***Official*** England in India

[Arjun]

India's Do Not Release For Ranji Final XI:

• Rahane
• Gambhir
• Kohli
• Pujara
• Rohit
• Dhoni (WK)
• Jadeja (SLA)
• Bhuvneshwar (RM)
• Ashwin (OB)
• Shami (RFM)
• Ishant (RFM)

Yuvraj and Raina can go play Ranji.

 

[ankitj]

Not necessarily, because a guy might have to go from the start to allow Dhoni/Bevan/Hussey to play themselves in with singles, and not let the pressure build up too much; and those guys who have the role of seeing the game through get the chance to make up for their slower start, whilst others have to make the running, getting out early, so can end up with the same strike rate!

In the situation you describe, I absolutely think Dhoni/Bevan/Hussey are better batsmen than their support cast, and their averages are a healthy reflection of that.

 

[Daemon]

Not necessarily, because a guy might have to go from the start to allow Dhoni/Bevan/Hussey to play themselves in with singles, and not let the pressure build up too much; and those guys who have the role of seeing the game through get the chance to make up for their slower start, whilst others have to make the running, getting out early, so can end up with the same strike rate!

Sounds fitting in theory but I honestly don't think guys like Raina play that specific a role.

 

[theegyptian]

Briggs probably told the management to gfy after he heard he wasn't playing on Sunday. Hasn't really got a fair crack given the rest of the bowling resources at england's disposal this tour. Probably feeling pretty bitter right now. Him missing the final game makes the selection process easier. I was assuming 2 of Woakes, Meaker and Briggs were going to play instead of Dernbach and Bresnan. Can't make any changes to the batting so that's that.

 

[marc71178]

Not sure you can justify Briggs playing given the general arseness with the bat of the majority of our bowlers to be honest.

 

[Cabinet96]

You can play him instead of Dernbach tbf.

 

[Daemon]

Would back Root to outbowl him tbh

 

[theegyptian]

Not sure you can justify Briggs playing given the general arseness with the bat of the majority of our bowlers to be honest.

possibly, but when you play 7 frontline batsmen you shouldn't be relying too much on the tail anyway. It's not like Woakes or Tredwell contributed with the bat when they were need anyway.

I just think he hasn't had a fair chance and he would have been a better option that the group of seamers in the squad.

 

[marc71178]

Can't really go in with 2 seamers when all your batsmen who bowl are spinners can you so with 7 batsmen/all rounder (Samit) it's him or Tredwell and don't think Tredwell can be criticised really,

 

[theegyptian]

Can't really go in with 2 seamers when all your batsmen who bowl are spinners can you so with 7 batsmen/all rounder (Samit) it's him or Tredwell and don't think Tredwell can be criticised really,

meh it's slightly risky but given we had one good quick bowler and our past form on previous tours with fast bowlers in ODI cricket your not losing much.

India proved they're no longer the great players of spin they once were during the test series.

It's a moot point now anyway so i don't know why i brought it up.

And I agree Briggs chances are always going to be limited by his poor batting and average fielding. I just feel a bit sad for the guy that he got one game in 7 ODI's and T20's and didn't even play a warmup to the ODI series. If your not going to play in India with the fast bowling resources as we've got, when are you going to play? England obviously don't rate him at present.

 

[Howe_zat]

It's the Twenty20 side, which has no KP and no Swann

What's the point in discussing the best possible lineup when the selectors don't give a ****?

 

[theegyptian]

It's the Twenty20 side, which has no KP and no Swann

What's the point in discussing the best possible lineup when the selectors don't give a ****?

I don't really understand what you're talking about here.

 

[Howe_zat]

I find it pretty hard to debate who should play out of a squad that isn't even pretending it's the best it can be. I just think, well, they're not interested in who should play, really, so why should I be? Just give a few blokes a go and see what happens. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Cabinet96]

Just because they're resting a couple of star players who play all formats of the game, it doesn't mean that they don't give a toss about the games or aren't trying to pick the best possible XI from the remaining players they have.

 

[centurymaker]

Just because they're resting a couple of star players who play all formats of the game, it doesn't mean that they don't give a toss about the games or aren't trying to pick the best possible XI from the remaining players they have.

Yea, it's not like they are friendlies or anything. they are international games ffs.
and in subcontinent limited overs stuff is what people watch and care about.


