sandeep

Veeru made watching test cricket so entertaining, he was like nothing else before him. Warner is at best a poor man's Veeru. Bumrah and Bhuvi (with new ball) are the bowling versions of Veeru for me - must see TV. Love Bumrah, and just hope he stays fit for a decent career length, and maybe even might make a great captain. Prithvi Shaw has shown that he follows the Veeru principle in batting approach, if he's even 70% as successful, he's going to entertain us for a while. Pat Cummins and Jos Buttler are my favorite non Indian cricketers, Cummins I view as the spiritual heir to Jason Gillespie, in terms of his lion-heart, commitment and consistency, even in conditions that don't help pace. But Cummins I think is more blessed than Dizzy as a bowler, and especially as a batsman. Buttler, I think has one of the best temperaments in the white ball game. He's a 'gun' player. And I respect him a lot. Amongst the young ones, I like Alzarri Joseph and Naseem Shah. Both of these guys have something special about them, but are still raw and not guaranteed to find consistent success at the highest level. But still, I like rooting for young talent, so that's that.

F*k me, I swear I could almost hear *that* music play in the background.

Not as head coach. As consultant bowling coach. And only because there isn't a qualified Indian alternative who can have that sort of impact.

The problem is well defined and wellknown. And Virat's ego, and failed decision making in key moments isn't going to get overturned that easily. Kumble famously wanted India to bat first in CT Final. What happened?

That's a good tactic to get the most out of a tulleybaaz, in T20 cricket. I don't want a future Australia coach anywhere near Indian national team. I just don't. Whatever "magic" Ricky Ponting can supposedly bring to the coaching table, I'm sure similar input can be provided by an Indian. These days coaching isn't a one-man job anyway, its a lot of different type of background work - overseeing a bunch of tasks such as selection, player rotation, data and video analysis, fitness, skill-specific drills and training. A "famous" name primarily only brings "mentorship" and motivation to the table. We don't need a guy who averaged single digits for 15 years of test cricket in India, to provide 'mentorship'.

I wanted Moody when India went with Guru Greg instead. Moody's a good coach, but now I think his hunger and drive has reduced a bit. He makes enough from IPL etc so wouldn't be as motivated as he was 10 yrs ago to put in that John Wright style total commitment and hard work. I want that type of coach - low profile, no former 'star' player, a guy who is smart enough to keep his mouth shut and let his coaching advertise his work, instead of his interviews. Shastri gets a lot of flak, but I actually like him as a head coach, supported by top-flight coaches for specific skills. For instance Pravin Amre for batting, Jason Gillespie for bowling, that kind of set up.

As if an "unsoft" captain would change any outcomes for the team - Not to say Azhar Ali is some great player, but he's getting scapegoated the same way Misbah was. If you want to win more, find better players, groom them better. Its not the captaincy that's the major reason behind why Pak loses so often. Its because they're a an ordinary team. But Pakistanis don't like to accept the rank mediocrity of their team, so find foolish myths of "if not for bad captaincy, we are so tailunted world-beaters" very seductive to believe. Pakistani test batting has been crap for a decade, so much so that a couple of 45 year olds were able to keep playing for them until they wanted to. The fact that a Shan Masood, could be so crap, and well below test-calibre, and still get dozens of chances, shows the lack of options. Apart from Babar, NONE of the other batsmen look top class. It is what it is. Pakistani spin bowling in test matches is overly dependent on a limited legspinner who couldn't bowl a googly if his wife's blood pressure medications depended on it. Their great young legspinning 'hope' is basically Piyush Chawla with a beard, a guy who overused his googly in white-ball cricket and shot to fame, but now inspires so much "confidence" from his team, that he's being played as a batsman who can bowl a bit. Pakistani 'pace' bowling is so empty on talent, that they had to desperately bring back a match-fixer who went on to average 35, and when the guy retired from test cricket, fans still cry and moan about why he 'betrayed' his team. Now they have their hopes set on a couple of inexperienced teenagers, who are promising no doubt, but far from test-match ready bowlers. So what's left at that point?

Have seen it dozens of times.

Have seen it so many times. Personal favorite was when I was buying a falafel from Bangladeshi vendor in NYC, and a Pakistani comes up to do the same, Bangla guy cordially asked her where she was from, and she said she was Indian, but I could see the hesitation flicker on her face, and I started instinctively laughing and then stopped myself, just an aborted snicker, nothing overly loud. She went on to say something like 'In these modern times, we should not be looking to divide 'our people''.

Plenty of folks slow down on the highway to ogle at a car-wreck....

This basic concept is too much for Maniac to accept, because he doesnt want to admit that he was wrong about Pandya's potential and possibility.

I don't get offended if "Stokes is better" or similar opinions. What I detest is the desi foolishness and crab mentality of badmouthing Indian players unfairly, and being dismissive without an objective consideration of the facts and data. It all depends on the context - Pandya has already demonstrated that he offers value in certain specific scenarios - say, a greentop in NZ, SA or England. In Pandya, you have a guy who has taken a 5-fer in England, a match-winning one. He is comfortably a much more viable bowling option than Vihari ever can be, who's an honest part-timer in the best of helpful conditions. In specific scenarios, where you need more than 3 seamers, but don't want to weaken the batting much, and don't want to drop the spinner, Pandya would make a great choice for a 4th seamer who can bat 6 or 7. And the question of "fairness" to other guys waiting in line is secondary to the primary and overriding objective of making the Indian team the strongest possible, especially away. If that means that a Vihari or some other bat sits out a game or 2, I think there's absolutely nothing "unfair" about it. And this has nothing to do with Pandya's "IPL or LOI" cameos. The guy has scored a test century in SL, and put up a big 70+ score in SA - in challenging conditions. He has taken a match-winning 5-fer in England, with top order wickets, not cheap ones. You are being blatantly biased by trying to claim that his selection consideration is based on white ball "cameos".

So you would pick Pandya ahead of whiteboi barpuncher?

I don't care about the speedgun numbers game.

You don't know that, and you're assuming he can't succeed in tests. Not only are you assuming based on minimal evidence, you are willing to dismiss the possibility of a test match allrounder -a *ing unicorn for Indian test team, supposedly because we'd somehow "lose" a handy LOI player. Thats a lot of nonsense. Look at what Australia tried to make out of Shane Watson. Now I'm not claiming that Pandya is going to be as successful, but after decades of Sanjay Bangar, Laxmi ratan Shukla, Abhishek Nayyar, Binny, and such "non-rounders", we finally have a viable prospect. And its obvious to try and allow a young player like him find his ceiling. Maybe it turns out to be lower than what Zen thinks, or what I think. But its worth a shot. He's shown enough glimpses in SA and in England, that the possibility of him providing the test team with a valuable option in the squad if not XI, for key away tours, exists.