New Zealand A in India 2022

[prasen9]

On the bowling side, only Mukesh was fabulous. The rest were duds. NZ got 400. We are also batting well with Easwaran playing a good knock, unbeaten.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Excellent ton for Easwaran. Patidar, Gaikward batting before Sarfaraz is hard to accept, atleast Sarfaraz should bat at 4.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Avesh Khan is doubtfull for game against Pakistan due to viral fever

[prasen9]

Ok. Wrong thread again.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Patidar, Easwaran, Tilak getting tons against NZ A. Sarfaraz had great domestic season. We may expect now some new commers for Bangladesh Test Series

[Atithee]

Just look at NZ A vs. our bowlers. It is mighty disappointing, especially Kuldeep. If our mostly frontline bowlers can’t contain this largely no-name batting lineup, while ours give up so many runs, it’s a huge failure.

[SaniaFan]

Some how I feel Kuldeep Yadav is bit over rated. After dhonis retirement he is not the same bowler. Except for last ipl( where also he looked scared when some one attacked him) I have not seen him perform well. A spinner needs to be courageous. I don't think he is.
But some how he has lot of sympathetic fan following.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

If our mostly frontline bowlers can’t contain this largely no-name batting lineup, while ours give up so many runs, it’s a huge failure.

Except Kuldeep none of our bowlers are frontline or India probable in this A team test match. Mukesh & Dayal are new to India A set up after having good performance in domestic. Yes, Kuldeep is struggling after Dhoni's retirement and this could hurt us keeping in mind advantage of wrist spinners in Australia and there will be no Jadeja. Arzan Nagwaswalla, spent some time as net bowler in the senior team after domestic performances but havent been effective, whereas NZ A team has some good pacers that include Duffy who already played shorter format cricket and few international experienced recruits from Netherlands in form of Rippon & van Beek. Ravindra is now regular member when NZ plays test cricket in sub continent. So, our batter needs to be praised

[Rajkumar Sharma]

India A squad for Odis:

Prithvi Shaw, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rahul Tripathi, Rajat Patidar, Sanju Samson (Captain), KS Bharat (wicket-keeper), Kuldeep Yadav, Shabhaz Ahmed, Rahul Chahar, Tilak Varma, Kuldeep Sen, Shardul Thakur, Umran Malik, Navdeep Saini, Raj Angad Bawa

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Good to see selector investing on pace bowling allrounder Raj Bawa

[prasen9]

So, on the batting side, Patidar was fabulous averaging 106.33. He is 29 and has a domestic average of 45.5.

Tilak Varma averaged 60.5, Gaikwad 57, Panchal 50.25 and Easwaran 49 all succeeded on Indian soil.

UD Yadav was at 38.5 and Sarfraz was a relative failure at 33.

On the bowling side Saurabh Kumar was fabulous at 16.77, R. Chahar good too at 18. Among the pacers, Mukesh Kumar was the pick at 21.77. Among the rest Thakur was so so at 32 and the rest bad: Dayal, Nagaswalla. Kuldeep.

22-year old Umraan Malik is again showing that he is bad. He has played 3 FC matches and averaged over 50 consistently. Why he is wasting slots in the A-team is anybody's guess. Well, T20s/IPL. Sorry, may be not. There too he was crappy with a decent but not sparkling average of 23 and a horrible runs/over of 9.13. Our selectors are in the old era when people would just be afraid of sheer pace. Umraan has the brawn to bowl very fast. Nobody knows where the ball will pitch. It may pitch near the 3rd man boundary. But, he he can bowl fast yorkers which go for full-toss sometimes. So, let's get him in the A-team. Sad selection policy when there must be many who have toiled the domestics and not gotten a game.

