[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by shashank.nk

...
I wonder if the experiments based on current form will end or should we expect more in the England & Australia series later this year.

Well, one good thing this series has done is wiped clean the 'current form' slate, at least for the batsmen. They have no choice but to select on merit now.

[Oxy]

Originally Posted by vamsi.kona

While the ground fielding has improved, what is more dangerous is that our slip catching has become atrocious. Earlier, we had slow fielders but decent slip fielders as far as pace bowling was concerned and really great slip fielder in Dravid as far as standing in slips for spin bowling was concerned. Now we might be the worst slip fielding side amongst the test majors.

By dropping Rahane, we not only lost our best overseas batsman, but also a very competent slip fielder. Appalling decision.

Kohli and Shastri should be sacked after this embarrassment. We just cannot allow a repeat of this in England and Australia.

Time to promote Dravid to the senior team coach from the junior team coach position (or bring back Kumble), and groom Rahane as the next captain.

[PPS]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Winning away is difficult, understandably so, but the absolute lack of temperament and application is horrible. Both tests were winnable (the second probably less so), both have been surrendered without a fight. That's unacceptable; home, away or or Mars.

It was a totally spineless & disgraceful batting & fielding performance from the team. I have no problems with the team losing games, but atleast give a tough fight to the opposition!

The below tweet from Sanjay Manjrekar sums up the situation pretty well:

[Sawyer]

It is too early to talk of Kohli and captaincy, but the Shastri - Kumble issue was mismanaged by the Board as was said by some at that time as well; given the inertia that prevails in BCCI, it will probably take an England reality check for something to be done about that.

The coach may do much less on the field in cricket, but overall he can be a very effective counter balance to letting a single and probably immature person call all the shots. Just because that counter balance is seen as unwelcome isn't reason enough to throw it away.

[NPV]

The target of under 300 took me away from being pragmatic to a fantasy world and I imagined our batsmen may just pull it off. The last session of play on day 4 itself brought me back to reality!

For too long our bowling in overseas conditions was criticised but now the real concern should be batting especially in non-sub continent conditions that don't have flat tracks (where our batsmen are dinosaurs). These same batsmen are sitting ducks where pitches can assist swing or pace bowling.

All said and done, there is a reason why I like test cricket - it is predominantly "predictable" based on statistics (with no bearing on team composition & history usually repeats from the point of view of statistics) and when a team beats all odds to win in such situations, it is truly a commendable victory and rare. Alas, this wasn't the case in this series so far!

This isn't the case in limited overs cricket as there are too many games played and unexpected victories aren't as rare.

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by PPS

The below tweet from Sanjay Manjrekar sums up the situation pretty well:
Attachment 1717849

I would not entirely agree with this.There was a time when India used to compete and compete well (if not still win matches abroad). Unfortunately we never built upon that. The characteristics which helped India do better than current showing overseas have been shunned as not being intent enough.

I feared that it is India's batsmen who will loose the match for us. That is what has happened. A slightly spirited performance from the batting line up would have resulted in a much better performance. In the seamer friendly pitches we do have the bowling calibre to put up a fight. Which is not what I can say about the batting side. We simply (current selection) do not have the calibre. Pujara widely acclaimed as a good test batsman does not have a good overseas record. The only person other than Kohli who has the ability, is not in the team. Pandya's innings in the first test is not that is going to be repeated very often.

[Oxy]

And now the dude loses his marbles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j584FqaGBtg

[shashank.nk]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Well, one good thing this series has done is wiped clean the 'current form' slate, at least for the batsmen. They have no choice but to select on merit now.

Na, you're forgetting that there's a series against Srilanka and the IPL before we go to England or Australia. All will be forgotten by thrashing hapless lankan bowlers around the park.

While we criticise the coach and captain,I feel BCCI is at fault here too, back-to-back series with hardly any time between each, players are human after all.

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by Oxy

And now the dude loses his marbles.

It's a short video so there may be further context to it but this is a ridiculous answer by Kohli. Totally unwarranted.

Kohli and Shastri should be sacked after this embarrassment. We just cannot allow a repeat of this in England and Australia.

Think again, with a cool mind. Sacking the coach and captain after each series loss is not going to lead us anywhere.

What if Rahane had played instead of talent and had scored the same amount of runs ?

