Gearing up for another drubbing

It’s the final day and yet another ODI against Sri Lanka. Yawn.  Limited overs watching in India seeing India play is a painful experience this days.  Half of the side is incompetent and incapable. Most of the lot of that half are either in the team due to regional affiliation to the selectors or due to the over confidence in their limited ability from the coach and the captain.  The remaining lot are just putting in formal efforts to bowl 10 overs just cos they got to.

A lot has been said on few players like Jadeja and Karthik who continue to play every tournament India plays despite their failures and chances provided to them.  No other players in recent memory have got chances as many as this 2 players. Yet they continue to baffle us all with their failures.

Dinesh Karthik fails most of the time he plays and when he succeeds never goes past 50.  Are we getting him in the team to make 20s and 30s. There was a time in Indian Test cricket history in 2000s when one of the Fab 5 – VVS Laxman continued to make 20s, 30s and 40s. He was dropped. This was after he had made miraculous 281 vs Australia in the greatest Test series India ever played.  If Laxman can be dropped, then who the heck is Karthik? Well he is a Chennai-ite hailing from same locality of Srikanth (some unpronounceable locality).

Jadeja is another player hyped and low on substance.  MSD feels he is one player who can be turned to an all-rounder.  A player with a bowling average of 44 and batting average of 33.08 is an all-rounder, that’s baffling. Contrast that to Irfan Pathan who has bowling average of 30s and batting average of 25+ in ODIs. Yet he has not played any game since Feb 2009.  Any day Irfan would be a better all-rounder than what Jadeja could turn out to be( I am damn sure he would never graduate as an all-rounder). His innings in Asia Cup against Pakistan and Sri Lanka depict his limitations as player and moreso his mental approach to the game. Against Pakistan he was not sure what he was trying to do to Ajmal and against SL he began the collapse which turned out to be a hat trick for Maharoof – a player not even regular of SL side.  He bowls and bowls economically, but does not take wickets. What’s the use ? Do we need a restrictive bowler or do we need a bowler who can take wickets ? If Pragyan Ojha could bat a bit, he would be better “all-rounder” than Jadeja.

Fast bowling is another worry for India. Zaheer Khan, Pravin Kumar and Ashish Nehra do not sound fearsome. That’s an ordinary attack. Any one can hit them for runs. Ashok Dinda, high on fire, zero on wickets. He would glare everybody who hits him for fours, but he won’t try to give them a reply a fast bowler typically does – get him out. Dinda sees eye to eye and when it comes to bowling chickens out. Another Sreesanth, just that a little less hyped up and less on theatrics.

Suresh Raina is yet to achieve the consistency of a finisher. He was damn consistent in IPL. But in ODIs he is far away from it. This scorelines wont get him near to the Test spot which is up for grabs for upcoming SL series.  Ditto for Rohit Sharma.  He continues to be careless and temperamental in batting.  He plays his strokes, he has all shots in the book, but he does not have patience.  This players are high on IPL run lists, but low on ODI runs for India.

I am not sure if this players would be around for long to play for India with the intensity as demonstrated by the seniors and their prodigies – Sehwag, Yuvraj,  Harbhajan etc.

Saurabh Tiwary is another passenger on the tour with no chances provided to him.  Ditto for R Ashvin who is warming the benches.  He is being ignored in attempts to give as many chances to Ravinder Jadeja who is ……………

A Mithun, N Ojha, SST,  R Ashvin are in the company of those players who did not get any chance to be in the middle except carrying drinks or towels. In short they were just passengers. No doubt that next series India plays, this players would be dumped and the culprits would continue to play and India would continue to lose.

MSD says Jadeja is a specialist spinner and most usually as 5^th bowler after 3 pacers and one spinner (or 2 pacers + 2 spinners). IMO there is no need to play Jadeja as an allrounder. Play an extra batsman and have Sehwag, Yuvraj, Raina, Sharma bowl quota of 10 overs.   

Something like this lineup would be good:

Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Raina, Kohli / Sharma, Harbhajan, Zaheer, POjha / PKumar, I Sharma / A Nehra

The inconsistency just boils down to 2 slots – 6 and 7. With Dhoni being the floater and given the match situations – Dhoni, Raina  and Kohli / Sharma can bat at 5,6 and 7.   Once Uthappa is fixed he could be one good player at 7 too.

Meanwhile for now lets enjoy another drubbing at the hands of character rich Sri Lankan team.