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***Official*** India in West Indies
- Thread starter adharcric
- Start date
quick4mindia
School Boy/Girl Captain
I rate Munaf highly for his consistency, clean action, and pace. Kumble can be trum card. He looks to me as if he can perform on any sort of wickets. Bhajji needs one good match to find form. For pathan i am not sure. West indies weather does not support swing with the new ball. Haven't seen pathan doin much with the older ball. But i would say one thing. If he gets early swing then tentative west indian openers (as they always are) will find it difficult to face him.adharcric said:
Sreesanth needs to be more consistent and to be able to handle extra seam and movement. he often loses control after thrashing. But lots of hope on him. Foreign tours will only improve his bowling.
When i predict India struggling against the Windies i mean i doubt indian batting. It has failed against England on relatively placid pitches. Tendulkar will soon find himself in a do or die situation.
CAN INDIA AFFORD TO PLAY 5 BOWLERS IN WINDIES?
IqbalJaved
Cricket Spectator
quick4mindia said:I rate Munaf highly for his consistency, clean action, and pace. Kumble can be trum card. He looks to me as if he can perform on any sort of wickets. Bhajji needs one good match to find form. For pathan i am not sure. West indies weather does not support swing with the new ball. Haven't seen pathan doin much with the older ball. But i would say one thing. If he gets early swing then tentative west indian openers (as they always are) will find it difficult to face him.
Sreesanth needs to be more consistent and to be able to handle extra seam and movement. he often loses control after thrashing. But lots of hope on him. Foreign tours will only improve his bowling.
When i predict India struggling against the Windies i mean i doubt indian batting. It has failed against England on relatively placid pitches. Tendulkar will soon find himself in a do or die situation.
CAN INDIA AFFORD TO PLAY 5 BOWLERS IN WINDIES?
INdia have major issues surrounding their test side:
1) Virender Sehwag has a noticeable weakness against the short ball and you can bet Bennett King would have latched onto that.
2) I'm not convinced about the other opener either Jaffer or Gambhir.
3) THe middle order looks vulnerable - Tendulkar is struggling with form and fitness and Laxman has been below par since returning from Australia in early 2004.
4) Dhoni - can his batting cut it out at test match level ? WE'll find more in the WEst Indies I guess....
5) Pathan's lack of pace -- Ok I accept Pathan was never a tearway but he was consistently around 135 km/hr in late 2004 even hitting 88 mph in the Bangalore test against Australia. What's with the 70mph rubbish now ?
6) Harbhajan ....Is the guy only capable of bowling with the SG ball and on wickets which assist him considerably ? I think have got to give serous consideration to Powar playing in the tests in the WEst Indies.
7) Pace attack -- Munaf looked impressive against England...he needs to back it up in the Caribbean. Sreesanth certainly bowls a fair few wicket taking deliveries but his spells are often liberally laced with hit me for four deliveries.
And who's the pace backup ? VRV and RP both are pretty raw and are not test class...they'd both be better off going on the India A tour to Australia.
Who else is there ? Agarkar is a proven failure at test level, Nehra and Balaji are still injured (is Nehra ever fit ??) and Zaheer has fallen out of favour with Chappell.
Not a rosy picture at all.
Arjun
Cricketer Of The Year
The Indian selectors, despite so many goofy selections, have thankfully not gone back to Deep Dasgupta. His drop in Guyana cost the Indians some 233 runs, which was in a series of drops dating back to December 2001, more than four months before that match.
Two things beyond the Indian team's control are the strangely dumb TV umpires and the pitches. We can't fault Tendulkar if he's declared caught behind by Eddie Nicholls when the catch is grassed. The pitches, however, are likely to cause problems to the Indian bowlers. We saw the Indians play their three best seamers (frankly, two of them were way behind India's second spinner who didn't play in most matches) in supposedly seamer-friendly conditions. We saw them struggle. Come to think of it, even two spinners wouldn't do far better out there, and the seamers would struggle without a support act. Frankly, it doesn't matter how many batsmen play in those places, but they need to put up lots of runs since the pitches are just right for them and the bowling is not too hostile– unless we see the names Lawson, Powell and Edwards.
