India in Australia, 2020-21

[Atithee]

We shouldn’t see this as a negative for Kohli. Or at least make sure he doesn’t see it as a ding on his captaincy. Rather, we want his mind to be free of clutter and have his batting reach consistent new heights. As a new parent, it may help him bond with his newborn and wife better too.

[prasen9]

Kohli and the team will win against England at home. If they do not, then Kohli will most possibly lose his captaincy.

[VReddy]

With regards to Indian batting, I agree Vishnu is the only one who thinks the lineup in this test is our best ever in SENA.

India's best line up in SENA for sometime vs best ever : hugely varying meaning and interpretation . I rate this batting line up better than the first test and the ones we had in the last 3-4 years where probably we haven't touched/crossed 300 outside of those innings with centuries from Pant.

If Vihari doesn't have a decent knock in the second innings, bring in KL Rahul. When Kohli comes back, replace Mayank or Pujara with Rahul depending on whoever has the worst series.

To Prasen: We have reached a stage where first class performance is only one variable out of the many that exist to judge whether a player is ready for Test cricket. Rahul is a big ticket player - I would slot him in any format based on his form and confidence and not necessarily look for format specific track record. That approach is old school - its outdated in my opinion when we are looking at special talents (Rahul, Pant, Jadeja, Pandya, etc,.). For example, Pandya is ready now to take on the Andrew Symonds kind of role in Tests - its just that I don't think Pandya would be interested in playing Tests beyond a point.

There are a lot of variables that are needed to succeed at the international stage. They could be things like skill, big match temperament, self confidence, maturity, patience and so on.

Ranji Trophy will test those skills at a much level standard of cricket. IPL will test those skills against the elite competition. A Washington or a Pandya or Siraj is facing the very best in the world on a day-to-day basis in the nets/ground during those two months. Once you succeed there, you are not overawed by the big stage anymore. However, we can't be sure how good they are in long format. So if someone starts doing well in the ODI format in terms of exhibiting long format skills (like building an inning or purchasing a wicket), then you can have more confidence on them.

So I would see two pathways to making it to the indian A team: (a) Domestic Circuit performance (b) IPL performances. Then performance in the A team will push you onto the India team. If someone is a good performer in the ODI scene, varies from player to player, then we can fast track to Test team even with lack of sufficient evidence from the 4-day matches.

Earlier we would move players from Ranji to Test directly without knowing their skill against elite athletes, big stage temperament and so on. Now we have IPL which gives you confidence against all these variables but without the 4-day match skill. The ideal state is, whichever the funnel, players perform on the A tour and then play Test cricket.

So players like Pandya (like Symonds in Tests), Sundar and so on - I wouldn't bother having them waste their time playing in first class cricket unless its the knockout stage.

[Atithee]

I’ve a slightly different take. There should always be one batsman and one bowler under 21 years of age in the team. How you select them could be the funnel you mentioned, Vishnu. Perhaps the best players from under-19 World Cup need to be pitchforked in at least the squad right away. And, played against minnows at home at the first possible opportunity in a test match.

P.S. the age of 21 is somewhat arbitrary. But, I think using the under-19 World Cup is good. I also don’t know why our A-team players don’t play county cricket around the world. Those are ideal places to get battle hardened.

[VReddy]

I’ve a slightly different take. There should always be one batsman and one bowler under 21 years of age in the team. How you select them could be the funnel you mentioned, Vishnu. Perhaps the best players from under-19 World Cup need to be pitchforked in at least the squad right away. And, played against minnows at home at the first possibly opportunity in a test match.

Bingo. Actually there used to be a policy of each IPL playing eleven needing to have a player from U19 and then some from U23 IIRC. That policy appears to have been scrapped. I would reinstate that right away and whoever amongst those who do well in 1-2 IPL editions, should make it to the indian team as you mentioned.

[prasen9]

Vihari played in the English 2nd division or club. BCCI is idiotic to ban Indian players from playing in foreign T20 leagues. We should tell our players to get as much experience playing abroad on all sorts of pitches.

[Kumar]

Ashwin video with fielding coach about Sydney test(in Tamil) , but does have subtitles

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A video from YouTube usually appears here. Please contact an administrator.

Write up as well

https://www.opindia.com/2021/01/ravicha ... oo-bhoomi/

[Kumar]

Also, the first part read Melbourne victory!

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A video from YouTube usually appears here. Please contact an administrator.

[Sin Hombre]

I was going to post those videos ^ , they are excellent and there is a part 3 as well.

