Indian domestic cricket/ players

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Thakur sahab did the clever job, selected the game against weak opponent, bagged 6 wickets, keeping his n.o 7 spot intact for SENA tours.

[prasen9]

I am $#$#ing tired of players picking and choosing games. BCCI should send a directive to all teams that if their top players do not play, they need to submit medical certificates justifying their injuries. Or selection memos identifying why people can't play. Leaves of a certain amount can be provided based on certain conditions as in most jobs but the amount of leave should be restricted to a reasonable number of days per year. While I support good working conditions, the ability to choose when to play and not to play at whim is idiotic.

That said, I think Ishan did a poor job in not turning up for the tests in India. He assumed Bharat would play. But, there are injuries and loss of forms. Players who don't have it in their DNA to try everything, everywhere are those who will also not be trying everything in their ability when they come to play. They may not dive to take a catch at times to save their body, etc. I am not very comfortable at having such players.

Both Ishan and Jurel have to improve their keeping to be test keepers. I'd rather try with Jurel who seems to have a very hungry attitude coming from Uttar Pradesh and being the first keeper to represent India from there, etc. He was also very grateful to be in the team and had a humble attitude. He showed very good temperament while batting even though he is a stroke-maker. His keeping is not good. But, if you ask me, I would rather invest in improving Jurel than trying to bring back Ishan.

Ideally, I would prefer we try Wadhkar or whatever that Vidharva keeper is called and try to see if we can make him a bit more ambitious than being happy being a domestic player. My second choice would be to take Prabhsimran and improve his keeping. The third would be to take Rahul and improve his keeping. Then, Jurel. But, the team management will possibly not do any of the first three. So, Jurel will do.

[prasen9]

I think very few players of ours who are good keepers average over 45 in Indian domestics (my yardstick for being a good bat in tests). Given that, I'd rather improve the batters to see if they can keep. Jurel has athleticism in that he dove to the right and caught a ball. That means he should be fine abroad to give some competition to Rahul.

The Yuvraj, Rahul, Patidar experiments should also signal to the selectors that we should not try to make a test batsman out of any player who does not average 50+ in Indian domestics.

Here is my query: Was there any Indian batsman (or how many were there) who averaged below 50 in Indian FC cricket but averaged over 40 in test cricket (with some size qualification, say 10 tests)? I can't think of any. There may be a selection bias in that the prior batches of selectors never gave slots to under-50 averaging players and so we don't know. But, still, I'd like to know the numbers here. Anywhere we can find that (yes, I am looking at you, our domestic guru, Kumar )?

If this has never happened or happened seldom, we should stop trying to manufacture a batter by looking at fluke performances in India-As because we will not give them 10-15 matches like we did with Siraj to hone him up.

[Kumar]

There are just 24 indian batsman with average of over 40 in test match. Just cursory looks at their names indicates that none of the players will meet your criteria was my initial impression.

On deeper dive, we have

Ganguly 42 and 44
Sidhu 42 and 44
Dhawan 40 and 44
Mayank Agarwal 41 and 45
Praveen Amre 42 and 48(very close to 50)
Pant 43 and 48 (likely to be more than 50 if we exclude test matches)
Gambhir 41 and 49(likely to be more than 50 as well)
GRV winner 41.93 and 40.93
Sehwag ding ding big winner 49.3 and 47.3 (another winner). He probably averaged closed to 45 in domestic.

At least 6 players who had a FC record in 40s and scored in 40s in test cricket with Gundappa and Sehwag outplaying their FC.

I think we should probably not consider anyone below 45 in FC for test spot based on this record.

[prasen9]

Our selectors are not really trying to either select players who can average over 40 or they don't think that we have such players. Or something like that.

If you average over 50, of course, you may not be that great. For example, Gill, Vihari, Iyer, Prithvi, etc. But, we need to give a run to people like PRP, Rinku, Prabhsimran, Wadkar a chance before we go and try the lower rung. I'd check if Prithvi is doing well and try to rehabilitate him.

Nobody really has the technique to bat in SENA these days. So, we may as well take the most promising and see who figures out how to bat in SENA.

[prasen9]

I think Amre, Pant and Gambhir were above 50 when they were called up.

Wrt Sehwag, this is showing the backbone of Bazball. Bazball is not about just hitting out. Note that Stokes does not hit out from ball 1 to 20 and sometimes even from ball 1 to 30. He has all the strokes in the world.

Brandon Macmillan individualized the prescription. He saw that openers get out because the ball is new. So, he told the openers to Sehwag it. Sehwag inspired Warner to S it. I think you are either Gavaskar. Or, if you are not Gavaskar, then you need to not emulate him but emulate Sehwag. I think that is what the analytics shows. So, Duckett and Crawley almost always S it. The new ball is also likely to give them more runs that way and a full-blooded shot is unlikely to carry to the slips or will make it really hard for the catcher.

