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India's T20I squad for the world cup has been announced, highlights:
-MS Dhoni will be mentor
-Dhawan, Chahal not in the squad
-Surprise, Surprise - Ashwin is in :D
So, is this just to keep him in good humour after the England series or did they keep him out of the test series with this plan in mind ?

Link

lol Varun C selected in front of Yuzi for a WC, with no proven credentials. Good to see Ashwin in there, but Kohli and Shastri will never play him. Nice paid holiday for him.

Maybe he can get me an iPhone from Dubai while at it!!

Is Dhoni the non-playing captain then?:D Some truly absurd choices by the selection committee, don't know what they were smoking!

- Chahal dropped inspite of him being your best wrist spinner! He may not be as effective as before but he's still good. Selectors have put their faith in the likes of Axar, Varun Chakravarty & Rahul Chahar who don't have much experience at International level.

- Only see 3 seamers in the Squad. I guess selectors are banking on the pitches slowing up after the IPL.

- Shreyas Iyer part of the standby players when he hasn't played competitive cricket since 5-6 months! Deepak Chahar should have been part of the main squad not the reserves.

- Shikhar Dhawan just captained the team in SL & now he's been dropped! He should have been a standby opener instead of Iyer, though I feel he isn't a great T20 player.

- Ashwin is another surprise. When he can't get into the Test Team inspite of being the better spinner, they've chosen him for the T20 Squad. I like this choice though as he's a like for like replacement for Sundar.

- Natarajan also misses out, would have added nice variety being a left arm medium pacer. Squad looks imbalanced!

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/i...mentor-1276821

Well, well, well ! Surprises all over. Inclusion of R Ashwin and exclusion of Chahal & D Chahar.

Team selection for T20 World Cup looks highly influenced by the new mentor MS. Squad filled with spinners, slowing down the pace of the game and choking the opposition, the typical MS game.

Batting looks balanced, however bowling looks little off with only 3 Pacers in main squad.

Add Dhoni to it. He will not get a game even if the entire XI has left handers!
Yuzi I feel is found out big time along with Kuldeep. It will be hard for him to make a comeback, at least in T20. And this trend might continue. Few spinners doing well in IPL will play for 2-3 years for India. They will be found out and replaced with next batch of spinners.

Barring Ashwin, I think the team was selected on basis of how many catches they took in fielding practice sessions.

Selectors: "Rahul, Yuzvendra come here for selections."

(Both gleefully warming up doing shadow practice bowling)

S: "Go stand there in the slips, whoever takes most catches there will get selected."

Yuz, Rahul: " But sir, we are not slip fielders. Besides in T20 how many overs do fielders stay in slips."

S: "That's the instruction from Team management, we need the best fielders in the team."

Yuzi mumbling to himself "Saale ne phir se chaar finest Scotch maar ke selectors ko England se call kiya hoga"

S: "What did you say"

Yuzi: "Nothing sir, I will watch matches from India with Ash Bhaiya"

S: "Ashwin is selected"

Yuzi:" For slip catching?"

S: "For outfield"

Y: "Ash bhaiya for his fielding skills in the deep?"

S: "No, for outfield. Bench warming to show aggressive intent to the opposition that we don't select based on ability and performance"

Yuzi trying to make sense of it all....

Receives a call from Kuldeep: "Aaja yaar, have two tickets for a stand-up performance, we need to go."

Yuzi confused: "Why?"

Kuldeep: "They cuss a lot, glare a lot instead of performing. That shows intent. We can learn so that we can show we can show to Kaptaan Kohli that we can do it too"

Yuzi: "Ok, let's take a few more tickets too, have a feeling we will get many players wanting to learn..."

Scene pans to Rahul Dravid , who having to prove his intent as Indranagar ka Goooonda, is calmly reading Calvin & Hobbes... Building the next gen team based on cricketing performance (not theatrical performance) and better man management.

Ashwin has been selected for the West Indies match. The batting order is almost all lefties.

Axar is a surprise and 5 spinners looks like an overkill. Chahar / Shardul could have been there.

Iyer or Ishan - not sure about this one.

Also, this is not the final squad..changes can still be made.

Little surprised with the T20 WC squad. Shardul in place of one of the spiners would have been a good choice.

Ashwin selected. He will warm the bench for the world cup as well. It is like the IT Manager who does not like an adept coder and keeps him on bench for an eternity.

My playing XI for the last Test

R Sharma
KL Rahul
C Pujara
V Kohli
H Vihari
R Pant
S Thakur
R Ashwin
M Shami (if fit) / Unesh Yadav
J Bhumrah
M Siraj

Vihari can bowl few overs of off spin and can hold one side when we see wickets falling at the other.

