Indian Team Selection

India in SL, 2010

Test Series

India and SL will be back for yet another series. Even ardent fans of SL and India will be bored by now. Have some heart, this time it is different. It is a test series and not any hastily organized one day tournament.

BCCI selection committee has declared the final 16 who will be playing for the country. Overall, I believe, it is a good selection except for two selections:

• Wriddhiman Saha as a reserve wicket keeper - What does BCCI want to achieve. Is he in fray for any future tournament? Did they forget Dinesh Karthik, the perennial prover. He is a decent wicketkeeper and much better batsman than Saha. Moreover, he has immense international experience; whenever a batsman  is injured, he is the first one to be called.
• Recall of Yuvraj Singh - Yuvraj has the talent to become one of the best batsman in the world. He is as talented as KP or even SRT. But his performance proves otherwise. Today he is not even as good as  Dada, whom he replaced. He has to value and respect his place in test side.

I think selection on Suresh Raina and Vijay was spot on. There are skeptics who believe Raina does not have the required skills to survive a test match; especially his weakness against the short ball. He has proven, time and again, in both one day and T20 cricket that he can survive short deliveries. His one day record, especially over last 2 years, is a case to the point. Raina should be give a chance to fail.

Vijay is another talented youngster who has not done too badly in test cricket. His Ranji Trophy record is excellent and is one of the better batsman in Indian cricket today. His T20 performances should not be used as a benchmark for test selection.

Talking about youngsters, the selection committee should start blooding some of the others as well. Selectors have to start thinking about the future. Big 3 may not be there after 2-3 years. They have taken us to the top of ICC ranking but new talent has to retain that top ranking. Rohit Sharma, Manish Pandey, Pujara, Kohli and Badrinath could be future of Indian test scene. Especially Badri and Pujara. Badri may not be a youngster but he has few years of cricket left in him.

All these players have been knocking on selection committee doors for many years. Of course selectors can't (and shouldn't) accommodate all but they should devise a strategy so that these youngsters can play with big 3 when there is still some time. The selectors can take following approach:

• Have a rotation policy in place.
• Always choose 16 players (even when the matches are being held in India) in the squad
• Drop Yuvraj - I would love to see him the team but not an usual irresponsible Yuvraj. 

This aint a "I told you so" post

Team selection for Zimbabwe Tri series 2010


Last month I wrote a post about poor team selection for Zimbabwe tour.


Unfortunately my premonition about a poor series for India came true. Far from being poor, we were dismal in Zimbabwe. The sad thing is that it was bound to happen as there is no system governing Indian cricket - both BCCI and Media are at fault.


What has BCCI achieved? Are there any new finds? Have they identified any new talent which was unknown before? Have they boosted the moral of new players? Have they done justice to the fans?


Far from it. Team India has been relegated to number 3 position in ICC ranking...


On the other side of system, Media is blind even after having the advantage of the hindsight. In last few days there have been many media stories castigating the players and the team. How callous and irrelevant? They could not recognize that young inexperienced team, however talented, was never going to win matches on their own. I am sure if 1 or 2 players were part of the regular squad, they would have excelled. Alas! that never happened.


All is not lost though. We can still learn some lessons:
1. BCCI should only play reasonable number of matches in a year so regular players are rested for important matches.
2. BCCI should adopt a rotation policy to give young talent a chance and build bench strength rather than making wholesale changes.
3. Media should not become over-enamored by young talent and try to provide positive criticism.


Whether it will happen. I have my doubts but we all have to do our bit to "save the tiger"...

Message from England! BCCI - Are you listening?

I read an interesting side story after recently concluded England-Bangladesh test series.

http://www.cricinfo.com/england/content/current/story/462319.html

An excerpt

"Steven Finn has had an impressive start to the summer and will now undertake a strengthening programme similar to that recently undertaken by Stuart Broad," said Geoff Miller, England's national selector. "This will also rule Steven out of the NatWest Series against Australia and Bangladesh before his preparation for the npower Test series against Pakistan."

 Finn is a young lad with oodles of talent. He has been undoubtedly the best bowler of both sides and has been the find of the series. Much like Ishant Sharma or Irfan Pathan in their early days. And what does England do - send him for strength training without even considering him for domestic tournaments.

Is it strange? Far from it.

It is the right way to nurture young talent. He is being told that success is not easy so the young lad should better work on it.

There is a lesson for BCCI, Indian Media and India team fans. We have a unique affinity for young talent. Whenever a young player bursts on the scene, we want him to participate in each and every game, however insignificant. We shower him with excessive praises and slowly burn him out. We always try to find the next Kapil Dev or Sachin Tendulkar.

Look where are our yesteryear bowling talents today? Munaf has dropped pace, so has Irfan, Sreesanth has attitude problem as got too much praise initially, RP Singh in no longer accurate and Ishant is wayward.

It is easy to blame all these players but we have to look within ourselves to find a solution.

We should give some time and mentor a new player properly - play him in full domestic season, slug it out on the ground with no fans, train hard, give him chance to play in few internationals so as to acclimatise him different cultures and grounds, take tips from senior players.

BCCI - Are you listening?