I think we should ask Yashasvi to copy Sehwag especially in hard pitches and against tougher opposition. Against, West Indies, etc. he can copy Gavaskar.

[prasen9]

I think we should probably not consider anyone below 45 in FC for test spot based on this record.

And, given we have now 32 teams or whatever nonsense. I think for Plate players, I would still require 50. So, if we lower things to 45, the only outlier is Vishwanath?

The corollary would be: If you are a predominantly back-foot based player and you are averaging over 40 in Indian domestics, you possibly will not suffer much abroad and can be chosen. But, you need to be a prodigy and our cupboard must be bare wrt batting in those times to choose someone below 45.

The number should perhaps be a tad higher than 45 if we can manage because a whole bunch of 45-50ers possibly have failed than not and thus are not above 40 in Tests.

[Kumar]

True. Also, their averages could have slipped after their test career as well. So u have to extrapolate.

Agree perfectly . In this day, new ball is the key. I think playing that do i prod at it or let it go has no benefit. Let us hope that Root continues to be stupid and keep playing reverse scoop and every other shot not in book. The day Root goes back to his roots, English will become dangerous with their bazball strategy. Another of their problem, they don’t seem to have truly elite bowlers. Robinson is promising, but not sure who else is truly great in their ranks.

[prasen9]

Luckily, Robinson does not have Bumrah pace. While pace alone is overrated, with his swinging skills, if he had pace, he would have been great. I think Ollie Robinson can be a good pacer overall but in Indian flatter pitches, he may not be that good. Let's not find out otherwise.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Pace isn't overrated, bowler needs to use it with effect. Steyn at his prime enjoyed good success in asian flat tracks. Once the red ball become old, swing bowlers with limited pace will struggle in asian tracks. Ball need to be prepared for reverse and reverse happens only if a bowler has got pace. Varun Aaron finished, Umran Malik finished, Mohsin & Kuldeep Sen lost, Prasidh struggling. You can highly criticize them for leaking runs and can easily drop them but those coaches who can make these bowlers learn how to make correct use of pace and make them lethal doesn't exist. Wood,Jofra,Rauf, Nortje and even new star Shamar Joseph has got coaches who can bring them back on track when they are wayward without sacrificing pace.

[Kumar]

I don’t think we disagree. It is just that raw pace without knowing how to bowl is useful. Agree that we don’t have coaches that teach those bowlers. Further international arena is not the right place to learn. NCA needs to be better.

Hope his new coach is getting him to learn that and there are results. If we can unearth his potential, he could be huge.
Also the onus is on him. He needs to work hard and be willing to learn.

https://www.thehindu.com/sport/cricket/ ... 1.ece/amp/

Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) bowling coach P. Krishnakumar on Sunday said that he had to change India pacer Umran Malik’s mindset to make him feel confident of pitching the ball up and swinging it both ways at his natural speed.

[PKBasu]

Shardul Thakur and Mukesh Kumar went back to play Ranji trophy in this round, and absolutely slaughtered the opposition. Mukesh took 10/50 in the two innings against Bihar, and Shardul took 10/52 against Assam, delivering innings defeats for their respective sides Bengal and Mumbai. I think that really exposes the vast gulf between domestic and international cricket. They struggle to get test wickets, but are absolutely unplayable in Ranji trophy!

[prasen9]

Maybe someone needs to filter the junk. If we can keep only the Ranji knockout stats, maybe we will get a better idea. We should start a project of our own?

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Not against all domestic teams. They can smash only pushovers. 32 teams are playing in Elite Group & only 6 plays in Plate Group. 32 teams can't continue to play in Elite for long time with those limited eligibility, only 16 should play Elite & rest should be thrown into the Plate group. First innings score procedure needs to end. 1/2 wins out of 8 doesnt suits a team to remain in Elite group. Not only Hyderabad any relegated team from elite group can smash those 6 teams of Plate and get back their elite position. Plate Group needs to be tough so that relegated team can face tough opponents, 1/2 match winners of elite group should be in the Plate group.

[Kumar]

PRP is turning out to be a big leftie killer. After dismissing the Keaton Jennings (English lions) in the A test, he hsas started bowling more for TN dismisisng some big names of the opponents.

His victims include Padaikkal twice, Nehal Wadhera and then Abhishek Sharma. Padaikkal and Nehal had scored centuries before PRP dismissed them. Hos average on this Ranji season is 16 with 7 wickets. He is atill very much a part time bowler having just bowled 40 overs in 8 innings

Shivam Dube had a best season for all rounder averaging 67 with bat and 12 with a ball.

Is either of those players bowling transferable to international arena. I may be biased. Inspite of Dube’s better average, I think PRP being a lefty killer may be more sustainable.

Still Shivam Dube has a bowling average of 22 and batting average of 52. Relatively small sample size, but based on numbers he is our best all rounder by a long margin (+30)