India in Sri Lanka, LOIs 2021

[Sin Hombre]

Prithvi batted very well but again a cameo. He needs to bat big in international cricket. It will happen sooner rather than later on these types of pitches and oppositions. The real test is in the SENA countries. We will see.

Does he though?

We have Kohli and Rohit who are both accumulators.

I expected this team to dominate SL more than our regulars would and they started on the right note.

[prasen9]

Shaw scores 32 at 120 until today. I am trying to get rid of Kohli, Rohit, etc. And populate the whole batting lineup with big hitters. If you retain both Rohit and Kohli, then maybe you can have fewer batters capable of scoring well. But, you then need to have bowers who can bat. If I want to have Prithvi, Kishan, Iyer, Pant, SAY, Hardik, Krunal, then you need them to score more than 32 per inning. A 32 per inning would bring us to 210-7. I do not want to give up SR in order to get higher average. England has shown that we can get an average of 40 and a SR or 90 easily. An average of 45 and a SR of 100 is also doable in today's game. We should aim for 45/100.

Pant, Prithvi, Hardik are all flaky wrt being able to play the long inning. You cannot have too many cameo people. I do not want slow accumulators. I want all big hitters and long-inning players. Interchangeable all. That is the modern XI.

For England:

Bairstow 48/105
Buttler 39/119
Roy 40/107
Morgan 40/94
Stokes 40/95

Five people around or above 40/95 at least.

And, they have the following with less than 20 innings:
Salt 35/117
Livingstone 36/113
Gregory 59/101
Crawley 49/114

If these four pan out, they will possibly push out Morgan and Stokes or push Stokes to #7 and they will have a full range of players playing over a SR of 100 and at least scoring 35. We need to do the same.

I would take 40/100 or 45/95. But that is it. Everyone should bat at 95 or above. And, ideally, at 40 or above.

[Sin Hombre]

I am assuming Kohli and Rohit won't leave before 2023.

Kohli survived another fiasco at the WTC. I do not know what the trigger to remove him of captaincy would be.

[prasen9]

A 5-0 defeat to England.

[prasen9]

Dhawan, Ishan and Prithvi failed. Their career ODI stats stand at 30/130 and 28/120 respectively. Both need to work on getting runs. That is what batsmen are for. Kishan as a keeper may be workable but he is working against Pant for that position who is 33/114.

Now it is up to Pandey and Pandyas + SAY to see India through.

[PKBasu]

Prithvi and Ishan both failed today. Prithvi again fell to a spinner (failing to read a googly, the type of problem that Rohit Sharma often has in the IPL) and Ishan just fell early trying to hit out -- played on off a square-cut attempt.

[PKBasu]

Apart from Suryakumar and (to some extent, prior to his run out) Mayank Pandey, the batting has failed today. The target is still gettable, but Krunal and Bhuvi have to do it. Very odd that Deepak Chahar was sent in to bat ahead of Bhuvi, who is a far better batsman.

[prasen9]

The whole batting lineup batted like complete morons. These guys do not seem to understand that if you score 30 runs a pop, you get to 210/7. And, some will fail to even do that. You need to bat long. Especially when the target is not that big, 275, you do not need to get any rewards if you take extra risks and get a shiny SR of 120 or whatever. There are no special awards for winning with 15 overs in the hand. The best rewards are obtained by making sure that you take the minimum risks to get to the total. This is why typically Kohli is such a good chaser. He can turn it on or off based on the total being chased. He is a tad too cautious when setting a target. And the others around him are not that good wrt shot selection, etc. I am surprised to see this brain-deadness from a team coached by Dravid. I think his calculated game did not make through to the heads of the youngsters. Losing to this SL team is bad. But that is what happens when you get too cocky and totally disregard what makes the most cricketing sense.

[PKBasu]

Happy to have been proven wrong! Deepak Chahar has batted almost like a batsman, while Bhuvi is struggling to score. Nonetheless their partnership has brought India back in to the contest. 18 runs needed off the last 20 balls.

[indiansportsfan]

I don't think Bhuvi is that good of a bat anymore

[prasen9]

This is a completely crazy win. I thought we were toast. What an innings by DLC. I do not recall any top-4 bowler (who otherwise is not an allrounder) do something like this.

[PKBasu]

What a masterly chase by Rahul Dravid's boys. Brilliant unbeaten stand of 84 runs for the 9th wicket between Deepak Chahar (69* off 82 balls) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (19* off 28). They very sensibly played out a single-run over (the 48th) from the leg-spinner at the end, but took full toll of the pacers.

[prasen9]

I don't think Bhuvi is that good of a bat anymore

Well, at least Bhuvi kept his wicket and did not become the headless chicken that some of the top--order blokes did. In some sense, what this is showing is that people such as Prithvi and Ishan can be the icing on the cake when the bread and butter is laid down by Kohli, etc. Without them, these folks should not be in the team unless they show they can carry an innings once in a while. Of course, Prithvi has gotten only 5 chances and Ishan got two and scored a 50 in the first one. So, there is hope and the talent should shine. But, someone should tell them to value their wickets a bit more and take judicious risks.

Yes, they played out two overs of the leggie at the end without trying anything idiotic or heroic. That cannot be said of our top order folks and Hardik.

Manish played well but got unlucky. Batsmen should not be just loitering out or backing up like that imho.

[prasen9]

What a masterly chase by Rahul Dravid's boys. Brilliant unbeaten stand of 84 runs for the 9th wicket between Deepak Chahar (69* off 82 balls) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (19* off 28). They very sensibly played out a single-run over (the 48th) from the leg-spinner at the end, but took full toll of the pacers.

I think you meant 8th wicket. I was trying to remember other great such heists. I remember when Sehwag scored a century against NZ and we barely won by a wicket. And, then when we were 60-5 odd and then Rohit and Jadeja pulled us to 150 odd and then we managed to squeak through with one wicket in hand. However, this win is different in that we did not lose the last 2/3 wickets and managed to pull it out.

Dhoni/Bhuvi did it in Sri Lanka in 2017 to win the match, but this was perhaps the highest 8th wicket stand without having a single batsman from the top 7. That too by our pace bowlers. Our spinners Jadeja and Ashwin are more allrounders than our pace bowlers.

Overall, SAY and Krunal are doing fine. Prithvi and Ishaan need to be a bit more consistent.

[PKBasu]

India really testing the bench strength today. It didn't quite work out, as the middle and lower order collapsed after the rain-break. Earlier, Shaw played a slower innings but fell for a run-a-ball 49, Samson (on debut) made a run-a-ball 46, and Suryakumar made 40 off 37 balls. Both Shaw and Samson had a bad day in the field though (Samson dropped a few catches, but did pull off a good stumping). The rest of the batting failed, including a forgettable debut for Nitish Rana. The bowlers who impressed (debutants both) were leggie Rahul Chahar (3/54 off 10) and pacer Chetan Sakariya (2/34 in 8 overs). Hardik Pandya has had a horror series with bat and ball. A total of 225 was never going to be enough, but the debutant bowlers kept it close: SL won by just 3 wickets.