[pratyush6]

Originally Posted by vamsi.kona

The pitch is a decent one and playing true to how it used to behave in that ground. No demons in the pitch. If you see many dismissals were straighter balls, not one's which turned.

I did not watch every ball, but whatever few I did, some of them took a lot of turn, with the new ball on the 1st day! Agree with the temperament bit, Aussies looked rattled. Shame to see them surrendering like that. Now everyone is going to prepare such pitches.

PS : SL won by over 229 runs!

From cricinfo: Eight straight Test defeat for Australia in Asia

[Oxy]

I cannot believe WI forced a draw in Jamaica. This was the first drawn game in Jamaica since 1998.

How could our 5 specialist bowlers not take 6 wickets on a day 5 pitch? We have an utterly hopeless bowling attack.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by Oxy

How could our 5 specialist bowlers not take 6 wickets on a day 5 pitch? We have an utterly hopeless bowling attack.

I think that's too harsh, we still do not have a strong & settled bowling line up, these guys need more experience.
The pitch wasn't like it was crumbling on Day 5, aiding the bowlers too much, etc so all credit must go to the West Indians for handling the bowling well.

[PPS]

Originally Posted by NPV

we still do not have a strong & settled bowling line up, these guys need more experience.

Our bowlers have decent experience, they have been playing International Cricket since a few years! Ishant is a veteran now. I don't know if we ever will have a settled pace attack.

[pratyush6]

Originally Posted by Oxy

I cannot believe WI forced a draw in Jamaica. This was the first drawn game in Jamaica since 1998.

How could our 5 specialist bowlers not take 6 wickets on a day 5 pitch? We have an utterly hopeless bowling attack.

Originally Posted by NPV

I think that's too harsh, we still do not have a strong & settled bowling line up, these guys need more experience.

Agree with NPV - the pitch wasn't your usual dust bowl where the spinners could have run through. It was slow, very very slow. The only threat I saw were the faster men. But some reason they kept trying to bowl the 5th stump line! Only towards the end you saw they trying to attack the stumps. By then it was a little too late.

I don't have a problem with the result - I have a problem with them not trying anything out of the ordinary. It was ridiculous to see them bowl. Yadav was a big let down, again. So was Mishra - I expected him to bowl better, being a leggie. I also need to question Anil Kumble here - being the legend, he should have tried to force certain lines.

I mean, for all I could not believe my eyes when the 2 fast men took the new ball! I expected Ashwin to be bowling with it, if not both spinners. We have done it in the past with exceptional results. And specially when the pitch was slow, the newer cherry could have made the difference. But we utterly wasted it.

Yes, Anil and Kohli can congratulate WI for their show, but it does not hide their deficiencies in planning.

Saw yesterday's post lunch spell of the England fast bowlers - simply brilliant. I hope our bowlers learn a bit of reverse swing.

[Oxy]

The point of picking five bowlers is to ensure we take 20 wickets irrespective of the pitch or conditions. Might as well play the extra batsman if we cannot do that.

Yadav needs to be shown the door. We need to try either Shardul Thakur or Bhuvneshwar Kumar tomorrow. Also it would be a good idea to pick Jadeja over Mishra. Jadeja's variations in pace can be handy I think.

[NPV]

Some good lower order batting by Saha and Ashwin rescued India from a collapse.
Hope they take the score to at least 300 today. Interesting match, good to see the WI bowling show some sting yesterday, good for test match cricket to have some competition between bowlers and batsman instead of one sided games favouring one of them

[PPS]

Bad idea to drop Pujara & that too to accommodate Rohit Sharma.
Atleast Pujara used to get a start & tried to grind out an innings. Not sure why M Vijay wasn't played.

[hemanth.anand]

Drop Pujara
Retain Shikhar Dhawan
Bring in Rohit Sharma

All three wrong calls IMO.

I would've...

Dropped Dhawan
Brought in Vijay
Retained Pujara and Rahul

The other change which is Jadeja in place of Mishra is not a bad change.

Lucky Ashwin (one drop and a catch off a no-ball) somehow saved the day with a 75*. Interesting to see what happens in day2.

[vamsi.kona]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Brought in Vijay
Retained Pujara and Rahul

Isn't Vijay injured? If he had recovered then bringing him back would be very easy decision. He has been our best opener for some time.

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

I would've...

Dropped Dhawan
Brought in Vijay
Retained Pujara and Rahul

Agree 100%. I was surprised to see the team composition.

Vijay has been the best opener for some time in the team. He did deserve to be around. Yes the team does not have a hitter to dictate the pace of the innings, but in the top 5 you do have two guys who do score pretty quickly (Kohli and KL Rahul).

Rahul and Vijay opening the innings with Pujara in at three would have been a solid top three for us, allowing Kohli to play his normal game after the ball has lost a bit of its sting. Plus it has been seen in the past that though Pujara starts of slowly, he does start scoring quickly once he is settled. A fact that can be seen from his big innings. Plus this is a test match and you need people with the temperament to play long innings. We can afford to have walking wickets like Dhawan if the rest of the batting line up is solid. Unfortunately in the absence of both Vijay and Pujara, the only player who can soak up the balls is Rahane and this would put pressure on Kohli who likes to get on with the game.

I did expect that one out of Vijay or Pujara may be dropped, did not expect both of them to be dropped.

Originally Posted by vamsi.kona

Isn't Vijay injured? If he had recovered then bringing him back would be very easy decision. He has been our best opener for some time.

As far as I am aware, he had recovered.

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by vamsi.kona

Isn't Vijay injured? If he had recovered then bringing him back would be very easy decision. He has been our best opener for some time.

No, he had completely recovered and was available for selection.
Rahul would've been dropped if he had not scored that century in the last match.
The reasoning behind retaining Dhawan and getting Rohit in place of Pujara is that they score quickly and this in turn would give time for our bowlers to bowl at the opposition.
I agree with the reasoning that Rohit and Dhawan score quickly whenever they score, but the problem is that they only score once or twice a year

[suhaas307]

I wonder how long the selectors will persist with Talent. Another 200 should seal a spot for him for the next 40 matches.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by PPS

Bad idea to drop Pujara & that too to accommodate Rohit Sharma.

Surprised to see him come out to bat. Was he in the squad, how did he make it?

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

I agree with the reasoning that Rohit and Dhawan score quickly whenever they score, but the problem is that they only score once or twice a year

I don't think they play even once in a year in away tests. They play well in IPL, and get a free ride in test squad. Both of then average around 30.x in non subcontinent test matches.

[Eddy]

Beats me too.

Overseas test match
Playing only 5 batsmen

And Dhawan and Talent are 2 of those 5 ? Strange !!