Ponting - Rebuilding ahead for India

[Richard]

I think Ricky might be a bit premature in saying Australia have handled the transition really well after the retirements. It's still very early days.

Maybe so but the Aussie team lost three regulars after last season and 1200+ test wickets between them. They could have absolutely crumbled against India but they didn't. Battering SL probably helped a little.

Still, the real Test will be next home season. If Australia lose in India, people will say it was expected. If they struggle next home summer against NZ and SA, then there will be panic no doubt.

I can't see them struggling against New Zealand TBH, but I see hope (not for the first time ) for South Africa. India, presuming they can hold-on to this side for another 8 months, really should beat them.

Anyway, I find this "managing the transition" thing so utterly overrated. There's no amount of good management which is going to change anything - it's entirely dependant on the quality of the players coming in. Jaques is class, Clark is class, Clarke has become class in the last 2 seasons, Haddin I feel is class and should do juuust fine. Brett Lee, ad nauseum from an English POV, has stepped-up to the plate at a time that could not possibly have been better.

But if they weren't and hadn't done so, you couldn't manage things so it went differently.

 

[Jono]

That's just not true, though, I grow so tired of saying it. Laxman has had great success against other sides too. He did brilliantly in his previous series before this one.

Yeah, its a bit of a misconception hey?

Wasn't Laxman only dismissed once in three tests vs. Pakistan?

 

[Salamuddin]

Still maintain that India can do better ( a lot better ) than Ganguly at test level but that's my personal opinion.

 

[Craig]

When Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, Ganguly and Kumble retire (could be at least another year for the lot of them) then worry about it. No sense fretting about what hasn't happened yet, you won't make things any better.

The challenge will arrive when it arrives, and it must be taken-up by those responsible. Not before.

I disagree, the next lot are going to need get some Test experience somewhere and somehow and unfortunatly we don't have a football type loan system in place either. I'm not saying axe them straight away, but you don't want to be in a situation where you have four or five players making debuts or have played a Test, and then be chucked in the deep end and be on a hiding to nothing (ie if they fail first up they probably will be considered not good enough).

 

[Richard]

Well TBH I'm not terribly bothered if 3 or 4 players are making their Test debuts in the same match, myself - if these players have got the class, they'll do well. If they haven't, and if they need to make some improvements to their game, then the team will lose a bit of success for a time. It's almost inevitable, really.

 

[masterblaster]

The one thing that I am worried about is that India for the last 5-6 years at least have not been able to get any other middle order batsman into the test team barring Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif.

They invested 200 odd ODI's in Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif to give them international experience. Yuvraj is a real hot and cold player and is very unreliable, whilst Kaif has disappeared and doesn't look like getting into this Indian side.

The batsmen who India will look to to fill the voids left by the big players include Uthappa, Tiwary, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Shikhar Dhawan, Badrinath, Pujara and any other prodigy/overnight superstar that springs up in Indian domestic cricket.

Unfortunately there is no experience there whatsoever in any of these fill in players apart from Yuvraj Singh. Now granted a few of these players might end up having Michael Hussey type starts to their career and never look back.

But fielding a team in a test match against a team like South Africa, England or Australia and having Virender Sehwag as your most experienced test match batsman and then the middle order looking so thin on experience, it's bound to lead to many test defeats.

 

[Matt79]

That's just not true, though, I grow so tired of saying it. Laxman has had great success against other sides too. He did brilliantly in his previous series before this one.

Rich, I said "better against the Aussies than anyone almost". Across his career, he's average 50+ against Australia, New Zealand and West Indies. Against the rest of the teams he's played he's averaged low 40s at best. Neither NZ or WI have had remotely the bowling strength Australia has enjoyed during the period of his test career. So I don't see how you can say that my comment was incorrect. Laxman has consistently excelled himself against Australia in a manner unlike his efforts against almost any other team.

Not my fault if you misinterpreted my post as saying "he's never done any good against anyone but Australia".

 

[Richard]

But there's a fair few parts of his career which, really, don't matter at all.

Until the Kolkata Test, most of his innings had been as an opener. Completely irrelevant.

In the period where he was failing a bit against other teams, he actually also failed against Australia.

When you say "it's entirely possible he won't maintain the form of the just concluded series" that's basically implying the possibility he'll fail, to some extent. I don't really see averaging (for example) 96 against Australia and 52 against everyone else as a failure. Which is what Laxman did: against everyone, and against everyone other than Australia

Then recently he's been doing well against everyone again.

I have no worries whatsoever that Laxman will not perform against other opposition.

 

[Richard]

The one thing that I am worried about is that India for the last 5-6 years at least have not been able to get any other middle order batsman into the test team barring Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif.

They invested 200 odd ODI's in Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif to give them international experience. Yuvraj is a real hot and cold player and is very unreliable, whilst Kaif has disappeared and doesn't look like getting into this Indian side.

The batsmen who India will look to to fill the voids left by the big players include Uthappa, Tiwary, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Shikhar Dhawan, Badrinath, Pujara and any other prodigy/overnight superstar that springs up in Indian domestic cricket.

Unfortunately there is no experience there whatsoever in any of these fill in players apart from Yuvraj Singh. Now granted a few of these players might end up having Michael Hussey type starts to their career and never look back.

But fielding a team in a test match against a team like South Africa, England or Australia and having Virender Sehwag as your most experienced test match batsman and then the middle order looking so thin on experience, it's bound to lead to many test defeats.

I think it might lead to a few. But a couple of things: 1) this time is at least a year or so away 2) in the likes of Yuvraj Singh and S Badrinath I very much hope India have players ready to step straight into Test-cricket. If the likes of Dhawan, Raina etc. take a few Tests to get going, it's not the end of The World.

 

[Manee]

It is not looking too great for Badrinath's future in the Test game. He seems to falter always on flat pitches for Tamil Nadu and has not chipped in with useful runs in a low scoring match since the beginning of the season. Of course, he should still get a chance, its just a side note.

I think that the whole Big Three scenario is both bad and good at the same time. The emergence of superpower players is certainly not good at all. It has reached a point whereas there would be talks of a board rift, conspiracy theories and the rest of it if Dravid, Ganguly or Tendulkar be rested for one game or series to bring in the likes of Badrinath, Kaif, etc. It is a tough situation; if it is not the media, it will be the fans outraged if Tendulkar misses even one game due to anything but injury.

 

[Perm]

That's just not true, though, I grow so tired of saying it. Laxman has had great success against other sides too. He did brilliantly in his previous series before this one.

Yeah, people don't realise just how good Laxman has been for India. They take a look at his career average (44.20) and assume he has under-acheived, based on his excellent average against Australia (50-odd). What they don't realise is that Laxman averages 48.79 against Test-class opposition in the middle order, and that includes several Tests at the start of his career that were rubbish. Laxman's Test average has been over 50 for the part of his career that counts most.

 

[Debris]

The issue for Laxman might be more injuries rather than age. The impression I get is that his body is held together with string and duct tape.