[NPV]

Originally Posted by Eddy

- Who will you drop from the squad (not the 11) ? Except Dhawan, who ? Everyone seems to have done just enough to retain their places. Even Dhawan could be retained.

- After a 1-4 loss, if we cannot drop even a single player - then should Ravi Shastri go ? Why ? Is it because he is a soft target ?

*This is purely with respect to the test squad:
I think Murali Vijay, Dhawan, Pandya can be dropped.
We need to build a new opening pair, someone who can bat with Rahul, maybe Prithvi Shaw or even Pant who can be nurtured since he's so young and talented. Left-Right opening pair will be good, so essentially replace Dhawan with Shaw/Pant.

Middle Order - other than Kohli, can't rely entirely on Pujara and Rahane. I think we can try/nurture Karun Nair and Vihari and have Shubman Gill as a backup for future. Vihari can possibly be the lower order all-rounder.

Wicket-keeping - Saha or Pant if he improves his skills as a wicketkeeper or use him as a specialist batsman (opener).

Bowling - quite good now in this department and we have other options as well like Shardul Thakur, Siraj Khan, Unadkat, in addition to Bhuvaneshwar, Bumrah, Umesh Yadav, Shami. Spinners we have Ashwin and Jadeja and also Kuldeep Yadav from future perspective.

It's not about Shastri becoming a soft target, but assuming he had a say in the team selection and for his inputs as a coach, he will be one of the parties responsible for the failures on the South Africa and England tours. In fact even Sanjay Bangar, what has he done as batting coach ? One of the 'strongest' batting lineups failing so badly at times.

[kavensri]

and one more person we all are forgetting in these discussions, BHARATH ARUN. I do not know whether he can be given credit for the performance of all the fast bowler, but what a change he has brought out of Ishanth! When Ishanth came into the team, I was really impressed with his height and his bowling action. However, every time he used to disappoint us with his consistency (or lack of) on line and length. However, in this whole series, he has hardly erred and batted stubbornly in couple of innings. Therefore, maybe we can put complete blame on Bangar for pathetic batting performance; but we should at least remember our bowling coach!

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by NPV

*This is purely with respect to the test squad:
I think Murali Vijay, Dhawan, Pandya can be dropped.
We need to build a new opening pair, someone who can bat with Rahul, maybe Prithvi Shaw or even Pant who can be nurtured since he's so young and talented. Left-Right opening pair will be good, so essentially replace Dhawan with Shaw/Pant.

Middle Order - other than Kohli, can't rely entirely on Pujara and Rahane. I think we can try/nurture Karun Nair and Vihari and have Shubman Gill as a backup for future. Vihari can possibly be the lower order all-rounder.

Wicket-keeping - Saha or Pant if he improves his skills as a wicketkeeper or use him as a specialist batsman (opener).

Bowling - quite good now in this department and we have other options as well like Shardul Thakur, Siraj Khan, Unadkat, in addition to Bhuvaneshwar, Bumrah, Umesh Yadav, Shami. Spinners we have Ashwin and Jadeja and also Kuldeep Yadav from future perspective.

It's not about Shastri becoming a soft target, but assuming he had a say in the team selection and for his inputs as a coach, he will be one of the parties responsible for the failures on the South Africa and England tours. In fact even Sanjay Bangar, what has he done as batting coach ? One of the 'strongest' batting lineups failing so badly at times.

Vijay has already been dropped, which is understandable. While India can chosse to not play Pandya in the 11, he has enough merit to be in the squad. There is no alternative to him as a seam bowling all rounder (used loosely).

As far as the opening goes, I don't think we should revert to making middle order players opening the innings. Sehwag was an exception.

Bowling is sorted for the near long term so

BHARATH ARUN

Absolutely. Whoever has worked on Ishant deserves all the credit. In fact, Ishants attitude with the bat is also fantastic. Very Australia like, he puts a premium on his wicket inspite of being a tail-ender.

[msdivy]

Let me decode Kohli's slippery slope fallacy thought process:
* To play at highest level, one has to believe he is the best
* Since one believes he is the best, he will play the best
* Since they all play best all the times, if they lose, nothing else can be done because best cannot be bested

Ravi Shastri keeps harping that this is the best team in 15 years to tour England (which is echoed by Kohli, who was 15 years in 2003). No idea where Shastri got his stats. Here are India's results in England since 2002:
2002: Total 4, Result 1-1
2007: Total 3, Result 1-0 in favor of India
2011: Total 4, Result 4-0 in favor of England
2014: Total 5, Result 3-1 in favor of England
2018: Total 5, Result 4-1 in favor of England
So in the last 15 years, 2018 series team is 2nd worse or 4th best on how you look at it

Coming to this series, the constant theme through the series was baffling team selection.
1st Test: Where is Pujara?
2nd Test: Why 2 spinners on a seaming wicket and how Kuldeep played ahead of Jadeja?
3rd Test: Why just 1 spinner on a turning wicket?
4th Test: Why did Ashwin play when he wasn't fit? (Which aggravated his injury)
5th Test: How did Vihari play ahead of Nair?