My feeling is that we were too aggressive with the team selection. Selecting Pandya as the all rounder and an so called aggressive batter like Talent over a more dependable Rahane were bold calls, maybe taken with some amount of overconfidence in our batting and the previous results at home.

All of us are criticizing the captain in hindsight, and maybe rightly so. History has seen us play 4 bowlers and not be able to take 20 wickets. In addressing that, we weakened our batting too much believing that 5 batters in form will score as many as 6.

It turned out to be a wrong call. Fine, learn from it and move on....

[NPV]

Originally Posted by msdivy

I like your boyish enthusiasm. Scoring at a rate 3 to win, on a crumbling 5th-day pitch against a bunch of quick, is really tall order.

Yes, it happens sometimes when one gets transported to a fantasy world, albeit for a short duration
Explained it here

Originally Posted by NPV

...

Oh and one more thing - not taking anything away from Ngidi's great performance, but the Indian batting has become the launchpad for yet another rising star bowler

[Oxy]

Originally Posted by Eddy

Think again, with a cool mind. Sacking the coach and captain after each series loss is not going to lead us anywhere.

What if Rahane had played instead of talent and had scored the same amount of runs ?

My feeling is that we were too aggressive with the team selection. Selecting Pandya as the all rounder and an so called aggressive batter like Talent over a more dependable Rahane were bold calls, maybe taken with some amount of overconfidence in our batting and the previous results at home.

All of us are criticizing the captain in hindsight, and maybe rightly so. History has seen us play 4 bowlers and not be able to take 20 wickets. In addressing that, we weakened our batting too much believing that 5 batters in form will score as many as 6.

It turned out to be a wrong call. Fine, learn from it and move on....

Rahane's presence would have given us a brilliant slip catcher too, apart from a more dependable batsman than Rohit.

And the BCCI need to nip this yes man culture in the bud once and for all. What is Shastri's role and what has he done that Kumble hasn't? Kohli needs to be told that he is expected to work with people who may not agree with his ideas everytime. If he has a problem with that then we need to have a new captain.

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by NPV

Oh and one more thing - not taking anything away from Ngidi's great performance, but the Indian batting has become the launchpad for yet another rising star bowler

Well, at least we have evolved from establishing careers of batsmen (think Saeed Anwar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Matthew Hayden, etc)

Originally Posted by vibbs

I would not entirely agree with this.There was a time when India used to compete and compete well (if not still win matches abroad).

He is talking about losing, not about competing. Agreed we were not thrashed by an innings nor did we have declarations, but that is more down to our bowling strength (well relatively at least). we are not yet a Pakistan in the bowling department, but in terms of batting overseas we are pretty much there.

An ideal team would be a Pakistan bowling strength and Indian batting strength; not the other way around

[ranjitnair77]

I'm a little baffled by all the calls for picking Rahane in the playing eleven. He has been visibly struggling in the recent past. A quick Statsguru check shows that in the last year.

• Rahane has played 11 tests and 18 innings. Scored one century.
• His batting average is 34.62 for the year against an overall batting average of 44.15.
• His last 6 innings had scores of 10, 1, 2, 0, 4, 17 against a weak Sri Lankan attack.

Now it's very tricky to argue that you should pick Rahane due to his stellar overseas record. We played 3 tests in Sri Lanka in 2017 (in which he did reasonably well) and the overseas tour before that was in the West Indies in July-Aug 2016. That's not a selection criteria. And you don't pick a guy on fielding alone for a test match.

The right thing to do would have been to drop him from the squad so that he can regain his batting form and make a strong comeback. Picking him in the touring squad and not playing him was not the right thing to do.

[y448]

Originally Posted by Eddy

It turned out to be a wrong call. Fine, learn from it and move on....

I am afraid if anything is being learned from all this seeing the way Kohli defended his team selections in the press conference.

Keeping fingers crossed and hoping Rahanae and Bhuvi makes a come back in the third test.

[suhaas307]

I don't think selection has much to do with our loss. We needed at least two batsmen to apply themselves in both innings at both venues. Two of them applied themselves in two innings. There was no substantial partnership, and the team lost wickets at regular intervals.

This was the perfect platform for players like Rohit and Dhawan to prove themselves, bit alas.