England in India, February-March 2021

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prasen9
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by prasen9 »

There is a possibility that we may go with Umesh, Ishant/Siraj, Bumrah if Umesh is fit along with Hardik. Axar sits out. England may go with Broad, Anderson, and Stone. Or some similar combination because Moeen is gone and they do not trust Bess. This is because in Eden, the pacers took 19 of the Bangladeshi 20 wickets. Motera pitch There we kept 6cm grass. I hope this time we go lower at 4cm grass.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by PKBasu »

Kumar wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:28 pm
prasen9 wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:40 pm In order for the pink ball not to disintegrate, the pitch has to have grass cover and this then helps seamers. I do not have large data and perhaps there is no large data because there have been only about 14 matches with varying venues such as Adelaide and Dubai. So, I do not know how good the aggregation is.

Having said that, here maybe something that is useful to you: Pink ball seams more. Let me know. Or if you have some specific request, I can try to find the data.

Why are we not using white ball? Is it because it will not last the 80 overs?
I suspect white balls don't last long enough for test matches. In ODIs, they use two white balls -- one from each end -- partly for this reason. I think pink balls also suffer -- ie, they aren't as good as normal red balls, because the seam stands up a bit more, which is why seam bowlers are very effective, and batsmen struggle against fast deliveries that jag off the pitch (as well as swinging in the evening). Motera may not be similar to the Eden, where the breeze from the nearby river aids swing in the afternoon and evening.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by Kumar »

James Anderson was lethal in the first match! Hopefully our team can navigate him better this match
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by prasen9 »

I think in Eden the breeze was gone after they built the upper stories to a large extent. But, I hear they have torn some of them down and remodeled things and some of the breeze is back. I have to go back home one of these days during a test match and watch the game. I remember my first match was Azhar's debut where he scored a century and I think Shastri batted all five days.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by Sin Hombre »

Team for T20I's announced.

Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Y Chahal, Varun Chakravarthy, Axar Patel, W Sundar, R Tewatia, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Navdeep, Shardul Thakur.


We have discussed enough that there is no point to having both Kohli and Rohit in the T20 xi but they will be, so given that, I hope the xi starts gravitating towards something like

KL
Rohit
Kohli
Pant
SKY / Kishan
Hardik
Jadeja / Sundar
Bhuvi / Shardul
Chahal / Axar
Bumrah
Nattu
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by Kumar »

prasen9 wrote: Fri Feb 19, 2021 1:40 am There is a possibility that we may go with Umesh, Ishant/Siraj, Bumrah if Umesh is fit along with Hardik. Axar sits out. England may go with Broad, Anderson, and Stone. Or some similar combination because Moeen is gone and they do not trust Bess. This is because in Eden, the pacers took 19 of the Bangladeshi 20 wickets. Motera pitch There we kept 6cm grass. I hope this time we go lower at 4cm grass.
If Archer is fit, he will make the team! I guess Broad will probably loose his spot then or they may go with 4 pacers and have Root act as the off spinner(especially if the pitch has lot of green)

Not going to be an easy match for India to draw!
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by PKBasu »

Yes, I hope we plan to shave the grass and ensure that both Motera pitches favour spin. That is the one area where we are far superior to England. The other area is batting (with the exception of Root).
If we leave a lot of grass on the pitch, England's pace attack of Anderson, Archer and Stone (plus Stokes as back-up) will be more potent than India's -- with Bumrah, Ishant/Siraj, Umesh (and possibly Pandya as back-up). Instead, we should go with the spin of Ashwin and Axar, plus 3 pacers (and I would pick Siraj ahead of Ishant). For that, we need a spinning pitch.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by PKBasu »

India's cricket selectors often make arbitrary and illogical decisions, but one of the most bizarre is the determination that Bhuvneshwar Kumar is a T20 specialist -- despite the fact that he was Man of the Match in the last test he played, THREE years ago in January 2018 (fashioning a famous win against South Africa in Johannesburg). Bhuvneshwar has a test bowling average of 26.09 -- among the best for any Indian pacer with more than 50 test wickets (only Bumrah is better). And his test batting was just beginning to develop (as evident in that last test he played).
Yet, he isn't in the test squad for the Motera Day/Night test, where his skills would have been invaluable. Instead, he is picked only for the T20I squad. No doubt, a bowling average of 26.53 in T20Is at an economy rate of 7 is pretty decent, but it is as a test bowler (and emerging bowling all-rounder) that Bhuvi's skill sets would be best utilized. It is criminal that he hasn't played a test for 3 years; when he isn't injured, there shouldn't be any excuse for not having him in the test side -- just as there should never be any excuse for leaving Ravindra Jadeja out. The selectors seem to have neatly forgotten Bhuvi's test exploits as a bowling all-rounder!
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by PKBasu »

In the second Motera test, of course, we will get a turner anyway, I think, and Kuldeep should return. Then we would have Bumrah and Umesh as the two pacers, plus 3 spinners (two of whom are all-rounders, one a proven one, the other a potential one based on his first-class record). If Bhuvi had been picked, I would consider him ahead of Umesh even for a home test. But I do pray that Bhuvi will be in the test squad for the World Test Championship final, and the England series to follow.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by Sin Hombre »

Well Bhuvi hasn't played any FC cricket either since that test so I wouldn't blame the selectors at all. Clearly, he himself doesn't trust his fitness to last 2 red ball innings.

If he was serious about it, he would go and play some county cricket with WTC and a 5-test series in England looming.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by PKBasu »

Ishant didn't play any first class cricket before being recalled to the side for this series. Surely the selectors cannot have different standards for different players. Most of the international cricketers don't play domestic cricket anyway. Kohli and Dhoni haven't played a domestic first class match in years. And of course there hasn't been a domestic first class match played for the past 12 months. So that cannot be the excuse for not picking Bhuvi for the upcoming Motera test.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by Atithee »

Let’s guess who’ll pick an injury playing football on the eve of the match. This is how selection is done in India; match readiness is for others to worry about. Gill is already injured, so my money is on Axar or Siraj. Oh, and fat chance of Bhuvi playing.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by Sin Hombre »

There is no comparison to Ishant.

Ishant has been playing tests regularly so there is nothing to prove in terms of his red ball fitness and durability. Ishant even got injured playing Ranji in Jan 2020. Bhuvi hasn't played neither international nor domestic FC in 3 years.
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by PKBasu »

It looks as if all the green that was on the pitch until 4 days ago has now vanished. And Motera is now likely to be a turner, even with the pink ball -- although the dew in the final sessions could make it tougher for the spinners (and easier for the pacers and batsmen).
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Re: England in India, February-March 2021

Post by prasen9 »

Yep. Seems like Motera will be a turner. But, since there will be evening dew that makes it harder for a spinner and we do not need a 3rd spinner, I would go with Hardik, who can bat. Our tail is too long otherwise. As we saw, on a spinning pitch, we hardly needed Kuldeep. Kuldeep certainly provides the wrist-spin that works slightly better with the pink ball. But, I think strengthening the batting is more important since Axar's batting seems iffy. For the pace bowling, I would choose two among Ishant, Bumrah, Umesh, and Siraj. We could chop and change and they are all about the same in India. Umesh and Siraj give us the most number of runs perhaps. But, Umesh may or may not be in match shape. Rooting for Hardik to play.
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