Saha ki keeping ke bare me bhi baat karle?

[sourab10forever]

That guy was flying every second ball. Just fabulous keeping. The ball was swinging, seaming and swerling at 140+ and he didn't miss one. Not sure what would have happened if Pant was in his place. 

 

Well done.

 

Only thing is that he needs to be more proactive in giving his opinion on DRS call. He doesn't say much then...just looks at kohli.

[Gollum]

Crying shame that BCCI dimwits and broadcasters don't care about marketing and service to viewers. Had an Aussie or English WK done that sort of keeping YT and twitter/FB would be flooded with videos and special packages. BCCI is absent on YT, BCCI TV is woeful, Hotstar doesn't have any video about his extraordinary takes. A disgrace if you ask me, will it kill them to have a 5 minute long video covering his keeping this series, another similar one for the RSA tests? What a disservice to the finest keeper of modern times.  So many budding keepers in the country and outside can watch such videos, get inspired, take inputs but no, only mundane 4s/6s/wickets are worth highlighting. Now if some dedicated fan makes a video and puts it on YT, it will be taken down immediately over copyright issues.

 

Saale BCCI ke nikammon, na khud kuch karoge, na kisi aur ko kuch karne doge. Kambakht nalayakon, doob maro. 

Edited November 25, 2019 by Gollum

[Gollum]

TM's decision vindicated. We never really needed an extra batsman at #7 this home season, I am sure bowlers are more comfy having GOAT Saha behind the stumps. What a show he put on, after 2 years out (courtesy NCA med team fukc up), that he could simply walk in and exhibit a masterclass...unbelievable. 

 

I thought we might need Pant in NZ but then I had a memory recall. Last time we played NZ on a greentop (test) was in 2016 Eden. 

Here is the scorecard LINK

54* in 1st innings, heroic 58* in 3rd innings after a collapse (6/100) which almost cost us the game, top scorer in the match against Boult/Henry/Wagner/Santner...same bowling attack we will face in a couple of months time. IMO that was the greatest batting performance by an Indian keeper since Dhoni's 200 at Chennai against Aus (2013). Among the top 5 ever by an Indian keeper. Twin unbeaten 50s and importantly match winning performance, no wonder he got the MOTM purely for his batting effort. Both Kohli and Taylor singled out Saha as being the difference between the 2 teams. All things considered Saha MUST start in NZ 1st test. No bias from my side (fan mode off, damn serious ), I only want what is best for Team India...sealing the WTC final berth at the earliest. Pant is a great talent but lacks temperament right now, he can score but doesn't have winning mentality ...can't remember when his batting helped us win a match tbh. His keeping isn't up to the mark, will be costly if he drops KW/Taylor/Latham/Watling/Nicholls and in those windy conditions he will concede many byes. His time will come in Australia later in the year...keeping is easier there and his batting will be useful. 

 

Brother @abc your thoughts? 

Edited November 25, 2019 by Gollum

[abc]

5 hours ago, Gollum said:

TM's decision vindicated. We never really needed an extra batsman at #7 this home season, I am sure bowlers are more comfy having GOAT Saha behind the stumps. What a show he put on, after 2 years out (courtesy NCA med team fukc up), that he could simply walk in and exhibit a masterclass...unbelievable. 

 

I thought we might need Pant in NZ but then I had a memory recall. Last time we played NZ on a greentop (test) was in 2016 Eden. 

