Post Mortem of Pataudi Trophy

[zen]

I have been angry at  for his captaincy but at the end of the day our players are poor in SENA so nothing much could have been done:

 

• Tried Karthik. Was crap. Brought in Pant, not an improvement. Only positive is that a youngster got an opportunity and can improve as he has time on his side
• Revolving chairs with openers. Same result 
• Ashwin -> Jadeja. Nothing much changed. Jadeja scored a 100 with the ball in the 3rd inning 
• Rahane, was billed as our best SENA batsman (esp considering 's previous record in Eng) but disappointed big time 
• Pace bowlers did well relatively. However lost steam in the final game of the long series
• Pandya won us a game. Should have got the full series as he is a youngster going through the learning curve 
• Last solace for us is if Bhuvi would have played. But if he had played, we could have been questioning his performances too .... As it goes with fans, the guy not playing would have changed things. If he is playing, someone else would have changed things  

 

Positives: Youngsters Pant, Pandya and Vihari got chances, pace bowlers, Pujara and as a batsman

Negatives: Rahane, Dhawan, Vijay, Rahul and Karthik, .... 

Other: Yadav could have been tried for a few more games. It is important to rotate pace bowlers in a long series to manage their workload

 

Least we could have done is take our catches. Is that too much to expect? 

 

Congrats Eng. Your team is not the strongest but that did not automatically make Ind a better team in Eng 

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2018 by zen

[zen]

I hope we don't totally lose it mentally despite the poor performance as we have to tour Aus, where more carnage could be in order, in Dec 

[zen]

2/3 .... mentally done and dusted 

 

[gattaca]

Just stop watching cricket. Nothing will change with Kohli and Shastri. If we see Asian games there are other sports where we do good. Just follow them and encourage them than these over paid jacks.

[Nikhil_cric]

We are not good enough. We are not producing players of the quality to win tough series abroad. 

[sensible-indian]

Only summary that is needed:

 

We looked like we could screw England. 

 

But they somehow weaved out of it and managed to sodomize us. Hard.

 

We fly back to India with a bruised ego and an even more bruised "you know what". 

 

Meanwhile Shastri was heard telling the world:

 

"This team has managed to experience what Indian teams of the last 15 years couldn't even imagine to do. This shows character and willpower."

[Frustrated]

3 minutes ago, sensible-indian said:

Only summary that is needed.      Meanwhile Shastri was heard telling the world:

 

"This team has managed to experience what Indian teams of the last 15 years couldn't even imagine to do. This shows character and willpower."

You did not get it..                                   Ass-tri was narrating about the over rate by India which has been higher than the Indian teams of the last 15 years which had many legends.  

[mani sha]

big positive will be -

 

rahul making a century tomorrow

kohli

pant did decent job . batting will grow. kackup bharath tofollow as second keeper

rahane - needs to be kept . will win us australia series 

pace bowlers - bhuvi back and one left armer and u have the best attack arnd

jadeja batting is imp for aussie . and to give ash competition . 

pandya will only improve 

vihari is good find 

 

sharma was not around and am happy for that

 

negatives 

 

shastri still arnd -hate him

kohli worst captain 

yadav k was misused . needs to be in the team for aussie

 yadav u  needs to be kept too but with a yellow card

poor reviews poor team selection

kohli cant win tosses 

 

 

[Chandan]

On 9/10/2018 at 9:41 PM, Nikhil_cric said:

We are not good enough. We are not producing players of the quality to win tough series abroad. 

We are good enough and this series was there to be be won. We didn't win was because of poor guidance, preparation, failure of learning from previous mistakes and of course the worst captaincy because of which we kept on choosing the wrong personnels too.

Many senior experts agree with me:

https://goo.gl/zn66WQ

 

Vasu: A Flawed Team was Ripe for Picking Yet India leave England Wondering What Might Have Been

And so, it ended, in the dying moments of the fifth day of the fifth day of the fifth Test, the scoreboard finally confirmed what it thought of India’s performance in England. The verdict was 4-1 in England’s favour, but, it was not a fair reflection of how competitive Virat Kohli’s team had been. It’s a bit pointless to say that it might have been 3-2, or even better, but the scoreline is especially cruel to India’s fast bowlers.
 

 

 

All through the series, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah, backed up by Hardik Pandya had England on the hop. Here’s also what the scoreboard and scoreline do not reflect. England had one opener who did not know whether he was coming or going, in Keaton Jennings, another who did not find his best touch till he announced that he was retiring, an under-performing middle-order stocked with batsmen batting outside preferred positions, an all-rounder who had to step away mid-series to face charges in court, a leg-spinner who had not played four-day cricket all season and then did not bat or bowl in one of the Tests and a part-time off-spinner who was recalled after he scored a first-class double-century. Phew.

 

If this was not an opposition team ripe for the picking, it’s hard to imagine what is. India had the potential to beat this England team in England, and yet they lost 1-4, which is what has left fans deeply frustrated. As if to pour fuel on the fire, Ravi Shastri, the coach, and Virat Kohli, the captain, continuously talked up their team, occasionally being disrespectful to past Indian teams who had toured England and achieved so much more. If the fast bowlers were consistently excellent and Kohli magnificent with the bat, scoring 593 runs, just why does the scoreline read 1-4?

