Bowling combo in England

[vvvslaxman]

We need a strong seam and swing attack. Even 130kph balls can be a handful in England if he can swing. That makes Bhuvi an automatic choice. Who shares the new ball? Umesh or Ishant. Shami will probably be not that effective. Should we experiment guys like Gurbani?

Edited May 31, 2018 by vvvslaxman

[Forever Indian]

6 minutes ago, vvvslaxman said:

We need a strong seam and swing attack. Even 130kph kohli can be a handful in England if he can swing. That makes Bhuvi an automatic choice. Who shares the new ball? Umesh or Ishant. Shami will probably be not that effective. Should we experiment guys like Gurbani?

Bumrah should share the new ball with Bhuvi. Umesh and Shami should make the other 2 Pacers.

[sandeep]

Bhuvi, Ishant, Shami, Bumrah/Umesh. 

 

I suspect Shami's going to be very motivated to get his cricket career going again, and may do well, at least until he gets injured again.  

 

Ash/Jaddu ahead of Pandya, unless the wicket is a complete green-top and the weather is also in favor of seam.  

[LORD_analyst]

11 minutes ago, Forever Indian said:

Bumrah should share the new ball with Bhuvi. Umesh and Shami should make the other 2 Pacers.

shami needs to weed down his inconsistency....will try umesh first ....then,if  umesh doesn't perform .will go to shami.

both shami and umesh have same skillset- 140ks , ouswing with new-ball,reverse swing with old ball and both little bit inconsistent.

[vvvslaxman]

Bumrah doesn’t depend on new ball as much. So I would go with Umesh. Ishant has two sides right side and very wrong side.  When he is in good rhythm can consistently test batsmen for prolonged periods. You can eke our one or two extra overs from him in a single spell. But it is a big gamble given that most of the time we get very bad side of Ishant.

[Gollum]

1st 2 tests

Bhuvi (first pick in my XI)

Shami (late English summer with drier conditions, reverse swing, Eng lower order can become annoying to dislodge)

Ishant ( improved bowler now, workhorse, critical partnership breaker and someone who offers the captain control in case opponents are running away with the game)

Pandya (can offer respite to the others with 15 high intensity overs per day...might not be a bad idea to make him share the new ball with BK for 4-5 overs because other quicks aren't that good in utilizing the brand new red cherry)

Ashwin (Eng may field up to 8 LHBs, besides Ashwin can use his county experience and batting skills to nudge ahead of other spinners)

 

I have question marks over Shami right now because of problems in his personal life, that can seriously take his mind off the game. If management feels he isn't 100% focused draft in Umesh. Unfortunately Bumrah misses out because he is a 'hit the deck hard' kind of bowler with no experience in England, he will play a prominent role in Australia later this year but we need more 'kiss the surface' kind of bowlers. Shami/Umesh/Ishant can make that crucial adjustment but Bumrah not sure. He might play at some point in the series because it is a long series and fatigue/injury is a definite possibility. 

 

Based on performance in the 1st 2 tests make a call for the remaining 3. However Bhuvi will always be a factor irrespective of pitch, so need to rest him in useless T20s/ODIs and ensure he plays all 5 tests. Even if Shami is bowling well, won't be a bad idea to field Umesh in his place for a couple of tests and give him the license to go at full tilt...afterall 5 tests is loooong and it will be important to keep our quicks fresh, only Ishant is capable of maintaining his tempo because he is a workhorse with experience in toiling like a gadha thanks to MSD era .  

 

I have also given due importance to batting abilities in my selection of bowlers. There may be times when the lower order will get easier conditions and I don't want us to miss out. Imagine a Kohli/Rahane batting with the score at 320/6 after 100 overs .....with a bottom 4 of BK, Ash, Shami, Ishant they can even take the score to 500 !!!! A 120/6 type collapse should become 220 a.o and not 140 a.o. I rate Shami and Ishant with the bat, one can get a quickfire 40 and the other can consistently play out 40 deliveries per innings. Remember England has historically been a place where lower order batsmen have scored runs. I recall Agarkar and Kumble with 100s in our previous tours...Ashwin and BK in the horror 2014 tour too were decent with the bat. Poms are clinically ruthless with the brand new cherry (much stiffer challenge than Saffers of early 2018 in the 1st 30 odd overs), absolutely relentless who will keep probing the top order and once they get an opening they dismantle the teams with German precision...so many under 100 scores against them in recent years. But unlike SA/Aus they are flat after the ball loses the shine, not much hostile pace and no outstanding spinner (100% an issue outside Swann's 5 year period). To remove tails the 4 biggest weapons are brutal pace (Starc, Cummins, Rabada, Wahab), steep bounce (Morkel, Ngidi), high class spin (Lyon, Jadeja, Ashwin, Maharaj, Yasir) and reverse swing (Umesh, Shami, Anderson).....unfortunately for Poms they lack the former 3 attributes. They may regularly get our top order cheaply but if our middle order and tail can show some spine they will still face the heat, even Anderson and Broad are getting old now. What we regularly need is a lower order with patience/defensive technique/some offensive batting ability, we can put them under serious pressure if that happens. I won't be surprised if BK or Ash do a repeat of Agarkar/Kumble this time around, in fact both the current 2 are decisively better with the bat. Umesh and Bumrah give me no confidence in their batting abilities, one is reckless cum useless (Shami isn't useless) and the other doesn't know how to hold a cricket bat. 

