India in South Africa, January 2018

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PKBasu
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India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by PKBasu »

The Indian test team for South Africa is packed with pacers — Shami, Bhuvi, Ishant, Umesh, Bumrah, plus all rounder Pandya. Foolishly, Kuldeep Yadav has been dropped, and Jadeja/Ashwin are the only spinners. Parthiv is the second ‘keeper. I am a fan of picking Parthiv, but he has had an underwhelming domestic season — which seems to count for nothing with the selectors. Since Rahul can ‘keep, I think Kuldeep should’ve been picked ahead of Parthiv.

Rahane is vice captain, a wise choice for an overseas series.
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by prasen9 »

The board is rich enough to pay for both Kuldeep and Parthiv. I don't know if you can have Rahul keep on fast, bouncy pitches abroad in a five day test. We need the best support for our limp bowlers abroad anyway.
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by Sin Hombre »

This is our best selection of fast bowlers ever but we cannot catch and are the worst international team in that regard.

The pacers will create chances and our slips will keep dropping them and at some point, they go limp. Same happened in NZ with McCullum and Cook or England in our previous tours to those countries.


Not selecting Kuldeep also smacks of favouritism.
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by prasen9 »

Smacks of stupidity!
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by PKBasu »

I hope Pujara, Saha, Vijay, Ishant, Ashwin, Jadeja and Kohli (who aren't in the LOI squads) will arrive in South Africa early and try and get some proper practice in local conditions for at least 10 days before the tour formally begins.
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by PKBasu »

Here is the write-up on the test side for SA:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/ ... t-call-sa-

I would have liked to see Kuldeep and another batsman being picked. Of course, it is difficult to leave out any of the members of the squad to include another batsman, but Rahul should be considered for a middle-order slot if he cannot open. Manish Pandey is the other guy I would like drafted into test squads soon. Ironically, the vice captain is the one man whose form is suspect going into this tour.
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by prasen9 »

Going by domestic records, Shreyas Iyer is the best among Manish, Iyer, Nair although both of the other ones have very good FC records.
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by Sin Hombre »

We need a lot to go well for us to have a chance in SA.

Openers should be Rahul and Vijay and they need to perform well for us to have a chance. Virat/Shastri duo could easily play Dhawan instead who would be a walking wicket on those pitches.

We at least need a repeat of the last tour from Pujara, Kohli and Rahane. And the latter is in terrible form.

Saha will be gritty at least.

Pandya has shown little talent or temperament for battling it out against the quicks but clearly the team management thinks there is something special in him. It will be time to show that.

Lower middle order in Ashwin and Bhuvi have not batted well of late at all and we would need those 20-30 runs from them.

Then our slip fielding is atrocious and I do not know how that will suddenly improve overnight.

The 3 quicks would be Bhuvi, Shami and Ishant and that's as good as it gets for us currently.

Spin will be the tough one between Ashwin and Jadeja (with no Kuldeep). Based on recent form and past history of a fiver in SA, the latter should be a no-brainer but Ashwin in theory is the better batsmen and in similar conditions, the SA batsmen struggled against the offspinner Ali in England.
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by prasen9 »

I am a huge Saha fan. But in the nets, etc., if Parthiv shows he is the better bat, he should be considered. He keeps acceptably against the pacers. Against the spinners, he is suspect. But, in reality, Saha will get first dibs. Hope he does well.
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by prasen9 »

MSK thinks the current pace attack is one of the best we have ever had. Maybe, but I am not so sure.

I think in Srinath's first three years or so, we had Kapil+Srinath. I don't recall how Kapil was (he was bad at the end) or Srinath was starting off, but I would prefer that to Bhuvi/Shami. I think the depth in this attack: Bhuvi, Shami, Umesh, Ishant is better than any we have had before.

Update: While Srinath was there, '91-'94, Kapil played 21 tests and took wickets at 27.89. However at that time, Srinath took 33 wickets at 36.72, not that great!
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by Sin Hombre »

No Rahul in ODI squad but Karthik and Jadhav are, pathetic.
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by jaydeep »

India ODI Team -
Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wk), Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Shardul Thakur.
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by prasen9 »

Given this, my XI for the first match would be: Rohit, Dhawan, Kohli, Iyer, Dhoni, Jadhav, Hardik, Kuldeep, Chahal, Bumrah, Shami/Bhuvi.

I would marginally prefer Shami. Kedar because he can bowl and none of the others may be any good on a fast wicket anyway (except Rahane, but he is good for the upper order).
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by PKBasu »

Weird indeed that Kartik and Jadhav are picked ahead of KL Rahul. How the hell do these things still happen?!
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Re: India in South Africa, January 2018

Post by PKBasu »

India arrived in Cape Town on the 29th, and so will have 5-6 clear days of practice and acclimatisation before the first test begins at Newlands on 5th January. Some more practice would have been useful, but a week's preparation at the ground or nearby is quite decent.
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