England in India 2024-25 : The Pataudi Trophy

[PKBasu]

How good was Punjab's opponent?

Gujarat has Gaja and Nagaswallah. Another medium pacer by name of Priyajeet Jadeja did very well for Gujarat and they won by almost 300 runs.

Manishankar Murasingh made 72 in the second innings, after 1 for 20ish and 2 for 30ish in the two innings as Tripura beat Gujarat in the previous match. If the selectors paid attention to domestic cricket, they would have picked him instead of Akash Deep for the Rajkot test. Ideal allrounder who won't weaken the batting, and could deliver surprise wickets with the new ball.

[PKBasu]

Mayank hasn't done too badly in the Ranji trophy. Prithvi got injured after his 3-4 match heroics for Northamptonshire, including a record 245 or so in a List A match. He then played his first Ranji match last week and made 158 in quick time. A pity neither of them could play for India A, and get tested against proper new ball bowlers.

Karun Nair has made two centuries in successive matches. He should have been picked ahead of Padikkal.

[PKBasu]

I'm looking forward to Sarfaraz Khan's test debut. I hope he plays without nerves, having finally got his chance. The middle order does lack experience, but Rajkot is a good place for a batsman to get his start! (Usually!).

I hope and pray that Kuldeep isn't dropped yet again. Him over Axar any day, but possibly both -- and play just the single pacer in Bumrah.

[prasen9]

If you have an inexperienced batting lineup, you want to shore up the batting. So, I'd not play Siraj. Unless, the grass is not cut off and they expect five bowlers having to bowl long periods. Then, that is fine.

As Jadeja said in the press interview, Rajat is one of the senior players in this team in terms of experience. He has played much better spinners on these wickets for some time. If he can, he maybe should be a bit careful with Woods and Anderson. Then, he should think of this as a Ranji Final or something like that. Bat his normal way.

Sarfaraz is not that old but he has had at least five years of experience I think on these types of pitches with several spinners. So, he too should not think of him as debuting but think of it as a Ranji knockout game.

Easier said than done of course. This is why we need a good psychologist working with the team. Hope they have it. Or are they saving money by only having them for overseas tours and WCs?

[prasen9]

Mayank hasn't done too badly in the Ranji trophy. Prithvi got injured after his 3-4 match heroics for Northamptonshire, including a record 245 or so in a List A match. He then played his first Ranji match last week and made 158 in quick time. A pity neither of them could play for India A, and get tested against proper new ball bowlers.

Karun Nair has made two centuries in successive matches. He should have been picked ahead of Padikkal.

Our stupid selectors have some stupid method where after a player is picked, they don't really want to go back to them. Mayank, Prithvi, and Nair all should be in play for the berths in the team opening up. They can all be good players.

Mayank should not be picked for away tours with his technique unless we don't have anyone. Prithvi should be picked because he is younger and someone like Dravid, who understands technique better than anyone work with him diligently to get him to bat well and give him the support of a psychologist. He is mentally weak sometimes. Nair, I would love to see him, but maybe he is too old to invest in now. I would rather blood someone like PRP, Rinku, Prabhsimran, etc. to see what they can do.

[Kumar]

Dravid as a magician who has improved batsman technique seems like a great idea on paper, but has very little traction based on results. In the last three years, name one batsman who has taken the next step under his coaching?

I don’t think Dravid has bandwidth to work on individual technique . We need to hope that Sarfaraz comes to bat after 40-50 overs at least. Anything earlier than 20 overs would be disaster for India.

By the way why don’t we have a spin coach and pace coach. Do we really expect someone like Paras Mhambrey to teach Ashwin something new? And we need a wicket keeping coach as well. BCCi has money and should be able to afford the extra cost

[Kumar]

Murasingh is an interesting candidate has an average of 27 with bat and 28 with ball..There is a more interesting candidate that should be considered for A team, though. Sumit Kumar of Haryana


Bowler who with a small sample size of net average of +26... Not sure if there is any domestic cricketer with such a big positive difference in their batting and bowling average . He was star of the Vijay Hazare tournament and was picked in IPL auction recently for Delhi capitals.

His stats in
FC - 15 matches 41 (bat), 15 ball
List A 24 matches 44 (bat) 95 SR , 19 with ball (4.45 ER)
T20 -37 , 28 With bat SR 134, 17.37 with ball (7.37 ER)

[prasen9]

Hope DC will play him and he will emerge.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Sarfaraz finally gets a debut cap. Its so hard for a 4 day performers to get picked even in test format when he is not an IPL Star. He is the only one whose domestic, India A, India A in SENA, IPL, attitude, behavior, fitness bla bla. was tightly checked whereas tiktokers, 360 degree & Karnataka mens were given free entry into the test team without so much barriers. A 50+ average Bawne is still waiting, getting punishment for age fraud whereas Jadeja who quietly tried to move from his franchise got ban, KL & Hardik got ban for misogynistic comments but their career did'nt got affected.

