**Official** South Africa in India Thread

[JustTool]

Ganguly suspended for two Tests

By A Correspondent

Mumbai, November 14, 2004


Indian captain Sourav Ganguly has been suspended for two Test matches by the International Cricket Council (ICC) match referee Clive Lloyd for slow over rate during the India-Pakistan ODI in Kolkata on November 13.

Ganguly will now miss the two-Test series against South Africa and Rahul Dravid will now lead the Indian team in his absence.

This is a major blow for Ganguly who also missed the Mumbai Test against Australia which India won.

The BEST thin that could happen for Indian cricket is for Ganguly to be out of it. We should thank Lloyd. Look athe way he detsoyed poor Chopra's career

 

[JustTool]

Ganguly suspended for two Tests

By A Correspondent

Mumbai, November 14, 2004


Indian captain Sourav Ganguly has been suspended for two Test matches by the International Cricket Council (ICC) match referee Clive Lloyd for slow over rate during the India-Pakistan ODI in Kolkata on November 13.

Ganguly will now miss the two-Test series against South Africa and Rahul Dravid will now lead the Indian team in his absence.

This is a major blow for Ganguly who also missed the Mumbai Test against Australia which India won.

The BEST thing that could happen for Indian cricket is for Ganguly to be out of it. We should thank Lloyd. Look at the way he destroyed poor Chopra's career

 

[Langeveldt]

The BEST thing that could happen for Indian cricket is for Ganguly to be out of it. We should thank Lloyd. Look at the way he destroyed poor Chopra's career

Yeah.. Quite unbelievable how Chopra was phased out.. He did nothing wrong

 

[honestbharani]

He did do something wrong, he did not convert his starts. Sure, it is not a big enough fault for him to lose his place, but for Indian cricket to be healthy, the players have to start finding wrong things about themselves rather than blame others for getting dropped, immaterial of whether their charges are justified or not. Such an approach is essential for Indian cricket to reach the heights that it dreams of.

 

[JustTool]

He did do something wrong, he did not convert his starts. Sure, it is not a big enough fault for him to lose his place, but for Indian cricket to be healthy, the players have to start finding wrong things about themselves rather than blame others for getting dropped, immaterial of whether their charges are justified or not. Such an approach is essential for Indian cricket to reach the heights that it dreams of.

Granted. But, consider his application versus Yuvraj's flailing outside the off-stump and Yubraj was an absolute, complete failure in Country Cricket because he could not play the moving ball.

At the time Ganguly spoke out in favor of Yuvraj there was absolutely no evidence that he would be better than Chopra and, in fact, all he did was unseat Chopra and was himself promptly dropped from the team as well. And here we are trying out more new openers. None of them have the application CHopra showed in Australia. He very well could have failed later but he was not given the opportunity because of Ganguly's stupidity and his inner-circle.

 

[Arjun]

I do agree Chopra needed an extended run, in Tests, and also a place in the ODI side in the many exhibition series the Indians play, but he's just not scoring runs, which was why he was brought into the team in the first place. He has to get back to Delhi and re-establish himself as the best FC opener, to be in contention for a Test spot again. That said, Gautam Gambhir should not be ejected so quickly, as he will end up as yet another casualty of destructive selection policies, and he too is an opener who scores runs, though he's not as technically correct as Chopra.

 

[Arjun]

India is a bunch of over rated and overhyped cricketers, mostly with marginal technique against genuine fast bowling; and Indian bowlers lack the extra bite.

They are inconsistent. They are very good at making money though - look at the way Ganguly and Tendulkar use every opportunity to promote their restaurants and other businesses. I think these guys really milk the Indian followers and make far more money than they deserve. Ganguly was 'sick' for the last Test but was out shooting commercials (while you and I were paying to watch his 'boys' play) immediately baceme fit for the domestic Test as he didn;t want to not play in this star-studded one-of Pakistan One-Dayer. That would not have been good for his commercial interests

One good innings in every 1-12 bats seems to do the tirck. For Ganguly and his cronies it's more like 1 in 40. Look at how miserable the performance of our fast bowlers (Nehra, in particular) is at the domestic level but no one seems to care. On the other hand, Kartik and the wk Dinesh Kaarthick get a raw deal because they are not part of the Ganguly cheerleading fan club.

Look at he the farce with the opening slot - all so Ganguly and gang can keep their places, unthreatened, in the middle order. Truly it's not a meritocracy. The only real professionals in this whole bunch are Kumble, Dravid and Pathan - early days for him though. I hope India lose to SA, and there is a good chance they might, in order to bring about much needed changes.

The selectors have to make it clear- one good performance a year won't do- they have to be more consistent. Look at Michael Vaughan's England, or Stephen Fleming and the Kiwis- they win half the tournaments in which they play!

 

[tooextracool]

isnt it amazing how SA's only spinner isnt even playing?

 

[Arjun]

I think Steve Waugh mentioned something about how he does not want any all-rounders in his side. I remember Australia really took off once they got rid of the Brendon Julian's and the Shane Lee's. Steve Waugh always mentioned the word "Specialist". He said he only trusted them to do the job and he did help take Australia to the top of the tree, so he should know.