[msdivy]

One more I had missed, which is a legacy of Kohli is the absence of practice matches. In a series of 5 tests, they had planned just one 4-day match, which was reduced to 3-day at the insistence of Indian team management and the official reasoning was the quality of opposition was bad. Instead of practice matches, the team had 9-day, 4-day Europe trips between the tests

Some stats, number of innings taken by top 5 Indian batsmen to score their 1st fifty in the series:
Kohli - 1st innings
Pujara - 4th innings
Rahane - 5th innings
Rahul - 10th innings
Murali, Dhawan - Never
The schedule which works of Kohli is not working for other batsmen.

[Eddy]

Only 20 odd one dayers left for India to finalise number 4, 5 & 6.

You guys ready for our favorite debate - Mahendra Singh Dhoni ?


PS: It is really bad scheduling that we are playing full ODIs on consecutive days in this heat. And worse is that BCCI accepted this stupidity. Surely they had enough muscle to work something out.

[Oxy]

Originally Posted by Eddy

Only 20 odd one dayers left for India to finalise number 4, 5 & 6.

You guys ready for our favorite debate - Mahendra Singh Dhoni ?


PS: It is really bad scheduling that we are playing full ODIs on consecutive days in this heat. And worse is that BCCI accepted this stupidity. Surely they had enough muscle to work something out.

I really cannot believe we accepted this stupidity. The India-Pak game could have been easily swapped with the Afghanistan-Bangladesh one. That way all teams would have got atleast a one day gap between games.

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by Eddy

It is really bad scheduling that we are playing full ODIs on consecutive days in this heat. And worse is that BCCI accepted this stupidity. Surely they had enough muscle to work something out.

It's poor scheduling for sure, but probably BCCI would've agreed assuming that the Ind Vs HK game won't be a full ODI (the Pak Vs HK lasted 50 odd overs only).

[Eddy]

What if we are put in to bat ? The game is likely to last 80-90 overs then.

[PPS]

Originally Posted by Eddy

PS: It is really bad scheduling that we are playing full ODIs on consecutive days in this heat. And worse is that BCCI accepted this stupidity.

We assume BCCI may have forgotten, what they've managed instead is to get India to play all their matches in Dubai & they've also managed a more fancy hotel for the players where the other teams are not put up!

Btw, just hope all the reserve players are given a go against Hong Kong.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by Eddy

What if we are put in to bat ? The game is likely to last 80-90 overs then.

Right now definitely there is the tendency to take the Indian limited overs squad for granted, more so in this tournament. I hope the game against Pakistan and maybe another couple more test the team, even a loss in one of them can be an eye opener given we have so few matches left before the world cup.

[Marauder]

Originally Posted by Eddy

It is really bad scheduling that we are playing full ODIs on consecutive days in this heat. And worse is that BCCI accepted this stupidity. Surely they had enough muscle to work something out.

Aren't BCCI the hosts of this tournament? Surely, they must've been involved in drawing up this schedule.

Originally Posted by Oxy

I really cannot believe we accepted this stupidity. The India-Pak game could have been easily swapped with the Afghanistan-Bangladesh one. That way all teams would have got atleast a one day gap between games.

Yes, but the Super 4s will start on the 21st so India would've had to play 2 matches on consecutive days and probably in different venues. A possibility that one of Afghanistan or Bangladesh would have to face now.

They should've just started the tournament a day earlier and India should've played on the 17th and 19th.

Originally Posted by PPS

We assume BCCI may have forgotten, what they've managed instead is to get India to play all their matches in Dubai & they've also managed a more fancy hotel for the players where the other teams are not put up!

They might have to play Super 4s matches in Abu Dhabi, depends on where they finish in the group.

[PPS]

Originally Posted by Marauder

Aren't BCCI the hosts of this tournament?

Isn't it the Emirates Cricket Board?

They might have to play Super 4s matches in Abu Dhabi, depends on where they finish in the group.

BCCI have come to some sort of an agreement that India won't play in Abu Dhabi from what i read.
Scheduling of the tournament is really strange! India are just about playing their 1st game & SL is already knocked out of the tournament.

[msdivy]

BTW, why there are no matches in Sharjah, the holy grail of Gulf cricket ?!

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by msdivy

BTW, why there are no matches in Sharjah, the holy grail of Gulf cricket ?!

Because it turned out to be the holy grail of match fixing as well in the past.