings? As I said earlier, it was the sheer pace of Steyn & Morkel that owned India's batsmen from what I saw & despite the fact Zaheer is an intelligent & skilled bowler, I highly doubt he'd have troubled the SA batting line-up on this wicket.

 

[Dissector]

I decided to have a look at this year's Ranji Trophy bowling stats to see if there were some up-and-coming bowlers worth looking at and man it makes for some depressing reading. At the top of the table is Joginder Sharma who also has one of the most impressive first-class career bowling records in India right now. If he is the pinnacle of first-class Indian bowlers, it's a minor miracle that India can produce a team which takes 20 wickets.

 

[Cevno]

136 all out and 366/2 FFS

I think we've all done quite well considering nobody has killed himself yet.

2nd Test: India v South Africa at Ahmedabad, Apr 3-5, 2008 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

This game was even worse.

 

[Cevno]

Well, SA did similar nasty things to Australia on their last tour to SA, but it was in a dead rubber (Mitch blasted a hundred in the 2nd innings IIRC). Hopefully this is their supreme performance out of the way for this series. *clutches at straws*

1st Test: India v South Africa at Nagpur, Feb 6-9, 2010 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

2nd Test: India v South Africa at Ahmedabad, Apr 3-5, 2008 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

They have also done the same taking the lead in the 2 last series they have had in India.

 

[kingkallis]

Ermmmmmm back then we had the chance to prepare square turners for next game.

 

[Cevno]

If there is any logic behind the selection of Unadkat over Praveen Kumar I'll gladly stop posting on this forum. And Im fairly certain the selector's answers to this performance is the one and only Irfan Pathan. Absolute joke.

Been making this point since the team was selected in the first place a while back.

Praveen Kumar would have been good in these conditions. Swings the ball pretty much everywhere.
Zaheer always was going to miss one test atleast and this is not a series to blood players.

As for Unadkat have never really seen from till now that what is the fuss about even in FC cricket.
From what i have seen if a left handed bowler was a must Sangwan,Suyal or RP singh even look more threatening to me.

Can't also figure out what did he and even Yadav do in the past few months to get selected ahead of Mithun and Tyagi even who were taken to Srilanka.


Another obvious mistake made was Raina in this match for me. Saw it coming 5/6 months back that he would struggle in south Africa and that's what he started doing.
If horses for courses was to be followed then Pujara should have been in ahead of him for certainty.

 

[Cevno]

Ermmmmmm back then we had the chance to prepare square turners for next game.

True though in the last series we did not exactly prepare a square turner.

India have started every series slowly almost for the last 2 years now.

 

[Manee]

Joginder Sharma.

Other than this year (29 wickets at 17.44), he hasn't done much with the ball in FC cricket since 2006/7. With the bat, he has been pretty poor since 2006/7 (603 runs at 37.68), as well.

 

[Cevno]

I decided to have a look at this year's Ranji Trophy bowling stats to see if there were some up-and-coming bowlers worth looking at and man it makes for some depressing reading. At the top of the table is Joginder Sharma who also has one of the most impressive first-class career bowling records in India right now. If he is the pinnacle of first-class Indian bowlers, it's a minor miracle that India can produce a team which takes 20 wickets.

How the f does Joginder Sharma have a FC average of 20.32 in his career?

Specially when Zaheer has a career fc average of 27.37 and Sreesanth in excess of 33?

He is doing something right.

 

[Manee]

Indeed. If that's not enough reason for pessimism, I don't know what is.

I always cite Edgbaston 1997 as proof that you can have the most abysmal start, imaginable, to a series and still go on to salvage it.

 

[Manee]

How the f does Joginder Sharma have a FC average of 20.32 in his career?

Specially when Zaheer has a career fc average of 27.37 and Sreesanth in excess of 33?

He is doing something right.

He plays a fair bit in the Plate League, which is a lower level. Someone of military medium pace like him has pitches more conducive to him than someone who bowls at 130kph+ in Ranji cricket, added on to the fact that if he looks harmless, e.g. on a flat pitch, the skipper will get the spinners on, whereas a Zaheer will be expected to run in and spearhead through it. So those things could help his stats, but yeah, they are quite impressive.

 

[Checkmate]

Give me a ****ing break people. India's bowling is not terrible. It isn't good either. It is OK. Otherwise we wouldn't have won and drawn so many series against class opposition. This OK bowling attack will skittle SA out at least once in this series but obviously isn't good enough to do it consistently against guys like Amla and Kallis.

Ishant and Sreesanth get berated so badly on here but they've done their job to the best of their abilities. We've seen even in this match that pace matters. We need guys bowling at least 80 - 85mph consistently and accurately, and these two guys are currently the best we have got. 75-80mph bowlers are not going to cut it.

Would Praveen Kumar have really made a difference? Doubt it.

 

[Faisal1985]

And then there is Pak....which didn't even care about Aamir going astray making illegal bucks and lost him forever (almost anyways)...