Two things beyond the Indian team's control are the strangely dumb TV umpires and the pitches. We can't fault Tendulkar if he's declared caught behind by Eddie Nicholls when the catch is grassed. The pitches, however, are likely to cause problems to the Indian bowlers. We saw the Indians play their three best seamers (frankly, two of them were way behind India's second spinner who didn't play in most matches) in supposedly seamer-friendly conditions. We saw them struggle. Come to think of it, even two spinners wouldn't do far better out there, and the seamers would struggle without a support act. Frankly, it doesn't matter how many batsmen play in those places, but they need to put up lots of runs since the pitches are just right for them and the bowling is not too hostile– unless we see the names Lawson, Powell and Edwards.
Arjun
Cricketer Of The Year
IqbalJaved said:
- Sehwag has a Test triple hundred and an average of 53 opening the innings, against the best pace attacks in Test cricket, home and away. The pitches in West Indies are usually very flat and the bowling is not one likely to scare a top Test team. He can break out of that.
- Both Gambhir and Jaffer are good enough for now. Gambhir is an attacking batsman and he gets along well with Sehwag, but he needs to stay out there and play a longer innings. Another option is Robin Uthappa, who will also be a regular (maybe) in ODIs. More productive than SS Das.
- Tendulkar can snap out of this dry run, if he is fit. Dravid and Yuvraj are in good form, which they can definitely carry on to Tests. Raina is an option until Tendulkar returns.
- Given the lack of runs from the sixth batsman– Laxman, Ganguly, Kaif or Yuvraj– Dhoni's batting isn't inadequate, given his attack power (often lacking in the Indian team) and his wicketkeeping– hopefully we won't see another Deep 'The Drop' Dasgupta there, but that was another experience. He's a freak, an instinctive attacker, so this 'Test level' condition isn't a factor, given specialist batsmen who have played for India don't seem to be Test standard.
- That's a question bugging everyone, but Greg Chappell wipes it aside, saying he gets early breakthroughs with the movement that he gets. He's certainly no one-man army with the ball, and needs support.
- Harbhajan has bowled well even with the Kookaburra ball away from India. He took five wickets in an innings in seamer-friendly Jamaica while the seamers struggled– make that, bowled rubbish. He is far ahead of all the seamers, and deserves to be in the top four. As for Powar, the runs he scores may get him into the side, not ahead of Harbhajan, but the non-performing sixth batsman, so this is an exception.
- Munaf has new-ball issues, so he would be better off coming in first-change. His fitness is questionable, though he's not breaking down as often as in his debut FC season. Sreesanth is an attacking bowler whose variations and extra pace will get a few extra wickets, so the extra runs conceded are not an issue. VRV Singh and RP Singh should stay in the India A side, but RP Singh is a better ODI change seamer than a frontline pacer. Agarkar, Nehra, Balaji and Zaheer have been given enough chances, and haven't done much of note.
DanielFullard
U19 Vice-Captain
Aren't Sky covering this series? I think the are covering both the West Indies series in the next month or so. I can't see anything other than an Indian Whitewash to be honest.
quick4mindia
School Boy/Girl Captain
Its just a matter of time when sehwag tendulkar and laxman start performing all in a single match. whenever this happens the opposition just seems to be chasing the red cherry.DanielFullard said:
remember pakistan (sehwags 253 with some 48 fours) and historic 706 against australia at sydney. I have not mentioned Dravid here who is consistently among the runs.
1sehwag
2jaffer
3dravid
4tendulkar
5lax
6yuvi
7dhoni/kartik (kartik being a better keeper)
8pathan
9sreesanth
10kumble
11bhajji
12munaf
13rp
if india would like to play 5 bowlers then prob jaffer will have to sit out and dravid will open.
i sincerely belive dropping lax against england was a mistake and india payed the price.
