Sri Lanka in India, 2022

[prasen9]

No. Gone on and on arguing. You have seen me do that right? Worse than killing?

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Shreyas has never been given a chance outside India in tests. All young Indian batsmen have had problems against the short ball. Those who learn to manage will continue. The others will face the fate of Raina, who was possibly the worst against the short ball among Indian test batters. Let's try Iyer abroad and see and not consign him the the trash bin without even trying while we are trying Rohit, Vihari, etc. who have similar deficiencies and giving them chances to learn. I am pretty sure the selectors will give Iyer that chance if he shows he can do well against Sri Lanka at home. Then, will be the real test.

So Shreyas has never been out to the short ball in tests outside India. Let him get his chance and fail and then I will be the first person to call for his sacking.

Hope after IPL & England test now you agree that Shreyas Iyer has 10 out of 10 chance in getting out of short ball.After T20Is and Odis series, his weakness will be officially stamped.I wonder what would have happened if he had to face Archer & Wood, though Carse, Parkinson, Jordon also have that capability to trouble him.Funniest part was Coach Bazz indicating Potts to ball Iyer in his shoulder and he gets out in that over only

[prasen9]

Hope after IPL & England test now you agree that Shreyas Iyer has 10 out of 10 chance in getting out of short ball.

No, I don't agree with something that is provably false. He has played umpteen number of short balls and gets out to maybe 1 out of 10 of them. That may be too high. But, it is not 10 out of 10. And, I do not see getting out to the short ball any worse than getting out knicking outside your off stump or getting bowled, etc. What matters to me is the runs. He has to score runs to make it. Otherwise, he should be out. He deserves the chances and we should give it to him just as we have given the Gills and the Viharis of the world. At the end, in this game, he scored more than Gill, Vihari, and Kohli. Only Pujara batted better than him in the top-5. That is a bad state of affairs for Indian cricket to be in. But, I believe in a process to give youngsters a fair run and have them try to fix what ails them. And, I would rather stick to my process than randomly choose short balls, lbws, or hit wickets or whatever to argue someone should not be given a fair run. If anything I have seen enough of Gill and want him chucked. His technical deficiences are much more egregious than Iyer's and he has not been able to fix things after umpteen chances.

Just to be clear, I am not a big Shreyas fan but I am a big fan of a process and not making ad hoc choices based on some random observations. The reason is that random observations, however true they may be, often cherrypick and choose what is most visible to the human eye. Batting in tests is a complex process and many things go into it that are subtle. Some subtle facts, e.g., a big hole between bat and pad in Gill's batting are not that obvious as getting out to a short ball is. Actually, the latter is easier to fix. At some point, with practice, you just get some shoulder pads and train your mind not to react to the bolting ball coming to your face and rather take it on your body or sway away. That is what good players learn to do. We will see if Iyer learns it or not. I'd give him about 1-2 more series. If he puts in the work and fixes things, he stays. Otherwise, as in Gill, I will call for his sacking.

Some players like Rohit Sharma have made it even though they are poor against the short ball wrt risk/benefit. Maybe not Iyer poor but nonetheless below average. Just because he gets a lot of runs hooking and pulling, people think he is good but he averages below 35 on that ball, which is a poor average and much lower than his average overall. If Rohit can make it, Iyer, with some adjustments can make it. Whether he will or not, we should wait and see.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Hope after IPL & England test now you agree that Shreyas Iyer has 10 out of 10 chance in getting out of short ball.

No, I don't agree with something that is provably false. He has played umpteen number of short balls and gets out to maybe 1 out of 10 of them. That may be too high. But, it is not 10 out of 10. And, I do not see getting out to the short ball any worse than getting out knicking outside your off stump or getting bowled, etc. What matters to me is the runs. He has to score runs to make it. Otherwise, he should be out. He deserves the chances and we should give it to him just as we have given the Gills and the Viharis of the world. At the end, in this game, he scored more than Gill, Vihari, and Kohli. Only Pujara batted better than him in the top-5. That is a bad state of affairs for Indian cricket to be in. But, I believe in a process to give youngsters a fair run and have them try to fix what ails them. And, I would rather stick to my process than randomly choose short balls, lbws, or hit wickets or whatever to argue someone should not be given a fair run. If anything I have seen enough of Gill and want him chucked. His technical deficiences are much more egregious than Iyer's and he has not been able to fix things after umpteen chances.

Just to be clear, I am not a big Shreyas fan but I am a big fan of a process and not making ad hoc choices based on some random observations. The reason is that random observations, however true they may be, often cherrypick and choose what is most visible to the human eye. Batting in tests is a complex process and many things go into it that are subtle. Some subtle facts, e.g., a big hole between bat and pad in Gill's batting are not that obvious as getting out to a short ball is. Actually, the latter is easier to fix. At some point, with practice, you just get some shoulder pads and train your mind not to react to the bolting ball coming to your face and rather take it on your body or sway away. That is what good players learn to do. We will see if Iyer learns it or not. I'd give him about 1-2 more series. If he puts in the work and fixes things, he stays. Otherwise, as in Gill, I will call for his sacking.

