India in Sri Lanka, July-August 2017

[prasen9]

You are possibly right. These three were not born with a silver spoon in their mouths and so were treated shoddily even though they performed well in the limited ODI chances they got. Performance is never a fool-proof way of earning your place, being or looking good often trumps that.

I found Shardul to be pretty mediocre though. Hopefully, we have better options. I understand that this was just two matches and I only watched parts of it. And, if we are going to give Shardul matches, for the sake of India, I hope he bowls better. I am not 100% about Unadkat though. At some point, India will realize that we need a left-handed pace bowler for variety. But maybe some other youngster will emerge.

[Atithee]

Binny had as silver as a spoon can get in his mouth.

[prasen9]

Binny had as silver as a spoon can get in his mouth.

With respect to playing tests, yes. With respect to ODIs, no. He played 14 ODIs. He took 20 wickets at 21.95 runs a piece and averaged 28.75 with the bat at a SR of 93%. That surely is great for a #7 or a #8 spot in the ODI team. Despite performing, he was junked.

I think we use information from test matches to decide on ODI selections and use IPL/ODI performances to decide who will be in the test team. That, imho, is wrong. The skills are different enough that you can be a good test player and not a good ODI player. See Rahane. Or vice-versa. See Rohit, Binny.

[prasen9]

This ODI series was somewhat rare in that we had very few failures.

Bat:

Successful: Kohli, Pandey, Dhawan, Dhoni, Rohit, Bhuvi
Failed: Kedar, Rahul, Pandya, Patel, Rahane

Ball:

Successful: Bumrah, Axar, and Kuldeep. Chahal and Bhuvi kept runs down and did okay wrt taking wickets. Kedar took wickets but was a tad expensive.
Failed: Shardul, Pandya (a bit)

Of course, several of the above got 1-2 matches, but, failed means that they did not do much in those 1-2 matches.

[PKBasu]

Kedar redeemed himself with the bat in the final game, having been dropped for the fourth. He cannot be said to have failed as an allrounder (which is his ODI role).

[prasen9]

If we disagree on only one player, that is really great!

Yes, Kedar did play a decent innings in his last shot. But, overall, he averaged 21.33 runs/innings. He played at #6, which is a batting all-rounder position. The #6 is supposed to be merely a backup bowler. The real allrounder spot was taken by Hardik. With the ball he got 3 wickets in 4 matches at 30 runs/wicket. He bowled 4 overs a match at 5.4 runs/over. Too little bowling and too few runs. Think of it this way. If our #6 scored 21.33 runs, and bowled 4 overs to get 0.75 wickets per match at 30 runs/wicket and 5.4 runs/over, he would lose his place in the side. Our previous #6s batted much better than an average of 21. See Raina, Dhoni, etc.

Is it small sample size? Yes. But, it is small sample size by definition in a 5 match series for everyone. Am I asking for him to be sacked? No. I hope he is given more chances at #6 because he is a very good striker of the ball and has a calm and cool temperament.

[PKBasu]

So a 9-0 whitewash of SL across all three formats. I can't remember another of the major teams losing like this at home to anyone else. Truly abject from Sri Lanka, and great ruthlessness from Kohli's team!

[prasen9]

No Indian team has done this before.

In tests, India has a winning record against NZ, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe. Hope we keep improving our records to fix our records with the other teams. The deficits against the other teams are WI (-12), RSA (-3), Pak (-3), England (-18), Australia (-15). I would consider it progress if we can draw a series in RSA, Eng, Aus. We should really be winning in England given that we produce swing bowlers better than pure fast bowlers. But, seems like our batsmen are not as good in England.

[Sin Hombre]

We do reasonably well in England and were the better team for 1.5 tests in the last series as well. The issue is the lack of fitness of our bowlers especially given the 4/5 test series we have started playing against them.