What do you think of Virat Kohli?

[Jono]

Kohli will get far more from playing 4-5 ODIs in England than playing first class right now.

 

[Jono]

Abhinav Mukund, Murali Vijay, Submaraniam Badrinath, Wasim Jaffer

You've written off Mukund very early there. Players like Bell and Cook took time to mature and come to grips with international cricket.

This idea that if a player averaging 50+ in Indian first class cricket must score in tests immediately or it is a blight on all first class cricket is going overboard imo.

 

[Furball]

You've written off Mukund very early there. Players like Bell and Cook took time to mature and come to grips with international cricket.

This idea that if a player averaging 50+ in Indian first class cricket must score in tests immediately or it is a blight on all first class cricket is going overboard imo.

I'm not writing him off, I'm just saying right now he looks pretty ordinary and not ready for Test cricket. Regardless of whether it's in India, Shield, SuperSport, County Cricket - you'd expect someone averaging 50 in First Class cricket to look better than Mukund has thus far. Raina, for all of his glaringly obvious issues, has looked more at home in Test cricket than any of the new guard that I've seen.

I accept that Mukund is young, and faced 2 of the better bowling attacks around in their home conditions - and I'm sure he'll become a better player for the experience. I dunno, I expected more from a guy averaging 50 in FC.

edit: compare Mukund's first steps at international level to Rahane's - granted, different formats etc but Rahane has come into the Indian team and almost immediately looked like he belongs at international level. Or look at Virat Kohli - although I think he's been quite disappointing in the last 6 months, for the year previous to the World Cup he'd showcased a very good temperament and technique, and was another one who looked like he belongs at that level of the game. Mukund, so far, has looked fairly ordinary by comparison.

 

[Cevno]

Looking forward to Mukund getting some chances in the Home series in the future and building up some confidence. He will certainly be better for the experience and has already shown improvement in these 2 series and shown good temperament.

Pretty inexplicable why he wasn't kept back for the ODI series too as he was settled there and had been dropped after scoring a hundred in the tour match in tests plus has a gun List A record.

Also disagree that he looked worse than Raina in the test series,imo.Looked better as a opener in tough conditions in only his second series, while Raina looked clueless at times as expected.

 

[marc71178]

You've written off Mukund very early there. Players like Bell and Cook took time to mature and come to grips with international cricket.

Can accept Bell to a degree but Cook?

 

[Jono]

I'm not writing him off, I'm just saying right now he looks pretty ordinary and not ready for Test cricket. Regardless of whether it's in India, Shield, SuperSport, County Cricket - you'd expect someone averaging 50 in First Class cricket to look better than Mukund has thus far. Raina, for all of his glaringly obvious issues, has looked more at home in Test cricket than any of the new guard that I've seen.

I accept that Mukund is young, and faced 2 of the better bowling attacks around in their home conditions - and I'm sure he'll become a better player for the experience. I dunno, I expected more from a guy averaging 50 in FC.

edit: compare Mukund's first steps at international level to Rahane's - granted, different formats etc but Rahane has come into the Indian team and almost immediately looked like he belongs at international level. Or look at Virat Kohli - although I think he's been quite disappointing in the last 6 months, for the year previous to the World Cup he'd showcased a very good temperament and technique, and was another one who looked like he belongs at that level of the game. Mukund, so far, has looked fairly ordinary by comparison.

A lot of that has to do with confidence, which different players have. Yuvraj looked like he belonged in international cricket in his first match. Raina has had heaps more international cricket than Mukund, so he should look like he belongs more. But at the end of the day Mukund will be better than Raina at test cricket. Will bet my house on it.

It's a lot more difficult to debut opening than debut at number 6 as well btw.

Can accept Bell to a degree but Cook?

Well obviously Cook actually started well in his first few series (India and Lanka), but he got found out, went away and came back a better player.

I just don't think you can put Mukund in the same category as Wasim Jaffer.

 

[GotSpin]

Looking forward to Mukund getting some chances in the Home series in the future and building up some confidence. He will certainly be better for the experience and has already shown improvement in these 2 series and shown good temperament.

Pretty inexplicable why he wasn't kept back for the ODI series too as he was settled there and had been dropped after scoring a hundred in the tour match in tests plus has a gun List A record.

Also disagree that he looked worse than Raina in the test series,imo.Looked better as a opener in tough conditions in only his second series, while Raina looked clueless at times as expected.

Yeah. Thought Raina looked frequently hopeless while Mukund sometimes portrayed the image of a potential batsmen.

 

[Jono]

Agreed.

Plus Raina has been playing international cricket since 2006, Mukund since 2011. Also as mentioned, Raina was batting at 6 whereas Mukund was facing the first ball of the innings at times.

 

[GotSpin]

Raina completely lost the plot during the England series.

 

[honestbharani]

Raina completely lost the plot during the England series.

yeah and it is a shame because the kid's got great attitude and one of the few players who seem to really respect the fact that they represent the country...


It is similar to Dinesh Karthik too. Has great attitude but is just not good enough to hack it at this level. I really hope he can improve and come back. As an aside, he, along with Parthiv, is one of the few guys who do play the short ball well (pulling, hooking, cutting or just swaying)...

 

[Prince EWS]

Kohli will get far more from playing 4-5 ODIs in England than playing first class right now.

Yep AWTA. As I said, away tours are different.

 

[Jono]

With his ton in the tour game, Kohli has secured his spot at #6 for Boxing Day (should never have been in doubt but nevertheless).

Can't wait.

 

[Top_Cat]

Will only make it sweeter when he scores 20 runs for the series. A couple of rough decisions to induce the lemonface would be just.....omnomnomnomnom.

 

[Jono]

Very much look forward to him facing Dan Christian.

 

[Burgey]

Very much look forward to him facing Dan Christian.

He'll be out before Christian bowls to him.

The way injuries are, there's every chance Christian is looking forward to facing him.

 

[Spikey]

Dan Christian v Virat Kohli





aka

 

[Prince EWS]

I really like Christian even though I don't think he's up to Test level at this point; I'd have no real problem cheering him on, as much as I think he'll probably not do much.

 

[ganeshran]

Christian isnt really of international Test standard. Has the potential to be a good LOI player - but not in tests

 

[ankitj]

Where the hell is vcs hiding btw?

 

[TumTum]

Dan Christian v Virat Kohli





aka