India 'A' to tour New Zealand in September 2012

[Magneto]

Like Dinda? :phehehe:

I never called Dinda mini-anything :dontknow: I said Darekar might be a good spinner and he did pretty well in the WI-A tour. :bow:

[Old guy]

Abe' date=' [b']MINI bola hai. Mini manje 20 per cent. Plus, I am the optimistic cricket fan; I like to spot talent early and be hopeful about them. :winky:

i have not seen them play at all so cant comment :D but tht mini laxman guy did gr8 under pressure :two_thumbs_up:

[Crookbond]

I never called Dinda mini-anything :dontknow: I said Darekar might be a good spinner and he did pretty well in the WI-A tour. :bow:

Can't even make a troll comment with a troll commentator now :headshake:

[Chandan]

Why should he be selected in first place?

Because he was one of the rare successes during that A tour to WI, where all the batsmen like Mukund, Rahane, Rohit etc had flopped terribly!

According to my Bong sources' date=' Saha is injured.[/quote'] If few fans know that he is injured, why can't the lazy journos do a bit of reserch and report the reality to calm down everyone? Why can't selectors give the reasons why a certain was not selected, especially if he is injured?

[Spiderguy252]

Ah he's injured? That explains it. 'coz he's clearly second in line.

[Crookbond]

Because he was one of the rare successes during that A tour to WI, where all the batsmen like Mukund, Rahane, Rohit etc had flopped terribly! If few fans know that he is injured, why can't the lazy journos do a bit of reserch and report the reality to calm down everyone? Why can't selectors give the reasons why a certain was not selected, especially if he is injured?

Do you want to hear this again?

"Boss, you just shut up now. You don't talk like that now. We are talking about fitness. I know what you are implying. If you throw various googlies at me I will get angry, too. I know what to say. We are talking simple and straight, keep it that way. [in Hindi] If you try and finger me, do you expect me to stay quiet?"

[CG]

Please post some article where it says he is injured?

[rkt.india]

Shami Ahmed needs a year to seamlessly fit into the big league: coach WV Raman Though it is an old article, but good read.

Having suffered the ignominy of an embarrassing defeat, it is a natural reaction to introspect and find the chinks in the armour. With the youngsters being looked at as possible replacements for the aging guard in the senior side, India AÃÔ defeat in the Caribbean has come as a rude shock. However, the picture isnÃÕ all that gloomy as Cheteshwar Pujara, Akshay Darekar and Shami Ahmed used the opportunities to make an impression. Pujara and Darekar's exploits have been discussed on CricketCountry in previous articles, thus it would be fitting to review Ahmed and examine what he holds for the future. A fast-bowler from Bengal, Ahmed has been impressive in the limited-overs domestic competitions during the 2011-12 season and it was those performances which fast-tracked his selection into the A team. Not many would have heard his name as domestic cricket is now overshadowed by the Indian Premier League (IPL). Ahmed has been a part of the Kolkata Knight Riders since the 2011 season, but is yet to make an appearance for them. In the Caribbean, Ahmed picked 13 wickets and bowled a number of crucial spells. His contributions werenÃÕ restricted to that sphere as he played a crucial knock as well. In the first game, India A were in a muddle while chasing a small score and only Pujara held fort at one end. The skipper found an able partner in Ahmed who played a determined knock of 27 not out to see India through. The whole performance won him the praise of the India A coach, Lalchand Rajput who said, Å©e is strong, bowls at a sharp pace, and throughout the day. Even in the third spell of the day, he bowls around 140 kmph. Even when batting he doesn't give up; you have to get him out. He is one bowler to watch out for." For a country that hasnÃÕ produced too many genuine quicks, a 140+ reading on the speed gun symbolises tremendous hope and raises expectations. Recently, Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron have shown the ability to bowl fast and are being looked at as long term options. Parwinder AwanaÃÔ emergence during the IPL has been encouraging too. The little-known Ahmed may be the next in line and going by his performance and the acclaim he has received, he should be groomed and moulded into a finished commodity. WV Raman, the Bengal coach, says: Å¢hmed is an exciting bowler. His biggest strength is his attitude and never-say-die spirit and clocks around the 140 kmph mark at his best. Raman was appointed coach for Bengal in 2010 the year Ahmed made his debut. Å®y first impression was that here was an exciting talent because he was head and shoulders above many other young fast bowlers I had seen in recent times, he said. Interestingly, Ahmed had been picked for the Caribbean sojourn ahead of Awana and other bowlers who picked more wickets in the domestic first class season. In fact, Ahmed had only played four First-Class fixtures during the 2011-12 season and six overall before leaving for the West Indies. The natural question is: Was rushed into higher cricket? Raman put such fears to rest when he said, Ūt is not how little he has played. It is about how quickly he has forced his way into the A side with crucial performances in the Ranji and Duleep games. Still one should probably give him a season to seamlessly fit into the bigger league. On the question of pace and whether he can further the hopes presented by Yadav and Aaron, WV Raman said, ŵhe possibilities are definitely encouraging. Shami has the pace, ability and attitude. The key will be improving quickly henceforth. However, Shami's fitness is far superior to both Umesh and Varun. RamanÃÔ last comment nearly echoes the sentiments of Rajput. His fantastic fitness allows Ahmed to bowl at a good pace even into his third spell - late in the day. India need fast bowlers who can maintain the tempo throughout the day and sent jitters down the oppositions spine. As mentioned by the Bengal coach, Ahmed needs to be given at least a season to make a transition. If he can pick up on pace and continue bowling those spells, India may have a serious fast-bowling prospect for the future.

