India in Sri Lanka, July-August 2017

[PKBasu]

Easy victory in the end as the tail collapses.

[rajitghosh]

India (and Ravi Shastri) should enjoy thrashing this hapless Sri Lankan team. With tours of Australia, England and South Africa coming up, time is coming for chin music and playing the national stoke of the 70s and 80s (edge outside off stump). Not having Rahul Dravid to correct their techniques could expose many of the batsmen and show their real caliber.

[ssp]

With tours of Australia, England and South Africa coming up, time is coming for chin music and playing the national stoke of the 70s and 80s (edge outside off stump).

Very well put

[rajitghosh]

Forgot to add a line. Ravi Shastri was a master at the national stroke.

[prasen9]

Actually, if Shastri was a master, then so were very many other batsmen. At least when he was opening, Shastri played reasonably well overseas. Apart from Gavaskar, Sehwag, and Rahul, the next best opener abroad is Shastri by averages while opening. We can slice and dice and take out his 206. But, then we have to take out the 206 by Gambhir, 201 by Sidhu, and this 190 by Dhawan, and we are back at square one.

[PKBasu]

Sidhu was a proper opening batsman. Shastri's numbers look reasonable only because of low sample size.
Prasen9 didn't you live through Shastri's career? There was a good reason he was barracked ("hai hai") more often than any other Indian cricketer. He also knew how to manage his numbers (for instance by retiring immediately after getting that 206 when he was just over 30 years old).

[rajitghosh]

Actually even the master Tendulkar played the national stroke when Hansie Cronje bowled to him

[Omkara]

Will never forgive Shashtri for wc 1992

[prasen9]

Prasen9 didn't you live through Shastri's career? There was a good reason he was barracked ("hai hai") more often than any other Indian cricketer. He also knew how to manage his numbers (for instance by retiring immediately after getting that 206 when he was just over 30 years old).

Yes, I did pretty much my entire childhood. The point is that there were not much better options. I think Prabhakar, Siddhu did okay for some time. Remember we used to have the hack Srikkanth opening batting for India in tests! The "hai hai" started solely in ODIs. He was horribly slow even when the run-rate would be going up.

During my time as a kid, even the stalwarts like Tendulkar, etc. rarely won us a game abroad. Actually, things were slightly better before them. I remember Chetan Sharma and Kapil Dev win us a series in England convincingly. Binny and Madan Lal were pretty good in England just like Praveen Kumar and Bhuvi are. And, our batsmen knew how to play in England after a while because Vengsarkar, etc. played in the counties, which except for Pujara in the minor counties, nobody has the time to do anymore.

What use was having SRT, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly? And, we had Srinath and Prasad. Kumble. But, we still did not win abroad

[prasen9]

Small sample size - possible. But, overall, he averaged 34.44 abroad over 68 innings.

Chetan Chauhan, Siddhu, Arunlal, Bangar, Angshuman Gaekwad, Wasim Jaffer, Pankaj Roy, Srikkanth, and Mukund all average below that abroad. Add to that Vengsarkar, Badani, Kapil, Mukund, Yuvraj, Amre, Engineer, all our wicket-keepers including Dhoni, Raina, both allrounders Binnys, etc. performed worse than him abroad. Nobody got "hai hai". If Shastri deserves a hai-hai, so do many of this list. It is a damning indictment of how bad we have been abroad over the years. The hai-hai was in response to a selfish or over-cautious approach Shastri took in ODis and left the run-scoring for the last few overs and India inevitably choked because it was too Herculean a task. Or at least that is what I remember since my school/college days.

And, I am not a Shastri fan. (I just like to act as the public defender )

The new India needs to win a lot abroad to fix the abysmal record we have gathered over 70 odd years or whatever the right number is.

[Sin Hombre]

Shastri plays in my second all-time Indian xi away from home as an opener.

India actually do relatively well when chin music or a green mamba in involved in the post 2000s era. All our famous wins have been in this conditions (Perth 2008?, Lords 2013 for example).

If you are a groundsman in England/SA/Aus and you want India to get thrashed, you create a 350-par first innings pitch. That means 120+ overs of consistent fast bowling which is beyond the stamina of our "phaast" bowlers and a similar amount of gritty batting.

Make a 200-par pitch and both our bowlers and batsmen are in the game. Low scoring pitches by default will create significant variance.

In the same vein, it is always silly when we prepare rank turners like the first two against Australia. The Mumbai pitch against England should be the template (400 run first innings par, uneven bounce with slow turn).

[sagar11491]

KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, ABhinav Mukund & Shikhar Dhawan - four players, all in good nick and proven to be good opening options. Shikhar would have been kept on the bench but a scintillating 190 has put him right in the mix. KL Rahul and Abhinav Mukund were the original options after Murali Vijay was ruled out. This is by far the most confused decision Virat Kohli will have to face as a captain. The good option would be to go with the original selection of Mukund and Rahul, but the batting prowess of Rohit and Shikhar can not be doubted. I would really like to know what the cricket community over here thinks would be the ideal option for the team ?????

[sagar11491]

India will play 3 tests in Sri Lanka, starting July 26th.

The India test squad is Kohli (c), Vijay, Rahul, Pujara, Rahane, Rohit Sharma (replacing Karun Nair), Ashwin, Jadeja, Saha (wk), Kuldeep, Bhuvi, Shami, Ishant, Umesh, Hardik Pandya, Abhinav Mukund.

A bit odd to be taking 5 pacers and just 3 spinners (and no backup 'keeper) on a 3-test tour of SL.

The selection of 5 pacers did have me thinking as the success of Indian spin attack has always got the team required wickets and the win. I guess Amit mishra could have made it in place of one paser. The lack of experience in the Sri Lankan batting can be exploited harshly in this series and cement the No. 1 ranking of team India. The team does look really great with a collection of the best bowling attack and all rounders and also the depth in the batting line-up that synonymous to Team India. Openers will be hard to chose in this series and the fact that all the options are in great form. To go with the experience of Rohit and Shikhar or to try new talent in KL Rahul and Abhinav Mukund. This is a great phase in Indian Test cricket as there is options available for all positions and there is a combination of experience and youth which is seen in the recent performances. The only worry I have is the way the dominance will be sustained and how will the young players perform under pressure against more quality teams?? How do the cricket lovers here perceive the current scenario of the Indian test team???

[PKBasu]

I don't think Rohit Sharma is a test opening batsman. He should play in the middle order, and only be pressed to open when there are no candidates available. Currently we don't have that problem.

[rajitghosh]

Rohit can be a good opener vs Zimbabwe at home