India in England, summer of 2021

[PKBasu]

He should try and play the county championship matches too, not just the one-dayers (for which he seems to have been signed up). The real test comes in the first class game. But good for him nonetheless. More Indian players should get county gigs.

[prasen9]

And other T20 gigs abroad. Stupid of the BCCI to block them.

[Atithee]

No county matches for tourists in England as India A series postponed

https://sports.yahoo.com/no-county-matc ... 05459.html

[PKBasu]

Vihari's dismal run of single-digit scores continued in his debut for Warwickshire in the county championship match against Northamptonshire at Trent Bridge. He was out to Stuart Broad for a 23-ball duck in the first innings, and made just 8 in the second innings. In his last 4 matches (List A, Vijay Hazare Trophy), Vihari made 2, 1, 4 and 0. I do not think he should be an automatic selection for the test side. (Vihari did take a spectacular catch at midwicket, but that hardly compensated for his batting failures).

[PKBasu]

India should arrive in England with two full squads of 15 each (11 players plus 4 extras), so that two proper first-class-style matches can be played with all injury-contingencies taken care of.

I would have the first XI comprising: Shubman Gill, Rohit Sharma, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, Pant, Jadeja, Ashwin, Siraj, Ishant, Bumrah.
2nd XI: Shaw, Mayank, Rahul, Vihari, Sarfaraz, Washington Sundar, Saha/Ishan Kishan, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami.

Extras (to be distributed among the 2 teams, with Saha or Kishan already the 3rd keeper): Padikkal, Suryakumar Yadav, Priyam Garg, Shahbaz Ahmed, Ishan Porel, Jaydev Unadkat, Deepak Chahar, Shivam Mavi (or whichever young quick does really well in the IPL). I don't think there's any need to take too many more pure spinners when high-quality spinning all-rounders exist.

[prasen9]

Your first and second 11s are reasonable but your backup players are mostly based on IPL. We need players who can play the red ball. For example, Padikkal is 20. He has averaged 35 or so with the red ball in 15 matches in India. Why do we think he will be able to negotiate swing in England? We should stick to our India-A backups. Easwaran and Panchal for opening. Porel and Unadkat are decent. DLC averages 35 with the red ball over 40 FC matches. I know he can swing the ball but he gets wickets only when batsmen attack him. Mavi is also very good and promising. But, I think we should choose Saini as one of the backups instead of DLC. I think actually Prasidh Krishna and Mavi are more talented with more upside than Unadkat and Porel.

Also, in England Shardul Thakur is a must. We need the 3rd pacer to be able to bat some and not be a total zero as the ones in your first team and two in the second team are.

Furthermore, England will not let India play an India-A team. It has to be practice only. But, having a large pool of players will be good. Although it will possibly be 22, I do not think they will take that many extras over and above the 22.

[PKBasu]

India won't be allowed to play formal first-class matches against India A, and the the latter's plans of arriving earlier to play a few county matches also won't fructify. But there will be an expanded squad of 22+ to enable proper "intra-squad" 4-day matches to be played. The only point about this is that the likes of Kohli and Rohit won't be able to rest if the squad has only 22 players, but will be able to do if there are 24 or 28 in the squad.

I agree that Shardul Thakur should be in one of the XIs, and I realize that I had also missed Hardik Pandya, who will be vitally important on the England tour if fully fit to bowl.

So the two XIIs would be:
A first XI comprising: Shubman Gill, Rohit Sharma, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, Pant, Jadeja, Ashwin/Hardik, Siraj, Ishant, Bumrah.
2nd XI: Shaw, Mayank, Rahul, Vihari, Sarfaraz, Saha, Washington Sundar/Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami.
That would leave room for only a couple of other reserves -- Priyam Garg and Jaydev Unadkat would be the first couple of reserves based on domestic performances.

[prasen9]

I have not seen Garg. He has indeed done well in the FC season. And, is only 20. Typically, the selectors have been going from domestics to A-team to the final XI. I think a jump is fine for precocious talents. If Garg is one such, then all power to including him. Otherwise, they may go with the safer route of choosing someone from the A-team.

[PKBasu]

Vihari finally got some runs in his second county match, making 32 and 52 for Warwickshire, as they beat reigning champions Essex by 7 wickets after conceding a small first innings lead. Vihari's contribution wasn't decisive, but his return to form early in the season (when there is often a lot of swing in the air) is positive news.

[PKBasu]

The squad for the WTC final and the 5-test tour of England has been announced. Prithwi Shaw is dropped (excluded even from the standby list), with Abhimanyu Easwaran (who averaged about 20 in the last Ranji season and has an underwhelming career FC average of 43) getting picked as a standby instead. Ridiculous. Another surprise name among the standby bowlers (left-armer Arzan Nagwaswalla) -- perhaps they were looking for someone who bowls a bit like Sam Curran. Nonetheless this is a complete surprise selection.

Virat Kohli (capt), Ajinkya Rahane (vice-capt), Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wk), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, KL Rahul (subject to fitness clearance), Wriddhiman Saha (wk; subject to fitness clearance). Standby players: Abhimanyu Easwaran, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Arzan Nagwaswalla

The squad itself has 20 players, plus 4 standby players (who will all be travelling with the side). I'm surprised that India are taking 4 spinners for an England tour -- Jadeja, Ashwin, Axar and Washington. If they wanted a left-arm pacer as standby, the ace Ranji performer Jaydev Unadkat surely deserved to be picked.

[prasen9]

Reasonable team. Basically, the selectors did not want to take any risks. I am not sold on Vihari. Iyer should have been in the backups at least? I do not mind Arzan as a standby. He has bowled well in the little FC cricket he has played though. And, it looks a bit light on the batting side wrt backups. I suppose the allrounders Jadeja, Sundar, etc. will play as backups if there is a MO injury.

[Prem]

Surprised to see Bhuvaneshwar Kumar not included in the larger squad. Hope we reach early and get used to the conditions since NZ and England would have played Test matches and will be match ready.

[PKBasu]

Fitness is probably the only excuse for leaving Bhuvi out of the test squad -- especially on a tour of England (or NZ), where he should always be an automatic selection. Perhaps Bhuvi hasn't demonstrated the ability to bowl long spells in first class cricket (which he hasn't played for about 3 years). If Bhuvi was fit and available, there would be no excuse for leaving him out of any squad (especially a test one) touring England. In his last test series (in South Africa) Bhuvi was the key player for us with ball AND (on occasion) bat.

[Rajiv]

IIRC Arzan Nagwaswalla is the first Parsi in the Indian squad(albeit reserves ) since Farooq Engineer, who was the last of the illustrious band of Parsee's who have previously played for India.

[rajitghosh]

IIRC Arzan Nagwaswalla is the first Parsi in the Indian squad(albeit reserves ) since Farooq Engineer, who was the last of the illustrious band of Parsee's who have previously played for India.

Waiting for the day for a Sodabottleopenerwalla to play for India. Not sure though that would be the longest surname in cricket.