India A Series ....

[prasen9]

If the track is excellent, then our bowlers were awful in I1. Sad state of affairs. Saini should be nowhere near our red ball teams.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Saini has become permanent India A member like once Manish Pandey was, has been getting lots of opportunity but has failed to give any impact. Why not Akash Singh, Kartik Tyagi, Rasikh Salam are not getting this sort of automatic selections. What happened to Mukesh Choudhary ?

[prasen9]

Because Akash Singh is young, raw, and frankly pretty bad. He needs to improve and make an impact in the games he is playing in order to get a promotion. Failure should not be rewarded.

Tyagi has been smacked in red ball and T20 cricket. He has played well in List-As and should be considered for that team.

Salam is not that bad. He has gotten only two FC matches though. He has been okay with the white ball and maybe a bit more tuneup and he should be tried.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

India ‘A’ squad for the 2nd multi-day match:

Abhimanyu Easwaran (Captain), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Tilak Varma, Kumar Kushagra, Washington Sundar, Sourabh Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Tushar Deshpande, Vidwath Kaverappa, Upendra Yadav, Akash Deep, Yash Dayal

India ‘A’ squad for the 3rd multi-day match:

Abhimanyu Easwaran (Captain), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Kumar Kushagra, Washington Sundar, Shams Mulani, Arshdeep Singh, Tushar Deshpande, Vidwath Kaverappa, Upendra Yadav, Akash Deep, Yash Dayal

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Guru Dravid has decided to make Rinku, Sai test players and end the career of Parag, Bawne. Kaverappa seems a target for Aus tour Squad.South lobby is shining in India A.

Tyagi's 2-3 years has been destroyed by the team management by including him as net bowler, not allowing him to play domestic cricket. He is the only net bowler who didnt get a test match others like Prasidh, Natarajan all had a test cap.

[prasen9]

Rinku and Sai are different cases. Rinku has done very well in FC cricket and deserves his chances. Sai has not and is a stupid selection because our selectors do not know that the different formats require different skills and are still old school.

[Sin Hombre]

At least we drew and could have won so not a terrible result.

[Atithee]

It was a very commanding second innings by the Indian team. Almost chased down a 490 runs target. Well done.

[Kumar]

What an innings from Manav Suthar. Definitely an exciting prospect. Almost an Pujara like innings which probably ensured that India cannot win. Along with Bharath, they played out 55 overs. Scoring 206 runs. Sai Sudharshan played a typical test innings , but the partnership between Manav Sudharshan and Sai was too slow to give India an opportunity to go for win

A a gift for his innings, he is dropped from next two games.

[Kumar]

What a joke of team selection. Why do we need 5 pace bowlers in A squad. If we play with three pacers two of them will be cooling their heels instead of playing domestic cricket.

We have five bowlers with FC average of 30, 29, 29 23 and 21. But the bowler with FC average of 21 is selected because powerful south lobby is backing him. I am not convinced Caveman is good, but calling his selection crazy or influenced by regional politics is crazy

Tilak Verma and Sai Sudharshan selection is absolutely questionable. I would like to blame their selection on white ball cricket rather than regionalism. Sundar selection is more from his success in limited red ball opportunities rather than anything regional. Same logic applies for Arshdeep . Are u going to say that powerful North lobby is reason for his selection as well?

[Kumar]

Saini has become permanent India A member like once Manish Pandey was, has been getting lots of opportunity but has failed to give any impact. Why not Akash Singh, Kartik Tyagi, Rasikh Salam are not getting this sort of automatic selections. What happened to Mukesh Choudhary ?

keep pulling names out of hats like a magician . Salam has not played red ball cricket since 2019. Granted he was banned for age fudging. That was two years back. If he is really good he should be part of JK state team. They have a bowler with 41 average in their FC team , but no Salam. Is he being blackballed?

Karthik Tyagi average in FC is 35. On what basis u want him selected?

[Kumar]

This is what I would have done. Would have scheduled A tour
Match a day after first test started. On Jan 25th. This way , the players who are not in playing 11 could have played for the A team and get into rhythm. I would have made Upendra Yadav or Kushagra as the backup keeper for test . Pay the original team the full test match salary

Also ridiculous that players like Sarkar’s are not getting selected for all matches (replaced by Rinku Singh for the third match). If u think player is good, give him a long rope .

[prasen9]

There is no basis. Whoever he sees bowling fast and/or there is some hype in the media is named. And, then after six months, he recycles to some new names. Etc.

Yes, Tyagi was treated badly. So, rectify that. But, just because he was good as a net bowler does not mean that he is automatically chosen. He has to do well in FC etc. first. And, a good new bowler and a good actualy bowler is a lot different. In nets, they often ask people to bowl not from 22 yards but 19 yards, etc. Also, a bowler with very good best ball but not so good consistency is fine as a net bowler. I would use Umran as a net bowler to bowl nasty bouncers from 19 yards away to get Shreyas practice. That he has no consistency or control is fine because even if he bowls a few wides and longhops, it does not matter. At nets, we don't want very good average bowlers. But in international matches, if we don't have 3-4 top-notch bowlers, then having a stock bowler for the last slot may not be bad. The job of the stock bowler is to keep runs totally bottled up, bowl long overs, and you attack from the other side. Such bowlers are useless as net bowlers. If someone's claim to fame is being an excellent net bowler, then we should keep getting him for net practice always. Not reward him by putting him in the test team.

I think Salam, like Bawne, is blacklisted due to age-cheating. I appreciate that we want to get rid of that but after a point, say 2 year ban, we should treat them as everyone else and not keep penalizing them. The idea is that you served your time and now you can prove yourself again and earn your shots.

[Atithee]

The biggest thing about the bhai sahib/babu ji/prince (Raj Kumar) is that I don’t recall a single positive post from him. They completely disappeared from the scone during the world cup when India was doing well until the final and remerged with the same fervor and negative attitude. Even for a pessimist like me, I can still find some positivity in the world. No such thing seems to exist in our triple role hero.

[prasen9]

The really funny thing is that everybody here has at some point of time wanted the old guard to be out of the team. But, we keep arguing. This is good, imho. A vibrant free exchange of ideas is important for society. Even if nobody cares about what is on this little corner of the internet where nobody who actually has any say peeks at.