[NomadSK]

GG’s press conference seems to me I’m listening to some hardcore politician !!

[Rahkehs]

Time has come for a major overhaul in Indian cricket team's test line up. Non-performers Kings/Prince/Hitman’s should be dropped. In fact different team should be selected for home and away series.
It was such a disastrous team selection, playing two spinners on a grassland!

[Shumi_21]

I'm just praying Bumrah not bowling today was a precautionary measure and not some long term injury. The man has single handedly carried India for 4 and a half tests only to be let down by yet another abominable batting performance by the so called superstars.

Only Yashasvi can return from Australia with his head held high, KL was good in patches so was NKR. Rishabh didn't do much until the last match. Gill threw away good starts in every innings with lapses in concentration. Kohli & Rohit are just damaging their own legacy at this point.

We were also out thought by the Australians yet again, they had specific plans for each of our batters, while our bowling plans were simply Bumrah or bust. The final XI selection was also bizzare, dropping Harshit after one bad innings was a stupid call, so was playing two spinners on a green wicket at the SCG. And lesser said about Rohit shuffling up and down the batting order the better. But then again he's a mature man with two kids, so apparently that qualifies him to unlimited wisdom. Ditto for Virat who's unlimited wisdom makes him do the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome.

[Bibendum90949]

Aus lays hands on BGT trophy after a decade.

A closely fought series than the 3-1 score line would suggest, despite Indians not performing to their potential. If not for one man, this series would've been over after 3 tests.

It goes onto show the significant role Pujara and Shami played on previous successful tours.They were being sorely missed and no replacements in sight for both of them. A solid No.3 badly missing in both batting and bowling line up.

Kohli has to find an answer for his impuissance if he wishes to extend his test career for two more years. Anderson was the one who unearthed the 4th stump/5 th stump chink in the King's armour, and ten years later bowlers are still reaping the rewards. Before people start to criticize Rohit for his under par returns with the bat, let's get the swords out for someone with 120 tests under their belt, who couldn't be patient enough to see off 3 more deliveries in the last over before lunch, on two occassions

Find of the tour is Nitish Reddy, that's the only consolation. Hope they groom him further to be an important cog in the test set up. It would be unfair to expect him to keep producing fighting hundreds. He's on his first tour, just 21 years old, first class avg of 21 with just one hundred, yet he produced one of the finest knocks by an Indian overseas in very challenging conditions, that too in Australia against the best attack in the world. Let's not forget he's the second or third highest run getter after being picked as an all rounder and batting at 7&8 most of the times. Managing expectations would be his immediate challenge. On pure talent and temperament alone, he's here to stay for a long time.

Washington did no harm to his reputation and contributed with the bat and almost played a part in drawing a match. He found a place in the eleven more for his batting to cover up for the out of form and under performing batting stalwarts.

Jaiswal can only grow from strength to strength after this tour. Wish he could drew the game at Melbourne, that would've been a great learning rope in his test journey.

A word on Bumrah too. What a champion performer he is. At 46 tests and 204 wickets, he's already being hailed as one of the all time bowling greats. He was literally carrying the whole team on his shoulders. Who knows, a fully fit Bumrah today may have meant Aussies' decade long wait for BGT trophy wouldn't have ended today. We should double wrap him in cotton wool.

India have a lot to lick in their wounds, from under performing veterans to selection blunders to constant chopping and changing and even the efficacy of think-tank and overall management of the test outfit.

So it's 6-1 in 8 tests for Gambhir and Co., it could well have been 7-1 if not for the rain Gods. Tumultuous days ahead for Indian cricket with reports of unrest and divide in the Indian camp.

[deehunk]

Originally Posted by NPV

We need a major overhaul of our Test team, we can start by retaining Jaiswal, Rahul, Sarfaraz, Padikkal, Pant, Jurel, Nitish, Bumrah, Siraj, Prasidh, Jaddu,
We need to draft more players to complete the squad.
.

Padikkal and Sarfaraz should definitely be in the home series; Jurel and Nitish can play both home and away series. Kohli's and Rohit's arrogance denied Jurel his place in the team for the BGT series. The top spinners from domestic cricket have not been picked for the last 4-5 years; the NCA has not groomed new talents in either batting or bowling for a long time, so is it a dead place now? BCCI should be transparent about Prithvi Shaw; if not, we neither have a proper opening pair nor a reliable No.3 batsman.

[Asish_VK]

We'll done Aussies. We'll deserved win.
This BGT series of Australia Vs Bumrah gave many eye openers for common cricket fans (not for BCCI though).

What BCCI needs now is to bring Zimbabwe/Afghanistan for a 2 match test, whitewash them, let our superstar Captain and King score some runs. PR team will work hard and all these will be lost in oblivion.