Edited May 31, 2018 by Gollum

[LORD_analyst]

6 minutes ago, MultiB48 said:

you need someone who can bowl to their lefthanders

ishant always bowls good to lefties as he can take the ball away.....also if one of umesh,shami go inconistent..ishant can stop run-flow and break the partnership.

[The Dark Horse]

Bhuvi, Bumrah, Ishant/Umesh and Pandya for the first test. 

Can't believe we have to go back to Ishant/Umesh again but both of them are better than a half fit, hit or miss Shami.

Problem with Shami is sometimes he droops down on energy and it demoralizes the whole team.

Good thing about Ishant or Shami is that, they may not use their brains always but will always give it a 100%.

 

[vvvslaxman]

In an ideal scenario left arm seamer would be handy like we had Zak and RP singh

[Mosher]

BK, Umesh, Shami, Bumrah/Ishant. BK and Umesh should share the new ball as they both swing the ball. Shami has been in some poor form maybe because of his personal problems and I think he will be fired up to get back to his best. So he should be tried in the 1st test. He's probably the best among our pacers when you need to clean up the tail. Bumrah/Ishant are both similar hit the deck bowlers who can be the workhorse. Ashwin will be the lone spinner. 

[Moochad]

Ash, Pandya,  Bumrah, are automatic choices by Kohli in my opinion 

 

Ishant for bounce or

 

Shami/Umesh based on form for pace + swing

 

Bhuvi for swing with new ball + batting 

[philcric]

I'll start with Bhuvi, Bumrah, Umesh, Pandya, Kuldeep.

 

Shami, Ishant, Ash the back ups.

 

[velu]

hope we dont need Dhoni , the bowler

[express bowling]

Test 11 

 

I will keep 4 specialist pacers and a spinner.

 

Bhuvi

Shami

Bumrah

Umesh

Ashwin

 

 

Backup bowlers in the test squad

 

Rajpoot

Ishant / Saini

Kuldeep

Pandya

 

[express bowling]

3 hours ago, LORD_analyst said:

 

both shami and umesh have same skillset- 140ks , ouswing with new-ball,reverse swing with old ball and both little bit inconsistent.

 

All good points

 

... but Shami has much better and more frequently used bouncers and rising short balls.

 

Shami's seam position and ball release is also better.  His line is usually better too.

 

These have resulting in Shami averaging 28.9  in tests with a SR of 51.2  ...  while Umesh has an average of 35.9  with SR of  59.6.

 

Where Umesh trumps Shami is fitness.

[LORD_analyst]

1 hour ago, express bowling said:

 

All good points

 

... but Shami has much better and more frequently used bouncers and rising short balls.

 

Shami's seam position and ball release is also better.  His line is usually better too.

 

These have resulting in Shami averaging 28.9  in tests with a SR of 51.2  ...  while Umesh has an average of 35.9  with SR of  59.6.

 

Where Umesh trumps Shami is fitness.

with new ball....shami was shitty in every innings but made up for it in 2nd innings as sa offer pace and bounce.

will india afford shami in england where tracks are slow with less bounce and taking wickets with old ball is difficult unless reverse happens???    i will first go for umesh and then if underperforms ,return to shami.

umesh can bowl better with new ball imo....shami struggles with new ball....in all 3 test matches in saf.

Edited May 31, 2018 by LORD_analyst

[LORD_analyst]

1 hour ago, express bowling said:

Shami's seam position and ball release is also better.  His line is usually better too.

his seam position is better ...but his line was worse on 6th stump line with new ball.....i think you haven't watched the new ball bowling of shami. 

i also have a siddharth monga article in which he explained how shami was wayward with the new ball in australia tests....can give link to you.

[express bowling]

31 minutes ago, LORD_analyst said:

with new ball....shami was shitty in every innings but made up for it in 2nd innings as sa offer pace and bounce.

 

Shami was distracted during the SA 2018 series due to the brewing troubles with his wife.  

 

Bowling with the new ball is not his strongest suit ... and that suffered the most.

 

Quote

will india afford shami in england where tracks are slow with less bounce and taking wickets with old ball is difficult unless reverse happens???    i will first go for umesh and then if underperforms ,return to shami.

umesh can bowl better with new ball imo....shami struggles with new ball....in all 3 test matches in saf.

 

I am in favour of picking 4 fast bowlers in England. Both Shami and Umesh can play.

 

Shami does not have to bowl with the new ball. Even the older ball usually seams around a bit in England. Remember the 2016 tour to WI.  Shami bowled really well on slow pitches without much reverse swing. Pitches in England will be quicker than that.

 

Based on current form, Umesh can share the new ball with Bhuvi.

Edited May 31, 2018 by express bowling

[Vilander]

Eng has so many lefties i am going to love watching Indian fast bowlers bowl to them. does not matter who is picked. Other than Ishant/Umesh the other three are same level. Ishant cant pick wickets regularly, Umesh is not accurate, but still the best bunch are selected.

[LordPrabhzy]

3 hours ago, velu said:

hope we dont need Dhoni , the bowler

that **** still gives me nightmares...