How can we improve in test cricket?

[KV244]

I have never expected that we will have such a downfall in test cricket? So what should we do to become a competitive side in test cricket ?

 

[Vk1]

It won't be that hard. Replacing Gambhir and giving opportunities to Ranji batters & bowlers will work. Bigger problem is life in SENA after Bumrah around 2028 onwards

[tweaker]

Select specialist openers

 

Select specialist Middle order batsmen 

 

Select wk  batsman (only 1)

 

Specialist bowlers

 

Select the best team and not a fancy team.

Gambhir selected 3 wk batsman, 4 Allrounder and filled the sides with left handed batsman. 

 

Players were selected on the basis of IPL And those who performed consistently in Ranji were ignored.

[tweaker]

This playing 11  may have competed better than.Gambhir 11.

 

Jaiswal 

Rahul 

Eashwaran 

Nair

Gill

Sarfaraz 

Pant 

Jadeja 

Kuldeep

Bumrah 

Siraj 

 

Nair and Sarfaraz may  have bowl some overs  .

 

[Vancouver]

Be ruthless in selection.

 

Only Kohli can claim to be a true successor to the Fab Four. We persisted with the likes of Rahane for too long, and we thought Pujara was going to be our next Dravid. These two played almost 200 Tests combined, averaging only 41. Dravid scored five more hundreds, averaged 53 and 2,000 more runs than these two combined, in 25 fewer Tests. People need to shake their heads when they bracket Dravid with Pujara. Pujara wasn’t even a Temu version of Dravid, the gap in class and consistency was enormous.

 

Now we’ve done the same with KL. He is so mediocre. KL Rahul bats with a timid, almost fearful mindset, and that passivity drags down the entire batting unit. His negativity rubs off on those around him.

 

Let go of this “oh, he looks so good at the crease.”

 

Indian cricket desperately needs to move past commentators like Bhogle, whose relentless glorification of average performances lowers the standards of analysis and fuels a culture of mediocrity.

 

Also, the narrative about Indians being good players of spin needs to change. Nowadays, we are more like minnows against quality spin. The days of Azhar, Sachin, Sidhu, and Sehwag sending shivers down bowlers spines are gone.

[tweaker]

Eashwaran, Nair,Sarfaraz should have played above Sai,Paddikal, Reddy .

 

The 2 test against Windies should have used to try Eashwaran, Nair,Sarfaraz, Prasidh, Suthar,Kotian ,Etc.

 

This team management has made beach strength worthless. 

[Vk1]

18 hours ago, Vancouver said:

Be ruthless in selection.

 

Only Kohli can claim to be a true successor to the Fab Four. We persisted with the likes of Rahane for too long, and we thought Pujara was going to be our next Dravid. These two played almost 200 Tests combined, averaging only 41. Dravid scored five more hundreds, averaged 53 and 2,000 more runs than these two combined, in 25 fewer Tests. People need to shake their heads when they bracket Dravid with Pujara. Pujara wasn’t even a Temu version of Dravid, the gap in class and consistency was enormous.

 

Now we’ve done the same with KL. He is so mediocre. KL Rahul bats with a timid, almost fearful mindset, and that passivity drags down the entire batting unit. His negativity rubs off on those around him.

 

Let go of this “oh, he looks so good at the crease.”

 

Indian cricket desperately needs to move past commentators like Bhogle, whose relentless glorification of average performances lowers the standards of analysis and fuels a culture of mediocrity.

 

Also, the narrative about Indians being good players of spin needs to change. Nowadays, we are more like minnows against quality spin. The days of Azhar, Sachin, Sidhu, and Sehwag sending shivers down bowlers spines are gone.

You have summed it up wonderfully.

The good old days of watching our batsmen going  back and cutting spinners are long gone. These front foot plonkers can get out against club level bowers on a turning pitch.

[jf1gp_1]

we will be fine in a few years. 

