England in India, February-March 2021

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prasen9
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by prasen9 »

We had these players because of injuries and other absences. Look at the batting side. We did not have anyone except Gill. There is no history of young players resulting in success. Actually, Pakistan is the example showing that this does not work. Shan Masood got 25 tests and score at under 30 runs/inning. See Rahul--. Haris Sohail 16 tests and averages 32. See Rahul-. Or Vihari. I am fine with dropping both Rahul and Vihari. Mohammad Abbas was the crazy sacking. Abbas is only 30. To put it in perspective, a year older than Thakur and two years older than Saini. What we have done is honed the juniors and prepared bench strength in the last few years and thus we have experienced middle-aged people like Saini and Thakur ready. Siraj is 26. It is good we did not go to the next 16 year old like Pakistan did with Nasim. There is a difference.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by VReddy »

It will not work for Pakistan as they do not have IPL kind of platform nor a solid A tour programme. So I feel this is a solid recipe for disastar for Pakistan. First they need to build platform big enough like IPL and A tour programmes.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by prasen9 »

VReddy wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 4:14 pm Pant did not fail in IPL. He averaged >30 which is solid for a middle order player in T20. His strike rate was low but how does that matter for ODIs or Test? Another thing we seem to be ignoring is that he is in a transition phase from being all out attack to reaching that middle ground between attack and defence. So that SR during this transition phase is understandable. Given these 2 context points, he was solid in IPL.

What we should consider a failure is say Shaw who had a long long series of single digit scores i think. Failure is not someone like Pant who is consistent in the tourney but has a SR of 114.

Beyond that, we can just agree to disagree. However, if we follow the orthodox methodology to selection, we wouldn't have several players in the team from the Australia series even though it was starkly obvious that they are ready.
We can agree to disagree. But, Pant was *not* selected for the T20I and ODIs. Let us suppose that the selectors thought that he succeeded in the IPL. Then, why did they not include him in the same format? And, why did they go for Samson? And, if they did go for Sampson in T20Is, why did they choose Pant for tests? The answer is simple my friend. Pant averages over 50 in FC cricket and he has averaged well with the bat in SENA countries. That is why he was taken. Not because of IPL. If it was because of the IPL, he would have been in the T20I team. I cannot prove anything but this is a very hard evidence.

Again, Prithvi was also chosen for the test matches. Another clear indication that Prithvi's past batting as an opener in India and his solid Ranjis was taken into account. Ditto with Gill. He failed in the IPL but was included on the basis of FC cricket and A-teams.

We followed the orthodox methods wrt selecting players and two of the three youngsters succeeded with the bat.

There is no batsman who failed in FC cricket and was selected in the tests due to the IPL, maybe except Rahul. And, that method, which is logical and rational, worked because we did not catapult Rahul above the other successes in FC cricket and A-tours.

Ditto for Siraj. He has a fabulous FC career and A-team results. We chose him as first change after the regulars were hurt.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by VReddy »

I countered the Pant failure point in IPL. We didn't go into selection matters.

I pointed Shaw example because it rebuts the orthodox way of looking at things that you ignore other format form. His form ported over to long format and be failed.

Vis a vis Pant and short format. He is a bit like Sehwag / Gilchrist. Pant hasn't mastered the art of doing well when the field is all spread out. He will succeed when his shots fetch him boundaries which is difficult in shorter format in the middle order with field spread out. He will eventually (in an year) crack the puzzle if you persist with him.


And vis a vis first class cricket vs ipl - there is a big difference in what you are implying and what I am trying to say. Use first class cricket as one of the yardsticks and not the only yardstick (no where did I say use only IPL). Any player to make it to IPL, he would have had to show some pedigree in first class cricket.

Again I don't understand why Gill and Pant are failures. They both average above 30 in 2020 IPL. That's a damn good average facing elite caliber opening fast / spin bowlers. Their performances actually give me the confidence that they are in good nick for top class cricket.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by prasen9 »

Because the modern game is about SRs in T20Is. Especially in batting conditions in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. How many MoMs did these guys get? How many supporting acts did they have? Slow batting and scoring in the 20-30s does not mean much. A lot of people can do that.

Selection should be based on A-team results. Form in domestics should be used. But, IPL should be a check to see if international bowlers are getting you out regularly and easily (see Shaw). I think we agree on the overall process. Maybe we are giving different weights to A-tours, domestics and IPL.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by Atithee »

VReddy wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:15 pm It will not work for Pakistan as they do not have IPL kind of platform nor a solid A tour programme. So I feel this is a solid recipe for disastar for Pakistan. First they need to build platform big enough like IPL and A tour programmes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Pakistan beats SAF.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1602634
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by karr »

Meanwhile, this is England's squad for the first 2 matches:
Joe Root, Jofra Archer, Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Dom Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Ben Foakes, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ben Stokes, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes.

