India needs to introspect

[Arjun]

Originally Posted by ret

Indian misery ends with 3 loses in a row .... Would like some of the guys to rested for the WI tour, which would also give them an opportunity to analyze their games

my recommendation for the squad

openers: Rohit, Panday, Vijay
other batsmen: Yuvi, Badri, YP, Karthik
pacers: RP, Praveen, IP, Nehra, Munaf
spinners: ojha and mishra
15th place: jadeja / another wk like Saha / Virat Kohli / ?

Rohit Sharma is not an opener. Any more chances he gets as an opener and he's finished as a batsman.

Gambhir doesn't need any rest. He needs to get back in form, and quick-scoring form at that. Pandey is a good choice, but Vijay is a bit of a doubtful one.

The fielding has been a problem for the Indian team, even with a top fielding team in this tournament. You don't want liabilities like Munaf Patel out there.

Yusuf Pathan should play as a spinner and not as a batsman. When the team is looking to play an extra batsman, he should be an easy pick as a second spin option.

The 15th place should go to Ajinkya Rahane. In that dire IPL season 2 where no Indian scored more than two 50s, he was one of those who got two 50s and should be at par with the top Indian batsmen.

[ret]

Gavaskar, though, pointed out some of the young batsmen's inability to deal with the short ball as the reason for India's defeats to West Indies and England in the tournament.

"Dhoni will bear the brunt of the attack... but is there anybody better to lead India than him?" he wrote in his syndicated column for Hindustan Times.

"Dhoni is a young captain and is still learning the trade, so he will get it wrong sometimes... But then is there an individual who in his line of profession has never got anything wrong?

"What the two losses have shown is that some of our young batsmen have little clue how to deal with short-pitched bowling and both the West Indian and England quicks came hard at them."

source NDTV

Gavaskar supports Dhoni and feels that inability to handle short stuff did India in .... But then we did badly against spin too today .... it appears as if some of these guys are not playing well and deserve a break to sort their game out

[ret]

Originally Posted by Arjun

You don't want liabilities like Munaf Patel out there.

how can a bowler like Munaf be a liability .... éven if he bowls to the guys in the nets and helps them with coping with short pitched stuff, he is worth it!

and if there is a bowler who doesn`t bowl that well but is a good fielder and if there is Munaf then I will go with Munaf, who I saw take some good catches in the IPL. For a bowler to be considered over Munaf he has to be in that league. Zak and Ishant should be rested so what other options do we have apart from the ones that i listed

on Gambhir, he is one of the better openers India has had and I don`t want to waste him in a not so important series like the ODIs in the WI. It would be better for him, if he took a break, analyzed his game, worked on it and came back stronger, along with taking a much needed rest. he has been like a workhorse in the past few months

on YP, I don`t think he is good enough to bowl 10 overs effectively on a consistent basis. He would need someone to help him out with a few overs. He is better off playing as a batsman who can send down a few useful overs on a regular basis

[honestbharani]

wow.. I slept off after we restricted them to 130..


So much for the same team theory..



Ian Chappell hit the nail on the head that the Indian team (the captain, coach etc. included) were just too overconfident coming in here... Some of the batting has been exposed and these guys better learn to combat quick, short pitched bowling into the body... Losing is not bad as long as you can learn from it and hopefully, Dhoni will understand that stuff like having a struggling batsman at 3 will never win you games, even if he is the captain and perhaps the best LOI batsman of recent times...


I suppose the lessons for INdia from this campaign would be:

1. You need to take back up openers and back up batsmen. Packing your squad with bowlers makes no sense and gets found out when you have niggles all around.

2. Proper fitness tests are required before selection. Trusting just word of physios who haven't even met the players doesn't seem enough. Also, if you are taking injured guys on tour in the hopes that they will get fit soon, it makes sense to have backups around.. Couldn't the BCCI just take care of expenses and have two more guys with the team as "backups" for Sehwag and Zaheer?


3. A lot of our bowlers need to get better at T20 bowling, mainly Zak and Ishant. Might make sense to rest these two from all T20s too and preserve them for the longer formats where they are so much more useful.


4. Irfan should not bat at 7, Yousuf should not bat at 6... Both seem to be one position too high in international matches...


5. The parttime spin options could be used more often... We didn't seem to have a plan B once batsmen went after Ojha... More worryingly, Ojha himself doesn't seem to have a plan B.


