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We should be ruthless and pick a bunch of brand new team for T20 just as did for the inaugural event.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/icc ... ies-squads

Not even a single player in that team is in his 30s. Oldest player at 29, Agarkar did not play a whole lot.

This squad has some 8 players (9 if u include KL at 29) . At least 5-6 players will be part of the playing 11. I will not be surprised if we have more injuries and some of this names (Rohit, Pandya, Bumrah, Ashwin) are forced out due to injuries.

I am kinda surprised that Dhoni who went with total newcomers has forgotten all about the inaugural win , still hangs onto old brigade with CSK.

When Dhoni was young, he used to choose young folks. Now that he is old, he chooses old people.

To be fair, it is not Dhoni alone who is picking. The selectors do all sorts of discussions and get inputs from a whole lot of people and then decide. I am sure Kohli, Dhoni, Shastri, Ganguly, etc. all have had their inputs. Maybe Ganguly does not interfere too much for the sake of looks but he may have had a word or two with the selectors; cannot rule that out.

I was thinking more about Dhoni’s CSK team rather than the Indian team .

Rohit and Hardik’s fitness worries me. If he does not bowl in IPL, then u can’t really have him in playing 11. Unless he plays as specialist batsman over kishen. Is such a scenario, we will be dependent on Jadeja bowling his full quota (unlikely).

Also hoping Bumrah gets rested during the IPL.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/mi-v ... ng-1281005

Questions about Pandya bowling. If Pandya is going to be selected as specialist bat, that means Sky, Kishenmor Pant has to be dropped.

I would like to see Ruturaj G, Avesh Khan and Y Chahal replace Ishan Kishan, Bhuvi and Rahul Chahar respectively for WCT20 squad. That would give us almost the best possible lineup. Kishan and Bhuvi are in terrible form, they will be a big burden on the side and R Chahar is not doing too great himself. In contrast, Ruturaj and Avesh have been phenomenal in the IPL and Chahal seems to have rediscovered his mojo after being terrible for quite a while. But I don't have any faith in the selectors, they will again give us a terrible lineup and all the blame will be unfairly put on Kohli.

My first X1 would be Rohit, Ruturaj, Kohli, SKY, Pant/Rahul, Pandya, Jadeja, Ashwin, Avesh, Bumrah and Chahal/Varun. I would give Pant slight edge over Rahul and Chahal over Varun, but would not mind it going the other way too.

I agree. Ruturaj and Avesh should be seriously considered.

Bizarre decision by the selectors. Axar Patel is replaced by Shardul Thakur, but the out-of-form Hardik Pandya isn't dropped. No place for Ruturaj or Venkatesh Iyer, although the latter stays on as one of the reserves. Lukman Meriwala, Karn Sharma and K Gowtham are also among the practice bowlers (although none of them played a single match in the UAE phase of the IPL). Things just get more and more bizarre. Avesh Khan and Umran Malik are other net bowlers staying on. But the actual squad looks odd, with Ashwin still there but Axar (who out-performed him for DC) out.

PKBasu wrote: ↑Wed Oct 13, 2021 5:54 pm Bizarre decision by the selectors. Axar Patel is replaced by Shardul Thakur, but the out-of-form Hardik Pandya isn't dropped. No place for Ruturaj or Venkatesh Iyer, although the latter stays on as one of the reserves. Lukman Meriwala, Karn Sharma and K Gowtham are also among the practice bowlers (although none of them played a single match in the UAE phase of the IPL). Things just get more and more bizarre. Avesh Khan and Umran Malik are other net bowlers staying on. But the actual squad looks odd, with Ashwin still there but Axar (who out-performed him for DC) out.

Well,they are putting all their eggs on Jadeja and that he will remain fit. Axar will not see the field when Jadeja is fit. Shardul probably makes the starting 11 in place of either Bhuvi or Shami or even Pandya.

