As the other sports forums seem to have taken old to some respect, well here is a cricket forum. NOTE: This forum will be heavily moderated and can be revoked at any time is discussions go out of hand.
PKBasu wrote:Rayudu, sadly, has been his own worst enemy. He appears to be a volatile character, who has had run-ins with the cricket administration in both Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh. Then he joined the ICL, after a rather weak domestic season -- which followed a spectacular first season in first-class cricket, when he was on the verge of India selection at age 19. I think one can blame the Board for not nurturing his talent at that stage. But if he had been a bit patient -- rather than start fighting with the Hyderabad selectors, then with the AP ones, and then defecting to the ICL at the first opportunity -- his chance would surely have come.
I think it is pointless to look at his career numbers, because there is a great deal of variability there. Last year, he had a decent domestic season, and he has now had two very decent (occasionally brilliant) seasons in the IPL. He should be knocking on the doors of the ODI side, but surely playing for India A and proving himself relative to his peers is the first step. He has done OK on this tour, but has not really outshone his peers. So he joins the queue, along with Manoj Tiwary, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane -- all three of whom, I think, are slightly ahead of him currently -- and Shikhar Dhawan (who has had a decent run in the ODI side already).
PKB, I think Rayudu's issues were mostly with Shivlal Yadav. Who doesn't have issues with that man. At 19, I wouldn't have expected him to deal with all those politics with a lot of maturity. Unfortunately, that's what undid his career. Hopefully, it's on the way up now. Also please, let's not talk about Shikhar Dhawan. I've seen him play and I don't want to see him play again Pujara is the only one I feel is a bit ahead.
PKBasu wrote:I think it is pointless to look at his career numbers, because there is a great deal of variability there. Last year, he had a decent domestic season, and he has now had two very decent (occasionally brilliant) seasons in the IPL. He should be knocking on the doors of the ODI side, but surely playing for India A and proving himself relative to his peers is the first step.
By this yardstick, maybe we should discuss Valthathy for our test team, say what? The guy has failed and failed and failed. Then he comes and scores 1 100 and 3 50s (assuming I looked up the numbers correctly) and that is enough for people here to annoint him the king! Jeez. IPL is totally useless to judge who should be in the test team. Of course, whenever it is inconvenient, one should just discard the numbers. Maybe we should discard the career numbers of Anirudha and have him as the next opener. Why not? By the Rayudu standard, I am sure we will hear that very soon. Just put names in a hat of all those who scored at least 1 century in the last Ranjis and then just pick up one at random. Repeated failures does not matter. That he has a sub-par performance in the Emerging tournament does not matter! Breathtaking! This IPL has been a bane for our test team.
Not so breathtaking . Rayudu was very good when 19, and surely good enough to play for India at that point. He never got a breakthrough, and has languished since. His recent IPL performances suggest he is worthy of consideration for India A (where he is now playing, but should've played last year too) and eventually for the ODI side.
Ganguly's domestic season in 1995-96 certainly didn't justify his selection for the 1996 England tour (although he had had excellent seasons previously, and shown that he was worthy of India selection). But India owes the East Zone selector (Sambaran?) who backed him to the hilt that year (despite all the calumny that was heaped on him by Bhogle, Shastri and the Indian media, wolfed down even more eagerly by the English media). I think Sandeep is making a similar argument for Rayudu. (Nobody is making a similar argument for Valthaty here: he needs to make his first-class debut first, and will probably do so for Himachal by November...).
Whatever happened is the past. He had problems, bad luck. One can sympathize. But, selection to the test team should not be on the basis of sympathy and pining for what could have been. Reality is hard and cold. He had issues with umpires. I suppose that was also the fault of Yadav. Yes, I thought he was a premier talent when he was 19 and then, I had expected him to play for India. Did you check his numbers in List As? It is piss-poor. 32 over 45 matches in Indian domestics. This guy is expected to conquer international bowlers. Which royal family was he born in that we should bow before him and ask everyone else to score runs? Since when has it been a crime to ask kids to score runs in domestics?
I am quite okay with pushing Rahane, Pujara, Rohit, etc. if they have one year of bad domestics. Look at the long term body of work. Good batsmen have one bad year. It is not the same as bad batsmen having one good year. Completely different cases. Good batsmen seldom have over 50 bad matches of Ranjis and over 35 bad matches in List As and a handful of good matches. So the comparison with Ganguly is not apt. Ganguly was a fighter and prized his wicket, Rayudu has been lackadaisical in his career.
