To dos for India @ Hove
India begin their long tour of England with a 4 day match against Sussex at Hove. From all accounts, the weather seems to be an issue (as usual) and I think, India will be lucky to squeeze in about 3 of the 4 days of practice. Sussex is one of the top sides in English county and has decent bowling to offer in the form of Pakis Mustaq and Naveed. The to dos for India are pretty simple : -
All in all, I am hoping for fair amount of practice but I still expect India to struggle against a resurgent England, let by a real astute captain - Micheal Vaughn.
PS - I am trying to rope in another contributor as well for this tour and hopefully this blog will have someone with a different perspective, in addition to me.
- Learn to score quickly and get a result in their favor. A boring 225/4 on opening day won't do any good and it will certainly ensure an useless draw.
- The openers (Jaffer+Karthik) have to play the swing well.
- Catch everything in the slips. India is routinely weak here.
- Get 20 Sussex wickets and let me not forget - let not the lower order irritate you.
All in all, I am hoping for fair amount of practice but I still expect India to struggle against a resurgent England, let by a real astute captain - Micheal Vaughn.
PS - I am trying to rope in another contributor as well for this tour and hopefully this blog will have someone with a different perspective, in addition to me.
posted by Crick_Love at 8:26 PM
4 Comments:
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Hey,
Contrary to what should have happened, the following happened,
1. The Indian Scoring rate was poor.
2. The tail frustrated the Indian attack. This one seems to be Andy Hodd's maiden first class century. It always happens against India (Remember Justin Kemp?)
3. 20 Wickets, we were no where near taking them.
Though the top order scored runs, baring Dravid and to some extent Laxman, no one looked comfortable.
KKD was ok in the opener's slot. My biggest's concern is Jaffer. He seems to be too much of a hit / miss guy. The second innings wicket clearly showed his lack of technique in handling the swinging ball. This is exactly the way I used to get out in village cricket out here in UK; Playing down the wrong line and not countering for swing.
Gambir will give Rahul and the team management selection headache's but to be fair to Jaffer, Rahul should persist with him in the first test atleast.
Rahul will be at no 3 no doubt about it. SRT, SCG and VVS should form the core of batting. Yuvi misses out for the good. He is too week against spin and against the swinging ball. So no point in selecting a sitting duck atleast not in the first half of the tour.
MSD is an automatic selection so is Sreesant, Kumble and ZAK.
The remaining slot i.e. the 4th bowler, I reckon should be a spinner at least for Lords.
Too early to predict the team but lets set the ball rolling.
Cheers
PG
P.S. I can provide/ fill in some info during the test series.
Prabhu : Thanks..It is the same old story..not even worth repeating. As long as India does not have a genuine wicket taker, to dismiss the tail, they can forget winning even matches against counties.
On another topic, do you want to write in this blog as an additional contributor for the English series? You can bring in a new perspective since you are in UK. Please respond to me at my email id
I don't have ur current email address.
I can add on to this column from here. This should not be a problem.
BTB my email address is Girirajan.prabu@gmail.com
Cheers
PG
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