Australia's tour of India

[Sin Hombre]

The match was lost when we decided to play Dhawan as an opener, who taking cue from others, smartly realized that batting for your average is what keeps you in this Indian team.

Kohli has already lost one T20 WC (which we should have won) by playing has-beens or never-beens, he will almost certainly add a 50 over WC to the miss collection in the summer.

In terms of team culture, our LOI teams are rotten and probably the worst since the 90s.


@prasen, it is fashionable and correct to dump on Sid Kaul since he is a nothing bowler, and I have never seen a nothing bowler succeed in international cricket. Need to have something - pace, movement, bounce, accuracy, hard to read action. Kaul, nothing. Same as Unadcutter. And Khalil (unless he can suddenly find some pace).

[Atithee]

TINA. There is no alternative. All the other bowlers have bowled worse than him. If we want to go by performance. Except Bumrah, Bhuvi, Hardik, and Nehra, who has retired. It is fashionable to dump on Kaul because he does not look good. But see what Umesh did last match. Or Siraj in the chances he got. Or Shami for that matter in T20Is.

But there is an alternative: play a hard hitting batsman who has decent bowling experience and send them at the top of the order to destroy the bowling regardless of outcome. Their bowling returns will not be any worse than Kauls. I think any Indian bowler who wears a headband should be automatically disqualified (was it Bose or Dinda, another dud like Kaul?)

[PKBasu]

Australia very much on course chasing down 359 to win. Jadhav being taken to the cleaners today, 44 runs in 5 overs. Vijay Shankar should have bowled 6-7 instead of sharing the burden equally with Jadhav.

The Aussie middle-order seems to have mastered our spinners through ample practice playing them!

[prasen9]

Small ground with flat pitch. India should have scored 380+ (from 190-0 or so in 30 overs). After the first two and to some extent Pant and Vijay, everyone else did badly If Kuldeep and Chahal pick wickets, we win. If not, Australia chases it down. Now imagine at this time we had Krunal and Jadeja. We need wickets. I would have given Sundar a long chance in ODIs because he can bat but we did not ...

[PKBasu]

Pant misses a stumping (Handscomb off Kuldeep), underlying the importance of Dhoni to the spinners.

[prasen9]

That's possibly the match

[PKBasu]

Pant misses another stumping -- this time Turner (who has been blazing away) off Chahal.

[prasen9]

The spinners are having a hard time gripping the ball because of dew in Chandigarh. Oh, well!

[Sin Hombre]

Chahal is also a mentally weak bowler, always collapses under pressure.

This will be a terrible loss.

[ankit1407]

With Chahal all you need to do is attack in first couple of overs, rest he will do it himeslf... joke thay can’t defend 350 against this Aus line up ..

[PKBasu]

Bhuvi is hammered for 20 runs off the 45th over. Turner has seemingly won it for the Aussies.

[ankit1407]

Kohli is also a hopeless captain and just don’t know how to control the game with out MS.. with 2 early wickets just allowed the Aus to settle by bowling crap from both end .. once batsman his set Chahal or no Chahal it will go out of the ground ..

[prasen9]

Chahal is also a mentally weak bowler, always collapses under pressure.

This will be a terrible loss.

Well, Chahal should have gotten Turner if Pant did not fluff him. That would have been a comeback under pressure but for our keeper. Pant needed to be given matches before to get his keeping up. Pant should be considered as a pure batsman if at all for the WC now. I'd go with Karthik as the backup keeper and MO batsman unless Pant shows immense batting skills in the next match.

[PKBasu]

Bumrah too concedes 16 runs off the 46th over. The match is pretty much done. Really disgraceful loss at home. We need some bigger hitters...

Catches dropped by Jadhav and Dhawan too.

[prasen9]

We need some bigger hitters...

True. But bigger hitters who can stay at the wicket too like Turner. Pant is a big hitter but he gets out. He has the potential to be very good. Needs time. Kedar is a big hitter. But Dhoni-ism got to him. He needs to figure out when he needs to go guns blazing and when he has the time to play ten balls. The ten balls theory works well for people batting form #1-4. The rest has to learn to hit from ball one at least on a flat wicket. Hardik Pandya will be back. He is a big hitter.

As you said, Kedar was bowled too many overs giving easy early runs. Should have gone with 1-2 overs more from Vijay.