Jadeja has been ruled out of the entire Test series (still in contention for ODI/T20)

The English squad is a good one. They will come to India having encountered (and conquered) spin friendly conditions in SL. They are rotating all their key bpwlers between the SL and India series and within each series (Anderson for Broad in the 2nd SL test). That's good planning, scheduling and workload management.

India has to play really well to beat England. I hope Shastri and Kohli get out of their Aus highs quickly and start planning. This game is the ultimate leveler.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by VReddy »

Atithee wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 7:56 pm
VReddy wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:15 pm It will not work for Pakistan as they do not have IPL kind of platform nor a solid A tour programme. So I feel this is a solid recipe for disastar for Pakistan. First they need to build platform big enough like IPL and A tour programmes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Pakistan beats SAF.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1602634
Pakistan beating South Africa in Pakistan is not a big thing IMO Athithee. With the strong affirmative / reservation / quota policy in ZAF, the team is very weakened. It is in the danger of heading the WI way.

Vis-a-vis previous discussion Prasen: Agree with you.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by Atithee »

:Offtopic: We shall see, Vishnu. In a country like Pakistan (and all major Asian cricket powerhouses), sport, and cricket trumps them all, is a ticket to ungodly riches and adulation. Domestic structure or not, A-tours or not, there are fringe players who are as good as the ones who made it there before them. Who do you think SAF is missing due to their quota policies that has weakened the squad? Not sure if the team has quota limits, but from the squad:

Elgar, markram, bavuma, faf, de kock, van der dussen, maharaj, nortje, Shamsi, rabada, ngidi (that’s six people of color)

Looks quite strong to me.

We should move this to general cricket thread from here. I am very concerned about India’s chances against this scary strong English side if we rely solely on doctored pitches. It’s no longer a silver bullet and can easily backfire, especially if we go to the same old same old (hint—ishant, pandya, etc.). Spin is our enemy as much as friend now. In fact, pace is our friend. Plus, England has a slight chance of making it to the WTC, which will be an extra motivation.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by prasen9 »

Have faith in Ashwin. Kohli will be super-motivated to contribute. He does not like being out of the limelight. Openers hungry to score big. We will be fine. At the end of the day, this team will keep fighting. We have good amounts of depth and we will persevere. Our pace attack is good but so is theirs. If we play on a pacy pitch, it becomes a lottery as in Australia. With slightly different luck, all three results were possible in the last game in the last 10 overs of the game. But on a spinning pitch, I think the English are worse than us bowling-wise and most possibly batting-wise too.

Since Atithee mentioned old guys, let us see who they are:

Old: Saha (36), Ashwin (34), Rohit (33), Pujara, Rahane, Ishant (32)
Young: Washi, Gill (21), Pant (23), Kuldeep, Siraj, Axar (26)

All of the young guys have played less than 10 tests except Pant, who was the prodigy. Gill also was but he is too young. In some ways I agree with Sin Hombre that he was ready in New Zealand, etc. But, it is good we let him mature and improve his game before we thrust him into the test arena. Sometimes, blooding people too early and them failing results in us banishing people for a long time and ruining them.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by Prem »

Hoping for a Sri Lanka win in the second test.
They have won the toss and are batting.
However, not a great start 78/3 with the 38 year old Jimmy Anderson having unbelievable figures of 3 wickets for 6 runs in 6 overs!!
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by Sin Hombre »

SL will win if their spinners can get Root out, the rest of that batting lineup is terrible.


In regards to the prior discussion, BCCI and Dravid should get a lot of credit. The likes of Siraj and Gill have a played a lot of A-tours, in fact half of Siraj's FC career was A-tours. Our next gen of red ball cricketers are battle tested.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by prasen9 »

The only spinner getting wickets by the bucket-full against England including opening the bowling and wiping out the openers cheaply is a left-armer. I'd say Axar has to be a must.

Looking at the old guys/youngsters in the English team:

Old: Anderson (38), Broad (34), Moeen (33), Woakes (31), Burns (30)
Young: Crawley (22), Bess, Lawrence (23), Sibley, Archer (25)

Interesting to see that three of their five youngest players are batsmen! Usually, batsmen mature a bit later. So, they have a batting weakness of sorts. And the bowlers and all-rounders are in the old group.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by sameerph »

Joe Root has been quite fantastic here though. He is getting close to second consecutive double hundred here. Rest if the batting is, quite suspect. Buttler is decent and Stokes will be back against us. But, than SL seems to have only 1 good bowler - that left arm spinner with a long name. :D
We have overall much better quality and should be able provide better challenge to Root and the rest of their batting line up.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by PKBasu »

England have been very clever, preparing for the India tour with a trip to Sri Lanka -- where they will face conditions similar to those in Chennai. Yes, the quality of Sri Lanka's bowling is highly suspect, but the England team will be incredibly well-prepared for the India test series. And the non-test players in the India squad will have had no first-class preparation (eg, Ishant/Axar/Pandya, with Kohli not having played a first-class game since the Adelaide test).
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