6. Taking one or two batsmen with decent to good techniques will always help on pitches which are not roads...


I don't mind picking the same side, perhaps Dhoni genuinely believes this is the best 11 out of the players available. Unfortunately, I don't think Ravindra Jadeja should be anywhere near a T20 side for India.. his batting just does no cut it and his bowling is not better than Ojha's... And I guess even if we did replace Raina with some other youngster, they may get found out too. You just don't come across 140Ks+ fast bowling with balls directed to your ribcage in India at all...


Hopefully, Dhoni and the whole team, including staff, can get better through this experience.


One thing that did worry me is that Dhoni seemed to be thinking that all criticism in India is unwarranted.. He said like "hoepfully we will win a few and they will be back praising us again"... That is worrying. While most of the criticism is indeed unjust, there are quite a few that are valid.


He didn't need to put himself at 3 unnecessarily when Raina had done well there.. It was a bad move regardless of the fact that most probably Raina would have been found out at 3..

And Ravindra Jadeja is a misfit for T20s unless he is actually considered to be better than Ojha as a left arm spinner... And one would think Murali Kartik was better than either anyways.


hopefully, he can at least understand that SOME criticism is still quite fair.



PS: posted in the official thread, juz thought will post it here too.

[jeevan]

Originally Posted by ret

Indian misery ends with 3 loses in a row .... Would like some of the guys to rested for the WI tour, which would also give them an opportunity to analyze their games

my recommendation for the squad

openers: Rohit, Panday, Vijay
other batsmen: Yuvi, Badri, YP, Karthik
pacers: RP, Praveen, IP, Nehra, Munaf
spinners: ojha and mishra
15th place: jadeja / another wk like Saha / Virat Kohli / ?

Resting Dhoni is a good idea for a meh ODI tour.

[Sanz]

Originally Posted by honestbharani

He didn't need to put himself at 3 unnecessarily when Raina had done well there.. It was a bad move regardless of the fact that most probably Raina would have been found out at 3..

Raina actually batted in only one/two matches at no. 4 in this whole series. I find it annoying that the media and certain section of fans keep beating on this.

Are we really suggesting that Raina lost his form because he batted @ No. 4 at two occasions through this series and out of which in one of those games he scored 45 off 24 (NZ warm up match), He didn't get a chance to bat in the warmup match against Pak.

In Round one, he batted at no. 4 against BD, Didn't bat against Ireland. In second round he batted @ no. 3 against WI, Eng and SA.

So all in all, he batted and failed only once @ No. 4. Now the suggestion that just because Raina was made to bat at no. 4 once (or twice) destroyed his form is quite absurd and If Dhoni has a problem with this, then I do not blame him.

Criticize him for some of decisions he made on the field or dropping Ojha, slow batting etc, it would be fair. But the stuff you have been harping on and one for last few days is just unfair, completely unfair. Not to forget the Effigies being burnt, it is quite ridiculous to be honest.

[honestbharani]

Originally Posted by Sanz

Raina actually batted in only one/two matches at no. 4 in this whole series. I find it annoying that the media and certain section of fans keep beating on this.

Are we really suggesting that Raina lost his form because he batted @ No. 4 at two occasions through this series and out of which in one of those games he scored 45 off 24 (NZ warm up match), He didn't get a chance to bat in the warmup match against Pak.

In Round one, he batted at no. 4 against BD, Didn't bat against Ireland. In second round he batted @ no. 3 against WI, Eng and SA.

So all in all, he batted and failed only once @ No. 4. Now the suggestion that just because Raina was made to bat at no. 4 once (or twice) destroyed his form is quite absurd and If Dhoni has a problem with this, then I do not blame him.

Criticize him for some of decisions he made on the field or dropping Ojha, slow batting etc, it would be fair. But the stuff you have been harping on and one for last few days is just unfair, completely unfair. Not to forget the Effigies being burnt, it is quite ridiculous to be honest.

Did I even mention that he lost form BECAUSE of that? He may or he may not have... My problem is Raina at 3 was working, not just here but even in IPL.. Why change what was working? Esp. when the guy who replaced him was the guy who was most struggling for form? Is it ever a good idea to have a batsman struggling for form to bat at the pivotal #3 position?


Raina could well have failed batting at 3, that is not the issue here. My issue he was moved around needlessly.. Regardless of what happened afterwards, that move, in isolation, remains a wrong one where I am concerned.

[ret]

Squad: MS Dhoni (capt/wk), Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Yusuf Pathan, M Vijay, S Badrinath, RP Singh, Praveen Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Abhishek Nayar, Ashish Nehra, Ravindra Jadeja, Dinesh Karthik.

