How to improve standard of domestic cricket in India?

[Sachin=GOD]

ASHISH WINSTON ZAIDI what a waste of talent.......Watched him 1st in 1997 when Espn showed a domestic match and he was bowling.Nice side on action and had pace.Was reversing the ball a long way.Was said to be the fastest bowler in India during mid 90s.Never got a chance as he played for a minnow team then. I remember in 2000,when Yuvi scored that 80 odd versus AUS in Kenya,he was asked about how he felt facing Lee.He said i had faced Zaidi in ranji and there was not a lot of difference.

Yeah, brilliant bowler. Waqar Younis once said that if this guy was in Pak he would have definitely got a chance in the Pakistan team (which already had quite a few good pacers at that time). He took 10 wickets in an innings against Pakistan in an U-19 match in 1989 or 88. Came very, very close to a place in the Indian team but never made it.

[Sachin=GOD]

In fact there were two of them AW Zaidi and Obaid Kamal, both played for UP. Used to pick truckloads of wickets but never got their due. On Zaidi, remember reading about him in the late 80s when he picked 9 wickets in an innings in a u-19 test vs Pakistan. Was spoken of very highly. IIRC Waqar Younis also played in that series and was called for Pak national side immediately after that ,whereas Zaidi never got that call from the selectors. First it was Ankola, Wassan and Razdan and later Prasad, Kuruvilla, Jhonson and Ganesh who kept him out of the team.

IIRC it was 10 wickets :hmmmm2:

[Malcolm Merlyn]

9 or 10 wickets i dont know............but he had a lot of ability.Unfortunately they kept picking bowlers from karnataka and Mumbai.the strongest boards.:facepalm: how we waste our bowlers and then cry that we dont have one.:((

[Malcolm Merlyn]

Zaidi has the most no. of wickets for a fast bowler in ranji if i am not wrong.

[saneindian]

Zaidi has the most no. of wickets for a fast bowler in ranji if i am not wrong.

Nope that record stayed with Madan Lal. Zaidi fell short by 3 or 4 wickets.

[Malcolm Merlyn]

Nope that record stayed with Madan Lal. Zaidi fell short by 3 or 4 wickets.

Lal had 351 Zaidi had 370+ if i am not wrong.

[saneindian]

Lal had 351 Zaidi had 370+ if i am not wrong.

Thats Zaidi total tally in first class cricket. Must have taken a few in Duleep Trophy and other first class matches. Madan Lal had 351, Zaidi finished at 348. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Records/Series/Ranji_Trophy/Bowling_Records/Most_Career_Wickets.html

[Malcolm Merlyn]

Thats Zaidi total tally in first class cricket. Must have taken a few in Duleep Trophy and other first class matches. Madan Lal had 351, Zaidi finished at 348. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Records/Series/Ranji_Trophy/Bowling_Records/Most_Career_Wickets.html

OHK Sad ending to his career.......:sniffle:

[Old guy]

1st make result oriented pitches not saying make green wickets but atleast make tradional indian turners 2 nd like chpra said give more points for win or maybe no points for draw in actual test series draw does not adds anything on score line (of series) its no win, no loss with draw u will not win anything and other team also wont win anything and if u think how will we get result well bowl the other team out isnt that what cricket is all about? i know this is univrsally used first innings lead system but its seriously destroying bowlers here in india 3rd tehres no need for t20 league we have ipl..if they get a league then i thinkteams of that league should be allowed in champions league 5 days per match wont really hurt imo , like i said i 20 league is jsut waste of time and why not start using Kookaburra in india? its used in most countries,one day cricket should have same ball wont wanna see new guys struggle in their first match outside india cos of different ball if people cant get wickets with it in india its theirs problem(reffering to bhajji)

[express bowling]

Arun Lal, Ashok Malhotra, Raman Lamba, Ajay Sharma, Vikram Rathod were some of the biggest names in domestic cricket batting in the 80s and 90s but all of them failed miserably in international cricket. I guess if domestic cricket was so good back then atleast a couple of those 'great' names would have succeeded.

[King Tendulkar]

Pitches Pitches and Pitches. Sort that out and inidan cricket would be unstoppable

[Vilander]

Have a few traditional green tops in say Dharmsala, Srinagar,Build green tops in locations like Chail,Dehradun play first class matches in these locations. Simulate green tops in NCA, Have a policy to select 2 fast (140 -150ks) bowlers in national team always.

[Vilander]

ASHISH WINSTON ZAIDI what a waste of talent.......Watched him 1st in 1997 when Espn showed a domestic match and he was bowling.Nice side on action and had pace.Was reversing the ball a long way.Was said to be the fastest bowler in India during mid 90s.Never got a chance as he played for a minnow team then. I remember in 2000,when Yuvi scored that 80 odd versus AUS in Kenya,he was asked about how he felt facing Lee.He said i had faced Zaidi in ranji and there was not a lot of difference.

