England in India, February-March 2021

[prasen9]

The original sin was that Axar Patel was not in the squad and hence he could not be chosen. I presume they thought that Krunal's left-arm spin was enough. But Krunal is not much of a bowler at the international level. Can't give us 10 overs. Packaged with Hardik, perhaps.

[prasen9]

Sorry, Prasen have to disagree with you! He is a batting allrounder! It was not thathe scored only 25 runs, it is how he scored it! His timing was bad thru the innings!

I am not disagreeing that it was not that good an innings and we should demand more. I am saying that if your team does not last 50 overs, then blaming people for their SR is not the right thing to do. I understand now that you were not simply blaming him for being slow.

[prasen9]

We need every batsman to relearn how to play spin bowling. If we can do that well, we will be fine in general. I wish there were Indian spinners in making. I’m not sure Jadeja is the silver bullet he’s being made to be. And, I say this as a lifelong Jadeja fan.

Jadeja is not that much of a strike bowler in ODIs. He takes wickets at 37 runs/wicket, worse than even Bhuvi. That is 10 runs/over more than what Kuldeep and Chahal do. And, he gives 3 runs less in his 10 overs, which perhaps is not that much of a win. The value of Jadeja is in the total package. Bowl a tight 10 overs, field and save runs, and hit lustily at the MO/end. Unfortunately, paradoxically, he has not been able to hit in ODIs that much. In fact, he would be the slowest batsman among the Indian top-7. The current slowest is Rohit. Jadeja, Rohit, and Rahul are the 3 slowest SRs all below 90. Jaddu's SR is 87. Then come Dhawan and Kohli at 93. So overall, utility player. Spinning savior --- he has never been. Tight wicket-to-wicket bowler yes. If we play Hardik, that becomes two people bowling without that much strike power. Then, if we play Bhuvi, we need to pray that we get the current version and this is not just a temporary improvement. Bumrah and Shami will be the ones we will bank on to take wickets, I suppose.

[Kumar]

Do you remember the last time India bowled 46 overs using pacers and 4 overs of spin? I cannot remember in my lifetime in ODIs. Certainly not in India. That should tell you about our spin stocks.

Prasen, u asked and ESPN answered

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/ind- ... ts-1257112

276 Balls bowled by the Indian fast bowlers during the third ODI, the joint-most by them in an ODI at home. The Indian pacers bowled 276 balls each against Pakistan in the first two ODIs of the 1983 series. The 276 balls are also the second most by Indian pace bowlers in an ODI match since 1984.

That was the squad that did not have even a single spinner and all overs were bowled by fearsome pace bowlers (kapil. Sandhu, Madanlal, Binny and Mohinder)

[prasen9]

Interesting. The two ODIs against Pakistan in Hyderabad and Jaipur, we had an all-pace attack. Kirti Azad never had to bowl. Pakistan was restricted to 150-160 by the fab five. They bowled all 46 overs in both the ODIs. This one should come after that because we had four overs of (unspinning/straight) spin.

Which begs the question as to why Hardik was not even bowled for 4-5 overs in Match 2? I understand that once the match was likely to be lost, you forget your fifth bowler and try to bowl out your best bowlers. But, in the first 20-25 overs when there was still a chance, why did Hardik not even get an over or two? Maybe Kohli knew that a containing bowler would not really make a difference?

[Kumar]

India needs Jadeja at his best and needs to provide atleast 6-8 overs! He was pretty ordinary in IPL, but had a surprisingly good test series! My biggest fearis that he may be become another batting allrounder!

[prasen9]

Jadeja was fantastic with the bat in the IPL.

Kapil was a great. But, actually, Madanlal and Binny were actually very good, I think. I can think of Bumrah, Shami, Srinath, and Prabhakar (+ Kapil) before them. That's it. Sandhu was pretty good for a short period and Mohinder was very steady as a fifth bowler. Remember at that time, they did not have that many field restrictions. Amarnath was a slow Hardik but very disciplined. In fact, Binny was more erratic than Mohinder. But, Binny got wickets more frequently.

I think pace and "fearsome"ness of pace bowlers is overrated. You need to bowl period. And, Madanlal and Binny were fantastic ODI bowlers. They guy who is responsible for my current baldness is Ajit Agarkar. A strike bowler but will gift-wrap you a hit-me ball every over. The Agarkar mantle was inherited by Ishant and then passed on to Umesh and Sreesanth. These were bowlers with great potential and striking power but no rudder and each was possibly worse than the one that came before. So, the number of hair I pulled out watching them increased more and more until today ...

Which is why I am impressed by Prasidh Krishna but he needs to be more disciplined. Hope he learns.

[Kumar]

Look at that squad! That squad had lot more bowlers than current squad, considering that even Srikanth and Sandip patil could bowl occasionally!

There were times , we would be excited to see Mohinder or Vengsarkar dismissed , so that we could watch Sandip patil come to bat

[Kumar]

Jadeja was fantastic with the bat in the IPL.

Sorry meant with the ball!

[rajitghosh]

The original sin was that Axar Patel was not in the squad and hence he could not be chosen. I presume they thought that Krunal's left-arm spin was enough. But Krunal is not much of a bowler at the international level. Can't give us 10 overs. Packaged with Hardik, perhaps.

Krunal is in the team because he is a good friend of Kohli. Otherwise I doubt he has much credentials.

[rajitghosh]

About only Indian seamers bowling I do remember a match in Australia against the West Indies in 1992. India scored 126. Then 40 overs were bowled by Kapil, Prabhakar, Srinath and Subroto Banerjee in extreme swinging conditions. Then Tendulkar bowled seam up in the 41st over and the match ended in a tie. Thankfully Azhar has the sense to not bowl Ravi Shastri.

[prasen9]

Well, during the '83 world cup, a very similar attack bowled very well in England against Australia, England, West Indies, Zimbabwe, etc. Don't remember who else we played and whether we used spinners. I don't remember very many spinners used in that world cup by India. Oh, and at about that time, I think there were some games that were 60 overs that we played against West Indies, etc. So, maybe 46 overs out of 60 would be reached easily by the pacers. I remember the game against WI at the group stage we had our fab five (see post above) bowl 12 overs each although I think India lost that game badly. For that era, Viv Richards beat the crap out of our fab five in that game. They got back their revenge in the finals.

[Kumar]

Well, during the '83 world cup, a very similar attack bowled very well in England against Australia, West Indies, Zimbabwe, etc.

And Sandhu was the only guy who was probably considered a tailender! Did england get their blueprint from 83 team?

[PKBasu]

Yes, we used mainly medium-pacers in the 1983 World Cup. Ravi Shastri took 3 wickets in the victory over Windies in the first match, and Kirti Azad played the SF and final. (He was supposed to share 12 overs with Mohinder in the SF against England, but they each bowled 12 overs since they were able to bottle up the English batsmen). Otherwise it was medium-pacers all the way -- Kapil, Binny, Madanlal, Sandhu and Mohinder, with Sandeep Patil not getting too many overs all tournament long.

[PKBasu]

Well, during the '83 world cup, a very similar attack bowled very well in England against Australia, West Indies, Zimbabwe, etc.

And Sandhu was the only guy who was probably considered a tailender! Did england get their blueprint from 83 team?

And even Sandhu had made a 70+ in a test against the West Indies in the series that preceded the World Cup.