DanielFullard
U19 Vice-Captain
Oh yes. They paid the price. 5-1
quick4mindia
School Boy/Girl Captain
was alluding to the test series not the one dayersDanielFullard said:
Mr Mxyzptlk
Request Your Custom Title Now!
I don't envision the West Indies winning more than 1 Test against India. The West Indies bowling has improved IMO, but still isn't good enough to show up the Indian batsmen on West Indian pitches.
I really hope that Lara can finally impose himself on India. He's done it against everyone else after all.
I really hope that Lara can finally impose himself on India. He's done it against everyone else after all.
DanielFullard
U19 Vice-Captain
Oh.....point taken thenquick4mindia said:
aussie
Hall of Fame Member
Very good post sir, summed up India's problems pretty well, here is my neutral opinion on things:
But even if they do, are the West Indian bowlers consistent enough to exploit Sehwag's weakness againts the short ball?. All this has to be considered.
He's like a marathon runner in that the more he bowls the less likely he will get stronger and be able to bowl faster, which is sad really.
yea thats true, everyone knows that, but do the West Indies groundstaff have the capabilities of producing bouncy pitches?, other than the England series in 2004 and the 1off test in Antigua 2003, most WI pitches over the last 5 years have been pretty flat.IqbalJaved said:
But even if they do, are the West Indian bowlers consistent enough to exploit Sehwag's weakness againts the short ball?. All this has to be considered.
Well they aren't horrible from what i've seen of them, just neither of nailed the spot down when the oppurtunity has come. For Gambhir's, its semms his chance looks to have come and gone in the test arena. I thought Jaffer looked fairly capable vs England. I say persist with him. If not well maybe former under-19 WC star opener Shikar Dhawan is the answer..IqbalJaved said:
Yea this a big problem for India for sure. Other than Dravid and Yuvraj the middle looks very vulnerable. Don't have too much alternative solutions here, but i'd say persist with them and hope they find form again since they have served India so well for so long..IqbalJaved said:
Yea one of the major things to look out for, we have seen Gilchrist do it, so his aggressive style of play can cause havoc for International bowler if he becomes successful at it, so for India's sake and for world cricket i hope he does..IqbalJaved said:
I think the main reason for Pathan sudden drop in pace is because he is burdened with being India #`1 strike bowler at such a young age. Plus its not to say he can get strong or anything as he gets older because he plays both forms of the game.IqbalJaved said:
He's like a marathon runner in that the more he bowls the less likely he will get stronger and be able to bowl faster, which is sad really.
Interesiting point, but i'm not sure if this a proven MAJOR problem he has, since i remember him bowling well with Kumble in England last time and over here they use the duke balls..IqbalJaved said:
Well having seen all these 4 youngsters, i only see real hope in Patel and Sreesanth. I have my questions over RP and VR Singh. But i think would be suited if they took one of the old boys in the test series at least since the seam attack even though talented could cost India a test with some poor bowling if the aggressive West Indian batsmen get on top of them.IqbalJaved said:
india has been pretty suspect even in home tests recently....an away series victory is not as assured as some people seem to think, what with the top and middle order barring dravid being so brittle....besides we have a knack of bringing out of form opposing batsmen back into form(read chanders)....
the test series could be really close....and could very well go the west indian way....india would start as the firm favourites in the one dayers though.....
the test series could be really close....and could very well go the west indian way....india would start as the firm favourites in the one dayers though.....
vic_orthdox
Global Moderator
1-1 in the Test series.
Be interesting to see what happens in the ODs, because Windies traditionally prefer to chase too (??). I think that the Windies will only win 1 OD though.
Be interesting to see what happens in the ODs, because Windies traditionally prefer to chase too (??). I think that the Windies will only win 1 OD though.
Jono
Virat Kohli (c)
Some people? Who? A lot of people are tipping WI to win a test or 2 and some are even predicting a win. I hardly see this as people overestimating India's chances.Anil said:
India was overestimated against the injury hit England team, and I think people are specifically making sure they don't do that again.