Anyway, it is pointless to argue where people just say that he should be in the team because he should be in the team, ignore everything we have seen. That is all this is sounding to me.
I don't know if Rayudu is to be blamed for all his problems. Just take at look at the Hyderabad Cricket Association -- I think there are several issues largely due to the people running it. Why else would just about the whole Hyderabad team decide to join ICL? Why is Hyderabad one of the worst teams in the South Zone -- traditionally poor teams such as Kerala and Goa have probably gone past Hyderabad.
Prasen, you are discounting the fact that Ambati Rayudu is an exceptional talent and proved himself at all levels, including Ranji where he had a sachin kind of debut with a century in the very first one day match he played followed by a magnificent double hundred and hundred in the same match. Of course who can forget his superb 177 for India U-19 team against England u-19 when we chased 303 from 132/6! Before that he scored centuries for Indian U-15 team in the worldcup and was the captain of U-19 Indian team which had the likes of Shikhar Dhwan, Suresh Raina, Dinesh karthik, Irfan Pathan etc. He proved himself at all levels and was way above the rest till the differences with Shivlal Yadav happened. The best part is all this happened when he was just 16! Everybody thought that the next Sachin has arrived.
As PKB mentioned Ganguly didn't have an exceptional domestic season but is one of the game's great! In fact in the current Indian team apart from Gambhir, Dravid and Laxman none including the bowlers are the products of a great domestic season. Everyone has talent and selectors believed in it and got them in.
Prasen our domestic cricket is nowhere near the same quality as AUS or ENG. I can confidently say 8/10 batsmen/bowlers who performed well in the domestic circuit can do nothing in the International cricket. International cricket is all about talent and adaptability. There are numerous examples of talented players from India without much domestic success who have succeeded in the International arena.
I am not advocating to select Rayudu ahead of other talented people and who performed in domestic circuit like Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Pujara, Manish Pandey, Manoj Tiwary etc but definitely I would put him way ahead of Badrinath, Mukund, Akash Chopra etc if I have to select a team now.
prasen9 wrote:Whatever happened is the past. He had problems, bad luck. One can sympathize. But, selection to the test team should not be on the basis of sympathy and pining for what could have been. Reality is hard and cold.
No one is suggesting that Prasen bhai Not sure if that was directed towards me but all I was hinting at was that there is a good explanation for why he had issues with HCA (Shivlal and Arjun Yadav in particular). When it comes to picking players, you are a "money ball" kind of guy and Sandeep and I (sorry for speaking on your behalf Sandeep) don't really go only by numbers. Numbers and past performances are definitely important but I also factor in potential/talent etc. That's why I am not advocating Venugopal over Rayudu That's also why Dhoni must be backing the players he backs even though the numbers give a different picture.
Since I do not read anything about Rayudu as a bowler, I surmise that he is being debated for his batting skills.
All of this discussion is rather academic (which Prasen is).
We need to discuss bowlers, Rayudu is not going to make any difference to India's results.
Another humiliating day in England. I don't recall worst pasting than this in my memory other than when Pakistan made merry against us some 30 years ago. Of course, that 42 all out in England is in my faded memory. Even when we were dependent on 1-2 batsmen (Gavaskar, Viswanath, Tendulkar) and had four spinners or one Kapil Dev as key bowlers, it wasn't this bad. We lost in NZ badly just before the SA World Cup, but even there it didn't feel so humiliating.
Can some Rayudu-fan explain to me what is talent and potential? How do you judge that? Otherwise, this argument is useless. Sandeep seems to say that Rayudu has proved himself at all levels. If scoring 30 runs and 40 runs an innings in the weak Indian domestic limited overs is proving himself, then 30 or 40 players have proved themselves. At that point it is useless to discuss. What he did in U-15 and U-19 is irrelevant given that he has shown that he cannot bat in Ranjis and Ranji one-days.
Please give me concrete examples of domestic failures in their career who have made it as a top batsman for India or any other top 4-5 cricketing nation. I am still waiting for those names. Ganguly is not one of them. I have to go and check Ganguly's numbers before his debut. I do not know if I can. Ganguly had one mediocre domestic season but several good ones. Completely opposite to that of Rayudu.
