India in South Africa, January 2018

[ssp]

Shami's form has been very disappointing. He's gone the way of most Indian 'quicks'. Start off with a lot of promise and then descend into Munaf/Ishant/....(5-10 others) type cr*p. Our 'quicks' picked up 1 wicket all day. I know this pitch is easier for batting, but why pick so many quick bowlers when they can't even keep the run rate under control, let alone pick up wickets.
Selections are crazy. As always. I think this lot are trying to 'outperform' the hockey selectors, who have been crazy for decades.
I expect RSA to get close to 400 and we will collapse meekly. But Rohit is guaranteed his place....for the next 4 years. Moronic stuff from Shastri/Kohli

[prasen9]

Shami has averaged 30 runs/wicket in this series. Not terrible yet. Of course, not match winning either. The main weakness has been Pandya (39 runs/wk) and Bumrah (44 runs/wk).

[arjun2761]

Shami has averaged 30 runs/wicket in this series. Not terrible yet. Of course, not match winning either. The main weakness has been Pandya (39 runs/wk) and Bumrah (44 runs/wk).

Pandya has pulled his weight in other ways. Experimenting with Bumrah appears to be a failure. A practice match would have been useful to test out those like Bumrah and Rohit/Rahane etc.

[PKBasu]

The horrible mistreatment of Bhuvaneshwar really drives me mad! This is not the first time it has happened. He won a home test for us (against NZ if I remember right) and was promptly dropped in the next test. Why the hell do they always do this to him? And it isn't as if they have the "pace" excuse any longer: he bowls no slower than Ishant/Bumra now.

[prasen9]

He has been labeled as a bowler who cannot take wickets unless the conditions are favorable. The bane of Indian cricket selection is that we mix ODI and test cricket, which are distinct enough to be treated separately. That is why we keep playing Rahane and even Bhuvi in ODIs. Bhuvi keeps runs down in ODIs but does not take very many wickets. But in tests, he attacks more and gets wickets. At least he is not much worse than the others abroad and can bat. But he still is tagged as a keep-the-runs-down bowler and as someone who needs conditions to be favorable (new ball, swing) to get wickets. The truth is perhaps in between.

[prasen9]

Pandya has pulled his weight in other ways.

He has with the bat. But he has been given 32 overs whereas Shami has gotten 39 and Ashwin 39. Ashwin should have been bowled more in T1. Pandya has been given too many overs.

Experimenting with Bumrah appears to be a failure.

Bumrah has been given 48 overs. It almost seems that Kohli is trying to will himself to success to cover his horrible selections.

A practice match would have been useful to test out those like Bumrah and Rohit/Rahane etc.

Yes, but only if you have people who look at results. Consider the first test as a practice match. Even after that Rohit and Bumrah are still playing. I am not as incensed at giving Bumrah a second match. But Rohit's choice is an abomination. The selection in this test shows that this team selection would have chosen Bumrah and Rohit even if they failed in a practice match.

As they say in medicine (and generally in science), we need evidence-based selections.

[Sin Hombre]

Bumrah is significantly faster than Bhuvi but then again SA persist with Philander and no reason why India shouldn't do so with Bhuvi especially given how good a batsman he is in these conditions.

[Sin Hombre]

Yes, there are. And the faster these idiots Kohli and Shastri are kicked out, the better it is for the team. We will have wasted this series without giving deserving people a chance.

Well said prasen.

Rohit over Rahane was justified by Kohli saying he was picking on "form".

Then he claimed after the first test debacle that people were clamouring for Rahul and Rahane with hindsight.

And now, he picks Ishant over Bhuvi saying that he is picking based on "conditions".

The inconsistency (or nepotism) is obvious.


The reason Indian fans should be annoyed is that this was our best chance to win a series in SA in a long time. Going into the series, we had
- key batsmen who were all in their prime years.
- fast bowling depth and variety
- a genuine medium-fast allrounder
- lower middle order which can bat well

When will we next have all of this align? Kohli/Shastri are wasting this.

Even the mid-2000s team did not have all of these checked off, though they were certainly better slip fielders.

[Prashant]

The problem isn't just dropping Bhuvi, its dropping him for Ishant. Bhuvi took 6 wickets in the last test & didn't do badly. Maybe not lights out, but not bad. What evidence do we have that Ishant would do better? Its not like he was dropped for a spinner, or some untried but promising pace bowler - those I would have been relatively fine with.

[Sin Hombre]

Centurion is generally a bouncy track (though not so much in this test) and Ishant has gotten better as a stock bowler who is hard to score off in recent years.

I can see some argument but clearly if you were going to drop someone, it would have had to be either Shami or Bumrah.

[Prashant]

I can see some argument but clearly if you were going to drop someone, it would have had to be either Shami or Bumrah.

Completely agree. Team selection in the Shastri / Kohli era seems either whimsical or playing favorites, not evidence based.

I would not have selected Ishant for the tour in the first place, but if you're going to replace someone, probably Shami had to go.

[prasen9]

Anyway, let's move on. This pitch may allow Rohit to play a big long innings. For the sake of the short term, I hope he succeeds. Although this may set us back in the longer term. But at this point, I will take a short term gain for a long term loss. Rooting for a century by Rohit and a 5-fer by Ishant.

[Sin Hombre]

Terrible terrible catching from India today - total of 5 drops from Parthiv (tough), Rahul (par), Parthiv (par), Kohli/Parthiv (par), Shami/Pandya (par) and at least a couple where Parthiv could have gone for it.

We have given up an additional 50 runs probably, does Parthiv over Saha in batting justify half of that?

[Sin Hombre]

And once again, we lose the first 2 wickets within 10 overs.

Nothing shot from Rahul and Pujara stupidly run out.

[Sin Hombre]

Another useless performance from Rohit, we need someone to support Kohli and for the latter to not throw it away.