[arun_kun]

Originally Posted by r_devakumar

Isn't spin bowling / pitches makes the game more boring? Without aggressiveness any sport could become boring. Wish India has more fast bowlers who can be the considered as match changes instead of depending on spinners all the time.

Every time we play overseas, we are criticized about our bowling attack and our batsmen ability to play in fast and swinging pitches. And we take it to the chin and play and try to win. Why should others not get more quality spinners and adjust as per our pitches. Isn't it fair? They should not cry either right?

[deepv]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Happy to see India win a good test but feel sorry for SA. Amazing grint, grind and will to survive

This is surely one of the better wins, comes as an icing on the cake with series already won,
but it has taken up the level of win by quite a few notches as the match was hard fought and till second session it looked like heading for draw.

Originally Posted by arun_kun

... Why should others not get more quality spinners and adjust as per our pitches. Isn't it fair?

I completely agree to that, India should NOT try to manufacture fast/green pitches at the cost of spin.
As it is our batting quality vis-a-vis spin has started to decrease, and if it continues like this we would be in 'no man's land'.
Improvement w.r.t. fast bowling (playing as well as bowling) should not come at the cost of spin expertise.

[carwatcher]

This is the only test where the victory felt sweet and well deserved rather than manufactured. If one looks at the current state of all the teams that play tests, everyone has relatively young players and no team is consistent and looks settled. This makes test cricket exciting rather than one-sided provided teams and players ready to spend time in the middle.

[mukul32]

Some really exciting updates from the cricketing fraternity in the last couple of days:
1. The MCL T20 Player's Auction took place in the UAE yesterday. The MCL is a T20 league meant exclusively for retired players to be held in UAE in January. Adam Gilchrist, Jacques Kallis and Brett Lee were the top earners. Other icon players include Sehwag, Lara, Sangakkara, Jayawardena, Ganguly, Swann, Muralitharan, Collingwood, Graeme Smith*, Vettori, Azhar Mahmood, etc.

However, considering that the tournament allows only players retired completely from all international cricket, the player's list does show some surprises: Ryan McLaren, Ben Laughlin, Shaun Tait, Richard Levi, Michael Lumb, Michael Carberry, Tino Best, Johan Botha, and last but not the least, Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

(It's sad to see Chanderpaul technically retired. He kept fighting board and selection politics as long as he could. And there hasn't even been an official announcement from him. That of Botha too comes across as a major surprise, especially with a World T20 in the subcontinent coming up. There still are very few spinners as tidy as Botha in the T20 format. However, the most shocking one has to be that of Ryan McLaren. He was playing for South Africa until very recently. Richard Levi too is just 26 years of age.)

At the same time, one big name, Wasim Akram, who was associated with the MCL from the very beginning, has pulled out from the tournament, in order to contribute to Pakistan's PSL T20 league, as ambassador and advisor. Shoaib Akhtar and Ramiz Raja have also pulled out from the MCL tournament for the same reason.


2. Speaking of retirements, there is another news, though this one is contradicting: Graeme Smith, the former South African captain, is seriously contemplating an international comeback. Smith, 34, retired a year ago, as part of a shock announcement to the cricketing world. Many had called his decision too early, and he would also have been in the reckoning for the 2015 world cup, had he been around.

The former Proteas legend has said that he has "3-4 years of serious cricket left in him", and that he would take the final call looking at how things work out at the MCL. His comeback bid comes right at a time when the South African team faced a big loss in the test series on Indian soil. He has however, fully backed the team, saying that they are a young team in their transition phase.

3. The two new IPL franchises to replace CSK and RR have been announced, and they will belong to the cities of Pune and Rajkot. Sanjay Goenka's New Rising consortium and electronics manufacturer Intex have won the rights for the Pune and Rajkot franchises respectively, in a reverse bidding process by the BCCI for the same. The top ten players from the existing CSK and RR rosters will be distributed among the two teams by a draft method, while the rest with others will be released for the auction, to be held on February 6. The 2016 IPL season begins on April 9.

4. The final call about the controversial Indo-Pak series, scheduled to be held in December in Sri Lanka will be taken by the Indian government on Wednesday. Several reports have said that the government is not in favour of the tournament at the moment, due to

[Marauder]

So, the schedule for the World T20 has been announced less than 3 months before the start of the tournament.