Gambhir and Laxman were domestic dadas. Laxman scored huge again and again. SRT did not play domestics that much but was chosen. He was an unexplored book, not a proven failure. I am okay with taking a risk on unexplored books but not on proven failures. I do not recall Dravid's record but I think it was quite good in domestics. Ditto for Azhar, Vengsarkar. I cannot recall anyone who had performed at Rayudu-levels and succeeded at internationals. The closest comparables to Rayudu in Ranjis are Raina and Yuvraj. In List-As, they were ahead. He may well succeed if he fixes whatever ails him, but, the risk is higher and I would first try Pujara at least and Rohit before throwing a hail-mary with Rayudu.
At least, Sandeep and I are not that far off practically speaking. He wants one more good season in Ranjis and accepts that Rayudu should be behind Kohli, Rohit, Tiwary, Pujara. I do not mind him being before Mukund, Chopra. I would choose Badrinath before him, but, will not go to the mat for Badri. The only missing guy is Rahane. If the others think that Rayudu should be chosen before any of Rohit, Pujara, Tiwary, and Kohli, do let me know why.
Three centurions (Rahane, Menaria, Saurabh Tiwary) and three half-centurions (Manoj Tiwary, Manish Pandey). I love this healthy competition to catch the selectors' eye.
prasen9 wrote:Can some Rayudu-fan explain to me what is talent and potential? How do you judge that?
There is a phrase that is used quite often - "eye for talent". That's what scouts have. I don't have any such eye Sandeep certainly does - he was the one who wrote about Saina (and Sania) here. I give equal weightage to my insticts and to the numbers.
When it comes to Rayudu, all I can say is that I've seen him dominate bowling attacks, has a good repertoire of strokes, doesn't have too many weaknesses (ala Raina against the short stuff) and he did reasonably well in the domestic circuit (I admit he's no Brijesh Patel ).
Varun Aaron should be in the Test team right now, because after a year he will be bowling 130kph or less with no control either. That's been the 'progression' of ALL our 'quick bowlers. Maybe we should just expect 1 year's 'mileage' out of these guys and move onto the next prospect
Unadkat was pretty disappointing in SA & I don't want to see another 125kph guy who swings the ball prodigiously and then gets whacked in England or SA or NZ or wherever.
Regarding the batsmen, the best option is to play county cricket to cope with the moving ball. I can't understand how Raina, Yuvraj and several others in the past have struggled for so long against the short ball.
Anyway, this score looks a reverse of the senior team's fortunes against England.
Yes, we should definitely draft Varun Aaron for the 4th test before he becomes a medium pacer next year!. Also, Sreesanth is really doing nothing, so including a promising youngster would be the way to go.
I agree about Varun Aaron, but not Unadkat. The latter did superbly in England last year for India under-19, but we shouldn't forget that his brilliant performance was in his first-class debut! He had no experience whatsoever, and did fabulously in swinging conditions. His continued good performances in this Emerging Players Tournament suggest he is still developing and getting better. Pace isn't everything, although in South Africa and Australia, it (and the ability to "hit the deck") is what counts most. Unadkat got to play the first test in sunny conditions in South Africa, and got clobbered. Had he played under cloudy conditions, he would have been a different bowler. We currently have only one pacer playing for India who is effective in sunny conditions (Ishant) -- although Zaheer succeeds under almost any weather conditions, given his experience (and the intelligence that has come with it).
Sreesanth has had his time, and should now be discarded. His failures in both ODIs and Tests now rule him out, especially as he is such a volatile character as well. I think we should preserve Varun Aaron for the Australia tour. His body has already broken down once, so he is probably fragile. He has looked very good in this Tournament, and it will be exciting to have Zaheer bowling with two genuine pacers -- nippy Aaron (who actually doesn't hit the deck hard, but bowls at a very good pace with decent swing) and "hit the deck" Ishant -- in Australia.
Pujara is the only one I feel is a bit ahead.
. Rayudu was very good when 19, and surely good enough to play for India at that point. He never got a breakthrough, and has languished since. His recent IPL performances suggest he is worthy of consideration for India A (where he is now playing, but should've played last year too) and eventually for the ODI side. 
