India A Series ....

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prasen9
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by prasen9 »

So basically, only Pujara batted well in this series. Shami Ahmed, B. Kumar, Saxena, Rohit, and Darekar have bowled very well. Awana and Dinda have bowled reasonably well too. The only bowling failure is our bowler with the worst record coming in, Rahul Sharma. Hope the tail will wag a lot tomorrow and the bowlers will take some wickets in the Windies second innings to make the match a bit interesting.
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by gbelday »

All this just proves that domestic performances should not be the sole criteria for selecting players for overseas tours. Don't get me wrong -- I do strongly believe in numbers and performances in the domestic circuit should play an important role in the team selection process. But sometimes, we got to look at the intangibles (how they gel with the team, play under pressure etc). I know prasen and I are at two extreme ends when we talk about Rayudu. I strongly believe that Rayudu would have performed much better than some of the batsmen who were part of this team (Shikar Dhawan, Mukund etc). Pujara, Rohit and Rahane are the only 3 batsman that I would have definitely included (and maybe Tiwary).
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by PKBasu »

Tiwary hasn't failed on this tour. You have to be biased against him to believe he has failed, having regularly been among the top scorers in all innings but one. Rohit Sharma has been inconsistent, Pujara has been the best (partly because, as captain, he got to bat in the best positions in the batting order), but Tiwary has been the next best batsman after Pujara, with Saha very close behind. Rahane has just about held his own. Mukund has been an abject failure, and Dhawan too. Ironically, Mukund is the only one (apart from Saha and Pujara with 2-3 tests each) who has played test cricket.

Badrinath should have been in the side, as should have Rayudu. The bowling should have had Aaron, Dinda, RP Singh -- if it was to be truly India A. And the spinners should have been Piyush Chawla and Shabaz Nadeem, perhaps with Darekar. Rahul Sharma is purely a limited-overs bowler so far, with no first-class record to speak of. To pick him ahead of Piyush is bizarre.
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by prasen9 »

RP Singh was injured. Absolutely, Aaron should have been sent. Our top bowlers who are not hurt are Zaheer, Umesh and Praveen Kumar. Backup is Irfan. Aaron should certainly have been given this exposure.

Manoj's performance was perhaps acceptable in a low-scoring series. After Pujara, he was the best bat.

Gautam, I could live with Rayudu given a chance as long as we do the following. 1. Have the selectors call him up and kick his butt and tell him to shape up and that this is his only series if he bats in a cavalier fashion. 2. Have the coach sit down with him and tell him to apply himself or this will be his career. 3. Have a psychologist to figure out why he loses his concentration and does not play long innings. Maybe the same thing should be done with Rohit. As long as this is done, he can be given a short rope to show it that he really wants it.

Before Rayudu, I would have liked Mandeep Singh. But, if we clear out multiple deadwoods from the middle-order, then perhaps both could have a place.
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by gbelday »

Yes PKB and prasen, I do feel bad for Badrinath. He's probably given up on playing (again) for India. Varun Aaron and Badri should have been in this team.
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by prasen9 »

I have long been a fan of Badri. But, if we are chastising these guys for failing, Badri failed in West Indies too. Kohli seems to be a fighter. Pujara has the technique and temperament and reasonable talent. So, basically, we need two more bats to replace SRT and Laxman. For now, I would go with Rohit but he has to score. Personally, I like Rahane because he has the technique but he keeps failing at the big stage. So, it is hard to argue for him. Maybe Mandeep or Tiwary or someone else will come through. Instead of Dhawan, maybe Vijay could have been sent to see if he can put it together.
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by PKBasu »

Pujara topped the batting averages (primarily based on his match-winning 96 in the first game; a not out innings in a short series does help to boost the average...), followed by tailenders Saxena and Shami! Manoj Tiwary (with an average just over 30) was next, followed by Saha and then Rohit Sharma (24+). Rahane averaged 10.33, Mukund and Dhawan in single digits.

prasen9 has always disliked Manoj Tiwary, for reasons that I cannot quite fathom (he was advocating Saurabh Tiwary ahead of him for most of last year). I think there can now be absolutely no basis to keep picking Rohit Sharma ahead of Manoj Tiwary in any form of the game; in this series, Manoj was made to bat at #6 (something he hasn't been accustomed to for atleast the past 5 years, his preference being #4, the slot Rohit had in this series). Rohit Sharma has been given ample opportunities (80 ODIs!!) and has simply not taken them (averaging 33.23 with the bat). By prasen9's standards (applied to Vijay, for instance, in the past) Rohit should now be banished to the back of the India queue. Manoj Tiwary scored a century in the only ODI he played against the West Indies, and then spent the entire winter on the bench -- playing not a single ODI since. This is the most bizarre treatment meted out to anyone (with the possible exception of Irfan Pathan, who is another one who gets shafted at the first opportunity). It is worth remembering that Manoj Tiwary forced his way into India contention five years ago with a stellar domestic season (796 runs at 99.50) in 2006-07, but got injured (while practicing for India in Bangladesh), and was promptly forgotten. All the other youngsters have been taken to the front of the line ahead of him. Now, after he has scored a century in his last ODI (and it wasn't a meaningless match or innings; he came in when the team was in trouble, having lost 2 wickets for next to nothing), he should be the incumbent for atleast 3-4 matches -- but has been made to feel utterly unwanted. Classic tactics to destroy a youngster's confidence and potential!
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by prasen9 »

PKB, I will answer later in detail. I do not dislike Manoj Tiwary. For better or for worse, we have tried Rohit and he has played okay in ODIs. For a young player, averaging around 33 is not total failure in ODIs. I would like him to get a few more chances for us to decide whether he has cut it or not. Similarly, I was advocating for Saurabh Tiwary because he was given chances and did not do badly either in those chances. I do not want random selections and people being dropped unless they are given a fair chance. Hence, I wanted to try out Saurabh before Manoj.