Here is the scorecard LINK

54* in 1st innings, heroic 58* in 3rd innings after a collapse (6/100) which almost cost us the game, top scorer in the match against Boult/Henry/Wagner/Santner...same bowling attack we will face in a couple of months time. IMO that was the greatest batting performance by an Indian keeper since Dhoni's 200 at Chennai against Aus (2013). Among the top 5 ever by an Indian keeper. Twin unbeaten 50s and importantly match winning performance, no wonder he got the MOTM purely for his batting effort. Both Kohli and Taylor singled out Saha as being the difference between the 2 teams. All things considered Saha MUST start in NZ 1st test. No bias from my side (fan mode off, damn serious ), I only want what is best for Team India...sealing the WTC final berth at the earliest. Pant is a great talent but lacks temperament right now, he can score but doesn't have winning mentality ...can't remember when his batting helped us win a match tbh. His keeping isn't up to the mark, will be costly if he drops KW/Taylor/Latham/Watling/Nicholls and in those windy conditions he will concede many byes. His time will come in Australia later in the year...keeping is easier there and his batting will be useful. 

 

Brother @abc your thoughts? 

I have maintained time and again that keeping is a specialist's job ... in an ideal world. In the real world, unfortunately, you have to make concessions. Your batsmen might not be good enough, or your country might not have a good enough keeper. The former can be a matter of talent pool and infrastructure - after all, you need 5-6 world class batsmen to compete well, and small countries like Ireland, Scotland or Jersey (to push it all the way) may not be so blessed. The second is a cultural problem - you are not valuing wicketkeeping enough for budding cricketers to take that skill as the primary field of expertise.

 

In Saha, we have someone whose wicketkeeping is world-class, and should be in the team as a specialist. I am also confident India has good enough batsmen to make it work. As you mentioned, Saha's batting, even on green tops, is far from useless. He knows how to come up with tough runs when they are really needed, and "declaration" batting (which is essentially Pant's speciality) can be handled by Jadeja or Umesh Yadav. Let's also not forget that Saha is a decent IPL bat too ...

 

Finally, I am hoping to see Saha and Waiting keep in the same match in NZ. The two are without doubt the two best wicketkeepers in the world atm (England is not picking Ben Foakes at the moment), so it would be a really exciting match-up.

[neel roy]

The footage which was given to Pant after sydney even a fraction of it would have been motivating for Saha. Pant was like being considered as a reincarnation of bhagwan gilchrist.. Saha is so under rated. The only gripe and sadness i ll forever have is Saha s innings in Adelaide 2014 where India was chasing 350 odd to win. 75 neeeed to win. 5 wickets. Not a mine field. He hit two sixes if I remember and then lost his focus and got out playing a pathetic shot.if only he would have stayed not out with Kohli. That would have been the greatest test victory of all times second only to eden gardens. 

Edited November 25, 2019 by neel roy

[sourab10forever]

59 minutes ago, neel roy said:

The footage which was given to Pant after sydney even a fraction of it would have been motivating for Saha. Pant was like being considered as a reincarnation of bhagwan gilchrist.. Saha is so under rated. The only gripe and sadness i ll forever have is Saha s innings in Adelaide 2014 where India was chasing 350 odd to win. 75 neeeed to win. 5 wickets. Not a mine field. He hit two sixes if I remember and then lost his focus and got out playing a pathetic shot.if only he would have stayed not out with Kohli. That would have been the greatest test victory of all times second only to eden gardens. 

A win then would probably not made Dhoni retire from tests. So not a bad result for India.

[SK_IH]

With due respect, he was not missed when he got injured last year. 

[rkt.india]

Don't think Pant is any less keeper against pace. He had a world record against his name in Australia.

[Gollum]

18 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

Don't think Pant is any less keeper against pace. He had a world record against his name in Australia.

Not counting the impossible catches he takes. 

[Gollum]

1 hour ago, SK_IH said:

With due respect, he was not missed when he got injured last year. 

With due respect Pant is going to warm the bench for a while and we'll be all the better for it

Edited November 25, 2019 by Gollum

[abc]

41 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

Don't think Pant is any less keeper against pace. He had a world record against his name in Australia.

This is the problem with wicket keeping records. Going by pure catching statistics without accounting for things like dropped catches, catches not attempted, (leg) byes conceded vs saved, etc., you will often come up with skewed results in favour of keepers who happened to keep to better bowling line-ups. Kamran Akmal (remember him, LOL) held (I hope briefly) some kind of record for dismissals, and likewise there is no easily accessible record for, say, the catches which went between first slip and Dhoni, and which Dhoni didn't even bother to attempt.

