India in Bangladesh 2022

[prasen9]

My XI would be:

Iyer, Ishan, Kohli, Pant, Sundar, Patidar, Tripathi

Axar

Siraj, Sen, Malik

[PKBasu]

Isn’t Sarfaraz a roly-poly guy who fielding credentials may be suspect? Poor fielders are no longer accepted. Nor should they be.

He is roly-poly, but is a very good fielder. I had that doubt about him too, but it isn't justified.

[prasen9]

For tests, we need good slip fielders. Is he good there? Especially batsmen need to field in the slips. If we play five bats and need four slip fielders to start with, that is a must.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Isn’t Sarfaraz a roly-poly guy who fielding credentials may be suspect? Poor fielders are no longer accepted. Nor should they be.

He is roly-poly, but is a very good fielder. I had that doubt about him too, but it isn't justified.

Doesn't matter how he looks. He will continue to perform in domestic and will not get selected for national team as he doesnt have good source to shout for his inclusion. Politics is deeply ruling Indian Cricket

[prasen9]

This team has gone to the doldrums because of the stupidity of the selection policies. Supposedly, they choose some juniors for New Zealand and some others for Bangladesh because they could not figure out who is more promising than whom. Instead, we will have a bunch of people who will play 2-3 ODIs, etc.

Dhoni wanted only players who have played 50 ODIs. We can say what we want but that policy and that of stacking the team with seven batters paid dividends. We have the anti-Dhoni policies now where we want all playes for 2-3 matches and then supposedly the selectors will see who plays better and select them. This is called a lottery. And lotteries yield diddly squat.

[Sin Hombre]

We are hitting rock bottom of Indian cricket over the past 2 decades. Keep playing Rohit, Dhawan, Kohli until we lose another WC at home.

[prasen9]

Siraj and Washi seem like good ODI bowlers. DLC and Kuldeep took wickets but leak runs. DLC can bat. Thakur, the less said about the better. Shahbaz has kept runs down but does not take wickets. Why are we playing six bowlers really when we have a shoddy batting lineup?

[PKBasu]

Hubristic captaincy from Rohit, after Bangladesh had lost 9 wickets with 50 runs still to score. He kept Kuldeep Sen on, despite the fact that he had been distinctly lucky with his second wicket -- and was otherwise thoroughly wayward. Washington Sundar still had several overs available. He had been so effective, but he didn't get to finish his spell.

[Atithee]

Why is Dhawan still in the team when Sehwag was shown the door in much better shape than Dhawan? Even today, Sehwag can do better then Dhawan.

[prasen9]

Sehwag was an all-time great for us in tests. However, his legacy in ODIs was spotty and arguably less than the hype. He scored 35 runs on the average at about 104 SR. Dhawan scores at 44.5 runs/pop with a 91 SR. It is arguable who is better but I would take the extra 10 runs. This is especially important if we are playing with three #11s that we regularly have been doing over two decades. The basic idea is that Sehwag will save balls for those after him but give you less runs opening. Dhawan will take up more resources but leave you with 10 runs more. If those coming after you at the tail cannot utilize those extra balls, then I'd rather use up the balls and have a more solid bat up front.

But, as I said, it is arguable which is better and results in more wins. We have to analyze all those who come after them to see which gives us better results.

As a rule of thumb, I want our batters to average 40 and have a SR of 90 as a minimum starting point. Maybe these days with inflation we need a 95 SR. And, yes, there was run inflation between Sehwag's time and Dhawan's but much of that inflation was in the middle and lower order due to changes in the fielding rules in the last 10 overs etc. Those rules should not have affected Sehwag or Dhawan who opened. So, the inflation should have less consequences.

Having said all that, I fully agree with you that Dhawan should be chucked out as soon as possible. All I am arguing is that Sehwag was a frustrating borderline batsman in ODIs whereas an all-time Indian great in tests. He could be an useful bowler though. As could Sachin, Yuvraj, etc. That is totally lacking in today's batters. Shows a lack of management and planning by the higher ups. Our batters should be told to bowl and bowlers should be told to bat. The latter is being tried a bit as shown by Bumrah's batting improvement. But, the former has been neglected too long and thus we have the likes of Hooda or we are playing with six bowlers, which is a disaster ... and it was rightly shown up today.

[Atithee]

What was shown up today is disgraceful. No amount of batters bowling or bowlers batting can account for such a shocking 10th wicket partnership resulting in a loss in a ODI.

[prasen9]

Yes, this was perhaps one of the worst loss wrt giving it away to the tail and as you have pointed out over the years, we have had many of these. But, if we had played one more batsman, we would have scored a lot more and then it would have been harder for Bangladesh to overcome that. Why exactly was Sundar bowled only five overs?

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Its shocking only 3 bowlers( Bumrah, Natarajan, Arshdeep) in Indian cricket can bowl toe crushing yourkers at will, rest just rely on slowers, cutters and knuckle bowl which are of no use. Kuldeep Sen & Umran can only stay at this level if they learn and deliver yourkers, otherwise there is no difference between them & 135 kph bowlers.

[Atithee]

Sharma ji, if these three could bowl toe crushing yorkers at will, we will play them in every match and likely win most of them. The fact is that they cannot. In fact, we are the kings of conceding a boundary off the first or especially the last ball of an over. Please don’t delude yourself.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Siraj and Washi seem like good ODI bowlers. DLC and Kuldeep took wickets but leak runs. DLC can bat. Thakur, the less said about the better. Shahbaz has kept runs down but does not take wickets. Why are we playing six bowlers really when we have a shoddy batting lineup?

DLC & Thakur can bat only in flat tracks. They can't even stay at the wicket, play a waiting game with singles and support the main batsman. With every game now its looking DLC's & Thakur's previous's batting were all luck or that particular day belonged them.