Ashwin gets to enjoy the extended stay at Dubai becoz he is the only off spinner after Sundar’injury. May play against team with dominant left hand lineup.

Rohit, Rahul, two of SKy/ishant/Pandya, Kohli, Pant, Jadeja, Thakur, Bumrah, Varun, Shami.

Now little bit more solidity to our batting line. I can see Ashwin or Chatham playing if the pitch is out and out a spinner or too many lefties in place of Shami.

I would play both SAY and Ishan and drop Pandya.

It seems like the team is not too sure about Pandya the bowler, Pandya the batsman only in this form should be a substitute only. And, so, they want a pace-bowling all-rounder. I suspect Thakur will be in the XI when we go with three pacers. When we go with three spinners Ashwin.

Is Chatham the Sanskrit of Chat?

Pandya has no business to be in any cricket team, let alone Indian World Cup team.

Unfortunately, I agree. He has done too much of the nonsense since getting engaged/married. Hope he focuses on cricket. But, maybe he has earned so much that he does not care. I doubt it though. I think he will come back. I think or want to think that he will fix himself after hitting rock bottom. For that, he should be dropped from the Indian team, IPL team, etc. I think only then he will work hard.

And, wherever he is going, can he please take Eoin Morgan with him? KKR will play with 10 players in the final if he is in the team. And, against Dhoni's wiles, you need all cylinders to be firing. Will the oldies finally go away?

Yuzvendra Chahal, the best bowler in the UAE phase of the IPL (perhaps after only Harshal Patel), isn't even among the reserves!! This is simply confounding. At a minimum, he should have stayed on as a net bowler.

The official reason offered by that brilliant chairman of selectors, Chetan Sharma, is that they are looking for someone faster through the air, and have hence picked Rahul Chahar. Interestingly, the latter didn't make the MI side for the last few games.

Isn’t Chetan Sharma the bowler who Miandad hit for a six and that took almost 10 years to get over from our psyche? How do these people become chairman of selectors? He was never a great shake in his playing days.

There are many options better than him. However, he was not that bad.

He was possibly the best pacer until the '90s after Kapil, Ghavri, and Amar Singh. Maybe you can throw in Roger Binny. Maybe Lala Amarnath. The Lala was perhaps a slightly better bat than Chetan. Chetan was a bowling allrounder. He assisted Kapil, etc. when we won 2-0 clean in England. We had very good bowlers who could bowl swing in Kapil, Binny, Chetan assisted by Madanlal, etc.

He was a better version of Venkatesh Prasad who was our #2 bowler in the '90s. Prasad and Chetan was about the same while Chetan was miles ahead with his batting. If I remember correctly, he also was the one who came in at #3 or so in an innovative move by the captain and just went on hitting and hit a century in ODIs, which we did not have many of in the '80s.

He was not much worse than Ghavri, Prasad, Zaheer. Only after the 2000s did we have distinctly better pacers in Ishant and Irfan. And, only in the last decade have we had the 3-4 great ones. In between, we had Srinath as the lead bowler, who arguably was worse than Umesh or about the same. Certainly worse than Bumrah, Bhuvi, Shami, who have been the best in this crop in tests.

He also had a test 50, which I guess Shami has but Chetan was much more consistent and a better bat than any of the other medium pace bowlers, maybe except Kapil, Lala, Irfan and Prabhakar, who were very good bats after him. Prabhakar was perhaps a distinctly worse bowler.

So, he is not totally undeserving. The ball against Miandad was a brain fart but these things happen. The fact that the Indian team got a mental block against Pakistan in Sharjah time and again should not be pinned on him. The crowds then were distinctly pro-Pakistan. Pakistan had a very strong team then as shown by them winning the WC in Australia and I think there was some bookmaking hanky-panky going on. How can it be that you never lose to this team in the World Cup but you are losing match after match in Sharjah? It was good that finally someone realized that we should stop patronizing Sharjah and getting pasted again and again.