India in Australia, 2018-2019

[prasen9]

Pant is already a better batsman and a better wicket-keeper than Patel. Patel is the stiffest wicket-keeper I have ever seen. He is marginally a better bat than Saha and old. His technique has never gotten significantly better in all these years. I would rather have Rahul keep and get another proper bat than get Patel if Pant is hurt! Pant has been safe behind the wickets against pacers and against spinners he does okay. Maybe he is due to miss a stumping here and there tomorrow but given that he is young, I would rather invest in him than try again the tried and tested and failed multiple times Patel.

My XI would be: Shaw, Rahul, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, Pant, Jadeja, Ashwin, two among Bhuvi/Ishant/Shami, Bumrah. If we choose Bhuvi, I would consider replacing Jadeja with Kuldeep.

[prasen9]

Tim Paine's team has been called "young" by Cricket Australia, etc. But are they?

Here is the distribution:

Old: S. Marsh (35), Siddle, Paine (33), Finch (32), Khawaja (31).
Young: Head (24), Cummins(25), Harris (26), M. Marsh, Tremain, Handscomb (27).

Not that young. I suspect their average age will be less than ours.

[Atithee]

Regarding the pace selection, I’ve noticed that our pacers, Bumrah excluded, and in particular Ishant and Umesh, tend to concede a boundary of the last ball of the over way too frequently. Have any of you noticed that? There’s some mental indiscipline about that. Even in ODIs.

[prasen9]

Interesting.

On a different note, Pujara's father and uncle were both first class players. AS Pujara, the father and BS Pujara, the uncle. His grandfather was a leggie whose first initial was S. Per reliable sources, you need to pronounce his father's initials as a word elongating the sound a tad at the end, but only say the letters of his uncle's initials. They seem to prefer to be called as such. I wonder why. Distinguished people. Incidentally, BS was a better bat than AS. So, after AS and BS, we got CA. Seems to indicate Chet's daughter or son will be named with a D, presumably a DC, if they want to keep the pattern going. Does he have a cousin with the initials DB? Or a sibling with the initials DA?

[Sin Hombre]

Australia batting very well and with their bowlers actually capable of hanging around, India will panic and lose from here.

[ankit1407]

Need to get Marsh out quickly .. so far him and Paine looking pretty comfortable..

[ankit1407]

Bumrah gets Shaun Marsh , a big wicket this .. hope we can get the likes of Cummins and Starc out without much damage ..

[Sin Hombre]

Australia inching closer.

[prasen9]

How bad is Ashwin? He cannot spin the ball and he cannot even put the ball on the rough consistently. On a fifth day wicket, he gets nothing I hope he gets some rest and then rethinks things and gets some wickets. Given Cummins is more confident against pace than against spin, we should open with Ishant and Bumrah and give them 4-5 overs each and then go to Ashwin.

[Sin Hombre]

Ashwin's record is dismal against right handers in SENA countries. Always has been, always will be.

Ashwin averages 19.93 against left-handers and 31.50 against right-handers. In SA, Eng, NZ & Aus he averages 22.75 against left-handers and 97.92 against right-handers.


Loss or win here, Ashwin shouldn't be played in Perth. His batting used to be good but even that's a distant memory at this point. If he would have added 50 more runs with Rahane, the result would be a foregone conclusion.

[Atithee]

Come on. Let’s talk about what our fast bowlers did vis-a-vis theirs. If Ishant, Shami, and Bumrah do not see the folly of their wanton ways even now, I don’t know what more to say. Ashwin still did his part with the bat, at least in the first innings, which is not a small contribution.

[PKBasu]

Kohli is over-bowling Ashwin, like he did at Lord’s. When the pacers have got all the wickets this morning, why the hell does Ashwin take the new ball with Ishant? Unnnecessarily letting the Aussies make a match of it.

[ankit1407]

Come on. Let’s talk about what our fast bowlers did vis-a-vis theirs. If Ishant, Shami, and Bumrah do not see the folly of their wanton ways even now, I don’t know what more to say. Ashwin still did his part with the bat, at least in the first innings, which is not a small contribution.

With this theory you might as well just play 11 batsman ... sure , they need to improve on batting but 2-3 guys should be picked based on ability to take wickets and not necessarily on the ability to bat ...

The problem wit this team is no one in top 6 knows how to bowl .. and that’s why as much as you need bowlers to bat well you also need cover from top 6 if you have to pick bowlers who can bat vs better bowlers ..

[ankit1407]

Kohli just keeps persisting with Ashwin , who is looking very very ordinary ..

[PKBasu]

Unbelievable that Ashwin just keeps bowling from one end despite not looking at all like taking a wicket.