[prasen9]

Shubman Gill plays a Gillesque innings. He was lucky to have those two reviews go his way in his century in the last test in one of which his nick was simultaneous with the ball hitting the pad and he himself did not know he nicked it (lbw call). Useless guy goes back because he cannot play at the beginning of the innings and has horrible technique. Iyer kicked out for averaging 36-37. Bharat kicked out for his batting. Gill goes on for ever sabotaging the team except 2-3 good innings. A very Rahul-esque player.

As they say, form is temporary but class is permanent. Lack of class in Gill and Rahul in tests (they are fantastic, classy stroke-makers suited for white ball cricket) shows up again and again. The selectors will not look at the evidence. Stupidity!

Patidar also looks like a crappy batter. In essence, anyone averaging below 50 in India is not a good batter. And, a bunch of the over 50s are also not that good. We need to tighten up our Ranji Trophy and not have so many useless teams.

And, when we have such a brittle batting lineup, we go in with five bowlers and three #11s pretty much. Great. Let's see what Siraj does on this wicket. That second pacer has not contributed for maybe several matches spanning several series. This wicket may be different. Giving benefit of doubt to the selectors for this one.

Bharat only got 11 innings. I hope Jurel's keeping is good. Then, he is the right call.

[Kumar]

Patidar career may be over before it started.

Pujara , where are u? Can they disguise him and have him bat in place of Siraj? How much would u all bet that Pujara makes it back to team in the next match ?

This game is over. India may not cross 100.

[Kumar]

Sarfaraz finally gets a debut cap. Its so hard for a 4 day performers to get picked even in test format when he is not an IPL Star. He is the only one whose domestic, India A, India A in SENA, IPL, attitude, behavior, fitness bla bla. was tightly checked whereas tiktokers, 360 degree & Karnataka mens were given free entry into the test team without so much barriers. A 50+ average Bawne is still waiting, getting punishment for age fraud whereas Jadeja who quietly tried to move from his franchise got ban, KL & Hardik got ban for misogynistic comments but their career did'nt got affected.

He is going to get opportunity to show what he is made of. Let us hope that he turns out better.

[prasen9]

Patidar should be given at least this series. But, you look at Jadeja. Averages 45 in domestics, averages about 36-37 in tests. You need adjust -8 to 10. Patidar does not bowl. So, I think chances of him being a MO bat is not good. However, you need to give people time to grow if you are giving Gill a permanent ticket. At least this series.

Very sensible batting by Jadeja. And, an excellent innings by Rohit. Rohit has always scored runs in India. I hope he and Jadeja can bat out the day. And, pigs fly too.

They did the right thing in hitting Hartley and Root when they pitched fractionally short, etc. We should not allow these mediocre spinners to get confidence. Their bowling has been carried by Anderson and Hartley. The rest have been junk. We should not allow Hartley to settle down if we can while respecting the pitch, which seemed to be having a bit of a slow bounce sometimes, e.g., when Patidar got out. And, we should not allow Rehan to improve. Or Root to bowl like a regular bowler.

[Naveed90]

Scoreboard:
IND: India's team
93/3 (25): The team has scored 93 runs for the loss of 3 wickets in 25 overs.
CRR (Current Run Rate): 3.72 runs per over.
Players at the Cre.ase:
Ravindra Jadeja: Not out, scored 24 runs with 4 fours and 1 six, at a strike rate of 54.55.
Rohit Sharma: Scored 52 runs with 7 fours and 1 six, at a strike rate of 70.27.
Bowling Stats:
Rehan Ahmed: Bowled 10 overs, conceded 30 runs, with an economy rate of 3.00.
Joe Root: Bowled 3 overs, conceded 15 runs, with an economy rate of 5.00.
Key Stats:
Partnership: Ravindra Jadeja and Rohit Sharma have a partnership of 60 runs in 98 balls.
Last Wicket: Rajat Patidar was the last batsman to be dismissed, caught by Duckett off Tom Hartley, scoring 5 runs in 15 balls. The team was 33/3 in 8.5 overs at that point.
Overs Left: 65 overs remaining in the day's play.
Last 10 Overs: In the last 10 overs, the team scored 37 runs without losing any wickets.
Additional Info:
Day 1: It's currently Lunch Break on the first day of the match.
Toss: India won the toss and chose to bat

[Rajkumar Sharma]

^^Absolutely not! Jadeja is exactly where he needs to be. Maybe Axar should bat ahead if anything. They are both fine and so is Ashwin. No need to tinker with these positions.

Jadeja is finally batting at the position which he deserved and response with a 50,when the team was on trouble at 33/3. He has been always under utilized as a top order batter, specially after Rahane was dropped. He should consistently bat at 5 ahead of KL when he is keeping