Steve Waugh had one of the greatest all-roudners of all time in his team- Adam Gilchrist. That enabled him to pick 10 specialists, but those specialists can contribute in other skills, besides being the best at their main skills.

Also take into account Sunil Gavaskar's comments. He had come down hard on Srinath, since his bowling was average, but other skills were nonexistent- couldn't bat or field. There is no point having specialists who are very average, but can do little else. Having multi-skilled players can help a team a lot.

i think reetinder sodhi will get back into the indian team sometime along the line but it is probaly too early at the moment.

It depends on how he performs in this Ranji season. He has to turn up for every single match and perform well, with bat (particularly) and ball, to mke a statement.

 

[GermanShepherd]

Board President's X1 4-177 in response to RSA 5-226 declared.

Mongia's made a well compiled 53* and Dhoni is on 29*.
None of the openers could make a big score which is a little disappointing.

I'll be interested to see what Dhoni can do in the post-tea session.

 

[Arjun]

Board President's X1 4-177 in response to RSA 5-226 declared.

Mongia's made a well compiled 53* and Dhoni is on 29*.
None of the openers could make a big score which is a little disappointing.

I'll be interested to see what Dhoni can do in the post-tea session.

A bit disappointing, indeed. The most useful players in this team got onlt 38 runs between them, and Dinesh Mongia, despite a good score, isn't an option, unless there is (hopefully not!) another mass injury leave. What Dhoni does (I have not yet read the scoresheet) is definitely interesting- having been left out of the test side, he has a point to prove.

 

[Arjun]

More on the match-

Dhoni added 10 runs in the next session. Although his strike rate was not impressive, he hit 6 fours and 1 six, but only 9 between wickets. Not too bad, but he needs to get more runs in singles. Hopefully Powar will also score more than a few- he has done it many times in Ranji, and should have no problem against this attack, except Pollok. If Justin Ontong is going to bowl so many overs, the Indian batsmen should consider this as a free-scoring opportunity.

 

[JustTool]

Slow Over Rate Ban on Saurav

Raj Singh Dungarpur: God knows how many times Sourav has done this. Clive Lloyd is absolutely justified in banning him. The way Sourav handled things on Saturday at Eden Gardens was a real let-down and it seemed he didn't have a clue about what was going on.

 

[Hit4Six]

Raj Singh Dungarpur: God knows how many times Sourav has done this. Clive Lloyd is absolutely justified in banning him. The way Sourav handled things on Saturday at Eden Gardens was a real let-down and it seemed he didn't have a clue about what was going on.

<- saurav ganguly
<- inzamam ul haq
<- salman butt to yuvraj singh
<- yuvraj singh
dravid just because he's left out

 

[honestbharani]

Steve Waugh had one of the greatest all-roudners of all time in his team- Adam Gilchrist. That enabled him to pick 10 specialists, but those specialists can contribute in other skills, besides being the best at their main skills.

Also take into account Sunil Gavaskar's comments. He had come down hard on Srinath, since his bowling was average, but other skills were nonexistent- couldn't bat or field. There is no point having specialists who are very average, but can do little else. Having multi-skilled players can help a team a lot.


It depends on how he performs in this Ranji season. He has to turn up for every single match and perform well, with bat (particularly) and ball, to mke a statement.

I agree that the specialists need to be decent in the other departments but to pick guys who do a bit of batting, a bit of bowling and some good fielding (Sodhi) is just wasting a player position. Adam Gilchrist was good enough to command his place in the Aussie side as a keeper alone. It would have been interesting to see what Steve Waugh would have done if Gilly had kept like Parthiv Patel.

 

[bryce]

I agree that the specialists need to be decent in the other departments but to pick guys who do a bit of batting, a bit of bowling and some good fielding (Sodhi) is just wasting a player position.

in ODI's those players are very handy, look how well new zealand have done with their one day side full of those sort of players.

 

[honestbharani]

But New Zealand don't have the specialists of the quality that India, Pakistan or the other countries have. Their talent pool is rather small and they make the best use of what they have. I would rather see Kaif or Agarkar play instead of Sodhi.

 

[bryce]

sure but sometimes in ODI's those allround cricketers can be better value than specialists, your spot on about the depth of specialists comparison but every team needs at least one of them IMO and india don't really have one at the moment, no batsman who can bowl a good 10 overs and no bowler who can win a match with the bat now and then, agarkar's batting and bowling has been very poor in the past few years, he has the potential but i don't think he will ever come to grips with it.

 

[honestbharani]

I understand your point. What I am saying is that these bits-and-pieces guys themselves have to be of a certain quality and I don't think guys like Sodhi are at that quality.

 

[Dydl]

Pathan could produce a match-winning performance with the bat and could become an all-rounder but that is a question mark. Agarkar hasn't been playing at international level very well at all and is getting hit for a lot of runs. He has never really been a star batsmen, so that is irrelevant.