India in Sri Lanka, July-August 2017

[Atithee]

Once you look at the batting contributions from Ashwin, Jadeja, Pandya, and even Yadav and Kumar too, there would not be any debate about the minor differences in the bowling, if it weren't already superior. I remember Srinath, Prasad, Zaheer as wayward and largely going through the motions types. Occasionally, they were good. Harbhajan in his prime and Kumble largely throughout were good. Incidentally, both were decent bats too.

[prasen9]

I am sorry. I do not remember Kumble being good outside India (or India + SL at best). Srinath and Prasad would do a pretty good job many times only for Kumble to come in and let the steam off. And, then the batsmen would be abysmal and we would not win a match for long!

[Atithee]

I'm sorry; I should have been more clear. My good or bad bowler includes their batting contribution as well as fielding, to some extent. While it'd be great to be good at both home and abroad, I'll take good at home only over bad everywhere such as "I shan't."

[indiansportsfan]

Coming to the team selection for the ODIs, I am happy with the choices made. Happy to see Umesh Yadav get some rest, as he has been playing non-stop across all formats; and his effectiveness has been going down. Hardik Pandya has emerged as a very useful all-rounder across all formats; and it will be interesting to see how Kohli manages his workload and whether Pandya is able to maintain his effectiveness. IMO his batting is not needed against a weak team like SL, and he could have been replaced with a regular bowler.
The only other change I would have done is Karthik over Rahane; but even that is likely a bench spot. Also I would like to see Sid Kaul and Shahbaz Nadeem get some chances at the senior level. The latter seems to have a tag of Test match specialist, and he would have a hard time breaking through there.

[Sin Hombre]

Neither Karthik nor Rahane have any place in the LOI teams - we need to start blooding in the likes of Pant, Iyer and Krunal.

[indiansportsfan]

None of these players have done anything of note in domestic or A team List A matches. Rishabh Pant was fast tracked into national team, but wasn't very impressive. Shreyas has been very inconsistent in List A. Krunal had 1 decent domestic season, but nothing extraordinary; and he was quite ordinary in A team matches. IMO they need to prove themselves in domestic/A team first before they can be considered for national duty. In contrast, Karthik has proved himself time and again.

[PKBasu]

Just how bad is SL now? Having rested the top-5 of our bowlers, India still win by 9 wickets with more than 20 overs to spare.

[Sin Hombre]

The issue with these series is that we win most matches with our top order scoring big.

We need the middle and lower order to get more batting practice and win us some matches.

[Atithee]

Just how bad is SL now? Having rested the top-5 of our bowlers, India still win by 9 wickets with more than 20 overs to spare.

There are no Indian top bowlers. They are pretty much the same. At the end of the day, if Indian top order batting clicks, all else is masked. Indian bowling is still below a top level consistent winning team. Beating the current SL team says nothing about the bowling prowess of any Indian bowler.

[Atithee]

Nary a word on today's match? The most exciting of the tour so far. The old work horse Dhoni still has some miles left in him. And finally Bhuvi, one of my favorites, did justice to his batting talent.

Did I mention we should only pick bowlers who can bat well? Oh yes, only about umpteen times to date.

[arjun2761]

Great to see us completely dominate SL! At home and on the sub-continent, we are definitely world beaters.

However, I am also not fully sold on our abilities in the EARN countries especially that of our bowlers.

[prasen9]

Dhoni is an excellent judge of the game, has a cool brain. I knew that Dhoni would calm things down, but, after we lost the idiots at the other end, I was thinking he would be left without a partner. It was great that Bhuvi batted well. He always looks calm too. We need players with strong nerves. However, in ODIs, I do not know how many times we need the batting of our #8. Rarely. So, we should look at optimizing the position. If we have a good bowler, then we should use him. If not, then choose someone who can bat and field well.

[PKBasu]

I was about to nod off at 110/1 when the match got really exciting (at 1am in Singapore) and I was compellled to watch dosily to the end. Good to see Bhuvi live up to his batting ability when it mattered. Dananjaya bowled beautifully, exposing our players' vulnerability against the googly.

[prasen9]

I don't think our players are that vulnerable. It is that they are just not as good as the ones before them. Our players have always been vulnerable to unorthodox or "mystery" bowlers. I remember Ajantha Mendis being successful against us. At least initially. I really think he is a good limited overs bowler and Sri Lanka should play him in ODIs.

Wrt Dhoni, I have no confidence in him to play a match-winning innings regularly when the RRR is high. But, when there is no run-rate pressure, because he is an excellent judge of the game, he can rescue us. I think Dhoni will be a great coach after he retires. We'll see.

We absolutely need our #7, #8 to be allrounders. #9 should have some batting skills. Bhuvi is great for #9 and can be coached to be a great #8. But, unfortunately, he does not take wickets in ODIs. The number of times a #9 will win us a match with the bat is may be 1 in 50 or 1 in 100. The number of times he or she will win us a match by his bowling should be more than that. So, if we have a better strike bowler, we should get him. And, then work on his fielding and batting like crazy. Otherwise, stay with Bhuvi and take his batting and run-restricting bowling.

[PKBasu]

Bhuvi's batting begs the question: why the need for Pandya to play tests ahead of him?