Besides die hard cricket fans, who has the time and patience to watch 5 day stuff in this day and age. Worst still, those games can even end in no result after 5 days of ****ing play. No wonder Germany still don't play after Hitler deemed the sport to be the biggest disgrace ever for the same reasons.

 

[vic_orthdox]

In the situation you describe, I absolutely think Dhoni/Bevan/Hussey are better batsmen than their support cast, and their averages are a healthy reflection of that.

Are they more valuable? Yes.

But you are saying that the batsman ends up with the average he deserves. These other guys could end up with better averages if they had the license to play that role, but if you have two guys taking 30 balls to get themselves in at a similar time, by pushing it around, then it becomes too much of a risk if you lose a wicket and have let the RRR climb too high.

See: Pakistan vs India WC SF.

 

[Contra]

Not necessarily, because a guy might have to go from the start to allow Dhoni/Bevan/Hussey to play themselves in with singles, and not let the pressure build up too much; and those guys who have the role of seeing the game through get the chance to make up for their slower start, whilst others have to make the running, getting out early, so can end up with the same strike rate!

Yeah I agree with this to a large extent, in most cases that I've seen Dhoni and Raina bat together it's usually Raina who is asked to get going before Dhoni does, in fact there was an article recently where it showed how Dhoni only goes berserk in the final 5 overs.

That is not to say Raina is in Dhoni's league, but Raina's role is still a fair bit different than Dhoni's even though they bat lower down the order.

 

[tooextracool]

Are they more valuable? Yes.

But you are saying that the batsman ends up with the average he deserves. These other guys could end up with better averages if they had the license to play that role, but if you have two guys taking 30 balls to get themselves in at a similar time, by pushing it around, then it becomes too much of a risk if you lose a wicket and have let the RRR climb too high.

See: Pakistan vs India WC SF.

I dont think you are being serious. Every player performs the role that they know and are capable of performing best. You can't exactly take a Sehwag and tell him to bat like Bevan for the rest of his career, the guy would average half of what he does now and vice versa. AFAIC, the reason why players like Raina et al take more risk at the start of their innings is because they are incapable of turning the strike over consistently and/or unable to resist the temptation of taking risk when it is quite clearly not required.

Also, while I understand that you are referring to the accumulator type role, I don't necessarily agree with the idea of lumping Bevan in there. People talk about Bevan's innings' as though he spent the majority of his career coming in in the 20th over of the match and had the time to smoke a cigar, bang a chick, and then get his act together to finish off the innings. The reality is that Bevan was one of the best finishers in the game for precisely the reason that he didn't need time to get settled in! Much to my own chagrin, Australia ensured that he spent the latter half of his career coming in after the 35th over so that he batted in just the last 10-15 overs, I don't quite understand how he was given time to play in during these circumstances. Quite frankly, the reason why it appeared that Bevan took less risk than every other player on the planet was because of the fact that no one else managed to master the ODI game in the manner in which he did. Here was a guy who was capable of scoring at over a run a ball all while barely hitting a single boundary and taking a single risk. Theres something to be said about his ability to work out angles, deft footwork, soft hands and running like a bloody hare - it made the game simpler than it actually was. Of course, the fact that he cracked the game and didn't need to slog every other ball into the stands to score at exactly the same SR as some of the cleanest hitters in the game meant that people will forever assume that he spent his career playing for not outs.

 

[smash84]

 

[ankitj]

Are they more valuable? Yes.

But you are saying that the batsman ends up with the average he deserves. These other guys could end up with better averages if they had the license to play that role, but if you have two guys taking 30 balls to get themselves in at a similar time, by pushing it around, then it becomes too much of a risk if you lose a wicket and have let the RRR climb too high.

See: Pakistan vs India WC SF.

I also said that only tradeoff exists with SR. So these guys are trading off their averages with SRs. And they settle for low average, high SR rather than other way around, because they are possibly not equipped to do it differently. At the end they end up with an average - SR combination that they deserve.

I am not saying ftr that a good batsman is good in every role (agree here with TC), but I think average and SR taken together enable comparison of value of batsmen in different roles in their respective roles, without requiring any hand waving adjustments for role or batting position (something solidly backed up by data to show difference in batting conditions, state of the ball, types of fields set up etc would be admissible though). By that do I mean Dhoni should be considered better batsman than Tendulkar? Only thing that prevents me from saying that is longevity factor, their roles and batting positions have nothing to do with it.