^ that's the squad for the WI tour

They could have taken Panday to the WI and may be rested Dhoni and Ishant, along with Bhajji

[Sanz]

Originally Posted by honestbharani

Did I even mention that he lost form BECAUSE of that? He may or he may not have... My problem is Raina at 3 was working, not just here but even in IPL.. Why change what was working? Esp. when the guy who replaced him was the guy who was most struggling for form? Is it ever a good idea to have a batsman struggling for form to bat at the pivotal #3 position?

First of all 'Why change when x was working' doesn't really sound very convincing because with that logic Raina shouldn't even be in the team, India should have just picked the squad from lat T20 World Cup. Form is over-rated especially in a T20 game. IPL is a different tournament, different team composition.

Raina could well have failed batting at 3, that is not the issue here. My issue he was moved around needlessly.. Regardless of what happened afterwards, that move, in isolation, remains a wrong one where I am concerned.

He was moved for only ONE game where he didn't have success. There could be n number of reasons for that. That Raina failed @ no. 3 as well suggests that it was more to do with Raina's batting talent than with shuffling around.

It was a collective failure by Team India, Dhoni as the captain deserves the criticism even more so because did make some poor decisions but dropping Raina down the order in one match wasn't one of them.

[Sanz]

Originally Posted by honestbharani

Did I even mention that he lost form BECAUSE of that?

I thought you said this about Raina :-

Originally Posted by honestbharani

The point is, confidence and form tend to overcome lots of deficiencies. There is a good chance that he would have been found out at 3 anyways but he was shuffled down, his form went down, his rhythm went out and then suddenly he was back at 3 for the crucial games and looked lost..

[G.I.Joe]

I don't care how much the likes of Raina and Sharma are shuffled around. One cardinal sin is shuffling around your best batsman. Yuvraj needs to be given a fixed spot in the lineup.

[longtom]

Originally Posted by G.I.Joe

I don't care how much the likes of Raina and Sharma are shuffled around. One cardinal sin is shuffling around your best batsman. Yuvraj needs to be given a fixed spot in the lineup.

I am not Indian, so not too sure if I should post here.

I don't agree with above statement. The very nature of Yuvraj's batting will always require for him to be used when he is needed, which is always independent of the position he is batting. Sometimes you need a mor agressive batsmen up front, other times you reserve him for the slog closer to the end.

As much as Yuvraj is the talent with the bat, as much he is a liability in the field and as far as his running between wickets is concernend. I strongly believe, these skills can be practiced much more than a batting talent. However, it does appear, nobody cares for this. I am thinking of games lost by 3 runs and blunders in the field - you make the sum yourself.

But I'll leave you to your thread again, since I am not a real specialist in Indian cricket philosophies or politics....I wonder who is...

regards

longtom

[ret]

T20 is about flexibility so it shouldn't be surprising if players are shuffled around in batting .... I would be more surprised if a team stuck to a fixed batting order in T20

what surprised was Dhoni's choices in some of the games like pushing himself up when he is not batting that well and then Jadeja to number 4 .... while dangerous player like YP hardly got a chance to play himself in and bat the other team out of the game

second, the playing 11 was not always spot on in my opinion

third, in the game against Eng, he took far too many singles when boundaries were the order of the hour. he should have asked YP to take over or done it himself in the last two overs and treat them as super overs rather than 'rotating' the strikes which not only wasted the ball but also pushed up the rate. it would have been better if Ind had been bundled out for 130 in going for the win in a KO game

[jeevan]

How do the world T20I seedings happen?

Seems to me India is #7 (on account of Ireland in the other group having a worse NRR).
And Australia is #10, as one of the teams (Netherlands) that did not qualify for Super8 had higher points and the other 2 had worse NRR.

As the preliminary groupings are (#1,#8,#9) (2,7,10) (3,6,11) and (4,5,12), this means that the second group will be (runner up,India, Australia).

Now *that* is something to introspect - how India messed up not just this tournament but possibly the next one too.

[ret]

Originally Posted by jeevan

How do the world T20I seedings happen?

Seems to me India is #7 (on account of Ireland in the other group having a worse NRR).
And Australia is #10, as one of the teams (Netherlands) that did not qualify for Super8 had higher points and the other 2 had worse NRR.

As the preliminary groupings are (#1,#8,#9) (2,7,10) (3,6,11) and (4,5,12), this means that the second group will be (runner up,India, Australia).

Now *that* is something to introspect - how India messed up not just this tournament but possibly the next one too.

that's the downside of doing badly but I wouldn't mind India being in a tough group and then qualifying if they are playing well rather than qualifying by beating a couple of minnows then getting destroyed in S8

If India qualifies from a tough group then it would only mean that they are playing well .... and thus would be one of the favs and a team worth watching