India's next three opponents before the WC

[lethal_raina]

Australia at home 2 Tests & 3 ODIs New Zealand at home 3 Tests & 5 ODIs South Africa away 3 Tests, 1 T20I & 5 ODIs In total 8 Tests, 1 T20I & 13 ODIs I think this is an excellent preparation for the 50 overs World Cup, Australia are no.1 ranked team, South Africa are no.4 ranked team and New Zealand are no.6 ranked team in ODI cricket. India just played Sri Lanka who are no.3 ranked team. What do you guys think about India's preparation for the World Cup and their World Cup chances.

[Ram]

Here’s my wish-list for the remaining ODIs (at home at least) 1)Wins against both Australia (2-1) and New Zealand (4-1) at home and maybe, a 3-2 win against South Africa, or at worst , a 2-3 loss. 2)A full strength team at least for the last 2 ODI series against New Zealand and South Africa. No more silly injuries to our front-line pacemen and batsmen. 3)Yuvraj Singh to win MoS in at least one of the series, preferably against New Zealand at home. 4)Some experimentation with the bowling plan to see if we can move away from the tried-tested and failed strategy of playing 3 seamers no matter how flat the wickets are. 5)To not see Jadeja ever bat at no.7 again. 6)The return of Irfan Pathan 7)The induction of Ashwin into the team. He’s a deceptively skillful bowler who could form the main thrust of our spin strategy along with Bhajji 8)Saurabh Tiwary to replace Karthik, Rohit and Kohli as our back-up middle order bat

[saneindian]

Along with these international series, we also have two very important domestic tournaments, the Irani Trophy and the Challenger Trophy. I hope the selectors use these two events to finalise the pool of 20-22 players. The India-Australia test series will be on when the Irani Trophy (Oct 1-5) and Challenger Trophy (Oct 8-11) is played. So Sehwag, Gambhir, Dravid, Sachin, VVS, Raina, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Bhajji, Ojha, Ishant, Zaheer, Sreesanth, Mishra the 14 likely to play the test matches (though I hope only 12 are named) , we should have every other player play these 2 tournaments. Also if likes of Yuvraj and Mishra are not be played in tests, they should instead be asked to play in these tournaments rather than being named in the 14 for tests and warming the benches. Rest of India team could be Rahane, Mukund, Pujara, Rohit, Kohli, Saurabh Tiwary, DK©, Irfan, Ashwin, Unadkat, Mithun, Umesh Yadav And then for challenger trophy, everyone apart from the 11 playing the 2nd test should be named in one of the three teams. Hopefully the pitches for these 2 tournaments and the subsequent domestic matches will not be flat pattas but wickets where the true ability of a batsman/bowlers shines through.

[Roshanrocks]

the CLT20 will help decide which players wud receive more chances in the indian team... so the indian players from mumbai, chennai and bengalooru have good chances to show off their skills in this tournamnet... i hope uttappa plays.

[Lord]

Here’s my wish-list for the remaining ODIs (at home at least) 1)Wins against both Australia (2-1) and New Zealand (4-1) at home and maybe, a 3-2 win against South Africa, or at worst , a 2-3 loss. 2)A full strength team at least for the last 2 ODI series against New Zealand and South Africa. No more silly injuries to our front-line pacemen and batsmen. 3)Yuvraj Singh to win MoS in at least one of the series, preferably against New Zealand at home. 4)Some experimentation with the bowling plan to see if we can move away from the tried-tested and failed strategy of playing 3 seamers no matter how flat the wickets are. 5)To not see Jadeja ever bat at no.7 again. 6)The return of Irfan Pathan 7)The induction of Ashwin into the team. He’s a deceptively skillful bowler who could form the main thrust of our spin strategy along with Bhajji 8)Saurabh Tiwary to replace Karthik, Rohit and Kohli as our back-up middle order bat

I thought u were against it:hmmmm2: n agree with point 7 as well,if we can play two LSAs then why not two offies?

[Lord]

what I want 1)no more chances to Rohit,Ishant, 2)atleast one series run for Irfan at 7 n as 5th bowler 3)try out Uthappa as a reserve WK/opener 4)rest Yuvraj,Zak for next 2 series n tell them to get fitter.

[cowboysfan]

south africa and new zealand are average odi teams at best,we should beat them easily.The aussies will beat us at home on a flat pitch 7 times out of 10.

[Lord]

south africa and new zealand are average odi teams at best' date='we should beat them easily.The aussies will beat us at home on a flat pitch 7 times out of 10.[/quote'] SA in SA will be tough

[cowboysfan]

SA in SA will be tough

i think we can win that too,the main reason being that our bowlers(including the spinners) will have something in the pitches in south africa.

[Ram]

I thought u were against it:hmmmm2: n agree with point 7 as well,if we can play two LSAs then why not two offies?

When did I say I don’t want Irfan in the team? I have only maintained that even though he’s a very capable batsmen, he’s not suitable for the no.7 position. Besides, Nehra and Zaheer Khan and Praveen Kumar (and maybe even Ishant) would be ahead of him in my pecking order of seamers. But seeing how badly all our seamers performed in flat pitches in home conditions in the last 12 months (and I have no reason to believe the conditions for the WC are going to be any different) it doesn’t matter which seamer we play. All of them invariably go for runs (Even the usually good Zak was carted all over the place against Lanka). So my team for the World cup would be either of these two combos, depending upon the opposition and pitch conditions; Combo 1 (7 batsmen + 2 spinners + 2 seamers) – I’d play this combo if the pitch is so good for batting, a high score almost inevitable. In this scenario, since I am playing 7 batsmen, I’d play our two best seamers (Zak and Nehra), Bhajji and Ashwin as our 2nd spinner. The flip side of this strategy is that our part time spinners will have to bowl anywhere b/w 12 and 15 overs every innings, depending upon how well our pacers bowl, but they bowled 33% of all overs bowled by spinners in our last 3 ODI series, at a average ER of 5.5, which is staggeringly still significantly lesser than ER of our pacers (6.6), so I am sure they can handle it. Sach Viru GG Yuvi Tiwary ( I rate him very highly, I think he has all the traits required of a middle order bat) MSD Raina Bhajji Zak Ashwin Nehra Combo 2 ( 6 batsmen + 3 spinners + 2 pacers) – I’d play this combo if our team decides that they really want to get in an amongst our opposition middle order and challenge them with quality spin bowling. And because I am playing only 6 batsmen, I’d drop Nehra and play Irfan instead, because he will bolster the batting. Besides, this combination will allow us the luxury of depending as little as possible on our part-timer spinners + it will allow Harbhahjan to attack and go for wickets. Sach Viru GG UV MSD Raina Irfan Bhajji Zak Ashwin Ojha (he gets the nod over Jadeja because he is significantly more attacking, his dodgy fielding notwithstanding). But here’s what I’d NEVER do - play three seamers on flat pitches at home. In fact, in my ideal scenario, seamers wouldn’t bowl more than 15-18 overs per innings. If that happens, I can guarantee that our average opposition score would drop 20 runs immediately and go to 276 from 296.

[Online]

I think Rayudu > Tiwari

[The Outsider]

I think Rayudu > Tiwari

But how will both of you sleep without IPL orgasms?