For starters India continued to get their selection wrong. Leaving Cheteshwar Pujara out at the start of the series was a blunder, playing two spinners on a wet Lord’s pitch after a day had been washed out went against all conventional wisdom, not playing two spinners in Southampton was questionable and dumping M Vijay mid-series was just rude. Also, what, if anything is Karun Nair supposed to make of being in England for two months as reserve batsman only to see Hanuma Vihari take the field ahead of him? And what message does this team management decision send to the selectors, who had picked Karun as the reserve batsman in the first place?

The lack of support for Kohli, especially early in the series, was costly, if not fatal. The decision to truncate the tour match ahead of the Tests, and not play more serious, competitive fixtures, has already been questioned. While Kohli might be the kind of player who needs little or no acclimatisation time, his mates are made of more mortal stuff. The likes of Vijay, Pujara, Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane deserved the chance to prepare more properly for the Tests, but the fashion with this Indian set-up is to put practice ahead of matches.

The logic that tour-game fixtures are often played by weak teams on pitches not similar to the Test strips has merit, but clearly, the alternative the Indian team has chosen, is not delivering the desired results. The other problem with not playing old-fashioned three or four-day matches where eleven play eleven, is that it becomes impossible for players to stake a claim for a place in the XI. You can be bowled five times in a net session, but no scoreboard records that, as opposed to working hard to avoid that one ball that sends them back to the dressing-room in a tour match.

India were also hurt by the fact that R Ashwin, after beginning the tour in style, clearly fell away as time wore on. Harbhajan Singh, on commentary, said that Ashwin had told him he was carrying a hip niggle, while the management insisted that Ashwin was fit. In the fourth Test, Ashwin was out-bowled by Moeen, and from the manner in which Ashwin was finishing his action, it was clear that he was far from 100% fit. The effort was there but the body was clearly not executing the instructions the brain was sending. Whose fault is it that an injured Ashwin was played in a game where bowlers’ footmarks and rough was forecast to play a major part in the latter part of the game?

The gains from the last Test were strikingly obvious. KL Rahul finally justifying the faith the team management have in him and Rishabh Pant sticking to his guns even in a crunch situation. Rahul’s runs came from using a more aggressive approach, evident even in the first innings, and Pant will be Pant. But aggression is not a one-size fits all solution.

The forward press, the showing of intent, the fearless self expression work for some players, but to expect everyone to bring that to the crease is setting yourself up for failure. Allowing batsmen to be true to themselves is far more important than trying to play some unified brand of cricket. Shastri had said emphatically that his team were not in England to draw matches.

Of all the utterances before and during the tour, this is perhaps the only occasion where the team kept their word. Which begs the question, is it better to thump your chest and lose four Tests, or stay a little humble, and draw a couple. Is a 2-1 loss better than a 4-1 loss? Most people seem to think so but the team begs to differ and unless that mindset changes, the gap between how the team sees themselves, how the world sees them and what the scoreboard shows will never be bridged.

 

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Also how can a senior player like Kohli mistake white practice as good enough for red ball practice? He himself might be a genius, might not need much adaptation, but the rest of the players are not so, and they need ample red ball practice before going into the tests. If he hasn't realised that even after playing 6-+ matches, that's really sad.

 

 

[CG]

1.Bad luck Followed India The Whole Tour.Injuries to Bhuvi Bumrah were pivotal in Losing the Odi Series and was felt even more in test series.

2.Attitude of Not Respecting Practice Matches Proved Costly .

3.Selection Mistakes were Repeated.

All in all we learned nothing from SA and Considering Kohli Comments He is Still in Delusions.

[Chandan]

It is very clear that players are not being allowed to play their their true game. Maybe the batting coach is insisting them to play certain type of game and captain & head coach see to it that it being followed. Because it was very clear the moment Rahul started playing his own game, he came into rhythm and was successful. Maybe his this approach might not have brought him 100% success, but even Kohli wasn't successful in every inning.

We have already seen how much pressure Pujara has to go through because he plays slow inning.

This way, this team management is stopping the players from growing and destroying the career of many.

[Chandan]

Now about the coaching staffs post Pataudi Trophy: 

 

https://goo.gl/ui5zdw

 

Team India’s victory tally puts up question mark on coaching standards

The Indian Test cricket team has lost more matches than it has won this year, making one question the efficacy of the coaching.

Does India have proper coaching staff? The question has to be asked. On paper, the Indian cricket team has Ravi Shastri as its head coach, with Sanjay Bangar as his assistant and Bharat Arun and R Sridhar to look after bowling and fielding. India has played eight overseas Tests this year—three against South Africa and five in England. The scoreline reads 6-2—six losses and two wins, one of them in a dead rubber at Johannesburg. With all due respect to Sir Neville Cardus, the scoreboard doesn’t lie.