Expecting professionalism from our team management is next to nill.

[AtheK]

Rohit Sharma - Absolute Blunder and has no clue what is happening. Such bad captaincy, that a book can be written on it. Highest low was how he was behaving in the Interview yesterday, what a loser.

-5/10

Should be kicked out and not dropped.

Virat Kohli - Jumping Jack of the team, all talk no show. His 100 also came just because of the cushion he got from top order performance. At this point he should call it a day. The swinging ball and the 5th stump line will be his undoing in England also and we will again be a player short.

2/10

These 2 think they are Bigger then the game, they have lost all respect of true cricket lovers and longer they stay they will loose their fanboys support also.

Yashasvi Jaiswal - Champion Bloke, needs to concentrate a bit more, but he is here to stay, and should make it big, just stay away from likes of Kohli. Looked one of the most settled and our best batsman of the tour.

8/10

KL Rahul Started well, lost it again in between, also did not help that he was moved around again to compensate for our loser captain. He did apply himself this time, but it is the same old story, failing again and again in a crucial match and running out of fizz in later half of the series.

4/10

Shubhman Gill Disappointing, his stock value has plummeted and he does not look like a long term number 3, does not have the concentration and no match awareness. Does not help when you are dropped for an out of form player as well, maybe he should try playing at #5 instead of #3, I think he will have a bigger impact there with his good technique against spinners.

3/10

Rishabh Pant Need to be more consistent, his last match innings was good, but overall he was forced to play One position above he should. He should be our #6 and not #5, we need 5 proper batmsan on top. Need to move back to his position and perform like he did in last innings, we need him to play fearless cricket.

5/10

Jadeja Time to stop taking him to overseas tour, his bowling is half of what it was overseas and with Bat also he is losing that touch. He should still be in a mix of things for matches in India, but he is done for SENA. Except for that one good innings he also does not have much to write home about.

4/10

Nitish Reddy Find of the tour, though the expectations got the better of him and he underperformed in the last three innings, he still has a good head on his shoulder and has chance to learn, he should be groomed as Batsman who can bowl to rest the frontline bowlers. His century will be remembered for sometime and I hope he becomes consistent and does not fizzle out. Bowled decently well and took wickets too. He should ideally take Kohli's #4 place.

7/10

Washington Sundar Batted well and with confidence, got undone by lower order. Needs to bowl a bit more and captain needs to show confidence in him if they are making him play. An unpopular opinion but maybe a good idea to start playing him at Number 3 for sometime and see how he performs, I have a feeling he will excel.

6/10

Akashdeep Bowled his heart out, was a bit unlucky as well, but he has the potential to be the #3 bowler once Shami returns. Need to control the runs though, but has to be groomed and taken care of to be a part of the pace battery.

6/10

Siraj Blows Hot and cold, he still has the fire and puts his heart into his bowling, need to get a bit more consistent, and should be the one fighting for #3 slot with Akashdeep in future. He has the potential to still be carried along with the team, would have been good if they had replaced him in 4th test with Harshit to give him some rest.

5/10

Harshit RanaShowed promise and pace but need to be groomed in domestic circuit before he can play again for India. Too young and undercooked for this level.

5/10

Bumrah Absolute Legend. Wish his body survived 1 more day of test cricket, but can't blame him when everyone around him just did not want to contribute.

10/10

Paddikal just had a game and he knew he was just filling in shoes so won't be right to judge him. Prasidh bowled well in the one game he played but again leaks too many runs.

All in all a disaster of a series, wish we could have saved the 4th test though, but atleast god saved us from going 4-1 down.

Team Rating 4/10

[PPS]

India badly missed Shardul Thakur as 4th bowler. It becomes imperative now to include him or Hardik (with his fragile body) for England tour due to lack of options.

Siraj tried his best, is a workhorse but he is at best our 3rd seamer! He should compete with AkashDeep for that spot. Bumrah (injury prone) & Shami (returning from injury) are our frontline seamers. Prasidh with his steep bounce is a decent backup option. Even Mukesh Kumar with his steady line & length can be considered.

You have to play 4 frontline seamers in SENA at any cost. So that there isn't too much burden on Bumrah & Shami. Jadeja/Reddy can be your 5th bowlers.

Starc + Cummins have scored more runs than Kohli + Rohit ! They both need to be booted out of the Test Squad. Boland at no.11 has scored similar runs as Rohit Sharma!

Gill should be slot in at no.5 ! He does not have the technique nor the game to grind out the opposition, especially in SENA. Perhaps slot in Washington or Jadeja at no.3/4 & see how it goes. They seem to have the game to defend. Not sure who else in domestic can fill that role in SENA.

