ShoonyaSifar

I'm fuming on the Indian government's abject reasoning for going ahead with this match. They want the world to sanction Pakistan but for them money is bigger than everything. And their minions in media have played along. No nationalistic pitch, no hard questions, playing it down. Hoping against hope that some players and coaching staff develop a spine and say no to playing, even if it comes close to match start. All it will take is one person in the team to say so and others including the BCCI will be for ed to toe the line.

No. When your overstay your welcome, you don't deserve such farewell. He kept failing and failing in last 5 years with similar patterns of dismissals. There was zero effort to rectify mistakes by playing FC or county cricket. He was lucky he played for those 5 years, could easily have his career cut short in 2024 itself. Top that with reports of not traveling with the team, staying in different hotels etc. As big a superstar he is, in a team sport that's unacceptable. Credit to Agarkar and Gambhir for making the bold call.

South Zone are 116/7, 6 wkts to spinners. after producing flat roads, BCCI Curators have produced a dust bowl. It's as if BCCI has totally forgotten the art of producing sporting wickets which help spinners but also have plenty of runs in them

Are you for real? Ayush Badoni is 25 and his best days are beyond him? Dude scored a 200 in Duleep Trophy, averages 60+ in FC, had a decent IPL. Jagadeeshan scored a 197, has a FC avg of 50+ after 53 FC matches. Absolutely deserves to be in India A squad, even as a specialist batter, his keeping being a bonus. Same with Easwaran, may not be getting chances in the main team but that's okay. Scores tons of runs in FC cricket season after season, deserves to be rewarded with the A team berth at least for another year. Players toil in the FC circuit to fulfil their ambition to play at least once for India. As long as Easwaran is getting picked after scoring runs, it's absolutely fine. Plus in a period of transition of our test team, having experienced hands from FC cricket will come handy at some stage. A bit like Murali Vijay coming back to test side in 2013 at the age of 29 when we were well and truly in generational transition. Gave us a very solid 4 years. A team should not just purely be about pathway to the National side. It should also serves as motivation to do well in domestics, else majority players will just have 5-6 year long FC career. If it means a few perceived non-international standard picks, so be it. Mindsets evolve, careers can turnaround in a season. That's the hope with such picks.

How poor have these pitches been. Teans batting on and on in QF on last day, now SZ batting for two full days, 450 is a norm, nothing for pacers or spinners. Slim chances of outright results. First innings lead is what teams care for. This at BCCI CoE. Where are the curators who could produce high quality sporting wickets? Suddenly feels like I am reading domestic cricket scores from an era we had left behind.

That feels unfair to him. He took over Indian white-ball cricket right after the 2007 World Cup exit, which was one of the lowest points for us. The recovery from the Greg Chappell era really began with the 2007 T20 World Cup. Yuvraj, Gambhir, and the bowlers were crucial, but Dhoni’s captaincy mattered too. Then came the 2008 CB Series win, another big step. In Tests, he led us to the number one ranking in 2009, and that all format captain journey culminated with the 2011 World Cup win at home. Those first three or four years under Dhoni were a golden stretch, both for the team and for fans. But then the mix of his closeness with Srinivasan, Srinivasan’s iron grip on the BCCI, and Dhoni’s portrayal as the undisputed king of Indian cricket changed the equation and it was all downhill for him - 0-8 in Eng and Aug, unceremoniously ousting Sehwag and Gambhir, sudden exit from captaincy mid-tour, the 2015 and 2019 WC disasters. 2013 CT win and IPL was the only solace for him in those years.

So the entire story is based on report in Boria Mazumdar's outlet. Ritika is using all her PR skills to counter leaks about BCCI's plan to move on from him and Virat in ODIs.

