India squad named for Australia

[Arjun]

Even our in-form players are not all that great, that they can stay in the team despite being bad fielders. This is not the 19'th century! Even if Laxman stays, the coach, physio and fitness trainer should make sure his fielding, running, fitness and boundary-hitting. A player batting at 6 won't get much opportunities, so he should add something extra to his game, like fielding (Jonty), bowling (Cairns), extra-hard hitting (Gilchrist) or wicketkeeping (Dravid, Stewart, though these are rare cases). This was said by Jonty on an interview.

Anyway, both Laxman and Yuvraj are better players than the openers. Everyone, from Boycott to the forum contributors would agree with that. Is there anything wrong in replacing these proven failures with our best players? There's no point picking players just for the roles. Anyway, if Ronnie Irani is one of the best bowlers in that system, I don't think it is really of any significance.

No I am NOT BY ANY MEANS a Pakistani selector. I don't suggest dropping 8 high-profile players before a tough tour. But given what the Australian team is doing to the Indian team, statements like 'feeding the Australian batsmen and picking 5 fast bowlers to end their careers' and '4'th spinner is better than our second seamer' are very true.

The last Test was saved by Laxman AND CHOPRA. But given the home conditions and the quality of opposition bowling, saving it should have been no big deal. In fact, given the batting, they should have won it. The players were far from fit and caught napping.

As for the Kaif gang, I don't want them in the playing XI, but as substitute fielders.

 

[Salamuddin]

Ratra

Ratra is a very good keeper -- its pretty obvious you have seen very little of his keeping iamdavid.
It was Rod Marsh himself in 2002 who described Ajay as a very fine young keeper.

All young keepers tend to make some mistakes and Ratra at 21 is still very young.

When Ratra recovered from injury last year, the gloves should have gone back to him and not Parthiv.
Parthiv should have been kept as the deputy.

The problem with India is that they expect immediate solutions to long term problems. Sometimes you've got to look beyond the odd bad match and back potential.

 

[Richard]

Ajay Ratra's 'keeping is not the problem - his batting is. Patel's no better IMO, but both of them are useless with the bat. Ratra scored a century on what seemed an unusually slow pitch at Bourda or wherever it was and has otherwise done nothing at Test-level. Patel has hit a 30 here and there but his average is still poor. Neither are in the Nayan Mongia league as far as batting is concerned, and though his last 2 Tests weren't exactly what you'd call impressive, it's not as if other capable batsmen haven't gone to pieces when confronted with an attack under the name of Australia. For me Dighe, Dahiya, Dasgupta and that MSK Prasad fellow are all apologists for mediocrity when compared to N. Mongia. Although D. Mongia actually makes them look at times quite good...