Who can fulfill our needs in Test cricket ? Ashwin or a fast bowler like Ntini

[JaFanatic]

Having handled our transition phase smoothly with our young batsmen doing their job really well, team India's aim would definitely be reaching the no.1 ranking again and dominate the test cricket like ODIs! With the batting department doing their job with guys like Pujara, Kohli, etc who are willing to learn their game with each outing with the young guns showing their skills and athleticism in fielding too(like never before :P). Now all they need is their bowlers to step up and prove that they can do what their former cricketers struggled to do consistently for a long period. With Ashwin, who picks wks at a fair rate and only a few wks away from becoming the second fastest bowler to reach the 100 wks mark! we definitely have got a promising spinner. But can he lead our bowling in foreign conditions where he wont get much assistance ? He did face such situation last year during the Australia tour which was a nightmare for the Indian team and he could not do much with his bowling there. But we cant really blame him for that, even Murali have a miserable record there averaging 75.41 @131. Ntini was an unsung hero of the South African cricket because of their rich pool of talent. He is not a McGrath or a Wasim but he can absolutely demolish any batting line up on his day and very much a team man. He is among the fast bowlers with most 5 wk hauls especially the ones debuted after 90s! With a team like India we dont need a McGrath or a Kapil but a Ntini can get the job done But the question is do we have anyone in the calibre of Makhaya Ntini ? or a Ravichandran Ashwin is good enough to lead our pack ?

[Old guy]

transition?what transition ? we are still struggling in tests and we need all kind of bowlers.. i wil take both ashwin and ntini :P

[G_B_]

Having handled our transition phase smoothly with our young batsmen doing their job really well, team India's aim would definitely be reaching the no.1 ranking again and dominate the test cricket like ODIs!

when was this? Shikar Dhawan for eg has played 1 test. You call that transition?

[namasteji1]

Ravichandran

[JaFanatic]

transition?what transition ? we are still struggling in tests and we need all kind of bowlers.. i wil take both ashwin and ntini :P

We're doing a decent job compared to the Aussies in fact our batting looks a bit better after the retirement of "old" Laxman and Dravid but its the bowling department which is not quite up to the standard because of our inconsistent fast bowlers. With Yadav and Bhuvi there is hope but how long can they keep up their promise ? Hopefully they wont be our typical Indian fast bowlers(Kapil, Srinath and Zaheer being the exception)

[G_B_]

we have played one series at home with this bunch come on jaf, you need to admit that this is an untested Indian team.

[JaFanatic]

when was this? Shikar Dhawan for eg has played 1 test. You call that transition?

We're still going through the transition phase but so far it's been decent. Shikar's one innings is not just another one but that was an innings which you can only expect from an experienced veteran, there is promise but yes that one innings is not enough to build a long time hope on him. I didn mean any individual when i said they're doing their job really well but our batting as a unit's been up to the mark

[JaFanatic]

we have played one series at home with this bunch come on jaf, you need to admit that this is an untested Indian team.

We've played one against England and one against Auatralia, we lost the first series cos of our bowling even against Aussies we won mainly due to our batting and spin bowlng(credit to our fielding too!), fast bowling is what looks like weak link in our side Well maybe i am a bit over confident on our batting :P:D

[SLICKR392]

^ Against England, both our batting and bowling were pathetic. The 'best players of spin' were being danced around by Panesar.

[Nash]

Title of the Thread is really needy. haha

[JaFanatic]

^ Against England' date=' both our batting and bowling were pathetic. The 'best players of spin' were being danced around by Panesar.[/quote'] Batting was okish in that series its the bowling "spin bowling to be specific" failed miserably :winky:

[Silva]

Batting sucked vs England. They only passed 360+ once out of 7 innings and it put huge pressure on our bowlers. Kohli in particular was disappointing although he did help india draw that last match. India transition phase has just started, first replacing dravid and laxman india failed at home vs England. Then replacing gambhir and sehwag they did better albeit against an extremely bad Australian team at home. Now indias real test is going to be in south africa england and australia. Dhawan, vijay, pujara, kohli are all in good form and close to their peeks, so they have no excuse to do badly their. Thankfully india is going to play atleat 2 tests in south africa 5 in england maybe another 5 in australia. That gives the selectors a lot of test matches to find the right batsman.

[thongale]

Shane Watson will do

[vvvslaxman]

CSK preferred Ashwin to Ntini :cantstop:

[JaFanatic]

CSK preferred Ashwin to Ntini :cantstop:

We're talking about test cricket :poink: