*Official* - India in West Indies

[TumTum]

It may've happened, but I can't recall anyone standing up to him either.

Pretty sure in the recent England series the keeper did move up for KP.

 

[centurymaker]

Pretty sure in the recent England series the keeper did move up for KP.

yea sl bowlers were quite slow. mostly bowled in the 125-130 range.

 

[Manee]

@ cenvo

there's a huge difference between 75 and 80 mph (8 kmph)
120-128

he avg'd 75 mph, which is quite low.

English conditions are not as bowler friendly as some peope seem to think. As soon as the sun comes out, the pitches become batsman's paradise.
If praveen bowls at 120 when the sun's out, he'll get smacked around like a club bowler. I doubt they'll be much reverse swing either because of the nice greeny outfields.

Praveen needs to get it up to 125 kmphr+ on avg to start troubling good batsmen.
Since he doesn't swing the ball late, batsmen have ample time to play his deliveries.
Plus, he is not a tall bloke, so doesn't get much bounce- the ball just sits up to get hit as soon as he goes marginally short.
I personally dont want to see a medium pacer in the team unless there's some serious assistance or zaheer gets injured.

He's got everthing except pace, so all he needs to do is get his pace up/put in more effort. If he does, he'll be quite threatening!

The lower speed perhaps assists his swing, though...

"Of course, in reality, some backspin is always imparted when a cricket ball is bowled. For successful swing bowling, the ball should be released so that it spins along the seam with minimal wobble. Wind-tunnel tests on spinning cricket balls show that the maximum side force is generated at about 70 mph with the seam angled at 20 degrees and the ball spinning backwards at 11 revolutions/second."

Source: The science of swing bowling | Old Regulars | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

Moreover, it is never as simple as putting extra effort in. The extra effort could come at the detriment of swing or accuracy. If you bowl inaccurate at any speed in a Test, you have no chance whatsoever. What Praveen is good at, what has earned him 172 FC wickets at 23.06 is bowling at 75mph and trying to swing the ball as much as possible. Changing his style will not help him in any way. It is not as simply as when Ryan Sidebottom put on an extra 5mph in his transition from Notts to England seamer as Praveen's game is based entirely on the swing and not at all on pace, whatsoever. Whereas Sidebottom earned wickets through bounce and zip off the pitch, this is something that Praveen will never do. Heck, Sidebottom's decision to speed up for England was also unsustainable but we'll ignore that as we are concentrating on just the one Test series.

I do not think Praveen is the right bowler to take to England, but trying to get him to speed up won't help anything. I'm a fan of the tried and tested - relying on what got you selected, and for Praveen, what got him selected was not bowling at 80mph but rather swinging the ball both ways and bowling a troubling length - as well as the 173 FC wickets and 62 ODI wickets which came as a result of that.

 

[Manee]

two completely different bowlers Asif was mainly a seam bowler while Praveen is a swing bowler.However if you move the ball and are accurate you will always trouble the batsman it does not matter you bowl at 100 kmph or 150 kmph.Modern day batsman are there for the taking for a Praveen type bowler.

Have to agree. I'd perhaps class England as the best side against such bowlers, but you need to merely look at Shane Watson against Pakistan in England to show that a lot of modern batsmen are equipped to play 90mph wayward stuff but just do not know how to play it at a lower pace, moving around a bit.

 

[TumTum]

yea sl bowlers were quite slow. mostly bowled in the 125-130 range.

Talking about Asif ftr

 

[Manee]

Also good to see Fidel back in the West Indies team. Certainly still got a fair bit of pace, in him.

 

[Manee]

And a even bigger Lol @ saying that Praveen Kumar can't trouble batsman at 75 to 80 MPH when he swings it even after yesterday. Pace gets overrated sometimes.
And he has a pretty good record on low bounce wickets too at FC level ,so when the pitch offers carry he becomes a bigger threat like Irfan at Perth for example.

The big test for him is how he does against settled batsmen in good batting conditions. Test batsmen who are settled will attack him and it will be a test of him and Dhoni to see what field are set and what the plan becomes. My issue is that Dhoni's plan will be to stand up to the stumps and attempt to squeeze a mistake - but Praveen's main dismissals seem to be caught behind the wicket and standing up to the stumps can reduce this by a great deal.