Gambhir is a tactically poor Coach so far. I blame Dravid as well for not trying out new faces when you had the opportunity. Easwaran should retire out of frustration! For England tour, try out Jurel, Sarfaraz, Paddikkal,etc. They won't do worse than Rohit + Virat.

Bumrah cannot be a long term Test Captain with his workload & injuries. Pant should not be overburdened with Captaincy role. So there are hardly any other options left. Don't be surprised if Selection Committee appoint Kohli as Interim Captain for that England tour!!

[NomadSK]

Congratulations to Australia 3-1 for getting hold of the BGT trophy after ages.

India needed to show a bit more faith in the likes of Sarfaraz/Jurel et al rather than making a bizarre concoction of non-bowling allrounders, all while not doing anything about the black hole at no. 4 and a jumping confused captain from middle order to opener to dropped out/stepped down/kicked out whatever.

Complete waste staying up late/waking up early for the last 4 games. Not even Bumrah could make up for just how limp as a noodle our batting's been. There are at least two rank passengers in that lineup and serious question marks around the likes of Gill, Jadeja, and yes, KL too, because despite him looking the most solid of our bats technique-wise, realistically he's never going to be more than mediocre. I honestly wouldn't mind a wholesale reset and a couple of years of birthing pains. This currently is just making a mockery of fan energy and a sad state of affairs from Shah to Agarkar to GG.

Weird that they had these proper cooked batsmen on tour but instead played Washington Sundar essentially as a specialist bat at 8, with Pant and Jadeja a spot too high each. That selection only makes sense if Jadeja and Wash are both considered better specialist batsmen than all of those reserves, given both of their bowling together was never going to be of any value.

All in all, it was a fun series. Many of the reasons India loss started even before the toss - the selections did not make any sense to me. I’m not going to belabor the point about Kohli and Rohit - that’s two in the top order that should not be there - but realistically, we just don’t stop guys like that often, because of the weight & clout these clowns carry.

But even with realistically two passengers, india could have done much better and won another Test - at the very least - if the rest of the selection was better. They picked a bunch of blokes who could bowl and barely bowled any of them. They needed to go in with four bowlers, plus one all rounder. That’s it. And then pick the best five batsmen in the country and a keeper. And it was their batting that let them down repeatedly - inning after inning - and game after game - but instead of shoring that up, they kept on going the other way.

As much as I’ve enjoyed Rohit’s/Virat’s careers and contributions, I think this should be end of the road for them and even Jadeja. It’s time to move on, the spinners for the squad in England should be Kuldeep, Axar and Sundar. Batting - I don’t know - but Sarfaraz should get the whole series in England to prove himself one way or another, he has shown enough hunger at domestic level year after year to get matches to play when the guy is in form and have hunger to perform. Jurel should get in there too. KL Rahul did OK early and he looks great when he gets going but his average is 33 after 58 matches. That’s enough of a sample size and he has shown us that’s who he is. Hopefully there’s time to send a bunch of A team guys from those who have done well in Ranji to see who looks good in English conditions and pick some batting and support bowling based on that. Shami would have been very helpful here but he is also recovering from a long injury and he has never been great in England. I remember we had a system of A team or young colts being prepared by Dravid, where’s that system gone ? Is that already in hibernation ?

In late 90’s to early 2000’s we have been always a good batting unit in most overseas conditions, it was our club level bowling which was letting us down year after year, game after game, but now we have cracked the bowling code and it’s the batting department we are lacking the application and temperament and poor shot selection, which is the achilles heel.

5 months to go for 5 tests at English summer, where a different type of skills would be tested, from seaming conditions to swinging conditions, let’s hope we can better our performances. Looks unlikely though the kind of baggage we are currently carrying. And pls for godsake no reckless shots. Let’s make test cricket boring again, but atleast stay on wicket, show some application and make it last full 5 days !! It’s high time we change our “star culture” to “sports culture”

Meanwhile in another southern hemisphere Pakistan doing Pakistani thing, 1st innings 194 all out, follow on and 2nd innings 213/1, still trailing by 200+ runs at end of day-3. A fightback on cards.

[Scarlet_Rider]

It was pathetic on the part of Cricket Australia to not include Sunil Gavaskar along with Alan Border during the presentation ceremony. Whatever be the result, both men should be a part of the presentation as the trophy is held in their name. CA admitted to the mistake later but it was something that could have been realised and rectified within minutes before the presentation began.

https://m.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/...he-error-later

[Joeboy]

I don't know how people expect this Indian team which had lost a home series 3-0 to NZ to win against a strong Aussie side. The previous 2 times the Indian team won in Aus were different and were much good than this present team. We have to accept Aussies played much better cricket than India. I was expecting Bumrah to get injured because of the amount of bowling he has been doing in all the three formats. I would not surprised if he gets injured more often if he is over worked by the management.

