West Indies in India, 2018

[prasen9]

You are absolutely right. Kohli used to bowl some simple dibbly-dobblies. That may be useful in English pitches where it is swinging due to conditions. But, he has just stopped doing that. And, none of the batsmen have been asked to bowl. Our bowlers batting has not been paid attention to. The current management does not believe in a second skill. They have harped on fielding and that is great but we need a sixth bowler ideally one spinner and one pacer. And, we need the bowlers to bat. I do not like Bhuvi's not taking wickets but we may have to keep him because any other pacer would make the #7 or #8 position too weak. Already, Bumrah, Kuldeep, and Chahal are nothing bats and if we add another to that the tail is too too long. Kuldeep should be asked to start batting better and practicing to improve.

[Atithee]

We need bowlers who can bat much more than the other way around. Period.

[prasen9]

We need bowlers who can bowl too

[Atithee]

We need bowlers who can bowl too

Doesn’t matter much in India or for the India team, unfortunately. If we had all 11 top bats for India, they’ll probably concede no more than 25 total extra runs than our so called bowlers do.

[prasen9]

Past history does not match with this. Part-time bowlers do not take wickets as much. If the opponent has wickets in hand, they will score way more than 25 runs in 50 overs. For example, Bumrah takes wickets at 21.09 and 4.51 runs/over. Rayudu is 6.11 per over, Kohli 6.22/over, and Umesh 6.01 per over. So, Bumrah himself saves 16 runs over Rayudu. Multiply that by 5. That is 80 runs in 50 overs. If you take the difference between Umesh and Rayudu, then perhaps, although Umesh strikes more often than Rayudu and hence will result in more savings than 5 runs/50 overs. But, that just means that we should not pick Umesh. If we pick strike bowlers or economic bowlers such as Bumrah, Chahal, Kuldeep, Shami overseas, etc., the difference will be way more than 50-80 runs at least over 5 Rayudus. And, #9, 10, 11 rarely bat. So, stacking away batsmen there would be mostly useless in most matches. Now, if we are talking about #7 and #8, we do need people who can bat a bit there. Nothing short of Pandya at #7 will suffice and perhaps nobody but Bhuvi (or Axar/Jadeja) can play at #8. The lack of bowlers who can bat means that we are stuck with Bhuvi at #8 even though he does not take wickets in ODIs. But, since the WC is in India, maybe Bhuvi will get (more) wickets than he gets here.

[prasen9]

Just after I said that Khaleel is not yet ready, he bowls wonderfully swinging the ball both ways. He moves up to #3 with this show. Now the question is can he be consistent? Bhuvi gets in for his batting plus keeping runs down. And, Bumrah for being the best pacer for us.

Rayudu played a high SR innings. He should be given more chances to show he can or cannot cut it. Kedar did okay too.

[kujo]

Statement 1:
In ODI and T-20 matches with limited resources - i.e) available overs: some sort of an asymmetrical team setup is a good bet and is better than a regular balanced approach (5 batsmen, 4 bowlers, 1 wicket keeper, 1 all-rounder) for the team composition....

Statement 2:
A single mistake by a batsman when batting is more dangerous and un-affordable compared to a mistake by a bowler when bowling. The batsman has all 11 fielders to avoid and protect his stumps in place. While a bowler's mistake might result in a six....

Given these two statements, a team loaded with 5 batsmen, 5 all-rounders (batsmen who can bowl) and 1 wicket keeper is actually a strong team!!

[Atithee]

Thanks Kujo. I didn’t want to prolong the argument with Prasen. I’m convinced that for indian team, a fully loaded strong batting only team would do better than even the so called all rounders. But, essentially I agree that being a good bat should be first criterion. The problem with extrapolating current batsmen’s career bowling records is that 1) they were just occasionally using their bowling craft and 2) they were not expected to be a full time bowler. Once you set this expectation, their average will not be very different than our current specialist bowlers. Of course, wicket keeper is excluded but even there, the WK must be a strong batsman.

As an example, look at the Waugh brothers, Allan Border, Joe Root, Hafeez, Matthews, Malik, Jason Holder, etc. And, data doesn’t lie—our lower order contribution vs. the opponents’ is the primary reason we don’t win more games than we should be winning with our top order heavy teams.

[prasen9]

Given these two statements, a team loaded with 5 batsmen, 5 all-rounders (batsmen who can bowl) and 1 wicket keeper is actually a strong team!!