 

[Cevno]

He doesn't need to be used in all conditions though. That is why i said in some conditions he can be a bigger threat than in others.

In good batting conditions in any case it is not like Ishant or Sreesanth are great either or too much better either as the Srilanka series and South Africa first test showed.


We need to use him as a horse for courses kind of bowler and he will be very effective specially when there is swing. He can also get the ball to reverse pretty well and hence his pretty good FC record.
When the pitch offers carry too,he becomes more threatening with the help.

 

[Manee]

We need to use him as a horse for courses kind of bowler and he will be very effective specially when there is swing.

When has horses for courses ever had prolonged success? It is not a realistic thing to expect for selectors to see him take 5 on a swinger and then drop him for the next game. Moreover, it requires accurate reading of conditions - which is something that no one is really that capable of. It will also disrupt team stability to have a guy constantly in and out of the side based on conditions.

 

[Cevno]

By Horses for Courses i mean not picking him for the absolute flat tracks ,ftr. Pretty easy to do that.

Picking him in all conditions is not out of question too,tbf.
It's not like we have many other great options who are proven success in all conditions. Sreesanth can be a massive run leaker in flat conditions.

Reading the conditions specially the swinging ones is not rocket science too.

 

[Xuhaib]

Talking about Asif ftr

yeah was a very good strategy by England as they took Asif's main weapon 'Lbw' out of the game may not work as well for Praveen as he's a nick to the keeper bowler so its better if they play him as late as possible.

 

[Howe_zat]

Have to agree. I'd perhaps class England as the best side against such bowlers, but you need to merely look at Shane Watson against Pakistan in England to show that a lot of the Pakistani batsmen that summer had forgotten what a bat was for.

Fix'd

 

[TT Boy]

Andre Russell for 6 next test? He only has to score more than 9 to beat what passenger Nash has been managing this year.

 

[GotSpin]

Andre Russell for 6 next test? He only has to score more than 9 to beat what passenger Nash has been managing this year.

If anyone needs to come into the top 6 (aside from Gayle obviously) it's Samuels. I see Russell as a future replacement for Sammy though

 

[vcs]

Amir and Asif are the only attack who have troubled English batsmen since 2010, it seems. India should look at a few videos, though it won't turn their bowlers into Amir and Asif, but at least they might pick up on a few weaknesses of their batsmen.

 

[Xuhaib]

Zaheer should be able to replicate Aamer maybe even better due to being more experienced, more then Asif it was Ajmal who troubled England so as expected Zaheer and Bhajji holds the key for India.

 

[Cevno]

Amir and Asif are the only attack who have troubled English batsmen since 2010, it seems. India should look at a few videos, though it won't turn their bowlers into Amir and Asif, but at least they might pick up on a few weaknesses of their batsmen.

Who have they played since 2010?

 

[vcs]

Bangers, Pakistan, Australia and Sri Lanka.

 

[Howe_zat]

Amir and Asif are the only attack who have troubled English batsmen since 2010, it seems. India should look at a few videos, though it won't turn their bowlers into Amir and Asif, but at least they might pick up on a few weaknesses of their batsmen.

Dale Steyn at Johannesburg too.

But Steyn and Amir are probably the only bowlers they've faced who can regularly swing it late at serious pace - Johnson also did it for a (thankfully) brief period, and look what happened.

Zaheer is going to be a very wily customer, I don't think we'll ever get on top of him, and he's bound to pick up wickets. However, I'm not sure he has the pace to run through us when guys like Trott, Bell - and maybe Pietersen if in form - will come out of the crease to negate the late swing. Praveen is the same but more so. The way Trott dealt with Asif's movement at Lord's was outstanding.

The only way I can see an Indian bowler running through us is if someone like Mishra can get some dark arts going - Ajmal was a problem - or possibly if Ishant inexplicably finds the fountain of awesome he seemed to have discovered in Australia.

There is, of course, the possibility of the traditional England collapse-for-no-reason spectacular.

 

[vcs]

Zaheer should be able to replicate Aamer maybe even better due to being more experienced, more then Asif it was Ajmal who troubled England so as expected Zaheer and Bhajji holds the key for India.

Yeah, looking at the numbers, Ajmal actually averaged less than Asif and took as many wickets in one less Test. Food for thought. Ajmal has been pretty good in recent times, and could soon start threatening Swann's status if he keeps this up.