Players you would like

[slippy888]

India to get rid of in the test match format level, Dravid and tendulkar should retire at the end of the home series against England, Laxman should retire now, raina should be dropped, sreesanth should be dropped.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

I think carrying 3 old timers is too much especially in the field. Laxman the unlucky man to go. Sreesanth isn't good enough and obviously Raina.

All depends what Fletcher thinks and will he get what he wants?

They don't need wholesale changes though as the players were good enough to get them to number 1 and stay there, they just got butchered by a bloody good side. I would think India will still stay around the top 3 until after Tendulkar and Dravid retire as the rest of the world is pretty weak at present too.

 

[Cevno]

Laxman just has had his best 2 years ever and played inummerable important knocks. No need for him to go after one series. Yes, ultimately it was one series only.

And no need for Dravid or Tendulkar to retire either or be forced to retire.

The major area for concern is bowling outside of the SC without Zaheer on strong overseas tours as i have said before. He has become too important (and was very important in getting us to no.1) and that with his injury problems is a worry,even though he may not miss series frequently.

 

[sumantra]

as far as i know England is not going for a test series this year in india, they will play few odi's...anyway, your comment was very strange i must say, the retirement of the senior members can not and should not be like that, dravid, for example, for the entire stretch of the match, fields in the slip, so thats not a problem, tendulkar is still pretty agile, better than the most in the side...they should retire with a plan, not all together, i think, dravid will play the next two test series, against west indies at home and against australia in australia, it's more difficult to talk about sachin, he might continue for a bit longer so should laxman...so it should be 2012 dravid, 2013 laxman and 2014 sachin...raina can retire now, no problems.

 

[zaremba]

Laxman just has had his best 2 years ever and played inummerable important knocks. No need for him to go after one series. Yes, ultimately it was one series only.

And no need for Dravid or Tendulkar to retire either or be forced to retire.

The major area for concern is bowling outside of the SC without Zaheer on strong overseas tours as i have said before. He has become too important (and was very important in getting us to no.1) and that with his injury problems is a worry,even though he may not miss series frequently.

Looking at this as an outsider, it seems pretty clear that there is a real problem looming about the ageing batting line up. Laxman, Sachin and Dravid are at the back end of their careers now and that means both that the level of athleticism in the field is clearly lacking and that there will be some fairly big boots to fill in the batting line-up all at once. This wouldn't be quite such a problem if the batting reserves looked the part but from what I've seen (and heard from Indian fans on this forum) there's not a great deal of confidence in those reserves (although some of them do have pretty tasty FC records).

The comparisons have been made with Australia post-2006/7 are obvious and lessons should perhaps be learned from what happened then. I'm not saying that it will be catastrophic for India, but it could be, particularly if clear and unsentimental thought isn't given to these issues by those in charge.

 

[centurymaker]

an out of form great player will still avg around 40. it would be silly to throw him out after 1 bad season.

if these guys fail again in australia then it's time....

 

[Cevno]

Don't think the problem in fielding is down to these 3 only though. It was down to various things like bowlers fielding and the cold weather among others too. The standards improved every time the Sun was out with hands coming out from the pocket.

As for the future i agree with what was said above the retirement plan should be Dravid - 2012, Sachin - 2013, Laxman - 2013/2014.

The replacement pool to choose batsman from is quite decent actually and quite and with experience they will improve if the selectors choose and stick with the right people and not ODI based selections like Yuvraj or Raina.
Badrinath can come in as a quicker fix, then there are Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, Rohit, Mukund, and even younger players like Mandeep singh or Unmukt Chand. The question and the main worry for all the players and not only the batsman is that will the priority be test cricket or T20/ODI'S and this applies to the BCCI too as those things make it more money and the absolute lay public seem more interested in them.

 

[zaremba]

I don't really disagree with any of that. As to the fielding, I'm by no means seeking to pin all the blame on those 3. Old timers such as Dravid can remain useful if they are (and so long as they remain) good slips fielders. But it's a question of the balance of the overall unit in the field. There are only so many old men you can hide in the field these days, particularly when the younger guns are themselves not crack fielders. I remember England in about 1994/5, with Gatting and Gooch lumbering around. It wasn't pretty.

 

[Daemon]

Wouldn't drop Sachin, Laxman or Dravid tbh. We need a good number 6 who has the ability to improve and do well in the long run, i.e Pujara. Need a fit Zaheer, Praveen, Ishant and hopefully Ashwin or Ojha. Wouldn't take Harby unless he shows signs of improvement.

Basically no drastic changes. This tour we were basically bowling with a bowler and a half, with one being Praveen and the half being Ishant. Sree, as predicted, did **** all besides his one good spell and our spinner was terrible. The latter two have obviously got to be looked at.

In the batting department, Raina was an utter failure, Mukund didn't impress though it was a tough initiation, Dhoni was dire besides the third test, Sachin found some form too late, Dravid was class and Laxman had moments where he looked threatening but overall was a failure. The rest were injured/coming of little match practice. It didn't help that we were up against bowlers that were just too good in home conditions and some in the form of their lives. Same can be said about the opposition batsmen.

The reason we shouldn't panic is because realistically, any permutation or combination of players from India would never had come close to beating England. We didn't give ourselves the best chance with some of the selections, and those are the only ones to be looked at.

 

[Cevno]

Yeah, Zaheer and the bowling attack overseas without him(and even to a lesser extent at home) is still the major worry.
Our openers were all kinds of unstable this series due to various things which didn't help either the whole batting. And the batting wasn't that much worse than SA where the timing of perfromances and the bowling stepping up was different when Zaheer came in the last 2 tests.