 

Wriddhiman Saha himself got some record in the West Indies, where his keeping was competent, but not extraordinary. It was a combination of fairly benign conditions and inept batting on the WI side, which resulted in an inflated haul of dismissals. There have been much better keeping displays from him without as many dismissals, because on difficult tracks, batsmen keep getting bowled or lbw more often, because it is simply harder to lay bat on ball.

 

Edit: @Gollum showed one such statistic (catching efficiency) where Saha's superiority can be read off without having to study video footage (the absence of which is the #1 barrier to an educated discussion about wicketkeeping). Nevertheless, you still have to take into account what kind of chances are being taken, you have to define what counts as a drop (and apply it consistently), and so on. That still does not answer the question: How do you put a number on the effect of a catch like the one where Theunis de Bruyn leg-glanced Umesh Yadav really fine (replete with Ranjitsinghji beginning to nod in approval from heaven) before Saha plucked it out of thin air?

Edited November 25, 2019 by abc

[abc]

A Saha compilation would make excellent coaching material. It goes back to something Saha said once in an interview, namely that he does nothing special, just implements the basics wicketkeepers learn since childhood as well as possible. This is what makes him great to all kinds of bowling and in all conditions. Dhoni's gathering when stumping was one of a kind, but apart from that he was useless, especially against pace - not attempting a catch between first slip and keeper is nothing short of criminal, it means that first slip virtually has to be standing up Dhoni's backside, whereas for Saha, the slip cordon can spread out and cover more ground, etc. (This is becoming another rant, isn't it?)

 

Wicketkeeping fans should also check out James Foster compilations on YouTube (something like "James Foster wicket keeping"). If someone taping a compilation (off what looks like a TV) with a potato can do a better job than the BCCI, something is seriously wrong.

[abc]

Final rant: a specialist keeper in T20s is something that needs to be revisited. Hampshire won the county T20 competition twice (back when it was called Friends' Provident Trophy, I think) thanks to Michael Bates (probably the finest keeper England produced alongside James Foster) standing up to the stumps to the likes of Dominic Cork, Dimitri Mascarenhas and Chris Wood (all decent medium pacers), and conceding one bye across 40 overs of the two finals they won (he did not have to bat once). What became of him? He retired in his 20s and became a wicketkeeping coach.

 

Thankfully, the current Indian TM is not as incompetent (in the defence of Hampshire CCC and ECB, Michael Bates averaged around 20 with the bat - Saha's, thankfully enough, is closer to 30). I would really like to see Saha playing in T20s in a Michael Bates-type role, but unfortunately, the IPL and most T20Is are played on roads. Unfortunately for us, this means SRH will probably stick with Bairstow, and the national team is not bold enough in T20Is (although you have to give them credit for picking the no. 1 keeper in tests).

Edited November 25, 2019 by abc

[Gollum]

Great posts by @abc

But bhai don't get baited by rkt, he is the opposition leader of ICF .

[ShoonyaSifar]

Looked great with those acrobatic leaps. But two biggest areas of concern - 1. Terrible DRS support  (has lost us 3 of the 4 reviews in last 2 tests ) 2. Gradually declining returns with the bat

 

His batting in the last test vs BD showed why the era of specialist keepers got over long back. From 290/5, we got to 345/9 and all Saha could manage was 17*(41) when the need was for quick runs. He did not try to hit out even once while wickets were falling around him, was content to give strike to the bowlers.

