Room for improvement

[vvvslaxman]

Yes we won the series after losing the first test.  But there are some obvious areas we have to improve as a team.  catching was substandard.  But one thing that they have to improve is batting against spin.  We have lost lot of solid players against spin. Azhar, Sidhu in the 90s,  Sachin, Laxman, Viru, Ganguly later. Current crop has to go a long way. Giving bucket load of wickets to Lyon and Okeefe should have never happened. What should have been dominating series for India turned into some sort of evenly contested series.  Rahane for all his brilliant shots against pacers on a true wicket his game has to expand against spinners. 

[gattaca]

Catching is very poor for a no 1 team you just can't drop catches if we had held ours we could have won first test too.its not even funny we have been poor for a long time.

Edited March 28, 2017 by gattaca

[beetle]

Catching catching catching !!!!

[vvvslaxman]

Just now, beetle said:

Catching catching catching !!!!

you can't wait  to strangle Karun Nair :) can you

[gattaca]

Gavaskar makes a good point we seem to rotate slips always. Like nair in the slips why put a new guy there.

[rkt.india]

6 minutes ago, vvvslaxman said:

Yes we won the series after losing the first test.  But there are some obvious areas we have to improve as a team.  catching was substandard.  But one thing that they have to improve is batting against spin.  We have lost lot of solid players against spin. Azhar, Sidhu in the 90s,  Sachin, Laxman, Viru, Ganguly later. Current crop has to go a long way. Giving bucket load of wickets to Lyon and Okeefe should have never happened. What should have been dominating series for India turned into some sort of evenly contested series.  Rahane for all his brilliant shots against pacers on a true wicket his game has to expand against spinners. 

That is overrated. If pitches are helping spinners as much as they did this series and spinners are bowling well, batsmen are definitely going to struggle irrespective of who the batsman is. Those batsmen had their struggles against spin too. 

[Mosher]

Improving the catching in the slips should be the no.1 priority for the team. 

[vvvslaxman]

1 minute ago, rkt.india said:

That is overrated. If pitches are helping spinners as much as they did this series and spinners are bowling well, batsmen are definitely going to struggle irrespective of who the batsman is. Those batsmen had their struggles against spin too. 

 

Rahane struggled against spin even on good pitches. Saw against many teams. Let me say this. Some of these players not that confident as some of the domestic rookies. Maybe them not playing enough domestic matches is a contributory factor.

[gattaca]

4 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

That is overrated. If pitches are helping spinners as much as they did this series and spinners are bowling well, batsmen are definitely going to struggle irrespective of who the batsman is. Those batsmen had their struggles against spin too. 

Yup even sachin, dravid and ganguly struggled against udal of all people. Clarke had 6-4 in Mumbai as well. 

[Cricketics]

Slip catching to seamers is only concern for me but that has been in the past too.

 

Just knowing who are our good slip catchers is hard. We do not have many and hence we need to practice harder and make some of the okayish fielders to become proper slip fielders as at times we will need 3 slip fielders overseas and we do not have 3 Rahanes.

 

Hence, we will have to use players like Vijay, Pujara, Rahul, Kohli as other fielders to stand on slip when we need extra slip fielders to stand alongside Rahane.

 

 

So it is important for the aforementioned guys to practice their slip catching harder.

 

Other than that, not much concern. We can not nitpick anything as that doesn't work. We have been outstanding this home season and every player has contributed. 

[tweaker]

The most important improvement should be that Ishant should never be selected in the squad again. The selectors should blood young pacers

[Sidhoni]

7 hours ago, rkt.india said:

That is overrated. If pitches are helping spinners as much as they did this series and spinners are bowling well, batsmen are definitely going to struggle irrespective of who the batsman is. Those batsmen had their struggles against spin too. 

This lineup struggled against Moeen Ali in England as well

[Laaloo]

7 hours ago, Cricketics said:

Slip catching to seamers is only concern for me but that has been in the past too.

 

Just knowing who are our good slip catchers is hard. We do not have many and hence we need to practice harder and make some of the okayish fielders to become proper slip fielders as at times we will need 3 slip fielders overseas and we do not have 3 Rahanes.

 

Hence, we will have to use players like Vijay, Pujara, Rahul, Kohli as other fielders to stand on slip when we need extra slip fielders to stand alongside Rahane.

 

 

So it is important for the aforementioned guys to practice their slip catching harder.

 

Other than that, not much concern. We can not nitpick anything as that doesn't work. We have been outstanding this home season and every player has contributed. 

Well we were never this bad with regards to slip catching in the past or were we?

[Trichromatic]

7 hours ago, rkt.india said:

That is overrated. If pitches are helping spinners as much as they did this series and spinners are bowling well, batsmen are definitely going to struggle irrespective of who the batsman is. Those batsmen had their struggles against spin too. 

Those batsmen were never bowled out for 100 runs in both innings even though we have played on rank turners on multiple ocassions. 

 

It's not a surprise that top series performances by overseas spinners have been in last few years.

[Trichromatic]

On topic, India is consitently getting saved by lower order batsmen. Ashwin, Jadeja, Jayant, Bhuvi, Mishra, Shami. Top order is failing to produce partnerships on consistent basis.

 

Catching is big concern.

[sm332]

Thinking about the next set of tours: SL and SA 

 

We need to address:

 

1. Slip Catching

2. What is our combination for tracks that are unlikely to enable spinners to take 50% of the wickets i.e., SA

3. Who is our #6 batsman (Vijay, KL, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane are a given): Nair is not convincing, Rohit is Rohit, we havent tested anyone else and will we pay the price or are we happy stacking Ash + Jaddu + Saha + three quicks to get us an average of 150 runs a match....? 

[Ultimate_Game]

The one thing they have to improve is close-in catching and especially the slip catching. likes of Nair, Rahul and Ashwin are dropping way too many. In fact things are so bad I can't even think of one natural slip fielder. Rahane might be one but i struggle to think of any other whereas we will need 3 good slip fielders and a gully fielder when we tour away.