Regarding not-outs, you seem to discount them. I don't. I think it is actually easier to score 50 runs in one innings (without interruptions) than 50 runs in two innings (with interruptions). The probability of getting out is more in the first 20 runs of the innings than for a set batsman. So, not-outs are actually validly counted. If anything, players with large number of not outs are actually better than what their averages show.
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by PKBasu »

India A's List A series ended 1-1 after the third match was rained out without a ball being bowled. India A lost the first match narrowly, and won the next emphatically (bowling out Windies A for 76). No batsman shone, but Dinda was the star bowler -- taking 3/45 in the first game, and 2/4 (in 5 overs) in the second. Spinner Darekar had 4/17 in the second game, but didn't play the first. Rahul Sharma had a disappointing 1/37 (in 6.3 overs) in the first game.
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by prasen9 »

I would say Rahane batted well in the A-team limited overs matches.

Regarding my standards, etc., yes, I believe that an Indian batsman needs to bat around 35 runs/innings because half the games they play in dead pitches in India. Young batsmen often start averaging a bit lower. Rohit's 33 average is the best among the youngsters barring Kohli and Saurabh Tiwary in the few games he got. Manoj comes close to Rohit at 33 and should be next in line after Rohit. Saurabh Tiwary averages over 50 in List-A cricket, a remarkable record. Murali Vijay got 11 innings and scored at 17.81 per innings. There is a big difference between 18 and 33. So, Vijay has to be considered after we have given chances to Rohit, Manoj. In Sri Lanka, I would play both Rohit and Manoj for the entire series and then whoever fails goes to the back of the queue.

I had not looked at Jadeja's numbers off late. I must say that even though I like him and said otherwise, it is the right decision to drop him. He averages 28.66 *and* has a strike-rate below 80. We expect a bit lower performance from our #7 bat, but, not this bad. Dhoni should just play seven specialist bats and entrust the bowling of the last ten overs to Sehwag, Rohit, and Raina. Maybe even Manoj. Sehwag should be asked to bowl just like Yuvraj was.
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by PKBasu »

Saurabh Tiwary plays for Jharkhand, which is a consistent Plate group side in the Ranji trophy. And his List A record too consists of a lot of big innings for Jharkhand against the likes of Tripura, Assam, Orissa and Bengal -- since Jharkhand have rarely gotten much beyond the zonal matches. He did have one or two utterly brilliant domestic seasons of domestic List A cricket, but in recent years his domestic form has been utterly dismal in all forms -- but especially in first-class cricket. He was picked for India on the basis of IPL performances (where he got rewarded instead of Rayudu, who was doing just as well for the same side, but was not considered for higher honours because of his ICL past).
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by PKBasu »

That Saurabh Tiwary averages 42+ in first-class cricket despite playing for Jharkhand suggests to me that he has a long way to go before he should be seriously considered for India selection. First class cricket is surely the first determinant of a player's genuine worth. He did play reasonably in one of the two ODI chances he got (starting slowly, getting a life, and then motoring along nicely to the winning target for 37*). But I would argue that was a series he shouldn't have been picked for at all (a home series against NZ, one of the easiest opponents on Indian soil).
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by prasen9 »

PKBasu wrote:where he got rewarded instead of Rayudu, who was doing just as well for the same side, but was not considered for higher honours because of his ICL past).
You have a point wrt the quality of Saurabh's record, but, wrt Rayudu, he first has to show that he can bat consistently for long innings and then he can even be mentioned for India A. Btw, if you have forgotten, Rayudu averages 42 in FC cricket, 32.73 in List As and 27.4 in T20s. A very pedestrian record. He has to be among the top batsmen for at least 2-3 seasons before he gets near national colors given that he had demonstrated that he does not have the temperament to consistently put up good scores (irrespective of his talent and technique). Rayudu is the poor man's Rohit, looks great but does not have the concentration, discipline, and desire to consistently put up high numbers. The difference is that Rohit is very consistent in domestics and loses it in internationals and Rayudu cannot even dominate the domestics. If we are going by FC cricket, then Pujara should play ODIs before Rayudu.
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by PKBasu »

I presume you know Rayudu's history. He was captain of the India under-19 side that included the likes of Irfan Pathan and Dinesh Karthik -- and was clearly the star batsman of that side. In his first Ranji season after that (when he was 18 or 19), he set the domestic scene ablaze with some very big innings. But unlike Kaif and Yuvi, he never got the India call-up -- although he was spoken of as a certainty in the near-future.

Rayudu did mess up his second and third season, getting into internal fights with Hyderabad administrators (mainly Shivlal Yadav, it seems) and that severely hurt his output that season; he then went to Andhra and had a mediocre season before returning to Hyderabad. Soon afterwards, he signed up with the ICL -- where he was an absolute star in all forms of the game. I saw a lot of the ICL matches, which were of a pretty high quality, and he showed his class there.

Rayudu slowly made a comeback to regular cricket, but he has repeatedly shown that -- when a great deal is at stake -- he can deliver under pressure. And he had a good domestic season for Baroda this year too, averaging 48.75 with two centuries. If the selectors were being objective, they would have looked at his demonstrated ability over many seasons in the ICL, IPL and domestic cricket. This is a guy who clearly has it in him to be an international cricketer.
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Re: India A Tours ...

Post by prasen9 »

PKB, I have followed him (roughly) and I was very high on him when he was an U-19 player. I would not have him before any of the current youngsters in the ODI team. Once we have gone through Kohli, Rohit, Pujara, Rahane, and Manoj, it will be another two years or so. Each one of these players have done more than Rayudu in the domestics. But then the Mandip's of the world will knock on the door.
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