Let's look at Jadeja and Ashwin's batting averages by year.

2017 – Ashwin: 17.07, Jadeja: 41.00
2018– Ashwin: 20.40, Jadeja: 45.60
2019 – Ashwin: 12.00, Jadeja: 62.85
2020 – Ashwin: 6.60, Jadeja: 41.00

Is there anything marginal about this? Proper batsmen average over 40. Jadeja is able to bat time against the swinging ball in difficult conditions because of his technique. Against the same attack in the same conditions, Ashwin would collapse like a pack of cards. When you have a long tail, you need a batsman of Jadeja's quality, not Ashwin's, at 7. Kohli and Shastri know this. Armchair experts, well, are armchair experts.

Because of how conditions are in England, the four fast bowlers are supposed to take 20 wickets, anyone else who chips in is a bonus, not essential. The Indian team management trusts the fast bowling attack to do the job, which is precisely why, in seam friendly conditions, Ashwin will not make the 11. Thing is, from the results so far, looks like the management is right, and the fast bowling quartet is more than up to the task.

Dhoni in for the midas touch? He's India's best captain in white ball formats.

Ashwin is definitely a good pick. Unlike Kul-Cha who score the wrong fifties, I've never seen him being hit for 50+ in a T20. He will be key against some T20 giants like Gayle, Warner, Malan etc.

Shreyas Iyer is very unlucky to miss out, but I hope he is India's #4 going forward.

I haven't seen all the games (NZ, Aus); Did BCB abuse their power by doctoring the pitches to make them turn square?

I would have a couple changes from this:
- Siraj is clearly tired right from the third test. Wouldn't keep him in, hardly any rest between 4-5th tests.
- Three seamers, two spinners. This should have been the bowling attack all along. Seaming track doesn't mean Ashwin is not dangerous. He was India's best bowler in the WC finals against NZ. Only thing which goes against him is wonder if he is off colour due to being pissed off with lack of match practice.
- Not sure if Vihari should be brought in at the last Test where it is predicted to rain and be overcast. Not easy to suddenly bat in such conditions, Rahane might still be a better option just for the last Test.

Considering Kohli's record in losing tosses, and Root opting to put India into bat first, India should look forward to batting first and have their 3+2 bowlers on the last innings. If conditions are overcast, this test will not last five days with two fragile batting lineups excluding Mr.Root.

I think it's a very good selection.
Contrary to popular belief I feel Ashwin and Jadeja will be starters along with Varun. Yes, we may play 3 spinners in UAE. Chahal has been below par since long so no wonder he got axed.

Iyer has time to prove in IPl how he is coping after his injury and being the incumbent please remember he was ahead of SKY for World cup if he hadn't got injured.

Batting looks solid. If Pandya can bowl we may play only one specialist pacer. Bhuvi over Chahar was always gonna happen and Shardul could only come in if Hardik was injured. But, it's good they are atleast in reserves.

Dhoni as mentor is brilliant move as he knows how to win World Cups.

I am not sure if the pitches are/were actually doctored. The pitches are really sluggish is what I think. What's interesting to notice is, in the last T20I series Hazlewood emerged out as the joint leading wicket taker scalping 8 wickets in 4 matches at an economy rate of 5.42!

2021 -

Jadeja - 6 matches, 10 innings, 0 100s, 1 50, Highest score 56, 219 runs, Average 24.33, S/R 44.06.

Ashwin - 6 matches, 10 innings, 1 100, 0 50s, Highest score 106 (and we all know its impact on the game and monumental series), 267 runs, Average 29.67, S/R 47.94.

Didn't see any collapsing like a house of cards or otherwise. Much the opposite. He first saved and then won us the series.

And last I checked, Australia is pacy wickets and not flat / turners.

Overall Career -

Jadeja - 56 matches, 82 innings, 1 solitary 100, 16 50s (abysmal conversion for a proper bat), Highest score 100, 2145 runs, Average 34.05 (well short of the arbitrary 40 needed to be classified as a proper bat), S/R 59.80.

Ashwin (batting lower down with tails all his career) - 79 matches, 111 innings, 5 100s (even armchair management fans should be able to understand the impact and significance of 5 centuries from a strike bowler lower order bat), Highest score 124, 2685 runs, Average 27.68, S/R 53.76.

So you have a far superior impact test bowler (I don't consider Jadeja a test bowler period), who overall batting lower down with an often crumbling tail converts 5 times more 50s into big 100s, and has an outright superior last year in tests batting, not to mention series clinching impact ... what are we even comparing here?

Cheers, Doc

Instead of bringing in Dhoni for midas touch, they could have made Rohit captain :D