[shivaru]

So it's 6-1 in 8 tests for Gambhir and Co., it could well have been 7-1 if not for the rain Gods. Tumultuous days ahead for Indian cricket with reports of unrest and divide in the Indian camp.[/quote]

A balanced and nuanced take on the series outcome. Except that everyone is being rather harsh on Virat/Rohit , which expected from the regular IND cricket fan.
The fact of the matter is that it is 'Bowlers that win matches', esp in Test format. And our bowling attack sans Bumrah is below par at the moment. When we 2 consecutive series Down under, we had the firepower of Bumrah, Umesh and Shami - all bowled consistently in 140+, we had an accurate Ishant for support. Ashwin/Jadeja are on the decline as apin options to restrict from one end.
So coming back to batting - The truth is we do not have competent backups to force out Rohit/Virat:
- Devdutt neither has runs in First class/A games and failed in given chances
- Sarfaraz does not have much answers to the short ball, though he is outstanding on domestic flat tracks
- Gaekwad & Easwaran failed to score any runs in the A games
- Patidar failed miserably in the Eng series

Look at the Aussies batting - Smith/Marnus/Khwaja - their batting mainstays were struggling for form/runs but the Aussie selectors persisted with them.

Bottomline : Aussie bowling attack was right on their money and the pitches were tailored to suit them. IND batters have lost their defensive techniques in the surfeit of IPL/white ball cricket. Time to focus on Red ball cricket.

[shivaru]

Originally Posted by PPS

India badly missed Shardul Thakur as 4th bowler. It becomes imperative now to include him or Hardik (with his fragile body) for England tour due to lack of options.
=====
Bumrah cannot be a long term Test Captain with his workload & injuries. Pant should not be overburdened with Captaincy role. So there are hardly any other options left. Don't be surprised if Selection Committee appoint Kohli as Interim Captain for that England tour!!

You got it right sir ! Its 4 fit seam bowlers for SENA . Everyone loves berating the batters. IND batters never had good numbers barring exceptions in the SENA. Recall that IND lost 4-0 in 2012 with Tendulkar, Dravid, VVS, Sehwag & MSD.
The only issue I have is your recommendations on Thakur and Bumrah - Both are injury prone and hardly play Red ball cricket

[AtheK]

In a major tactical move, Microsoft making the right moves.



Atleast internet still has not lost sense of humour around this disaster.

[mack.mehul]

I believe the target for australia of 160 odd was a decent target on the grassy kind of pitch. But without bumrah, all we could manage was only 4 wickets. Now lets come to problems currently plaguing the indian team at present:

1. The Seniors like Rohit & Kohli are well past their prime but we persist with keep them and keep playing them on and on and on. With the way kohli has got himself out in the same fashion in almost 8 innings, shows he is past his prime. However the even bigger failure was Rohit, with single digit scores mostly and attempting absolutely foolish kind of shots.

2.The Middle order is also virtually making no runs whatsover. KL was playing good however he ran out of steam towards the end. Perhaps in both the innings he got unplayable kind of deliveries. Gill was looking set in 2nd innings but again a T20 kind of shot got him out. In the last test, Pant himself out playing a T20 kind of shot. At this stage i think the management should get serious, those getting out playing T20 kind of shots should either be warned or not play in tests again. Even Rishabh Pant, he did not capitalize on the good starts he got. In the 4th test match, kohli got jaiswal run out when he was playing a good innings. These kind of antics are not at all required in a test match.

3.Nitish Reddy was the find of the tour. Playing such handy knocks on seaming pitches speaks volumes of his talent and he should be tried at no. 4 or 5 to see if his talent was for real. Plus he needs to sharpen his bowling. At present he bowls a bit slow for a medium pacer.

4.Pacers- 160 was a decent target however without bumrah, indian team was shown the mirror. We need decent pacers who can support bumrah and when situations arise they can step up and take place of bumrah. Prasidh Krishna was impressive however seeing Siraj's line & length in 2nd innings was shocking. Bowling on the legs of the australian batsmen. Clearly, Siraj also needs to calm down rather than behaving like kohli on field and constantly elbowing and hurling abuses.

Lastly we have been sidelining kuldeep yadav, chahal and many other good spinners for making jadeja & ashwin play. With ashwin gone, i think jadeja should also be shown the door and we need to make the new spinners play.

Like the srilankan team, which performed very badly in the last 4-5 years after the retirements of their star players but now their team is slowly settling down, we should also be prepared for the same because it will take sometime to rebuild the team and the bench strength.