***Official*** England in India

[cnerd123]

I miss the old, good Sreesanth.

And remember when RP Singh was good? Like, really really good? South Africa and England beating, T20 WC winning good?

And how I miss Pathan and Balaji back when they began. vs. Aus and Pak. All that skill and enthusiasm and talent and hope...

 

[smash84]

oooh Monga's ripping into the horrid promos now!

Day 4 report - Monga

Commercials for Ind-Eng

hilarious ad

 

[Satyanash89]

oooh Monga's ripping into the horrid promos now!

Day 4 report - Monga

Commercials for Ind-Eng

Loving Sidharth monga's articles these days... Scathing stuff

 

[smash84]

Monga has been absolutely scathing (rightly so IMO) but I really haven't seen anyone lay into any team more than Monga has into this indian side

 

[cnerd123]

Might see a few about the NZC in coming weeks.

 

[hendrix]

I raised the option of pulling a South Africa ala Graeme Smith with Kohli, but you don't feed the new captain to the wolves.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

Hey Jono whats up with your boy Kohli? Haven't seen any match footage but he's not doing as well as ODI's. Is he just another Yuvraj?

 

[benchmark00]

Turns out Ashwin can bat #probsbeensaidamilliontimes

 

[grecian]

Not going to go into too much again but it's fair to say I disagree and I disagreed four years ago as well; my old posts will be consistent with that. I tried to keep an open mind about Ishant because of what everyone else was saying but I never saw it. Jono to confirm.

I'm still tasting Sreesanth's failures but Sharma was one I never bought into.

Stop being ****y robot, and look at how Kemar Roach is bowling at the moment.

 

[shankar]

he was acually awesome in 2008 for a 19/20 yo.

Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

stats back it up too.

Yeah, it's silly to claim he was never any good. He's been handled extremely poorly by the selectors who've kept picking him at times when it was clear that he needed to go back to domestic cricket and work on his game. After a terrible England tour and a home series against WI where he averaged 60 (a rookie Yadav averaged 25) he was inexplicably picked for the Australian tour. Again before this series, he'd just been making a comeback in domestic cricket trying to change his bowling and get back his swing. He hadn't picked up wickets on a very bowler-friendly pitch in the ranji match before he was selected for this series.

It's this kind of ridiculous, ad-hoc selectorial policy that's been at the core of making a difficult transition period for the team as bad as possible.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I raised the option of pulling a South Africa ala Graeme Smith with Kohli, but you don't feed the new captain to the wolves.

If we were going to name a new captain it had to be when they at least were not going to have 6/7 new players.

Zaheer, Dhoni, Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj are all near the end of their career or near the end of whether they will be in the team. That is too many newbies to feed Kohli a bunch of losses whilst he's trying to establish himself.

I was for Kohli being captain, and if he was given it I wouldn't be upset. But now that he's tryin to establish himself as a batsman and going through a bad series, not worth killing him with a team of n00bs. Same with Pujara.

Stop-gap needs to be implemented.

It'd just be deferring the problem, IMHO.

Get someone in without the stench of failure hanging around them.

Ashwin and Pujara both look like 100+ test players from this vantage point (Kohli too, probably, although he does look quite boom and bust if the evidence of this series is anything to go by); take a punt on the future.

Sehwag is 34 (IIRC) and doesn't seem to have a captain's mindset and (whilst acknowledging I'm not a fan of his) Gambhir has enough on his plate just keeping in the side.

 

[Jono]

Hey Jono whats up with your boy Kohli? Haven't seen any match footage but he's not doing as well as ODI's. Is he just another Yuvraj?

 

[Prince EWS]

Kohli's got the game to succeed in Tests already. If he doesn't then it's in his head. I certainly never said that about Yuvraj.

 

[Spark]

Yeah, it's silly to claim he was never any good. He's been handled extremely poorly by the selectors who've kept picking him at times when it was clear that he needed to go back to domestic cricket and work on his game. After a terrible England tour and a home series against WI where he averaged 60 (a rookie Yadav averaged 25) he was inexplicably picked for the Australian tour. Again before this series, he'd just been making a comeback in domestic cricket trying to change his bowling and get back his swing. He hadn't picked up wickets on a very bowler-friendly pitch in the ranji match before he was selected for this series.

It's this kind of ridiculous, ad-hoc selectorial policy that's been at the core of making a difficult transition period for the team as bad as possible.

All well and good until you consider that the administration/team's mindset has been to deny that they're in transition at all.

Frankly, "in denial" is a good buzzword descriptor of Indian cricket since the middle of last year.

 

[sli]

i don't know why some of you guys want mishra in the team i would prefer chawla or murali karthik

 

[Xuhaib]

can't believe people saying Ishant did not have the base to be a good bowler Pace, bounce , stamina ,decent accuracy and could generate awkward seam movement at times not to far from current Steve Finn imo he has really regressed as a bowler but till around 2010 he looked the goods.

 

[BoyBrumby]

All well and good until you consider that the administration/team's mindset has been to deny that they're in transition at all.

Frankly, "in denial" is a good buzzword descriptor of Indian cricket since the middle of last year.

Yeah, nail on the head.

It's been very much a case of "wait until you get to our house" since the twin whitewashs and now...

I mean it's England playing spin in Asia. That's a gimme, surely?

I think the financial power of the BCCI has created a generation of yes men who don't want to rock the boat and ask the hard questions.

 

[sli]

have to drop kholi and yuvraj im sorry but they are not performing, Rahane and ravindera jadeja in the team and also the bowling z khan and ojah out

 

[shankar]

All well and good until you consider that the administration/team's mindset has been to deny that they're in transition at all.

Frankly, "in denial" is a good buzzword descriptor of Indian cricket since the middle of last year.

Of course. Wasn't saying that was the only reason. The adhoc selections are earlier than the Eng-Aus debacle.

 

[Spark]

As for Sharma, the guy has ticker, sure, but he has to be one of the stupider bowlers I've seen. It's not a Mitchell Johnson-style "doesn't know where the ball will go once it leaves the hand", it's more a "doesn't know what he's actually trying to achieve once the ball leaves the hand" (which in some ways is just as bad). Just seems to have no understanding of the subtleties of bowling, just runs up and lets it go.

I mean, the guy can bowl some good spells and I can't really fault his effort, but he just doesn't seem to get how to get good batsmen out. If he bowls a good spell that results in a wicket, it's almost by accident.