Good luck finding 5 all-rounders. We do not even have a replacement for Pandya. We are going to a spinning allrounder in Jadeja who may be limited in English conditions.

Yes, if you find me 5 Kapils, I would play them over 5 bowlers. Yes, get me anyone of the Waugh brothers, Holder, Malik, Hafeez, etc. who can genuinely bowl a bit and I would certainly play them over Khaleel. Why not? There is nothing to lose.

But, go and look at how many innings the last 3 batsmen get to play. If the last 3 bats do not bat, then their batting talent is seldom utilized. Their bowling talent is utilized every match. And, if we use worse bowlers there, we are giving up some runs every day.

I think my issue is that I disagree with the fact that "once you set this expectation, their average will not be very different than our current specialist bowlers". England has bowlers who can bat, aka allrounders.

We do not have any pace-bowling allrounders in the international team. So, what is preventing, say, Iyer who is not in the team to try bowling and improving his bowling to take that slot up. Or are these players not setting their expectations to become an all-rounder? Becoming an all-rounder is hard. International batting is hard. International bowling is hard. It is just easy to say, "oh, if we ask the batsmen to become better bowlers, they can bowl at the strike rate and era of Kuldeep or Bumrah." Not going to happen.

The best thing is to ask Bumrah and Kuldeep, etc. to develop some proficiency with the bat. If they do not show steady progression, drop them. Just as we did with fitness, we should do with batting. Instead of taking batsmen and asking them to be great bowlers! You could take someone like Kedar who has some skills to make him an allrounder. By all means do that.

And, you know what, if you want to do that, do it in domestics. If you have not done it in domestics, then it is stupid to ask batsmen to bowl a full quota of 10 overs in ODIs without any practice in the domestics.

If we have 5 all-rounders in the domestics who are doing fine with the bat and the ball, I will say get them in.

[Atithee]

Prasen, I think there are so many ifs but we essentially are in the same space. Given that we have high scoring games in India and now many other parts of the world, we will be frequently calling upon the batting skills of the bowlers to take us over the line rather than the other way around. We just don’t have the bowling stock to prevent carnage in the last ten overs even with our best bowlers. This is where we are losing the plot most of the times. So, I’ll stick to my prescription because it’s easier to implement but will not argue further.

[prasen9]

We agree on what we need. So, basically our difference is whether we get our bowlers to learn to bat or our batsmen to learn to bowl. It may vary person to person. It may be easier to get Kedar to bowl 10 overs than for Chahal to learn to bat. On the other hand, it may be harder for Dhawan to learn to bowl than for Kuldeep to learn to bat.

In order to call it truce, how about we ask all our batsmen to start bowling and all our bowlers to start batting including in the domestics. Just like everyone has to learn to field and the wicket-keepers these days must be batting, we need people to do both and then we pick the best allrounders from positions 4-9 say and have #3 Kohli and two openers and two specialist bowlers.

[Atithee]

I think you are giving us too much power. We can just ask each other. BCCI is not looking for advice even if it’s free

But sure. Whatever works. I’m tired of our bowlers’ inability to knock over the lower order more than the inability of our lower order to make a meaningful batting contribution.

[Sin Hombre]

Big win but we learned very little from it except that
1. Rayadu is certainly in good enough nick to bash spinners in a no pressure environment; if Kohli is backing him all the way to the WC, we need him to play some decent knocks under pressure
2. Khaleel might have some potential to persist with him for now; still trundling at <130kph which outside of swing will be taken to the cleaners by better batsmen

Otherwise, we know Rohit goes big when he gets going and that we win most matches when 2 of the top 3 and Bumrah and Kuldeep play well.

Dhoni failed again. Need him to continue doing so.

[Sin Hombre]

ICF has been quite funny of late.

From the Kohli vs Bhuvi thread

Kohli vs Top sides in ODI's


Bhuvi vs Top sides in ODI's


Bhuvi in Top Cricketing Countries (Better than Bradman!)


& No to all those haters who say bhuvi is home track bully he is better in overseas compared to home stats.

[prasen9]

I’m tired of our bowlers’ inability to knock over the lower order more than the inability of our lower order to make a meaningful batting contribution.

True. But this means that the world is getting bowlers who can bat. If you look at the English tail with Broad coming in at #10, it is ridiculous. They play two wicket-keepers and two all-rounders (Stokes, Ali). And, Sam Curran is an all-rounder. Broad is pretty good with the bat and Rashid can hit a bit and score. Just ridiculous.

The Aussies have Lyon and Starc, who are decent bats. Etc.