West Indies in India

[prasen9]

We needed to give our left-arm pacers more chances. Sarkaria or whatever his name is should have been in the team.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

I think Sakariya's pace is preventing him from getting chance. He can bowl that indipper to the right handers, an international level batter can neglect that due to lack of pace.His slowers and cutters also quite good.If he starts hitting that indipper delivery around 140+kph then he will surely be in the team.

[prasen9]

That is stupid. Pace is overrated. All it matters is whether the person can bowl or not.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Pace means stupid Simply Gibberish

A pace bowler with no pace is a garbage.Swing without pace can't trouble any batters in the world biggest example is Irfan Pathan, he was something else around 2003-04, then he lost fair amount of pace and lost his skill of troubling batsman with swing.Just like Indian bowling at 90s which does'nt win games overseas, as the ball doesn't reach to the batters. Recently seen Bhuvi, how he was treated by Quinton& co. in SA. With rise of T20s & T10 days are gone for 120 + fellows, new shorts are getting invented and any good ball can be made bad bowl if the bowler does'nt have pace.
All of India's glory in the overseas in recent time has been due to pacers hitting 145+

[prasen9]

There have been umpteen bowlers who are not pacy and still bowled just fine. The contest is not won at the speed guns. The contest is won on the field. McGrath was an example. In the recent RSA matches, our bowlers bowled faster than the South Africans. There instead of pace bounce mattered more.

What we need is bowlers.

[prasen9]

All of India's glory in the overseas in recent time has been due to pacers hitting 145+

Our glory was also because of right-handed bowlers. That does not mean that we need to exclude left-handed pacers who can bowl. And players who had a full head with hair. Correlation is not causation. At the end of the day, we need to get bowlers who get wickets giving fewer runs. If a bald guy can bowl, get him. I am all for bald-guys rights for entirely non-parochial reasons .

[Rajkumar Sharma]

All of India's glory in the overseas in recent time has been due to pacers hitting 145+

Our glory was also because of right-handed bowlers. That does not mean that we need to exclude left-handed pacers who can bowl. And players who had a full head with hair. Correlation is not causation. At the end of the day, we need to get bowlers who get wickets giving fewer runs. If a bald guy can bowl, get him. I am all for bald-guys rights for entirely non-parochial reasons .

High level of weed

How can pacers get wickets without pace in his deliveries, wheather he may be right or left armers, wheather he has full hairs or bald ? In the era of T20s & T10s you expect bouncers, swing, seam, yorkers to be beneficial with no pace in it.It won't travel to the batsman in making it an impact. Batters are'nt idiots that they will throw away their wickets by playing blind shorts, it may happen rarely in T20s due to high run rate pressure , still very much less while chasing, but not in longer formats. Praveen Kumar/Joginder would have taken 500 international wickets if such things happened

[prasen9]

The answer to the "how can ..." question is that bowling is more complex than just speed. See Tim Southee bowling in T20Is. He is a top-10 in the world bowler with the top ranks being filled by leggies in the ICC rankings. He touches 130 at average maybe going a bit faster on a few balls. That is enough if you know how to swing the ball. Whatever exotic shot you may have if the ball moves horizontally, it will not come off the middle of your bat. That is how.

[prasen9]

It won't travel to the batsman

You do not need 140kph for the ball to travel to a batsman. Spinners do it at 70kph and the ball reaches the batsman fine. And, batters are not afraid of 140kph either these days. You need to be able to bowl not just be fast.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

It won't travel to the batsman

You do not need 140kph for the ball to travel to a batsman. Spinners do it at 70kph and the ball reaches the batsman fine. And, batters are not afraid of 140kph either these days. You need to be able to bowl not just be fast.

Thats why Ashwin took wickets after wickets in SA Tour .I never mentioned about spinners, its a differant art.Batsman are fully afraid when ball swings at 140 kph and gets enormous time to smash it when ball swings at no pace.Irfan was'nt troublesome with that indipper to the right handers after he lost his pace, same was the great Wasim Akram & Vaas. A well directed bouncer never hits helmet with no pace in it, its 100% goes out of the fence. A bowler with no pace is zero in balling reverse swing , primary weapin of pacer in sub continent, thatswhy India did'nt had anyone to deliver that till Zaheer Khan arrived in the scene, who had the skill of troubling batters with that old ball because of pace.