Shastri gets a lot of criticism from sports-india but even those videos show that he is clearly liked by most of the players and is tactically astute. Guardian had a fantastic article after the test match and I will share one comment from there

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... -australia

Give it up for Ravi Shastri. I'm no fan of the kant, and it only occurred to me eventually, during my own private after-party. But no one else will say it. So I ought to. We can't all pretend a coach isn't a figure in leading a tenacious fightback like that. Dude made the most of fairly limited talents through attitude, 5fers and double centuries didn't happen by accident in that era, much less from the same man. Doff of the hat to a man who's suddenly everyone's favourite bewda uncle

As someone who didn't watch his cricket in the 80s, statistically he has always been a pick in my all-time Indian test xi away from Asia (as the 2nd allrounder) and has always been unashamedly pro-India (unlike a Gavaskar who likes to talk himself up).

Shastri is also clearly better than Kumble who was both a terrible coach and captain.

Now if only he could stop being a yes-man to Kohli.

[suresh]

As a confirmed Shastri hater, I must say that it appears that he did have a significant role in this victory.

[prasen9]

I am sort of on the negative to Shastri but I also think that he is astute. Perhaps because he went to my school's namesake in Mumbai. Also, when he captained India, I was sort of impressed. We won that test against West Indies. No mean feat. He has his pluses and minuses.

[Atithee]

I’m his biggest critic, but with the stories coming around, it seems he did lead the strategy and planned it for quite some time. The only thing is I’m not sure how true these stories are after the fact. But, I’ll give him the benefit of doubt and give credit where it is due. Well done, coach and the rest of his staff.

I can’t believe I just wrote this

[suresh]

^ A whole generation feels that way about Ravi Shastri

[PKBasu]

Ravi Shastri was a pretty mediocre cricketer, who was neither good enough to play as a batsman nor bowler in the XI in his day, and was usually the 11th man picked as a utility player. But he was always regarded as someone with a very astute brain -- nicely encapsulated in the fact that he had a 100% record as India captain (winning the one test and one ODI he was captain in). The victory in the Windies test was mainly because of Narendra Hirwani's brilliant debut, but Shastri got the credit as captain. He was a huge beneficiary of the bias in favour of Bombay players during his time, of which Gavaskar was the biggest proponent (I hate to admit that now, as an unabashed Sunny fan).

Sunny picked Ravi Shastri out of nowhere to come into the side in place of an injured Doshi (in New Zealand) and to Shastri's credit, he made it very difficult to drop him for the rest of his career. (Some of Gavaskar's other picks did much worse: Suru Nayak and Ghulam Parkar, for instance; completely undeserved picks; in an earlier generation, Sudhir Naik -- infamous as the guy caught mistakenly "shoplifting" a pair of socks from Marks & Spencers during the 1974 tour -- was picked by Wadekar to open in the England tests despite Gopal Bose making 85 and 101 in the unofficial tests in Sri Lanka earlier in the year; Bose never got to play a test for India). Shastri was never a particularly good fielder: he looked sluggish in the field, but he did enough either with bat or ball to make it difficult to drop him from the side. And of course he shone in the World Championship of Cricket in 1985 (when Gavaskar was captain) having been dropped from the side before the SF and final of the 1983 World Cup (after playing a lead role in the defeat of WI in the first match of the tournament -- a sensational result in itself).

We cannot give Shastri a sudden pass for all the silly decisions he has made in recent times, but there is probably some truth to the idea that he came up with the leg-side trap. Ashwin may have had a part in it too, and at any rate, it was Ashwin who out-thought Smith in the first two tests of the series. So, yes, some credit to Shastri for the triumph in this series. But it doesn't make him any less irritating. He was brilliant at self-image manufacturing: he somehow got a really good performance (including double century) in the first test of a series in Australia (at the spinners' and batsmen's paradise of SCG), and retired immediately thereafter, because his numbers looked better (at last) after that test. He has been brilliant at image-manufacturing, and no doubt the Bharat Arun story is a nice plant that helps it. But we have to admit that the coaching staff got something right in Australia this year, and Shastri is responsible for that. I also think that Ganguly as BCCI president ensured that there were two proper first class matches before the tests -- something that Shastri has been hugely remiss about in past tours.

[Kumar]

Shastri I felt has been the most selfish cricketer ! Still remember the jokes that Shastriplayed the entire 85 world championships with an eye on Audi! The channel 9 used to show Audi every time he hit a boundary or took a wicket

Shastri definitely has the cricketing brain though! Somehow he finds himself always in the right place every time! One of the luckiest cricketer, definitely some of it rubbed off our cricketers during the last two matches