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Delhi should not get a test this time of the year in the future until they clean up their air. Professional players should not have to subject their bodies to serious, avoidable health hazards in order to play.

BTW, I think India batted too long in this test too. Kohli cares too much about personal milestones. He waited until Rohit had a 50. He should have declared at 375 ahead or so. If Sri Lanka can make 375 in I4, congratulations to them. 90% of the time they will not. I'd rather lose a game to convert four draws to wins. But, no conventional wisdom is that you'd rather not lose once even if it means giving up many wins.

Ashwin has had a very poor innings with the ball (1/121) and seems to have lost some of his batting nous. Jadeja seems the likelier pick as sole spinner for the first test in SA.

Sri Lanka finally ditched Thirimanne who is a poor test batsman. As a result, they got a fighting draw. Dhananjaya and Roshan did well. Dhananjaya had 2 centuries I think before this match in a handful of matches he got. It is weird that he was dropped.

On other news, it seems Rahul had a niggle and is missing the Ranji quarters. That possibly explains why he was dropped/rested.

PKBasu wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2017 10:05 am Ashwin has had a very poor innings with the ball (1/121) and seems to have lost some of his batting nous. Jadeja seems the likelier pick as sole spinner for the first test in SA.

Agree completely.


Very poor that we did not win this despite getting the full 5 days of play.

We have seen enough of Ashwin and Jadeja abroad. And, even in India when the pitch does not turn their ball, they don't do much. I would have tried Kuldeep as my first choice. The team management and selectors like to say that they are world #2 and #4 or whatever. What is their ranking if you consider matches outside the sub-continent? 56 and 64?

This is the ODI squad: Rohit Sharma (capt), Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddarth Kaul, Washington Sundar

My XI would be: Rohit, Dhawan, Rahane/Iyer, Pandey, Karthik, MSD, Hardik, Kuldeep, Chahal, Bumrah, Kaul.

I want to see how Kaul performs. And give Bumrah some matches and Bhuvi rest since in RSA it will be the opposite. But, I am reasonably sure they will play Bhuvi and Kaul will warm the benches. They may also play Patel for Kuldeep.

Lowest score in India in the last 20 years or so. Dhoni played very smartly. The rest did not use their brains. Given his dwindling hitting skills, Dhoni should bat at #4. We have been looking for a #4 forever. Dhoni should be there. Followed by Manish and Kedar (until they start failing).

Good indication of what would happen on the foreign tours. Rahane should have been in the team today in the absence of Kohli. Only Kohli, Pujara and an in-form Rahane are capable of playing abroad. Dhoni won't play in the tests. Dhawan and Rohit showed their real capability today. I hope Vijay succeeds. Pandya can play as a bits and pieces player.

I don't know if Pandya has bits and pieces though abroad. Hope he proves me wrong.

We should start a pre - mortem on India's disastrous performance abroad.

Yes we should.

Now that Karthik has got his record, can we say bye-bye to him? Iyer is not a #3, at least on limited evidence. He has this shuffle which will put him in trouble when the ball is moving. A #3 has to bat when an opener is out cheaply. So, let's put Rahane there and move Iyer and Pandey to #5 and #6.

Dhawan, Rohit, Rahane, Dhoni, Pandey, Iyer ...

^ That's a disastrous batting lineup as well.

Our issue in LOIs is Kohli's (and Shastri) refusal to give a consistent run to Rahul and unwillingness to blood in the likes of Pant, Krunal and so on.

Dhawan + Rohit is a reasonable pair on flat surfaces which are most of the LOIs these days. Rahane is dismal on those and barely average of the rare tough track. He needs to work on becoming a test player again.

The expectation is that we will lost 1-5 or 0-6 in the ODI series in SA which will finally lead to much needed changes.

Well, I can't choose a team outside the people who are given in the 15.

To the extent I have seen, Pant and Krunal are also flat-track players. We should have given Vijay and Pujara chances. Their list-A statistics is fabulous. And, now we should support and develop Rahul.

Pant has had a poor domestic season, after mediocre performances for India A. I’m happy to see that the selectors are giving credence to such criteria.