India in Australia, 2018-2019

[ankit1407]

For the upcoming AUS tour, test team was announced today - India is scheduled to play 3 T24, 4 test and 3 ODI's...

Murali Vijay, Rohit Sharma and Parthiv Patel returns while Mayank Agarwal and Mohammed Siraj, both are out without playing a test match after being selected for WI test. Poor guys, one just can not figure out the rationale shown by selectors...

Squad for 4-Test series v Australia: Virat Kohli (C), M Vijay, KL Rahul, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Parthiv Patel, R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

[prasen9]

Rohit gets in again and again because he is Kohli's buddy and Kohli plays a lot of ODI cricket with him and sees him hit things out of the park. That he does not have the temperament to play a big knock except when the pitch is flat is something he is not willing to accept.

Taking Parthiv is also totally asinine. Why not Bharat? How many more catches does Parthiv have to drop before he is kicked out. From the keeping point of view, even Karthik is better than Parthiv.

Vijay makes a comeback maybe based on his English county stint and his prior work in Australia. My team for the first test:

Prithvi, Rahul, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, Pant, Rohit/Jadeja, Ashwin, Bhuvi, Bumrah, Shami. I don't mind Ishant for Shami based on form. Don't know if Vijay will make it in and Prithvi dropped. I don't want that.

[PKBasu]

Rohit in your playing XI for the first test?? For him to be in the test squad at all is a travesty. What else does Mayank Agarwal have to do to prove himself?

[prasen9]

Maybe have Prithvi open and send Rahul in the middle order instead of Rohit. Worth a try. If Adelaide is the traditional batting pitch, then Jadeja. But, the Aussies always tamper with their wickets when we visit. So, don't know how the wicket will be.

[PKBasu]

I like the fact that several of the test players -- Shaw, Rahane, Pujara, Parthiv, etc. -- are to play a first-class match for India A against NZ A before the rest of the test squad arrives into Australia. I hope the NZ pitch is more akin to an Aussie one rather than a normal NZ pitch which helps swing and seam bowlers rather than purveyors of pace and bounce.

[prasen9]

Huh? Why not send in Pujara, Ishant, Ashwin too? God knows Ashwin is awful abroad and it does not hurt for Ishant to get a bit of fine-tuning too.

[PKBasu]

The India A teams for the 3 matches against New Zealand A are:

A squad for first match in New Zealand: M Vijay, Prithvi Shaw, Mayank Agarwal, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane (capt), Parthiv Patel (wk), K Gowtham, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Rajneesh Gurbani, Vijay Shankar, KS Bharat

A squad for second and third matches in New Zealand: Abhimanyu Easwaran, Mayank Agarwal, R Samarth, Karun Nair (capt), Ankit Bawne, Shubman Gill, Vijay Shankar, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan, K Gowtham, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Rajneesh Gurbani

Trying to understand the logic of these selections, the first match will give the test squad batsmen a chance to familiarise themselves with conditions in the Antipodes (although it isn't clear that NZ conditions are remotely similar to those in Australia). Bowling-wise, the squads are aimed at testing the bench strength, just in case one of the 5 fast bowlers gets injured during the Aus tour. I'm glad Gurbani is finally getting some recognition. But, yes, it would have made sense for Ashwin and Ishant to get some match time outside India.

[PKBasu]

India will start the Australia tour with 3 T20Is, followed by 4 tests, and then 3 ODIs. The scheduling seems pretty weird. The T20Is are at Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney -- but interestingly the first test is at Adelaide (rather than Brisbane, where India won't be playing a test this time).

[prasen9]

Easwaran and Samarth have decent but not great domestic records. There is no one else taking the domestics by storm other than Bawne, Nair?

[SaniaFan]

Just a small thing. Update the topic title to "India in Australia, 2018-19".

[jaydeep]

Just a small thing. Update the topic title to "India in Australia, 2018-19".

Done.

[prasen9]

After playing reasonably young teams, we have gone back to some old guys in this Australia tour.

Tests:

Old: Vijay (34), Patel (33), Ashwin (32), Rohit, Umesh (31), Pujara (30).
Young: Prithvi (18), Pant (21), Kuldeep (23), Bumrah (24), Vihari (25), Rahul (26).

The fact that we brought back Vijay and Patel seems that the selectors are thinking win now at all cost. If we wanted to win+explore, surely those slots should have gone to Bharat and Mayank. Vijay deserves it because of his record. Patel is a worse wicket-keeper than Karthik now. Why Patel was favored (he is a slightly better bat maybe) is not clear. Of course, the Patel, Rohit selections may have been Shastri's call. He and other Mumbaikars have traditionally pushed Mumbai and West Zone cricketers incessantly. Or it could be that Rohit and Kohli are good buddies ... Who knows! It is clearly a power play by Kohli + Shastri to show that they will not play Nair even if the selectors chose him in England and so they forced the selectors to choose Kohli's buddy and Shastri's favorite. Now they own it. If Rohit succeeds, then they have done well. If he fails against a weak Australia, then we should seriously review whether Kohli and Shastri are our best bets if we want to win overseas. Anyone can win in India.

[PKBasu]

The India A side is playing its first match against New Zealand A. Prithvi Shaw made 62 at the top of the order, but Vijay failed again (28). Mayank Agarwal made 68 at number 3, Vihari 86 at #4, Rahane failed (12), Parthiv made 94 at #6, and Shankar 62 at #7.

The fast bowlers have done poorly so far, with NZ A 73 for no loss. As usual, Gurbani has been kept out of the XI for fear that he will succeed and put pressure on the selectors. Instead, the pace attack is Chahar, Siraj and Saini -- with Shankar yet to bowl.

[Sin Hombre]

Chahar is a club level bowler. No idea why he keeps getting chances.

I would have thrown in the likes of Nagarkoti, Mavi here.


No surprise to see that the only flops in the top 8 were Vijay and Rahane.

[PKBasu]

Rahane's time seems to be up. He has just not been able to regain his confidence as a batsman. He hasn't made a century in the past 13 tests (and has made only 3 half-centuries in all those tests). Not much basis for him to remain the vice captain of the test side.

To have picked Vijay over Mayank looks like a travesty too.