As for Mukund i felt that even though he didn't impress in the first 2 tests it was tough for him so soon. He showed some fight at Lords on occasions and scored a 100 in the tour match before he was dropped for a visibly unfit Sehwag and then had Raina playing ahead of him too. Was a bit unfair on him,imo and perhaps should have been selected for the ODI series too as he would have been settled there for a while.

 

[four_or_six]

The aged batsmen does have the potential to be a real issue unless it's managed well. No matter how good they are, Tendulkar and Dravid are 38, it's unlikely they'll still be playing for long. Add in that Laxman is nearly 37 and Sehwag 33 with some fairly serious injury issues right now, you could be 12 months down the line with four inexperienced batsmen in the top six.

Undoubtedly the three oldies will want to tour Australia, but at least one of them has to go at the end of the tour or things could be a real mess.

 

[Cevno]

First we need a settled number 6 though who gains some experience at that slot, before any of them retires and the stupid selectors are not helping themselves too much in that regard long term.

That was the major argument why people wanted Dravid to retire for a while too as he wasn't performing. While i didn't agree with those who said he should retire, i could see where there argument was coming from and i think still if someone has to retire it will be him that goes first.

As i said the retirement plan should be Dravid - 2012, Sachin - 2013, Laxman - 2013/2014.

Sehwag is still 33 and even though he has said he will retire early, can't see him retiring before 2014 at the moment and can fill in later in the middle order too if required. His injury is serious, but i think it was a case of rushing back too soon after surgery more than anything else. Though we need him bowling.

 

[four_or_six]

First we need a settled number 6 though who gains some experience at that slot, before any of them retires and the stupid selectors are not helping themselves too much in that regard long term.

That was the major argument why people wanted Dravid to retire for a while too as he wasn't performing. While i didn't agree with those who said he should retire, i could see where there argument was coming from and i think still if someone has to retire it will be him that goes first.

As i said the retirement plan should be Dravid - 2012, Sachin - 2013, Laxman - 2013/2014.

Sehwag is still 33 and even though he has said he will retire early, can't see him retiring before 2014 at the moment and can fill in later in the middle order too if required. His injury is serious, but i think it was a case of rushing back too soon after surgery more than anything else. Though we need him bowling.

The problem with these guys isn't just the batting, though. All three don't have a fielding level that they should have. Tendulkar's, perhaps, is just about adequate but Dravid drops too many catches and Laxman's fielding looks pretty woeful.

With your bowling attack, I think you really need to field a whole lot better. And not rely on the bowlers to, either. At Edgbaston it was pointed out on commentary that you had a crazy situation where Praveen and Sreesanth not only had to bowl 40 overs each, they were fielding in the most demanding fielding positions.

I dunno though... maybe it's just a case of priority, and these batsmen just need to be given a kick up the backside to work harder on their fielding. If that can be done and it works I think it goes some way to solving some problems.

 

[Cevno]

Dravid was always only good in the slips and Laxman was never a great fielder either. Sachin is usually pretty competent in the field and has a strong arm but was below par this series perhaps due to the weather like quite a few others as i said before and the commentators said too.

It's not like the fielding issue is something new and the young ones like Raina,Kohli are pretty good fielders. I think the fielding thing was also exaggerated this series with the bowlers along with the weather, losing heart after a while and then the collective shoulders dropping.

 

[four_or_six]

Dravid was always only good in the slips and Laxman was never a great fielder either. Sachin is usually pretty competent in the field and has a strong arm but was below par this series perhaps due to the weather like quite a few others as i said before and the commentators said too.

It's not like the fielding issue is something new and the young ones like Raina,Kohli are pretty good fielders. I think the fielding thing was also exaggerated this series with the bowlers along with the weather, losing heart after a while and then the collective shoulders dropping.

I'm not sure about the weather as an excuse. Sure there were one or two cold days, but all in all it has been fine. I know it's not exactly conditions they are used to, but if international sportmen can't cope with the kind of weather we've had this summer they really need to hardern up.

 

[Daemon]

The main problem is that we had two tours to figure out suitable replacements for our batsmen, and after it all we've basically ended back at square one. The only positive has been Praveen and Ishant to a certain extent, both bowlers. The injuries and terrible batting hasn't helped us establish any suitable international quality batsmen.

Was seriously hoping Pujara got to play in the two tours but he sadly had to miss out.

 

[smash84]

The aged batsmen does have the potential to be a real issue unless it's managed well. No matter how good they are, Tendulkar and Dravid are 38, it's unlikely they'll still be playing for long. Add in that Laxman is nearly 37 and Sehwag 33 with some fairly serious injury issues right now, you could be 12 months down the line with four inexperienced batsmen in the top six.

Undoubtedly the three oldies will want to tour Australia, but at least one of them has to go at the end of the tour or things could be a real mess.

This

I'm not sure about the weather as an excuse. Sure there were one or two cold days, but all in all it has been fine. I know it's not exactly conditions they are used to, but if international sportmen can't cope with the kind of weather we've had this summer they really need to hardern up.

and this

 

[Neil Pickup]

Hang on, cold? We had one desperate, miserable grey and wet spell a couple of weeks ago that lasted about two days, and other than that it's just been generally meh. Not hot - but not cold.

 

[zaremba]

Serious question - do Indian players find it easier to play cricket when the weather is hot (say 30-35C) or when it's meh English summer weather (say 20-25C)?

I realise that Indian players will tend to be better suited than English players to playing in hotter conditions, and English players will have the edge in cooler conditions - partly because those are the conditions they've grown up with and partly because their styles of play suit those conditions.

But I'd have thought that most people, Indians included, would find it easier to play in 20-25C than they would in 30-35C? Or are there Indian players who function less well when it's not seriously hot?

 

[Daemon]

It's a non issue really. Some of those players come from Delhi and Gujarat where it's around 25 iirc during winter. They obviously don't play cricket at that time, but its not like they aren't completely used to the cold at all.