The Sports-India Community

Sin Hombre wrote: ↑Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:44 am All the "drooling" he gets is deserved.

Sai Hombre, I am fine with the drooling he recieves, was just try trying to make a point that Gaikwad too is equally a deserving contender, and was not given more opportunities earlier in the tournament.

Once again Rahul seems to have lost his team a game. How can we have someone in the Indian team who can cause you to lose multiple games?

KLR, was extremely slow, and the team also lost many runs because when he was Gayle they missed singles and doubles because West Indian can't run and that hurt KXIP to a much larger extent,

And it was Bishop who pointed out that Rahul should have batted faster, to which Bhogle had no comment. Had Bishop not pointed that out, Bhogle would have gone ga-ga over Rahul's innings.

KL with another match-losing innings.

Of course, he has been rewarded for his pathetic stats padding by being given the vice-captain spot.

Kohli is such a regressive captain in this format.

India has no hope in T20s with Kohli, KL, Dhawan eating up all the balls to pad their stats with tuk-tuk.

Why is this Kohli's fault and not the selectors?

SRH on top so far! Looks they will control their destiny and make the playoff if they win all their games! One of RCB and DC could be eliminaTed if SRH wins today

indiansportsfan wrote: ↑Sat Oct 31, 2020 1:03 am Why is this Kohli's fault and not the selectors?

I think Kohli is way too confrontational with his own team to be a great captain!

Kohli has all the power in Indian cricket.

It is his choice to play KL, Dhawan, Rohit and go all tuk-tuk.

Sin Hombre wrote: ↑Sat Oct 31, 2020 4:25 pm Kohli has all the power in Indian cricket.

It is his choice to play KL, Dhawan, Rohit and go all tuk-tuk.

Did any of the earlier captains have such power?

DC and RCB will be hoping for KXIP to loose tomorrow! They could essentially stage a closely fought game to ensure they make the playoffs

Kumar wrote: ↑Sat Oct 31, 2020 6:35 pm Did any of the earlier captains have such power?

Yes, Dhoni did. Along with the coach I suppose. Kumble would not go along and relinquish his control. So, Kohli got him fired. And, replaced by Shastri, who would go along with what Kohli says. Quite some time ago, maybe even before Azhar, there used to be a selector who toured an away tour and that selector would have an important say along with the captain and the coach in selecting the XI. But, after the era of the Internet, they stopped sending such a selector abroad because they could give their opinion via telecommunications. Then, some strong captain and coach combo took over. At one point, the vice-captain was also part of the abroad selection committee. But, now it seems coach and captain. And, Kohli made sure he has a doormat and not a strong coach by getting Kumble fired. Shastri knows what will happen to him if he goes against Kohli. He is a shrewd politician. That is how and why we have this situation.

I like certain things in Kohli's captaincy. So, I am not against his captaincy per se. But, the fact that the board gives so much power to the captain to get the coach (Kumble) fired is not right. Of course, if one of the coach and captain has to go, it should be the coach. But, they should have made sure that Kohli does not have the absolute power, which they did not by sending his choice Shastri in.

The batting leaders are still as follows (in order):

Hardik, Jadeja, Samson, Mayank, Surya, Dhawan, Saha, Kishan, Tewatia

Saha is the only one with less than 160 runs. Rest all above 200.

Do not need the average cut-off now since all average above 25.

Because the bowlers bowl so little (as opposed to batsmen who can bat all 20 overs theoretically in a match), it is harder to figure out what statistics should be used to find bowlers without resorting to some formula. Using simple stats, I think average captures both wicket-taking and run-giving since each bowler can only bowl up to 4 overs. The ones who do not take wickets will have low averages and the ones who give a lot of runs per over will also have higher averages if they are not commensurately increasing their strike rate though admittedly the average does not capture the economy rate of a bowler that well. Still, LO matches are primarily about taking wickets still rather than just keeping the runs down. Because if you do not take wickets, the team will capitalize in the last 5 overs.

So, what is the leader-board?

Averages: Bumrah, Dube (4), Chahal, Shankar (4), Shami, Ashwin, Siraj (8), Varun, Mishra (3)

The numbers are the ones with the small sample size (< 10 wickets). Ashwin has seen a bit of a regeneration.

Now if we look at the economy rates, a different set of bowlers come up.

Economy: Sundar, Axar, Shankar, Bumrah, Kumar, Varun, Chahal, Tewatia, Bishnoi, Mishra

Lots of spinners because they bowl in the middle overs.

Clearly, Bumrah is our top bowler. Chahal is the acceptable compromise between wicket-taking and keeping runs down.

Who are the most economical pacers? Bumrah, Shankar, Sandeep Sharma, DL Chahar, Dube, Ishant, Shami, Thakur

I think we should have taken one of Shankar/Dube, perhaps Shankar as the backup to Hardik in Australia. Does Sandeep Sharma deserve an A-team call? I consider pace overrated. But, it matters to some extent. I would rather have a pacer who can keep it tight and bowls fast. But, except Shami nobody really came close in being halfway competent in both. Shami is too expensive anyway.

Prasen, you keep mentioning A-teams. There are no tours planned at the moment. Are you talking about future plans?

Yes, in the future. But, if none of that happens, then perhaps we should see who does what in the next IPL in March.

From today starts the quarter-final stage of lPL2020 
A victory for the following teams - KXIP, RCB or DC, and SRH will mean a place in the last four along with MI, who have already qualified.