[Lord]

14 hours ago, Vk1 said:

You have summed it up wonderfully.

The good old days of watching our batsmen going  back and cutting spinners are long gone. These front foot plonkers can get out against club level bowers on a turning pitch.

 

yes neither they use their feet nor play sweep. Just pushing and prodding won't get you far

[gattaca]

17 minutes ago, Lord said:

 

yes neither they use their feet nor play sweep. Just pushing and prodding won't get you far

Dravid mentioned in an interview that using feet might not be best ploy against spinner anymore because the speeds at which they are bowling. It is more about judging the ball. 

[Lord]

47 minutes ago, gattaca said:

Dravid mentioned in an interview that using feet might not be best ploy against spinner anymore because the speeds at which they are bowling. It is more about judging the ball. 

 

SA bowled slow this series though. Still no use of feet. SA just kept sweeping us OTOH

[jf1gp_1]

1 hour ago, Lord said:

 

SA bowled slow this series though. Still no use of feet. SA just kept sweeping us OTOH

what surprised me was our bowling performance in 2nd test. Not one bowler looked like taking a wicket and while we can crib about batting line up, the bowling unit fielded is atleast what i would have played with maybe axar ahead of sundar. 

[Vk1]

2 hours ago, gattaca said:

Dravid mentioned in an interview that using feet might not be best ploy against spinner anymore because the speeds at which they are bowling. It is more about judging the ball. 

people use feet against Jadeja, Krunal etc in IPL knowing that it will all be darts fired.. Dravid himself didn't do much to make things better.. NZ whitewash majority blame goes to him

[gattaca]

10 hours ago, Vk1 said:

people use feet against Jadeja, Krunal etc in IPL knowing that it will all be darts fired.. Dravid himself didn't do much to make things better.. NZ whitewash majority blame goes to him

That is the problem majority of Indian fans don’t understand this. They are missing that the NZ series was dravid’s team.

[putrevus]

what people are not understanding is the presence of vicious mind like Gambhir in the locker room.This guy has no tactics nor has any ability to lead people.

 

All his life he has whining about someone.

[Texy]

Speaking of test cricket, where's Umesh Yadav? 

[StraightDrive26]

The biggest mistake in the present management is playing imbalanced team in Tests. Gambhir treating Tests as LOIs. Tests are a format for specialists and not bits and pieces cricketers. India since Gambhir took over are playing too many all-rounders, which is causing issues. Even in the past India have played Axar, Jadeja & Ashwin but again, two of the 3 were world class spinners but now we are playing Nitish Kumar, Sundar and Jadeja, only one of them is a world class bowler. Nitish Kumar is not a Test standard bowler and not sure why he is even playing in the XI. India have great home talent where batsmen in domestic cricket play on these wickets against good spinners day in and day out but we continue to pick poor Test teams.

 

India need 5 specialist batters with Pant batting at 6, followed by 2 all rounders and then the bowlers. Now we have Sundar batting at 3, Nitish playing as a batter etc. This sort of selections is causing the team downfall. Yes Nitish had a good series in Australia with the bat but is he better than plethora of very good batters? The answer is no. Nitish never bowls and I am not sure why he is even playing. India needed another specialist batter in the XI. Also missing in form Shubman was a huge loss for India. Ashwin was a bigger miss. India fans for years have been downplaying Ashwin's contributions to Indian cricket and now they know how important he was for India at home. Without him, even with Kuldeep our bowling looks pretty ordinary. But again our batting is a bigger issue, India need to identify the core of Indian batting, the top 5 at home. For now only Jaiswal and Shubman are a certainty in Top 5. KL is decent overseas but at home he doesn't seem to play spin well but I will still stick with him as he plays new ball well. Also India need to refrain from preparing these turning tracks, prepare true wickets which blunt overseas spinners and allow Indian spinners to use home advantage and experience of playing at home. The wickets against England last year should be used as the template as all wickets were good.