Never knew him, but actually a bowler in a minnow domestic side should be very good since he plays against the gun batsmen of the good sides, isnt it ? Our selectors have been this pathetic all along then.

[MCcricket]

In fact there were two of them AW Zaidi and Obaid Kamal, both played for UP. Used to pick truckloads of wickets but never got their due. On Zaidi, remember reading about him in the late 80s when he picked 9 wickets in an innings in a u-19 test vs Pakistan. Was spoken of very highly. IIRC Waqar Younis also played in that series and was called for Pak national side immediately after that ,whereas Zaidi never got that call from the selectors. First it was Ankola, Wassan and Razdan and later Prasad, Kuruvilla, Jhonson and Ganesh who kept him out of the team.

I fully agree India selectors and BCCI have been poor at identifying and nurturing talent, it is more by accident then planning when good things happen or genuine talent is identified spotted at young age here, also a lot of nepotism, three main things for me would be FAIR SELECTIONS WITH AN EYE TOWARDS NURTURING GENUINE TALENT THEN TRIED AND TESTED MEDIOCRE PLAYERS, GOOD SPORTY WICKETS, SCHEDULING,these three things will improve domestic cricket

[1983-2011]

scrap this elite and plate bull*****. as we have 27 domestic teams, i would add one more team and make it 28. then create 4 regional leagues (south, east, west and north) of 7 teams each. play home and away so each team would play 12 matches. then have quarter finals and semi finals consisting of 2 legs (home and away) and finish off with grand finale of 5 day match. in conclusion the winning team would play total of 17 matches. have the same league for t20 and 50 over tournament. make sure that domestic season lasts 6 months without ipl overlapping it.

[Magneto]

The big problem here would be that those 27 teams are not equally divided between the 4 regions. And where would Central Zone go? Also, certain regions have stronger individual teams than the others, and East would have the weakest of teams. In that way, a weak Orissa team may sail through in the quarters by beating the other weak teams, but a strong Hyderabad team may not be able to get through, doing injustice to their players. Also, since the teams of the different regional leagues are of variable strength, all the batting averages, bowling averages and related stats may not reflect the most accurate picture. Thereby, someone in the stronger leagues may have better performers with lower averages (because of the higher level of competition), whereas the better teams of the weaker leagues may have bloated averages since they are playing weak teams.

[Old guy]

The big problem here would be that those 27 teams are not equally divided between the 4 regions. And where would Central Zone go? Also, certain regions have stronger individual teams than the others, and East would have the weakest of teams. In that way, a weak Orissa team may sail through in the quarters by beating the other weak teams, but a strong Hyderabad team may not be able to get through, doing injustice to their players. Also, since the teams of the different regional leagues are of variable strength, all the batting averages, bowling averages and related stats may not reflect the most accurate picture. Thereby, someone in the stronger leagues may have better performers with lower averages (because of the higher level of competition), whereas the better teams of the weaker leagues may have bloated averages since they are playing weak teams.

good point i wasnt aware of this! dont u think 27 teams are too much in first place? cos ll we see is mediocre talent wont fewer stronger teams competing against each other better for cricketers who are selected? playing tougher opposition def will make u better player

[Magneto]

good point i wasnt aware of this! dont u think 27 teams are too much in first place? cos ll we see is mediocre talent wont fewer stronger teams competing against each other better for cricketers who are selected? playing tougher opposition def will make u better player

That is why you have the Elite and the Plate. The Elite is between 14 teams (divided into 2 groups) of almost equal strength, where almost anyone can beat anyone (see how Saurashtra is kicking Mumbai's ass in the current match). Our domestic structure is pretty decent, otherwise we wouldn't have had so much talent (especially batting) around. We just don't take the variables into account as a central policy, so the moment we play on a surface we are not used to, our players fail. If initiative is taken to train our players in tackling the variables well, we can be REAL world-beaters in all formats of the game.

[Old guy]

we need to improve the pitches and this zonal selector thing is iffy like we are seeing now east zone is neglected if we cant use all our talent we cant be no 1

[Magneto]

See, there are two things: a) The pitch thing has to be improved from a grassroot level. The state boards make the pitches dependent on their home/away strategies. For example, a few years back Delhi would be creating green tops at Kotla all the time since they didn't have a quality spinner but had decent seamers. They all have to sort out the red soil/black soil issue as well. The main point is that pitches should have bounce which is dependant on soil, and there has to be a centralised policy about the soil that should be used for pitches. Most of the state boards are run by corrupt sarkari people, who are more interested in filling up their coffers than anything else. So, unless we have cricket-loving people who'll be in the state organisations for the love of the game and the country, nothing can be done! b) Zonal selection ensures that every zone gets a look-in, because the zonal guy is based there and understands local leagues, infrastructure and culture. Also, the plurality of India is so humoungous, you need people from specific zones to look into the kind of cricket that is played within that zone and spot talent. If you randomly select 5 top cricketers to be selectors, you can be rest assured that they'll never travel through the lengths and breadths of the country to see all the matches.