Indian domestic cricket/ players

[sameerph]

India's one of more successful captains, Ajit Wadekar passed away in Mumbai yesterday.

Ajit Wadekar, who led India to historic wins in the Windies

RIP Ajit.

[prasen9]

Our most successful captains who captained 15 tests and over (using W/L ratio) are:

Kohli, Ganguly, Dhoni, Dravid, Gavaskar, Azhar, Wadekar, Kapil Dev, Bedi, Pataudi, SRT, L. Amarnath.

Interesting that all the ones with better records than Wadekar are those that came after him.

Azhar and Wadekar won and lost the same number of matches each (W/L=1). The listed ones after Wadekar had a losing record. The ones listed before had winning records. I listed Azhar before Wadekar because he won (and lost) at a greater rate than W.

This also shows that our team has improved over the years, notwithstanding some dips under SRT, etc. It also shows that despite being a pedestrian captain, SRT got to captain in 25 tests, of course, because he was SRT.

Kapil was not that great a test captain as he was an ODI captain, I suppose. Or was his WC largely a result of some inspired play by him and the team at that tournament? And, like Leander, he found it difficult to sustain that motivation day in and day out?

[PKBasu]

Mayank Agarwal continues to blaze away, as his 124* takes India A to victory over India B. Rayudu top-scored for the latter with 48, continuing his fine form after passing the yo-yo (re)test. Prasidh Krishna and Gopal shone with the ball.

[kna]

Mohammed Siraj continues his great form with 8-59 against Australia A in Bengaluru.

He has done enough to deserve a spot in the Test squad for the next series (maybe in place of Umesh Yadav).

[PKBasu]

It is outrageous that Gurbani doesn't get picked for India A despite his stellar domestic performances that took Vidarbha to the Ranji and Irani trophy titles last year. It is as if the selectors fear that he will succeed in these trial games and force them to pick him for India before long -- despite being a medium-pacer a la Praveen and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar (in the early stages of the latter's test career).

[kna]

Four pacers have been tried for India A in the 4-day games in England (against WI A and England A) and in India (against SA A and Aus A).

Of the six games (including the current one against Aus A), Md. Siraj has played 5, Navdeep Saini 5, Ankit Rajpoot 4 and Gurbani 2.

It has been a choice between Rajpoot and Gurbani for all the games.

My guess us that Gurbani will come in for either Rajpoot or Saini in the next game.

Gurbani has done decently in the two game he has played (1-53, 3-64 against WI A in England and 2-37, 2-45 against SA A in India).

Hopefully he does well against Aus A in the next game.

[VReddy]

He is an improved version of Umesh Yadav. Will be the fastest amongst our bowlers (touching upto 150+), loose with his line and length but one thing going for him is - he has been a wicket taker. His first class average has always been close to 25 whereas Umesh has always been in the low 30s even in Ranji Trophy.

Similar to Umesh - mediocre fielder, non-existent batting skill.

Quoting as its an old post (can't reference that easily). His first class bowling average has gone sub-19 now. This will him playing more and more matches against superior quality batsman than what he faced while playing for Hyderabad.

Still pretty wayward but is the fastest amongst all, good yorker and has strong control on reverse swing.

[SaniaFan]

who?

[kna]

I think VReddy is referring to Mohammed Siraj.

[prasen9]

PKB, medium pacers have been mistreated for a while. Pace is overrated by the selectors. Bhuvi got shafted of the test team (and put in the ODI team !) time and again. Praveen Kumar was chucked out in favor of nobodies who did not good. Gagandeep never got a chance. Sandeep Sharma does not get opportunities. Dhawal Kulkarni had a decent start in ODIs but never got a chance to continue. Unadkat did well in ODIs and got chucked out. You can add Stuart Binny there too in ODIs. Welcome to the list Gurbani. Not saying that it is right. I hope they give him chances.

[VReddy]

^^ To SaniaFan/kna: I was referencing Siraj, yes.

[PKBasu]

Four pacers have been tried for India A in the 4-day games in England (against WI A and England A) and in India (against SA A and Aus A).

Of the six games (including the current one against Aus A), Md. Siraj has played 5, Navdeep Saini 5, Ankit Rajpoot 4 and Gurbani 2.

It has been a choice between Rajpoot and Gurbani for all the games.

Why do we have domestic cricket if performances count for nothing -- and IPL (a T20 league) is the preferred basis for deciding on the quality of our cricketers?
Saini, Rajpoot and Siraj were all thoroughly outclassed by Gurbani in the Ranji season last year (by a country mile, including in matches that they both played -- eg the Ranji SF where Gurbani totally outclassed Saini). Yet, they all get to play ahead of Gurbani for India A. In England, there was an attempt to ensure that Gurbani would get as little exposure as possible, for fear that he would perform and force the selectors to consider him for the test side. He has the sort of skills and pace that made Sam Curran succeed during this test series, but our selectors will try as hard as possible to keep him out of India A, leave alone considering him for India.

Similarly, Mayank Agarwal (now 27) seems to have to prove himself in umpteen different ways before he comes into contention. Now the selectors are grudgingly admitting that he is "close" to being picked, having tried desperately hard to ignore him for the past 6 months.

[PKBasu]

We are into the second round of Ranji trophy matches now. At Rohtak, Jharkhand beat Haryana in 2 days, bowling the latter out twice for under 100 -- with Varun Aaron picking up 6 wickets in the second innings. Ravindra Jadeja has taken 4 and 3 wickets in the first and second innings respectively, and made 178* to place Saurashtra within reach of an outright win tomorrow (Day 4). Manoj Tiwary made 201* for Bengal against MP, but that match is becoming a fight for first innings lead (MP at 254/5 in response to Bengal's 510/9d).

[prasen9]

Other than Manoj, Milind Kumar of Sikkim has scored 485 runs in 2 matches in 2 innings! He is 27 and not really that great a prospect but is decent for the FC level. Given this and some other random people scoring highly, which may admittedly happen even if strong teams are playing, I think we are getting very little out of our Ranji Trophy. We should have five teams and they should play home and away with semis and a final. And, let the teams get any players they want. That would improve the quality and we can use it as a proxy for A-team and then international selection.

AD Nath of UP has scored 353 runs in two matches and two innings too. This guy played India U-19 and averages over 50 in FC cricket. He is only 25. Maybe we should try him in the A-team if he continues to be consistent. PA Reddy of Hyderabad 253 in two innings off two matches. He is 27, India U-19. RK Bhui of Andhra 322 in three innings. Bhui is 22, India U-19. Both Reddy and Bhui perhaps need to score consistently in the domestics to be noticed. The other Kohli, T. Kohli, also India U-19 is currently 29 and started well. Averaging 105 for 210 runs in two innings. Ex India-A player Jalaj Saxena is next averaging 104.5 (209 runs).

[PKBasu]

Sikkim is in the Plate division -- all new teams like Sikkim (the leaders!!), Arunachal, Nagaland, Pondicherry, etc. I think this should be considered non-first class cricket, with the winners getting promoted to the higher groups.
The rest of the Ranji trophy is proper first class cricket -- similar in standard to the county scene in England/Wales, but well below the Sheffield Shield standard.