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Rohit is the biggest monster out there on a flat deck. Actually, England are playing into India's strength. There is no way India can be subdued on a batting paradise. England can give themselves a chance if they play to their strength, which is swing, and to India's weakness, which is bounce.

Well so we get a taste of our own medicine!! Thwarted by spin?

I am a bit disappointed by KL Rahul. He has become a batsman of extremes. Either scores big or does not at all. Does not seem to get consistent enough considering the talent everyone keeps saying he has.

Pandya will definitely be in the XI, our team management loves him alot.

The other certainty is Vijay as the opener. With Dhawan in some kind of form, he will be preferred as the other opener. The only way I see Pujara playing is if Dhawan is dropped and Rahul plays as the opener. Rahul also looks to be the flavor of the season, so he should play.

I am actually disappointed with the way Pujara has turned up - I really had high hopes, but the stats in his case do not lie. He struggles against quality bowling and/or testing conditions.
>Average against Aus, Eng, NZ, SA :

>Away : 27 with 1 hundred (Against All goes up to 35, with 3 additional centuries Vs SL)
>Home: 61 (62 against all, 10 Centuries in total)

Compare the same to Vijay, his numbers are 35 (away against the 4) 40 at home. Pujara seems to be a bigger flat track bully than most :eek:


The Englishmen would be laugh on seeing Pandya, Saha, Ashwin as 6,7,8 and in English conditions. If Kuldeep gets the nod ahead of Ashwin (and its increasingly looking like it), our lower order is even worse.

In ODIs, he has just played a dozen or so games and of the 250 odd runs in all that he has scored, 200 or so have come when he has opened, he scored least runs at No.4.

In this series, he is being tried at No.4 and clearly seems out of place.

At some point, I think we need to get back to KL either opening (tough in short term, unless one of the openers are out of form) or coming 1 down (and Kohli dropping down to no.4).

Dhawan is an amazing player in limited overs formats. But he's a sitting duck in Test cricket. I think Pujara might play two tests even if it means two king pairs. (I hope he can prove me wrong)

Ideal test 11:
1. Vijay
2. Rahul
3. Rahane (Use his talent as a natural opener)
4. Kohli
5. Karun Nair
6. Karthik/Saha
7-11: Hardik + Bowlers

I don't think dropping Ashwin is a choice, given his ability with the bat.

Dhawan
Vijay
Pujara / KL
Kohli
Rahane
DK (wk)
Pandya
Ashwin
Kuldeep
Bhuvi
Bumrah

If DK doesn't keep, then I dont think Saha, Pandya & Kuldeep can all play. One of them will have to give way for a batter.

Edit: Karun Nair is captaining the India A team in England currently but has had a mixed bag tour. Failed in the ODIs but scored a 90 & 50 in the two test matches against West India A.


Edit 2: Btw, Prithwi Shaw has had a bumper tour. He played in England like Sehwag used to play in the subcontinent. Big scores at 100+ strike rates as an opener. High hopes :)

The problem in getting him come one down is that you are asking Kohli who is undoubtedly among the best Limited over players to move away from his most effective position. Kohli at one down literally controls the pace of the entire innings.

As one of the commentators said, you need a giant of a player to move Kohli away from his position. Rahul is good no doubt, but good enough to move our best Limited over one down player from that position? I don't think so!!

Saha out of the tests. This guy misses out on as many matches as he plays.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/...nd-test-series

In ODIs, Kohli seems to struggle against spin of late. He is better off coming in at 3. We seem to have too many contenders for the top order in ODIs and the middle order in tests.

Also, we should make some space for Ravindra Jadeja in LoIs. He can share the workload with Kuldeep, who is running with the risk of being over exposed. He can be promoted as a pinch hitter with license to hit.

A golden opportunity for Dinesh Karthik.

Car companies can soon offer ABS + EBD + DHONI to put the breaks on any kind of momentum to the product.

All credit to England, outplayed us completely. credit to Shastri/Kohli for commendable team selection of Raina and leaving Rahul out. we are definitely winning the world cup next year like this. Also Dhoni, you are my Man of the series.

I think to consistently win ODI matches, India need to accept that the only position for Dhoni to bat is No.4. Not anywhere else. He is not the finisher he was 3-4 years back and needs considerable time to set the innings up which is what he will get at number 4. Beyond that you need to search for 2 good batsmen who have the ability to hit the ball hard. They need to be quality batsmen too. I think this is where we have a problem. They should now give chance to players like Pant, Manish pandey, shreyas Iyer etc to prove at these two positions. If one of them can roll over for 4-5 overs it will be added advantage.

KL Rahul is a good player, but I seriously believe he needs to come at the top of the order. Top order batsmen very seldom perform in the middle order.

Last two games, England have defeated us at our own game. Their spinners out bowled ours. In conditions most Indian like we could imagine, they out played us. What has also happened is that this has not given us to adjust to English conditions.

Come test cricket and the red ball in Andersen and Broads hands, swing will be back. I hope we don't get too carried away with success of spin in odis and have 2 spinners in test squad as well!

Dhoni has managed to master the art of sucking all life and momentum out of the batting innings. It seems he is taking the image of bringing it to the last over too seriously. I don't know what the CSK IPL team management tells or feeds him, but the same should be done by the Indian think tank.

Pandya seems to always get out to a pace bowler. And nowadays, Kohli to a spinner.

For starters, we need to get rid of our cheerleader coach.

There is talk of having 3; Kuldeep with Ashwin and Jadeja.

Considering there will be swing, we should consider having a good bowler to support Bhuvi & Bumrah (not Pandya). If we are selecting Pandya as a bowler because it supports our batting, we already take one wrong step. Test match positions should be given on primary skills; bits and pieces players will not help us win series.

Agreed Dhoni has lost his touch , but before raising a finger towards him ... Do we have stability in batting once Kohli goes? Dhoni was trying to save his wicket till 45th over and hoping he would accelerate post 45th over but he failed .

Lets also get to the fact that Bhuvi has been quite unreliable of late . I think it was a total team failure in last 2 ODI's. Dhoni should now move up the order and remove the finisher tag . We need to groom DK to take that responsibility.

My playing XI
Rohit , Dhawan , Kohli , KL , Dhoni , DK , Pandya , Kuldeep , Chahal/ Krunal , Bumrah, Bhuvi/Umesh.

I understand what he was trying to do. but his strength lies in attacking cricket; not only by hitting boundaries but by rotating the strike. This is where he seems to be failing more in LoI cricket but played well in the IPL.
If this indicates he is better off only for T20, then the necessary decisions need to be made in 50 over cricket.

We cannot afford to have someone at number 4 who will drain all the momentum.