Ind v Aus (ODIs and T20) in India, 2007

[prasen9]

Who would you select?

RSD, SCG, SRT, YS, RU, GG, MSD among the batsmen with 1 spot left.  Among the older guys, MK, VS, and VVSL, VVSL is in great form in the English List-As leading the county averages and he always does great against Aus.  MK is in bad form and VS has not played much.  Among the newer guys, Tiwari needs a few more games to come back, Rohit needs a few more seasons, and Badri does not look sexy to the selectors.

Medium pacers: ZK, RPS, IKP with 1 spot left (assuming IKP continues his good form).  The problem is all are left-handers.  The right-handers: ABA, MP are out of form. Ranadeb will never be considered and the others are not there yet.  By giving A-team slots to Makda, not-ready Ishant and Pankaj or whoever, the selectors are missing out on the real contenders MP and Ranadeb.

Spinners: ?.  The contenders are RP, HS, PC and MK (Murali Karthik).  HS and MK bowled well in English domestics.  PC is a big wicket-taker but expensive. RP is steady but a bad fielder and did not do much with the bat.  MK has an awful international record in ODIs.  I would try HS and PC if HS shows form in underwear cricket on the basis that class is permanent and form is temporary.  HS is a better fielder than PC too.

[PKBasu]

Sreesanth completely out of contention in your book, prasen9?

[prasen9]

I missed him.  Yes, he is.  However, given that we do not have any right-handed medium pacer worth half their salt, I would include him as the 4th pacer.

[jayakris]

I noticed that the crazy malayalee was missing, but was resigned to accepting that he is no good in ODIs and not even worth mentioning, as per all of you   .. Thanks PKB for asking prasen

Jay

[prasen9]

I wouldn't say no good, everything I said is with respect to the others.  I just missed Sreesanth.

[jaydeep]

Team for first 3 one-dayers against Aussies -
M S Dhoni (capt), Yuvraj Singh (vice-captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Dinesh Karthik, Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Irfan Pathan, Romesh Pawar, Piyush Chawla, R P Singh, Zaheer Khan, S Sreesanth, Harbhajan Singh.

[Sandeep]

Ok, any comments now on Mumbai lobby ensuring Agarkar's presence in the team?

[jaydeep]

So Ajit Agarkar, Munaf Patel and Rohit Sharma r out of the team ... As expected Harbhajan and Irfan r included.

As per Vengserkar, Viru will be consider for later stage of matches as per our players rotating policy.

[punekar]

Absolutely idiotic to leave Sehwag out from the team from the start.  He is anyday better than Dinesh Karthik especially on flat desi wickets.  If we needed a reserve keeper, then Dravid was also available.

Lets hope this rotation policy is for real.  Hopefully, this will give enough impetus for Sehwag to kick some ass in the remaining T20s.

[sanjay8886]

I think the team is good with Viru might be coming in at some stage.

[jayakris]

Question - why do they select teams when a tournament is going on? .. Can't they wait till one is done, or was there such a time crunch to do it now?  Jay

[prasen9]

Usually they do that when visa issues are there and they need the time to process things.  I guess the BCCI just sets the selection committee meetings and does not want to seal the team until the tournament is over.  They do not plan the dates based on playing schedules and (wrongly) do not care about effect on players.  Even more disgusting is when they declare the team on the 3rd or 4th day of a test with two crucial days remaining.  Absolutely unprofessional.  They say that they just needed to see 3 days and irrespective of the rest of the performance they have seen enough.  What is apalling is that the players' morale is never even considered.

[PKBasu]

Revolution!!! Agarkar is finally dropped. The guy has had his chances, and I will never forget his match-winning 6/41 in the Adelaide Test. But he just didn't make the grade after all those chances. Had a meteoric rise in ODIs, with a terrific strike rate at the start of his career (the fastest to 100 wickets from any side, after all), but then his career graph went steadily down after that (apart from the glorious day at the Adelaide Oval, and the rare piece of brilliant batting, plus the superb bowling in the ODI series in the Windies). There was one time when he was truly hard done by -- in not being retained for the tests in the Windies. But he has been atrocious in the past year in all forms of the game, and I hope this is the very end of his international career. He will continue to do well in the domestic scene (he regularly bowls at 85-87 mph, and may still be our fastest bowler!), but he is simply too erratic to survive in international cricket, and his batting has been a travesty that usually flattered only to deceive.

The dropping of Agarkar, Rohit Sharma and Munaf (ex-Mumbai, now Maharashtra if I can remember this febrile character's annual moves) suggests that Vengsarkar/Pawar have heard the criticisms about the Mumbai lobby running roughshod. Vengsarkar also categorically denied having spoken to Tendulkar about the captaincy; so there was no question of him turning it down, and Dhoni only being appointed after Sachin had said no. And the initial TV reports were wrong: Dhoni has been appointed for both home ODI series (against Australia and Pakistan), not just the first 3 ODIs against Aus. Sehwag should definitely have been recalled.

[kujo]

  Even more disgusting is when they declare the team on the 3rd or 4th day of a test with two crucial days remaining.  Absolutely unprofessional.  They say that they just needed to see 3 days and irrespective of the rest of the performance they have seen enough.  What is apalling is that the players' morale is never even considered.

IIRC, there was this one time, when VVS Laxman produced a blinding second innings 167 in Sydney (3rd test against Australia) after knowing that he is not going to be part of the one-day squad.  Some people play more freely when they have nothing to loose. May be Sehwag will do that this time!

cheers
-kujo

[SriramP]

Yes kujo , I remember but was it after the ODI squad was announced? Also, I remember that he was then asked to stay back for the ODI series and failed miserably.

I agree, the selectors should wait for the series (esp an important series like the WC) to get over before they pick the sides for future series. So, will Agarkar be dropped from the matches againt England and SA or would it be a VVS kind of scenario and he will show us what he is all about?