Dayal is 24 and averages 29/wicket in FC. Do we not have any better ones than that? I suspect again his white ball skills perhaps got him into the A-team.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

We are in danger of loosing talent like Umran Malik. Infact, india never had infrastructure or coaches who could teach the talent bowling at shear pace by maintaining proper line & length. Gives rubbish suggestion to cut pace or change action as improvement. They damaged Munaf Patel who was around 148+kph in begining of his career, asking him to cut down his pace later had a short career. Irfan Pathan, started his career with 145 + kph swinging both ways, a new star with lots of expectation, within 2 /3 year he became spinner and later his bowls were around 110-120 kph. Varun Aaron, another sharp fast bowler but got destroyed by these domestic & NCA coaches.Under 19 kids Mavi & Nagarkoti are nowhere after they surprised fans.BCCI should appoint special foreign coaches who can take care of the bowlers having rare talent of bowling fast, who can be asset for the future and also develop an environment where we can see lots of new bowlers bowling fast. Umran, Kuldip, Mohsin these guys are rare talent and only proper coach can guide them to bowl quick and economical spells, dropping these guys isnt an answer to the problem

[prasen9]

I agree with your general thesis but do not think Umraan is a rare talent. I think bowling is a lot more than brute force. This guy simply hurls it fast.

There is a relationship between control and pace. If you bowl fast your control sometimes goes awry. A bowler has to learn to do both and it is hard. They realize that if they are bowling fast and have no control they are hit badly. So, they slow down in order to get some control. Some succeed and have a longer career. Some never figure out to even have control if they bowl more slowly and fizzle out. The problem is not these bowlers. The problem is the pundits and media who go ga ga when they see a ball go fast never mind it has no direction. They think direction can be sorted out easily. It is much harder to do that in reality. That is why we have these tyros who never make it. Really fast bowling is also very tough on the body. So, you have to be extremely fit and a freak not to get injured. Some realize that they cannot bowl that fast and remain fit and fizzle out or slow down a la Munaf.

What I have seen from Umraan is that he comes in and puts all his effort on the ball and it goes wherever it goes. That is he has very little control. I suspect if we ask some of our medium pacers that we do not care about where the ball pitches, just go and hurl the ball as fast as you can, many will come close to speed of Umraan's.

Varun Aaron could not find control either. I do not know if the coaches destroyed him but he never could bowl good line and length. Nobody taught him and he never learned. Pace does not matter if you cannot bowl line and length. At the international level, if you are not at the right spot and/or do not have prodigous swing, you are toast. And he was toast as Umraan has been at the IPL and in the international level and the FC level too.

Munaf got injured and then changed his action and stopped putting so much effort such that he did not get injured again. Pathan got injured and then just could not bowl fast. Ishant got injured and got slower although not too slow.

On the other hand, we have had some success in bowlers adding some beef and getting to be a bit faster in Bumrah, Shami, etc.

I do not know if it is easier to add beef to the skillful bowlers than to add skill to the hurlers. But, I think it is perhaps slightly easier to add beef to the skilled bowlers. In that sense, I am not that optimistic that a hurler like Umraan will learn skills but maybe I have seen only 1-2 matches of his where he was especially bad in the IPL and he has the skill. In that sense, I am more hopeful of the Mukesh Kumars than the Umraans.

Anyway, I fully agree with your main contention that we need to manage these bowlers well and the way to do that is to get solid coaches, physios, nutritionists, etc. Hope they are building that capacity at the NDA and can replicate that into some regional centers too.

[SaniaFan]

And I saw only one IPL match where he destroyed the batting of Gujrat Titans and took some 5 wickets with batsmen looking scared. I was also wondering what happened after that. There is something about that boy. He did most of his initial training in J&K. Not sure how much coaching he got there.

[prasen9]

That is the problem with random bowlers. BTW, I am not saying that he does not have skill or is not talented. He certainly is. Even if you eat right and train very well, it is very hard to hurl the ball at 150kph. The problem is that even God does not know where his balls will land. The issue with randomness is that at random 24 balls may land reasonably within bounds and then the bowler has a very good day. In order to look at the ability to control the ball, you need to look at many more balls than 24. If you do that, you will see that Umraan gets smashed like no other bowler. He does have that lethal ball that gets at least one wicket every match or so and often a couple of wickets when two or maybe more like 10 balls land at the right spot --- every good ball does not get a wicket. The issue with him is control. Someone at the NDA needs to coach him to get his line and length right. The Indian coaches were saying he is a special talent and we need to keep an eye on him and thus we are playing him against NZ-A. This does not make sense to me. You can make him bowl a lot more and guide him a lot more in training/coaching situations than in match situations. I doubt he is learning much in such matches where he is smashed badly. Instead, he is possibly getting demoralized.

Anyway, for the sake of India, hope someone hones his skills and body to have him learn how to bowl. That way we will be using his muscles optimally. Or maybe move him to another sport - shotput, discuss throws, wrestling?