 

This Eden pitch was similar to lot of pitches in SENA - swing, seam, prodigious movement, no support for spinners. On such pitches and against stronger teams, having sessions  giving 5 wickets for 40 runs, will lose us Tests. Something we had seen far too often with Dhoni. Irrespective of how good a keeper he is, Saha absolutely has to score runs  consistently to hold his place in the team. Dhoni's keeping in all those horrible SENA losses wasn't all that bad, we demanded runs from him and rightly so. Can't have different standards suddenly for Saha (has a terrible record in SENA, with a small sample of 4 tests, 119 runs@15)

 

P.S: Someone should tell Kohli that BJ Watling is the best keeper in the world (who bats at 6 ahead of his team's all rounder CDG) and not Saha (who has now been demoted to 7 behind his team's all rounder Jadeja).

[Vilander]

20 hours ago, abc said:

This is the problem with wicket keeping records. Going by pure catching statistics without accounting for things like dropped catches, catches not attempted, (leg) byes conceded vs saved, etc., you will often come up with skewed results in favour of keepers who happened to keep to better bowling line-ups. Kamran Akmal (remember him, LOL) held (I hope briefly) some kind of record for dismissals, and likewise there is no easily accessible record for, say, the catches which went between first slip and Dhoni, and which Dhoni didn't even bother to attempt.

 

Wriddhiman Saha himself got some record in the West Indies, where his keeping was competent, but not extraordinary. It was a combination of fairly benign conditions and inept batting on the WI side, which resulted in an inflated haul of dismissals. There have been much better keeping displays from him without as many dismissals, because on difficult tracks, batsmen keep getting bowled or lbw more often, because it is simply harder to lay bat on ball.

 

Edit: @Gollum showed one such statistic (catching efficiency) where Saha's superiority can be read off without having to study video footage (the absence of which is the #1 barrier to an educated discussion about wicketkeeping). Nevertheless, you still have to take into account what kind of chances are being taken, you have to define what counts as a drop (and apply it consistently), and so on. That still does not answer the question: How do you put a number on the effect of a catch like the one where Theunis de Bruyn leg-glanced Umesh Yadav really fine (replete with Ranjitsinghji beginning to nod in approval from heaven) before Saha plucked it out of thin air?

Please post more in icf.

[Turning_track]

He is just superb, quite sensational on difficult tracks where keepers are thoroughly tested. Rightly posted by someone earlier regarding Saha that in a way he belongs to the old school pre-Gilly era where wicket-keeping was a specialist job & you have to be at your absolute best behind the stumps.
Its a shame that on YouTube (might be coz of copyright issues) we can't get a decent compilation of his terrific catches. 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Turning_track

[abc]

On 11/26/2019 at 1:01 AM, ShoonyaSifar said:

P.S: Someone should tell Kohli that BJ Watling is the best keeper in the world (who bats at 6 ahead of his team's all rounder CDG) and not Saha (who has now been demoted to 7 behind his team's all rounder Jadeja).

I take it Jacques Kallis is your no. 1 medium pace bowler?

Jokes aside, we will have to wait and watch. Let us first see Watling and Saha keep in the same match in New Zealand conditions, then we shall have a better idea. It is, as I said earlier, a mouth-watering prospect. What is sure without doubt is that Saha and Watling are the two best keepers at the moment (at least on the international stage).

Edited November 28, 2019 by abc

[Suhaan]

Pant anyday

[ShoonyaSifar]

2 hours ago, abc said:

I take it Jacques Kallis is your no. 1 medium pace bowler?

Jokes aside, we will have to wait and watch. Let us first see Watling and Saha keep in the same match in New Zealand conditions, then we shall have a better idea. It is, as I said earlier, a mouth-watering prospect. What is sure without doubt is that Saha and Watling are the two best keepers at the moment (at least on the international stage).

Err, how exactly is that relevant to this debate. Do enlighten me.

 

Watling has been doing it for years, Test after Test, Saha has been excellent in the last 5-6 tests since his comeback but has had plenty blemishes before he got injured (remember the Chandimal drop that cost us a Test or that of Elgar in the 1st test vs SA or a few that he dropped vs England, from the top off my head)