Sri Lanka in India

[indiansportsfan]

You don't consider Pandya an automatic entry? He is one of the best T20 players in the world IMO. The best slogger we have had for a while now, and also a wicket-taking bowler, although a bit expensive. He is the most valuable player in the Indian team when fit and would walk into any international first X1.

The problem is that he is the only pure slogger we have; to be able to challenge Australia and England for the top, we need 1 more like him. Thakur gives a ray of hope if he can continue with his batting exploits and also be consistent with his bowling.

[prasen9]

I do consider Pandya an automatic entry at #7 because we have no better alternatives. He has been a failure with the bat as a #7 because he can give you a quick 15 runs but gets out more often than not. I want him to player longer innings (when needed). He has also been very expensive with the ball although reasonably wicket-taking. Given that we do not have anyone better, I would play him there. I doubt he would get into any international XI given his poor batting average and poor economy rate in T20Is.

#8-11, I think the benefits of having a better bowler is much more than someone who can bat given that the matches will be in Australia on batting pitches. So, the benefits of a Chahal, Kuldeep, Chahar, Bumrah tail is more useful on larger grounds in Australia than the ability of Thakur to slog a few. Thakur needs to improve his line and length and discipline and bring the runs/over down. All of Chahar, Thakur, Saini are works in progress. I would want to see how they shape up before choosing 1-2 of them in the XI.

[Sin Hombre]

We need at least 2 player in the lower order who can hit right from ball 1. Jadeja will never be that and Shardul's cameos are opening up a new possibility.

Hardik is a cert and given our batters don't turn the arm anymore, will likely be at 6.

Think we are looking at 6-11 as
Hardik
?
Shardul
Kuldeep
Saini
Bumrah

Agree with prasen that things are in flux and will change, but if we can find someone who is a genuine wickettaker or good 5th bowling option who can hit from ball 1 for the ?, the team will look really good.

3 (or 4) genuine wickettaking options in Kuldeep, Saini, Bumrah (and ?), and 3 guys who can hit from ball 1 in the lower order.

[prasen9]

So, yet another Sri Lanka in India series. The T20I team is somewhat interesting and somewhat idiotic.

In T20Is, our best batsmen have been (ordered by SR, quals 25 runs/innings):

SAY 181, Hooda 150, Hardik 146, Rohit 139, Rahul 139, Kohli 138, Iyer 135.

Dropping Karthik because he is too old. Of these Rohit, Rahul, Kohli have tons of experience. Iyer has played 49 matches. Okay, so they are dropped. Why do we have Hardik? Perhaps to give him captaincy experience. That is fine. I hope we play him as a #5 bowler and not go for any nonsense playing too many bowlers with a weak batting lineup.

The batters included are Ruturaj, Kishan, Gill, Samson, Tripathi.

Of these Kishan got 20 dismissals and scored at 29.5@129. Too slow. And, he has gotten a lot of chances. But, I presume his inning against Bangladesh will get him in. This is a bad idea. I have always said that we need to keep the formats seperate. Just because you can play in ODIs does not mean you can play well in T20Is and vice-versa (see SAY). I would rather see the others given chances than Kishan. Why was Kishan chosen? His T20 record is not that great. 29.5@131.

Ruturaj 16.82@124 in 8 dismissals. Complete failure so far but he should be given this series. He scores at 35@134 in T20s.

Samson 21.14@135 over 14 dismissals. Another failure. I would rather give him chances than Ishan in T20Is because he is more consistent and faster. His T20 record is unfortunately 28.6@132.

Shubman Gill unfortunately averages 33.46@129 over 77 T20 dismissals. That is too slow.

Rahul Tripathi 29@134 in T20s.

All of these guys are too slow in T20s. Do we not have any big hitters?

Anyway, if I had to choose among these renegades, SAY, Hardik, Hooda, Samson, and two more. I'd go with Gaikwad and Tripathi.

Gaikwad, SAY, Hooda, Samson, Hardik, Tripathi.

In reality, of course, I think the team management will give the people born with a silver spoon, read U-19 bigshots: Ishan and Gill. And the likes of Samson, Tripathi, Hooda etc. will be given short shrift.

On the bowling side, why on earth are we choosing the proven failure Chahal and not investing in Bishnoi? I'd rather play Sundar and Axar.

[Atithee]

Prasen, I know you like using SAY for SKY. You have a good reason for that. But, when the rest of the forum is using SKY, it’s sometimes okay to cede and use the popular even if wrong abbreviation. Please consider this suggestion. Thanks.

[Sin Hombre]

prasen - there is no point looking at KL's records. The sample size is large enough now to know that he is a choker and only bashes poor teams in bilaterals in LOIs. We are long due getting rid of him.

Pant "dropped" from the ODIs which is pretty stupid since he is one of our best middle order options and is a left-hander to boot.

[indiansportsfan]

Instead of narrating stats ad nauseam, I think the context in which these runs were accumulated is more important. For instance, the quality of opposition, match situation etc. Also for younger players, stats will not give the full picture, since their sample size would be small, and heavily influenced by their initial years, where they might still be learning and developing.

But I agree in that the squad has too many accumulators, and lacks in big hitting ability other than SKY. I know it's probably a gamble, but would have been worth to have either of Jitesh Sharma or Rinku Singh in the lineup, based on their last IPL performance. I just looked up Rinku Singh's domestic record, and it seems to be quite outstanding. The guy deserves at least a few A team selections.

[PKBasu]

Trotting out statistics without nuance is really a waste of time! A classic example is Deepak Hooda, touted by prasen9 as the second-best T20I batsman we have. Here are his last few innings in T20Is (last to first): 9* (off 9 balls), 0, 0, 3, 16, 38, 21, 10*, 33. His numbers are built on ONE brilliant innings against IRELAND in Malahide, where he made 104 off 57 balls -- but against one of the winnows. His next innings (33 against England) was good too, but he has been woeful since. In a short career like this, one innings can hugely improve the numbers, but Hooda surely isn't India's second-best T20I batsman!

[prasen9]

I have never claimed he is the second best T20I batsman. He is the batsman with the second best SR in the last 1-2 years. My claims at least have some evidence although not nuanced. Others opinions that have no supported evidence are even more flimsy.

Hooda suffers from low support. He has not performed very well in a bunch of matches. But, that he is #2 shows that the others have performed even worse. Several of our batsmen have gotten weak teams to play against. But they were slow against the Irelands of the world too.

We only have a couple of world class T20I cricketers. SKY (not using his initials per Atithee's request, but his nickname, as you guys call him) and Hardik. That is it. All the rest have been junk.

What I am saying is that Hooda at least played one innings against weak bowling that was good. He played innings of 38 and 33 at a high SR. At least he tries to hit out or gets out just like Surya. The rest just stay and waste balls.

I fully agree that statistics needs context. But, I do not have the data to calculate nuanced statistics. I do not want to bloviate without evidence. I understand many here are just fine with claims without evidence or evidence based on anecdotes, i.e., a few successes here and there that look spectacular but are not really sustained.

All I am saying is that Hooda has not gotten a full run. But, at least, he has done something. The rest have done nothing in T20Is or close to nothing. Surya and Hardik excepted (with the bat).

[prasen9]

In a sense ISP and I are saying the same thing. For whatever reason people here are more comfortable with no evidence (i.e., just opinions) instead of some approximate evidence, which nonetheless has its flaws but is better than nothing if read properly and only used accurately. Bring in all your nuances if you want with nuanced analyses. I am all for that. I just pay not much attention to punditry which is based on whims and feelings.

We need hard hitting batsmen. The current lot are not. Look at Hooda's SR in the domestics. 139. I'd rather have him tried instead of the Gaikwad, Gill, Kishan, Samson, Tripathis of the world who have failed to hit at 135 in the domestics. Rinku Singh hits at 138. Bring him in. Junk these slow coaches. Because only then will you send them a message that batting for averages will not get them selected. Only then will we get batters like England have who either hit out or get out. That is what you need in the modern day T20I games. Otherwise, we will be perpetual semi-finalists with these slow coaches.

[Atithee]

We only have a couple of world class T20I cricketers. SKY (not using his initials per Atithee's request, but his nickname, as you guys call him) and Hardik. That is it. All the rest have been junk.

Thank you, Dr. Mitra.

[prasen9]

For the record, you want to replace Hooda, do it. But, my standard will be at least batters who are consistently fast in the domestics should be given the chance. A SR of 135. Ideally, I would like 140 but beggars cannot be choosers. If you want to use similar idea with nuanced metrics, by all means do so.

Who do we have who are big hitters who are reasonably consistent? ISP gave two names. I say try them. Others? I am reluctant to choose a Johhny who got lucky and hit one or two great innings in one season of the IPL but would rather want people who are consistent for some time. Yes, young players mature and get better. Then, use the last two years stats or some other metric.

[Omkara]

Pant badly injured in a road accident.

[PKBasu]

For the record, you want to replace Hooda, do it. But, my standard will be at least batters who are consistently fast in the domestics should be given the chance. A SR of 135. Ideally, I would like 140 but beggars cannot be choosers. If you want to use similar idea with nuanced metrics, by all means do so.

Who do we have who are big hitters who are reasonably consistent? ISP gave two names. I say try them. Others? I am reluctant to choose a Johhny who got lucky and hit one or two great innings in one season of the IPL but would rather want people who are consistent for some time. Yes, young players mature and get better. Then, use the last two years stats or some other metric.

Virat Kohli, whom you love to bash, has a CAREER strike rate of 138 in T20Is and averages nearly 53/innings in that format. He appears set to retire from T20Is now that his recent numbers have deteriorated a bit.

[prasen9]

He has been great as have been Rohit and Rahul. But, they are useless now because the runrates required are much higher. I will concede that I cannot come up with their replacements but we have to try. My point is that we need to get people who bat at 140 SR or better. If we cannot, then we should go back to the oldies and tell them to bat fast right from ball 5 that they face and not ball 20 like Kohli likes to although in previous years when he was almost guaranteed to score 50, he could make up things towards the end. If we look at career numbers, admittedly Kohli walks into the team. We need to find players who play faster. That is the only way we can cope with the Englands of the world and the WI teams that won a couple of T20 I world cups with big hitting, etc.