Poor team selection

Team selection for Zimbabwe Tri series 2010

I wrote a post Let us pray! earlier this year. The title of this post could also have been same as I am writing about a similar situation. India were scheduled to play SA in a dead rubber and selectors rested top players of Indian team just to give chance to youngsters. And guess what, India lost. Even though that was a dead rubber and now we are talking about playing in Zimbabwe, we should be ruthless while it comes to playing international matches. We should select the best team possible. Remember it is a tri-series and we would be playing against SL as well.

I have no doubt about the talent of youngsters picked for the squad. They are all good players and proven themselves in IPL and other domestic matches. They would also be hungry to showcase their talent in International arena. But cricket is a team sport and individuals can win you only few matches. I feel that making wholesale changes tot the team composition is not a good idea.

A few factors that goes against the selected squad:
1. The squad has never played together as a team.
2. The coach and other support staff will have to guide an entirely new team.
3. All players are low in experience.
4. The experience is even lower when it comes to playing matches abroad.

An excerpt from my earlier post

It is true that the replacements are worthy and talented but all of them lack experience. It is a good idea to test the reserves and give bench some chance to secure a team for future. But wholesale replacements are not good even if it is a dead rubber. We must learn from Australia of old. They also had a rotation policy but never at the expense of a game. They never got complacent and were so ruthless that many games were won even before starting. We must make winning a habit.

Let us just pray that the team is able to win a few matches.

Analysis 2010 continued

ICC T20 World Cup 2010

This is a followup post to my last post Analysis 2010 on potential weakness of each team playing in the Super 8.

Why can SL lose?

• They are not looking like the side they were last year
• In both their group games they lacked intensity
• No other batsman apart from Jayawardene has fired

 Why can Australia lose?

• They have been inconsistent. They performed well against Pakistan but lost the track against Bangladesh.
• So far they have an extremely poor record in T20. Read my earlier post Australian Team is favourite

Why can India lose?

• The dreaded C word - Complacency. They are the champions or so the Indian Media and fans think.
• The weakness from last world cup might haunt them again - short pitched bouncers.

Why can WI lose?

• The dreaded I word - Inconsistency.

Evey team has chinks in its armour. And in T20 form on the match day matters more than anything else. However, I think it will be extremely difficult for NZ, Pakistan and SL to reach the semis.

Analysis 2010

ICC T20 World Cup 2010

This post is similar to my last year's post on second edition of ICC T20 World cup.

Analyze this

Like in last year's post I have analyzed what chinks hinder a team to not go on and win the tournament. I am writing this post just before the start of Super 8s. We have had a look at teams' form while teams have had a look at weather and ground conditions.

According to Lardbrokes, at the time of writing, Australia are still favourites with odds at 3. In fact they have improved their odds since tournament beginning. India and SA hold the next 2 positions with odds at 4 and 5 respectively. Also look at my last post

Australian Team is favourite

Let us see why a team can lose.

Why can Pakistan lose?

• The dreaded I word - Inconsistency. One their day they are world beaters and another day they are worse than a club cricket team.
• Nothing remains permanent in Pakistan cricket - They have a new captain who has a history of being on the wrong side of cricket administration and a new team which is low on experience.
• Batting looks weak as compared to other teams.

They can take heart from the fact that their batting fought hard against Australian bowling.

Why can NZ lose?

• The dreaded D word - They are perennial Dark Horses. They raise the expectations of their fans by giving a good fight but never go on and win a big tournament.
• They are a formidable unit but they struggled against lackadaisical SL.

Why can SA lose?

• The dreaded C word - They are not called Chokers for nothing. They inspire hope, excitement and confidence till they lose at the final frontier.
• They were unable to put up a decent fight against India team who were missing key players. Their batsmen struggled against part-time spinners.
• They were unable to put up a decent total against a inexperienced bowling attack of Afghanistan.

Why can England lose?

• The dreaded F word - They are a formidable unit but at the same time fickle in nature. They played well against WI only going on to lose due to DL system but against Ireland their batting failed miserably. And this time DL system helped them to post a win.
• Their country is the home of cricket but till now they beli all expectations of their fans in major competitions.

 Watch out for my next post for rest of the analysis.

Australian Team is favourite

ICC T20 World Cup 2010

Or this is what betting men think!

As per Lardbrokes Odds in favour of Australia wining the tournament is 7/2 which is better than any other team. This seems to be ridiculous. It is true that they have the pedigree and are the best side in One day internationals but T20 is a different ballgame. Consider this:

• Australia has just won 15 of the 29 Internationals played by them.
• Their record in World Cups is even poor. They have lost 5 of the 8 T20 matches played in ICC T20 World Cups.
• They have a new look team with players having little international experience.
• They have a new captain.
• They could not even qualify for Super 8s in last World cup.

I would not discount Australia. They can still go on to win the tournament but I think the odds are heavy. In T20, on their day, even a weak team can beat a stronger team. Remember how India in 2007 and Pakistan in 2009 became world champions despite odds.

In my opinion Australia are a beatable side and putting a pre-tournament favourite tag on them is too much. There are better team in fray.

It seems that the betting is rigged. Or are we missing some information here.