When George Nathaniel Curzon became the Viceroy of India in 1899, he received a piece of advice from one of his teachers at Eton: “Try to suffer fools gladly”. On the face of it, a comparison between Lord Curzon and Shastri, a politician and cricketer, is somewhat irrelevant. But the head coach’s table-banging press conferences in England served a faint resonance… “I can’t see any other Indian team in the last 15-20 years that has had the same run in such a short time, and you have had some great players playing in those series. So the promise is there, and it’s just about getting tougher mentally. You have got to hurt when you lose matches because that’s when you look within and come out with the right kind of answers to combat such situations and get past the finishing line. One day you will, if you believe,” Shastri had said after England took an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-Test series at Southampton.

Laughter sometimes could be the best medicine when the chips are down. Over the past 20 years, Sourav Ganguly’s India drew Test series in England and Australia (Steve Waugh’s invincibles), and won in Pakistan. Rahul Dravid’s team had beaten the Poms in their lair and also secured a series victory in West Indies, a Caribbean side that had one Brian Lara in their ranks. Anil Kumble’s team came close to winning a series in Australia and might have trumped Ricky Ponting’s side in 2007-08, but for the ‘one-bounce dismissals’ at the SCG. MS Dhoni’s India drew a Test series 1-1 in South Africa in 2010-11. So either Shastri tried to suffers fools gladly, or he chose to be very clever, ending up being too clever by half.

 

 

 

The Indian cricket team, led by Virat Kohli and guided by his favourite coach, have won nine Tests overseas and three series—against West Indies and twice in Sri Lanka. Those were lame duck series victories, given the quality of the opponents. Even after losing six Tests inside nine months, India top the ICC Test rankings with 115 rating points. In his indomitable style, Geoffrey Boycott tore into the ranking system on the BBC Test Match Special. The English batting legend put things in perspective—you have to win in England, Australia and South Africa to be called true champions.

Not that the other teams are adept at conquering the overseas conditions. England received a hiding in the Ashes Down Under last winter. Australia lost in South Africa. And India make every team bite the dust at home. The truly great sides won everywhere—Clive Lloyd’s West Indies, Imran Khan’s Pakistan and the Aussies under Waugh and Ponting. With the proliferation of white-ball cricket and the franchise-based T20 leagues, it’s unlikely that we will see an all-conquering Test side in the near future. All the teams are tigers at home and paper tigers abroad these days. But then, stop belting out stuff like: “We take pride in performing wherever we go and we want to be the best travelling side in the world…” India have a top-class fast bowling attack alright, but to win Tests you need to put runs on the board. Save Kohli, the Indian batting is bereft of quality and/or consistency in challenging conditions.

The batting part takes us back to the coaching staff. Over the past 10-odd months, almost every top-order batsman, except the skipper, has regressed. Murali Vijay had been looking iffy before he was dropped. Shikhar Dhawan has been guilty of repeating mistakes, his footwork being non-existent. Cheteshwar Pujara, too, has become inconsistent, notwithstanding his wonderful hundred at Southampton. KL Rahul looked a walking wicket before he scored 149 in the second innings at the Oval.

Ajinkya Rahane was the biggest disappointment. For a batsman of his class, it felt like he was putting too much pressure on himself. The travails of the batting group put the coaching staff under the scanner.
Kohli’s ‘reservations’ had forced Kumble to resign as the head coach last year. The great leg-spinner was reportedly a little overbearing. While recommending Shastri’s appointment—return to the fold rather, as his successor—the BCCI’s Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman had chosen Dravid and Zaheer Khan as the batting and bowling consultants, respectively, for the senior team’s tough overseas tours. Shastri, however, wanted to have his own coaching staff and, for some reason, Dravid and Khan weren’t taken onboard.

Dravid continues to mother-hen the clots and the India A team players. His presence with the senior team in England surely would have helped the Rahuls and the Rahanes.

The constant chopping and changing also didn’t help. Rahane had been dropped for the first two Tests in South Africa. Pujara inexplicably was left out of the playing XI in the first Test in England. India played an extra spinner on a damp Lord’s pitch and then went with only one spinner on a dry Ageas Bowl deck, where Moeen Ali outspun Ravi Ashwin.

The BCCI is now helmed by the Committee of Administrators. The five selectors have played only 13 Tests between them. Little wonder then that player power is on the rise.

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Not just the coaching staff, but huge question-mark on the captain too who has who has proved that he is an excellent batsman but a terrible captain with no tactical sense.

[Chandan]

Even when asked what went wrong in the series, skipper Kohli thought like a batsman Kohli:

https://goo.gl/GatJS9

 

"Asked where exactly India went wrong in the ongoing series against England, Kohli pointed out two crucial phases — the second innings chase at the Edgbaston (1st Test) and the first innings at Southampton (fourth Test).

"Sitting right now, two things — the second innings at Birmingham and first innings at Southampton. Sitting here, I am not thinking of anything else. The key was to make the team win and twice I could have contributed more."

 

Not for a moment he paid attention to his decisions as captain and only thought what more he could have done as a player! Unfortunately, only playing at a very high level is not enough to be a good leader. You need to have the ability to take good decisions, take the entire team with you and when things are not moving in positive direction on field, have the tactical nuance to trump the opposition!

Kohli lacks all these. And sadly there is no one who can make him realise this!