[VWAllstar]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Not the best choice of words.

Yes, Pant isn't working out too well. I hope this Kul/Cha - Jadeja experiment is resolved one way or another. Rahul has made the most of his chances: one decent score as No. 3, one really good score at No. 4 and good keeping.

EDIT: the bowlers saved us the blushes today. This wasn't a safe score.

You got the euphemism very well. If the management ceases their consideration towards Pant, we inded can have another Rahul who would keep just to have the right balance.

Now if we see this the way I wish to have:

Rohit Sharma
S Dhawan
V Kohli
K L Rahul (wk)
S Iyer
H Pandya
R Jadeja
K Yadav
B Kumar
M Shami
J Bhumrah

[pratyush6]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

A player who can maintain and average of ~45 and reaching 1000 ODI runs in 27 innings (2nd fastest after Kohli) even though he is made to bat at different positions between 1 to 7 and can also keep wickets for you...and you think he is not exceptional...you are being rather too harsh on him I feel. With Today's innings, KLR has made a strong case for himself IMO.

Today's innings was good. And I won't make judgement based either on today's or even on his career till date. He has got umpteen chances and backing to the hilt from the team management. They want him 'in' the side rather than 'out' unlike a few players. So he has everything going for him. His keeping at best is average, again he was good today, won't take that away from him. But would you play him as a keeper in a crucial game? That gives the answer if we should even be using his keeping as a a marker. He is a batsman, lets focus on his batting.

If we want to play him at 6, lets give him enough chances at 6 and see where he is at. The same should also be applicable to other players too. Dropping players after one or two games is just plain unfair and stupid.

There has been this very evident pattern with him - he gets in and then gets out. Top order batsmen cannot play like that. Cute 30s and 40s don't win matches.

So, again, I dont see anything exceptional. I hope he repays the faith put in him, for his sake and for the team's sake. I hope to be proven wrong and I would be very happy to be proven wrong.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

With Today's innings, KLR has made a strong case for himself IMO.

True. KL Rahul is very talented and can easily bat at 1-5 positions in the batting lineup and can keep wickets well, so his utility to the team is multi-fold and often underrated. His spot in the team hasn't been guaranteed and mostly that was because of his inconsistency but now that he has got over that phase, if we can just persist with him, it will do a world of good for his own confidence and also help the team have a stable lineup. Pant is very inconsistent, so I think we can persist with K L as his replacement for some time, this will be a worthwhile experiment unlike others like moving Kohli down to No.4, etc

In yesterday's pre-match discussion of the possible team lineup between VVS Laxman and Harbhajan, I don't know what Bhajji was smoking - he said he'd replace Shami with Shardul Thakur since Shami has been very good with the red ball but not the white ball ! This when Shami is the fastest Indian bowler to get to 100 wickets in ODIs and the highest wicket taker in ODIs in 2019

[harry10]

Originally Posted by harry10

I hope we show some spine and win tomorrow.
Kohli should come back to his no.3 position and let Rahul bat at 4. Shreyas at 5 and Pandey at 6 gives enough batting depth. Jaddu should make way for Chahal and Shardul should be replaced by Saini. What we lacked in first match was aggressiveness and history has shown aussies are only beaten by teams who are ultra aggressive from ball one.

Quoting my own post. Good to see the few changes working well. Rahul was great behind stumps but I dont want to see him keep in all matches as he is a specialist batsman and must concentrate on that only, as a backup keeper he is really good. Shreyas was a disappointment, seemed he simply wasn't interested in batting out, some mental issue perhaps. Though kuldeep picked 2 crucial wickets at the end he still looks out of sorts. Also, we were quite aggressive both with bat and ball and this remains the only way to better Aussies.

It was heartening to see the display of Yorkers by Saini and Shami in death overs. Hopefully Bumrah is coming back to his best and his toe crushers will also be on display soon. Also, never take Bhajji seriously, his commentary is a joke and his opinions makes me wonder if he ever played at international level.

Excited for tomorrow. Special appreciation for Smith, the guys consistency is amazing.

Dhawan seems to be ok for tomorrow and no update about Rohit injury. If he doesn't play Rahul will open and Jadhav will be in middle.