2021 was a clear case of conflict of interest, largely Ganguly's decision to get Kohli and Rohit to work as a team in the T20 WC (Kohli quit T20 captaincy in Aug 2021 and week later Shastri resigned as well, two months before the T20 WC and one month before 2021 IPL in Dubai, Dhoni was named as mentor in September 2021 along with squad announcement). That it ended in a disaster was a foregone conclusion. In any case, a player still active in IPL cannot and should not be part of the India's coaching setup. If Dhoni has desires to become a mentor/ coach/ friend ,philosopher, guide of Indian team, let him retire from IPL, serve the required cooling off period and then throw his hat in contention.

Somethings never change! Sooda still tracking India A team as seriously as he used to do 16-17 years back! From the days of tracking Murali Vijay, Pujara, Rahane, Kohli, Rohit, Badrinath Chawla, Vinay Kumar in the late 2000s to now, that's 3 generations of cricketers well tracked

Did you hear what Key said about question on Livingstone? Rob Key on Liam Livingstone's omission from England's white-ball squads: "I saw [Livingstone] said the other day that he's not heard anything since being dropped. I don't know if he's got a phone, if he's allowed to ring... If you want to find out where you are, you've got my number" Imagine a senior administrator saying this to a player - call me if you want an explanation. That's terrible man management. No wonder the results have been poor.

Since Rob Key came on board as ECB Director of cricket, England performances 2023 WTC - finished 4th (Key joined in July 2022, and brought in Mccullum, Eng did win more matches vs earlier) 2023 ODI WC: Finished 7th, lost to Afghanistan, won just 3 matches 2024 T20 WC: badly thrashed in the semis 2025 CT: Did not win a single match, including a loss vs England 2023-25 WTC: England finished 5th 3+ years, ZERO achievements Destroyed their white ball team, did not win the Ashes, will likely lose in Australia. But hey he can speak good English. And the Indian officials are clowns for India winning two ICC trophies

We have played a total of 19 tests vs England and 14 tests vs Aus in last 5 years. In fact out of 52 tests in last 5 yrs, 33 tests (65%) are vs England and Australia. Just 2 vs SL and Aus. As we don't play Pak*s, all the more reason to have more tests with SL , WI and even SA and NZ. Our players need some relatively easier runs and wickets (play on normal home wickets, not dust bowls which make ordinary opposition spinners look better than they are.

So much for that “snub.” The guy played Tests, ODIs, and T20s for India like nothing ever happened after Nov 2023. But fast forward to June and August 2025, and suddenly someone (Gambhir?) has a late night epiphany “Hold on, didn’t he snub my respected PM two years ago? Let me take revenge !” And here’s the comedy bit: the same Gambhir happily picked Gill as captain even though Gill was happily supporting the farmers’ agitation against the PM.

You can't have your test captain in the 15 and not even be a VC. Why would you not have your regular test captain in the core leadership group? If it was a different set of coaches for white ball cricket like England had earlier, that would still be understandable. On the superstar part, I'll hold my judgment. After England series, how many interviews has Gill given or the coach has given him all the credit publicly? Early days but I don't think we are going back to that culture anytime sooner.

And it's the usual set of gloom and doom masters. Funny to see some of them accuse other players of using PR when every second post of theirs is on Iyer, before and during test series and now before Asia Cup as well.

I don't agree with Gill's selection for T20s. But once he's picked, he's the natural VC. BCCI"s preference has been one captain across formats. Only time it got disturbed was after senior captains retired from one format Dhoni from tests in 2014 and Rohit from T20Is and tests. In Gill, they see a long term all format captain, their default preference. Don't see how it's creating,'star culture'. Also as much hate as Gill is getting, across last 3 seasons of IPL, he's shown he can bat in different modes. If he struggles, he will not play the T20 WC. Mantra for the T20 team has been super aggressive batting, don't see it changing just to accomodate Gill.

