Australia tests & ODIs vs India in India, Feb-Mar 2023

[prasen9]

Saha is still a good wicket-keeper and a decent bat. Politics, presumably related to age discrimination, keeps him out. I am sure there are others who could do the job. The selectors have been awful in grooming the right people. Bharat, with his weak batting, should never have been given so many chances. We need to select the best keeper who has an average of at least 40, preferably 45 in Indian domestics and send him to the NCA, A-teams, etc.

[Omkara]

Saha is still a good wicket-keeper and a decent bat. Politics, presumably related to age discrimination, keeps him out. I am sure there are others who could do the job. The selectors have been awful in grooming the right people. Bharat, with his weak batting, should never have been given so many chances. We need to select the best keeper who has an average of at least 40, preferably 45 in Indian domestics and send him to the NCA, A-teams, etc.

That guy is Rishabh Pant

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Keeping in mind the present situation, team should go with KL as WKB in fourth test. Kishan can be a good option but doesnt think the team will take the gamble in an important game with WTC final qualification on line

[PKBasu]

Disastrous first hour for KS Bharat. Gave away 8 byes and dropped a sitter off Umesh Yadav. Absolutely horrible at Ahmedabad!

[PKBasu]

Commercialisation of cricket has gone to ludicrous extremes. I noticed in Delhi that the sightscreen behind the batsman has an LED commercial, and a white sheet is pulled over this by 2 men before the start of each alternate over. This is crazy. In Ahmedabad, there seems to be a lit-up commercial along the boundary too, which has to be similarly covered up every alternate over in order for the batsman to be able to concentrate. What is the need for optimizing the commercial aspects to this extreme.

[prasen9]

I want to be badly proven wrong. I hope that Gill will like this featherbed, which is similar to the flat pitches he likes to dominate bowlers on in hit-and-giggle cricket. Really, Gill, give us a century. That is what he will obviously want too. I doubt he will get such flat wickets too often. Make hay while the sun shines. For that matter, I want this for all batters of this creaking batting lineup.

One of the cricketing nonsenses is that of shutting shop and playing for the day's end. And Indian batsmen take this nonsense to the extreme. In the morning, the pitch will actually be fresher, faster, etc. sometimes. So, make runs in these 10 overs or whatever we get.

[PKBasu]

A result is looking increasingly unlikely in this retro test match. India made 255/3 in 89 overs on Day 3, scoring at about the same rate as Australia on the first day (255/4 in 90 overs). The post-lunch session saw just 59 runs being scored -- as you would expect with Pujara at the crease. Gill got his century and Kohli his 59*, so no matter how dead a pitch it is, some application and ability is required to grind out the runs. Smith and Labuschagne failed on this pitch, Kohli and Gill did not (and nor, of course, did Khawaja, Australia's best batsman in this series).

[prasen9]

Absolutely. So glad that Kohli and Gill succeeded. I hope Kohli makes it a big 100 tomorrow. Jadeja is batting very slowly but that is because of the tight bowling of the Aussies I suppose. But, still, compared to the other Indians, Jadeja has been very slow lately. Slower than Pujara. That is a concern. Hope we score 300 runs tomorrow and put the Aussies under some pressure.

[PKBasu]

Kohli got his 28th test century (and 75th international century), but he batted too slowly in the first session -- making a Pujara-esque 29 runs in that session. He speeded up in the second, making 47 runs (to reach 135 at tea), then unleashed some strokes in partnership with Axar. But a rather tame end to the Indian innings means that Australia will spend much of tomorrow simply defending for dear life as they have no real chance of winning now.

[Atithee]

New Zealand has paid back to allow India to play in another WTC.

[prasen9]

A typically Indian framing. This Indian team has won in home and abroad and got more points/match than all other teams except Australia. The two best test teams in the world will play in the WTC Finals. England have improved. Sri Lanka would not have won 2-0 in New Zealand. They put up a good fight.

Why are the WTC finals in England? This is the same thing happening as have happened with the ODI WCs. I suspect it may be the calendar that dictated this but in the future, we need to make sure that the final is rotated.

[prasen9]

One of the worst pitches in India in the recent times. Hopeless. I doubt we wanted to play this out this way to get the series win. It is possibly a stupid curator who was responsible for this nonsense. The first three pitches were decent. Could have been a bit more batter-friendly but this is just the worst.

[prasen9]

Given that we have the ODI worldcup coming up, we need to give experience to Kishan, Gill, and SkAY. Ditto to Sundar. This is to create a bench with experience - something we did not do well for the T20Is.

Gill, Rohit, Kishan, Rahul, SY, Hardik, Sundar, Axar, Unadkat, Malik, Siraj.

Of course, they will possibly not sit Kohli and Jadeja and possibly play one of the wrist-spinners.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Again left arm pacers, inswingers & indian batters. 20 + Odis are now enough to put a question wheather SKY belongs to Odi format or not

[PKBasu]

There was a lot in it for the pacers in today's ODI at the Wankhede! I think that took everybody by surprise. Frankly it was just some brilliant bowling by Shami (and later Starc), with the wicket just being a balanced one. When there was swing, however, those two exploited it well -- and so did Hardik and Siraj. Ultimately, Jadeja was MoM with a couple of wickets, at least one utterly brilliant catch, and 45*. Rahul perhaps deserved it more, with one fine catch behind the stumps, and a well-judged 75*. Rahul kept wickets, although Ishan Kishan was in the playing XI. I think that's a statement about Rahul wanting to squeeze into the WTC final XI -- fair enough, on today's showing.