[hondafanboy]

Originally Posted by harry10

Quoting my own post. Good to see the few changes working well. Rahul was great behind stumps but I dont want to see him keep in all matches as he is a specialist batsman and must concentrate on that only, as a backup keeper he is really good. Shreyas was a disappointment, seemed he simply wasn't interested in batting out, some mental issue perhaps. Though kuldeep picked 2 crucial wickets at the end he still looks out of sorts. Also, we were quite aggressive both with bat and ball and this remains the only way to better Aussies.

It was heartening to see the display of Yorkers by Saini and Shami in death overs. Hopefully Bumrah is coming back to his best and his toe crushers will also be on display soon. Also, never take Bhajji seriously, his commentary is a joke and his opinions makes me wonder if he ever played at international level.

Excited for tomorrow. Special appreciation for Smith, the guys consistency is amazing.

You were spot on

Very excited for tomorrow's game , truly a battle of equals.

[NPV]

287 should be gettable, but against the Aussies you can never be complacent, Josh Hazelwood may be the surprise package today.

[VWAllstar]

Rohit Sharma is the man for the important games. Feel sad for Dhawan, whenever he has been on flow he gets injured. He could have very well won us the WC 2020 if he had not been injured, after all he loves ICC events & England.

Harsha Bhogle and S Manjrekar together in commentary, come on Sanju give us the pappu moment again!

From here it looks like we shall win the match by 5 wickets and some 3 overs to spare. Fingers crossed though.

[NPV]

Loved the way Kohli encouraged and prodded Shreyas Iyer to go for the big shots and not be intimidated by Hazlewood and he found success scoring 11 off the 43rd over. This is a mind game and what better way than such tactics to push the Aussies back

[VWAllstar]

Originally Posted by NPV

Loved the way Kohli encouraged and prodded Shreyas Iyer to go for the big shots and not be intimidated by Hazlewood and he found success scoring 11 off the 43rd over. This is a mind game and what better way than such tactics to push the Aussies back

That over actually worries me. Our number 4 isn't very comfortable with short pitched balls. In India, he may get through with flat bat shots but in countries like Aus, NZ and SA we may still have the dilenma of who is best suited for that position.

Anyways, who has been the best number 4 for India over the last 2 decades? Cannot really think of anyone, may be Yuvi and Azhar?

[NPV]

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

Our number 4 isn't very comfortable with short pitched balls. In India, he may get through with flat bat shots but in countries like Aus, NZ and SA we may still have the dilenma of who is best suited for that position.

True but in the context of the game when this happened, it was a clear situation that we'd win from there and it was more of scoring some mental points against Hazlewood who was bowling quite well and it came good. Hazlewood did get back a bit with Kohli's wicket though in his next over. These are qualities of great teams like the Aussies and their players and it's heartening to see our team match up.

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

Anyways, who has been the best number 4 for India over the last 2 decades? Cannot really think of anyone, may be Yuvi and Azhar?

Yuvi all the way. India's all time best no 4 IMO.

[VWAllstar]

Originally Posted by Eddy

Yuvi all the way. India's all time best no 4 IMO.

From his statistics, he was better as a number 5 batsman. He was good in finishing the game rather than being the one who could steady a falling inning.

We have always had this issue even when there were Sachin, Saurav, Sehwag, Gautam and then Dravid. Only Dravid was the number 3, rest all openers. Similar situation now.

As far as I know, Azhar was a good number 4 batsman. Leaving aside his antics during the end of his career, he still was a dependable batsman in the middle order.

[vibbs]

I think going by numbers, it was Azharuddin.
Yuvraj was close as well. He played maximum matches at Number 4(10 - 15 innings more than he did at Number 5 I guess) and has an average close to his overall average. At Number 5 he has slightly better average though (3-4 rpi more than at number 4).

[mazda4life]

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

That over actually worries me. Our number 4 isn't very comfortable with short pitched balls.

Agree 100 percent, it was very troublesome to see him struggle on the short pitched balls on tracks such as the one in Chinnaswamy.
I am not yet convinced that he is a good fit at number 4 position. The shuffle to confuse the bowler is a typical tennis ball tactic that we see in India all the time.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by VWAllstar

That over actually worries me. Our number 4 isn't very comfortable with short pitched balls. In India, he may get through with flat bat shots but in countries like Aus, NZ and SA we may still have the dilenma of who is best suited for that position.

For ODIs & T20s, even in Aus & SA, pitches are mostly flat pitches.