"Yashasvi Jaiswal ko Indian ki T20 team mein hona chahiye, aur sirf ek tournament ke liye nahi, agle World Cup ke liye bhi" exact words

Context matters. This was said in July 2023 for 2024 T20 WC. Back then our T20 openers were Rohit, Gill, Rahul and Kishan and except Gill the others were struggling. SKY was literally carrying the team. Jaiswal was IPL emerging player in 2023 edition with eye popping SR for an Indian T20 opener before Abhishek bettered him in the 2024 edition (Jaiswal had an above average season then and was not the standout Indian opener in last season as well) Ultimately none of Gill, Kishan or Rahul played the T20 WC and Virat Kohli became the opener

A guy under whose tenure our ICC Trophy draught ended and we have now back to back ICC Trophies and a near miss at a ODI WC. While Rohit has deservedly got the credit along with Dravid and GG, selectors must have done something right as well. Remember the criticism 5 spinners strategy received before CT. Proved to be spot on. His picks for the England tests also worked out well in the end. While he gets all the criticism for test losses, fair to praise him for the successes?

That was two years ago. What he did then counts for not much now as he hasn't played any top class cricket in last 20 months. Has to start afresh

A lot of these young pacers have been injured for last 2-3 years or get fit in time for T20 leagues and then get injured again. Could be a ploy to conserve themselves for only T20s. Two prime examples are Kuldeep Sen and Simarjeet Singh. Both were on India team radar, were regularly practicing with the National team..then from 2022-23 onwards have mostly been invisible. Both can hit the ideal test match length consistently. With a better work ethic, could easily have been in test contention ahead of Kamboj or Arshdeep. Add Umran, Tyagi, now Mayank. That's 5 very promising pacers, all with the ability to be 140+ even in longer formats, missing in action. Navdeep Saini, though senior to everyone, could have been another test regular in post Ishant and Shami era. Did not have the proper work ethic and could not handle the fame. That Ranji spell of him bowling 140+ vs Bengal is as legendary as Aaron's VHT spell with 150+ speeds or Umesh's 140+ spell in Irani Trophy 2010-11.

You mean directly from state league to India? When he hasn't bowled in a FC or List A in 20 months and got one match across last two seasons in IPL, primarily due to fitness issues. Let him play the VH Trophy to show he can sustain his pace. In fact, based on what he did on 2020-21 Aus your as a net bowler, he has a higher ceiling for FC cricket and should aim to play full FC season of UP, will of course have to pick wickets in a highly competitive UP pace line up

Samson's 3 100s do not matter. Tilak's 2 100s do not matter (wonder who were the so called seniors resting). 'on those pitches in SA' , in last 5 years, 8 T20I 100s have been scored, 2 each by Samson and Tilak but none of that counts. And if IPL is the benchmark, let the team be Gill, Sai, Surya, Iyer, KL, Parag, Shashank Singh, Krunal, Sai Kishore, Prasidh, Arshdeep, Varun V, Prabhsimran Funny how for Tilak's selection, IPL form matters but not for Patidar and a number of others!

How can you drop someone with 3 100s in his last 10-12 innings? Same with Tilak, 2 100s at number 3 in last 7 innings. Deserves a long run without being asked to float around. To accomodate Jaiswal and Iyer, I hope the TM doesn't tinker with a well settled 11 that has won everything since the T20 WC. As good as they both are, they will have to wait for their chances in T20I. Hardik, Rinku, Dube, Axar - this has to be our lower middle order. All used to batting at 5 and below and flexible to move around in the order

So that fans can then moan about why are those with FC performances being neglected. It has to be a mix. FC season perfomers need a motivation as well and Duleep trophy, then A team selection as pathway to a national team spot has to be the route, with exceptions for player with a higher bar. In any case, who are those fast bowlers and pace bowling all rounders not being picked for the A side? Almost all express pacers are either injured or haven't bowled in FC cricket for months (Umran Malik, Kuldeep Sen, Mayank Yadav, Simarjeet Singh, Kartik Tyagi). Can't push them to A tours all of a sudden when they are not ready or in certain cases do not want to play FC cricket