[prasen9]

DLC and Chahal bowled a tad badly. The fielding was slightly bad too. 157 is not a bad total to chase. Hope we get it. Excellent innings by Pooran, who is arguably the best batsman in the WI team. Bishnoi was phenomenal. He is actually more of a googly bowler. So goes fine with Chahal. But, the test is yet to come because the international teams will work him out. And, that catch that he let go for a six or whatever was awful. Rohit sends these duds to field at the boundary. Our top fielders on the boundary are perhaps Kohli and Surya. After that, we should try the three pacers: DLC, Harshal, and Bhuvi. And, if one of them is bowling and wee need another person then send in Venki and then Bishnoi. Venki had a bad miss too at the boundary and got hurt. Why was Kishan fielding at the boundary? He is slow being a keeper and has shorter feet stride. The boundary fielding has to be worked out.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Every T20I series are very imortant now for setting the team for the World Cup. Its 5 years for Pant now in this format, period of carrying him now gone, its time for him to deliver consistently, doesn't know how much support he will be given. Kishan doesnt deserve to sit atleast he is doing better then super inconsistent Pant.Public is already calling him one innings wonder in every series. Rahul Should replace Pant in the middle order and Kishan should be now regular opener for T20Is

[prasen9]

How does SAY make it look so effortless to pierce the field? The others were struggling. I am super-glad that he also keeps his cool and does not try to take more risks than is required.

Rohit, Kohli and Rahul are certainties for the T20 WC.

Wk: Pant has failed. Kishan has scored a few more runs than Pant per innings but has also been slower. I'd just keep with Rahul and take three more batsmen.

Among the newbies, SAY has performed the best. He walks in.

Hardik has been a big hitter and is reasonably reliable for 20 runs or so. So a #6 slot may work for him. I am not very high on him but if he can bowl a bit that is great.

So that leaves one spot. I'd go for SIyer just to get some solidity in the batting lineup if Kishan keeps on failing. But, if he takes his chances or VIyer does so or anyone else, they get in.

Rohit, Rahul, Virat, SAY, x, x

Hope two people will put their hands up. We invested in SIyer and Pant and both have failed to do their job there.

[prasen9]

Wrt the pacers not many look that good to do both: keep the runs down and take wickets.

Bumrah is a certainty.

Natarajan started well but he is injured. Hope we try him and he had a good IPL to come into the reckoning.

Ditto for Harshal because he can bat a bit.

Not too enamoured by DLC's bowling and even less by Shardul's.

There is also Bhuvi.

Why did we dump Saini? He bowled well in the T20Is he got and in the RSA tour, he was fine.

So, my bowlers in that order assuming full fitness and form will be (players in the same line means I think they are about the same, in this case with some promise but untried fully):
Bumrah,
Harshal, Natarajan, Saini
Bhuvi.

I'd throw in Sakaria in the mix if he does well at the IPL.

[prasen9]

West Indies is missing E Lewis. Their top hitters are as follows (not in order):

Odean, Pollard, Akeal, Rovman, Mayers, Allen, Shepherd, McCoy

all with a SR above 130. Then, they have the accumulators: Brooks, King, Puran. King before Brooks for now. Puran the keeper.

Maybe they can have a flexible batting lineup and send the top hitters early on at least on one side and give them license to go a la Narine.

I guess McCoy is one pacer too many and they played Chase who is a horrible international bat but bowled very well today. So, Chase came in because they need spin. They have lots of people who can bowl and Cottrell did not look that great. I'd play instead with Brooks to plop up their batting.

So, an interesting batting order would be: Shepherd, Pooran, Mayers, Odean, King, Hosein, Brooks, Powell, Pollard, McCoy, Allen. Or something weird like that interspersing with traditional batters with tonkers. Or have two mini lineups. One order for the batsmen. One order for the tonkers. And, send the next batsman from the respective list when one from that list gets out. Would be an interesting exercise.