Some players like Rohit Sharma have made it even though they are poor against the short ball wrt risk/benefit. Maybe not Iyer poor but nonetheless below average. Just because he gets a lot of runs hooking and pulling, people think he is good but he averages below 35 on that ball, which is a poor average and much lower than his average overall. If Rohit can make it, Iyer, with some adjustments can make it. Whether he will or not, we should wait and see.

Shreyas Iyer so far in SENA

1) First Odi SA Tour 2022 - Out short ball
2) Third Odi SA Tour 2022 - Out short ball
3) 5th Test England 2022 both innings out short ball

If we take his IPL performance & SL / WI games at home then count will increase more.In last 20 years, players who struggled against short ball were Sourav Ganguly & Suresh Raina but they haven't been out so much frequently like Iyer to short balls.According to MSD, if you repeat same mistake then you are definately having issues, Shreyas is in this category, don't see him in WC Squad downunder where a normal ball goes around chest high

[prasen9]

Right. So, let us get Rohit out of the team too. And, Gill. And, Kohli. Etc. Why single out the short ball? Find all balls and whoever gets out to a specific type of ball, get them out of the team. That, of course, is an ingenious way to get your pipe dream of getting your three U-19 players, who I said do not have a chance in hell to be in the team, because they have not been out to any particular ball because they have not played matches.

All it matters at the end of the day the game is won or lost based on runs and wickets. SR is the most important and then average. Whoever scores at the highest SR at over 25 runs/wicket, get them in. That is all.

Short ball, long ball, turning-square ball, round ball weakness(es) does not matter.

Sourav and Raina won us a world cup. May Iyer do so should he be chosen.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Rohit & Kohli's total are not 20s & 30s on getting out in short ball, neither they repeat their mistake, they end up scoring 100s or 150s when they are in form, neither they look vulnerable with the short ball, Rohit is one of the best puller in current Indian team, he will either pull it for 6 or caught in boundary but will never look in doubt and Kohli has that back hand jab to deal with the short ball.Starcs, Cummins, Bolts, Southees tried that alot but had only few success.Gill has no issue with short ball he is very much success in Australia, he struggled in England because he comitted for the shorts early, a classic backfoot player should have played swinging deliveries late which he has definately learn through his test innings. Out of 3 under 19s one did pretty well for Delhi and if domestic goes as per schedule followed by India A ventures you will definately see atleast 2 in selection radar.

Shreyas will struggle in England tour was highly expected and is now 3 out of 3 out in short ball, both innings in Test and in last T20I, and again have high chance to repeat that in Odis. He looks in tatters when short ball is delivered to him, neither goes for pull or hook ends up in troubled position, last T20I he was so much cluless that he was expecting every ball as short ball and tried to make room leaving all three stumps, but still he got out of short ball and costed the game.Sourav didnt had weakness on short ball infact he learnt how to deal with it from G Chappell & Mohinder Amarnath Raina's weakness was discovered in last 3/4 years towards end of his career, till 2015 WC Raina was fine and was an important member of the Squad

[prasen9]

Last I checked, the game is not decided only on the basis of short balls. There is no particular penalty for being bad against short balls that does not exist for balls outside your off-stump say. End of story.

I mentioned Gill because he has a horrendous record in tests. He is fine against the short balls. That shows that short balls do not matter anymore than having a hole between your bat and pad that Gill has. He needs to fix his flaws and Shreyas needs to fix his. As did Pujara, who has come out with a much better stance than the one in the last 1-2 years. Everyone has flaws. Those who fix stay. Those that do not go out.

Shreyas has scored at an average and SR that is quite acceptable in T20Is wrt being in the team. He should continue to be in the team until he does not perform. That said, Shreyas and Kohli are both in bad form. We should pick only one of the two if we are picking them.

We want players who can play and win games. Nobody cares about short balls any more than they care about people getting out nicking outside their off-stump, getting bowled, lbw, etc.

[Mukherjee Babu]

Even Bapu Nadkarni, Amar Singh had issue with short ball which they later corrected in domestic cricket. Nari Contractor had poor technic against short ball, didnt played the game after hit on the head by Griffith

[Rajkumar Sharma]

[prasen9]

It is a high-risk, high reward shot. Rohit is a very elegant player, lovely to watch. The numbers underneath don't do justice. Sometimes analytics points out things that look great but are not actually always useful. Rohit averages less on the short ball in tests than his overall average. That is on a small amount of data though. So, I cannot say for sure.

Of course, we have different yardsticks. I care more about careful analysis and data. You care about sensational pictures put up by someone on the Internet. Of course, if it appears on the internet, it must be true right? Especially, if it is a fantastic picture without any anaylsis. Why bother data analysis when the eye test says that things are good or bad. At least you are consistent though. Getting out to the short ball looks bad than getting out nicking outside the offstump. So, you want all of them out, except, of course Rohit, whose pull shots are elegant. So, he should keep playing that even though he gets out more cheaply off that ball. Why care for averages and strike rates, when a picture can be used to sensationalize? Got it, sir!