And if that wasn't dumb enough, the India vs Pak fixture has been allocated to Dharamsala.
http://www.icc-cricket.com/news/2015...dule-announced

Looks like after Mumbai and Chennai, Dharamsala is the next prime destination for Indian cricket.

[PPS]

Nehra makes a comeback to India T20 Squad. He's going to be a liability in the field! Yuvraj also makes a comeback to the T20 squad.
Raina dropped from the ODI squad, he's been inconsistent lately & vulnerable against the short ball.
The ODI team is looking a bit thin in the batting department. Would have preferred Harbhajan over Axar Patel in the ODI's!

[anubshar]

The T20 team announced today seems to be the most balanced Indian team in the last year or so with mix of youth and experience both. I think if these guys perform well down under then I see a very good chance that India will be lifting world T20 cup in Kolkata

[mukul32]

Wow! That's a slight surprise. Nice to hear Yuvraj and Nehra are back. Speaking of the WT20, seniors being given a chance is good news. However, I am more happy that the right players have been dropped from the team. Mishra's exclusion from the T20 side is slightly shocking, but apart from him, the likes of Binny, Rayudu, Mohit Sharma, etc. don't really belong to the T20 side at least. In fact, Binny & Mohit don't belong to international cricket at all.

Also, Coming to hear that Yuvraj is highly likely to be dropped by DD into the IPL auction (they may rebuy him for a lower price), and that Nehra too will be back into the auction from CSK, it is a great chance for both to raise their values in the IPL as well.

[mukul32]

And there's big news for IPL fans! The first trading window has closed, and big names like Yuvraj, KP, Steyn, Ishant, Karthik, Mathews, Finch, Ojha, Sammy, Bailey, etc have been dropped by their respective teams. Narine has been retained despite facing a ban from ICC, while (Sir) Bopara has been dropped. Kedar Jadhav has moved to RCB from DD.
Yuvraj and Karthik's future was almost certain given their performance and prices, so was Steyn's to some extent, but KP's exclusion from SRH is shocking to say the least! He was an absolute bargain, rather, a burgle, at just 2 crores in the auction, given his form, experience, legendary status and star value. And now they have dropped him! What!!!
However, with a lot of really interesting players into the mix this time around, the auction to be held on 4th of February is set to be an absolute cracker!

[Eddy]

I was hopeful of a victory today but an umpiring error and Smith spoiled it for us, at that what it looks like not having actually seen the match.

But well played, better than I had expected in the first game in Australia !

[NPV]

What's a par score against such an Aussie side playing in Australia on a good batting track - 400 ?
Looks like they polished off the 309 with ease and finesse. Rohit's 171 goes in vain

[Oxy]

We got only ourselves to blame for the rigid stand we have against DRS implementation. Yes it's not perfect but neither are the on field umpires.

The team selection was also wrong. Spinners will always be useless in Australia (unless they are Warne quality) so playing both Jadeja and Ashwin was a massive mistake. Rishi Dhawan should have played over one of them.

Also I think Kohli and Rohit slowed down things considerably between overs 35 and 45, which probably costed us another 30 runs. When you are only 1 wicket down after 35 overs, I fail to get why you cannot go all guns blazing in the last 15 overs.

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by Oxy

I fail to get why you cannot go all guns blazing in the last 15 overs.

Because sometimes that has also proved costly. I've seen many times set batsmen getting out and then the whole team crumbling apart in the last overs.

It was a dead pitch and teams batting second can always plan their innings. Given that there are hardly any quality bowlers these days, no total is safe in one day cricket.

[PPS]

Atleast we took the game into the last over of the match! From what i could make out from the highlights, it was a flat pitch & our bowlers have always struggled on such a pitch which doesn't offer turn.
Maybe we should try chasing in rest of the games if such similar pitches are provided since Aussie bowlers don't look very threatening.

[Oxy]

Originally Posted by PPS

Atleast we took the game into the last over of the match! From what i could make out from the highlights, it was a flat pitch & our bowlers have always struggled on such a pitch which doesn't offer turn.
Maybe we should try chasing in rest of the games if such similar pitches are provided since Aussie bowlers don't look very threatening.

In ODIs and T20s, you will get flat pitches everytime. The crowd comes to see fours and sixes, not teams getting rolled over for 150.

We are just not going to win many games with this bowling. Our chances look bleak for the World T20.