http://www.cricketcountry.com/cricket-articles/Shami-Ahmed-needs-a-year-to-seamlessly-fit-into-the-big-league-coach-WV-Raman/15751

[Viresh]

This guy didn't even play a game in IPL 05 :(

[rkt.india]

This guy didn't even play a game in IPL 05 :(

good thing for him.

[jairamesh]

Interestingly, Ahmed had been picked for the Caribbean sojourn ahead of Awana and other bowlers who picked more wickets in the domestic first class season. In fact, Ahmed had only played four First-Class fixtures during the 2011-12 season and six overall before leaving for the West Indies. The natural question is: Was rushed into higher cricket?

Well, from his WI tour he finished as the leading wicket taker, 13 wkts at an Ave of 19. Hopefully he does well in NZ, and selectors can no longer ignore him.

[Magneto]

Well' date=' from his WI tour he finished as the leading wicket taker, 13 wkts at an Ave of 19. Hopefully he does well in NZ, and selectors can no longer ignore him.[/quote'] It's okay to ignore him for another year or so and let him play another season in domestic cricket. Has very limited first class experience.

[saneindian]

Won't be a bad idea to send Umesh for the A tour as well.

[Crookbond]

Won't be a bad idea to send Umesh for the A tour as well.

+1

[Lord]

Won't be a bad idea to send Umesh for the A tour as well.

agree.instead of getting thrashed on these Indian tracks,he better get some experience n confidence in NZ

[Ultimate_Game]

Hope BCCI has 2-3 away A tours every year to places like Aus, SA, Eng, WI and NZ. In every 2 year cycle the A team should tour each of the mentioned countries.

[rkt.india]

BCCI to Unmukt, U-19 team: Can you survive the next two years?

The Board of Control for Cricket in India held a nice felicitation ceremony to celebrate the Indian teams triumph at the under-19 World Cup. They gave the promised prize money to the team (Rs 20 lakhs for each player) and coaching staff (Rs 15 lakhs for each member of the support team) within a few hours of them landing. Thankfully, there wonÃÕ be any running from door-to-door to get what is due to them. But at almost every step, while the youngsters were encouraged and congratulated, the BCCI sounded out a note of warning: DonÃÕ get carried away by the hype. Continue to work hard. ThereÃÔ a lot more that you can achieve. It was rather fitting to have the BCCI send out this message. The celebrations didnÃÕ have the manic energy that accompanies every Team India triumph. Rather it was to the point and muted in every respect. Good thing too. BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale, while speaking to Firstpost, made a simple point: Å°ver the next 2-3 years, many of these young cricketers will simply disappear. The challenge of breaking into the Ranji teams is a tough one and that is something we donÃÕ want these boys to forget. Up to this point, they are playing in a restricted category of sorts everyone they face is under-19. But once they step into the Ranji world, they will face opponents who are very experienced. Å´ome of these boys wonÃÕ make it to their Ranji teams for two years, maybe more. Can they survive that time on the outside? Can they continue to practice hard? Can they hold on to their dream of playing for India? The key word for me is ÃÔurvive? because it will take them time to adapt and find their feet. Of course, some of them will take 2-3 steps forward and make themselves contenders for an India â or even India spot. But it is a slow process, added Jagdale. Players like Unmukt Chand and Harmeet Singh have already played some Ranji cricket and many, including former Australia skipper Ian Chappell and former Pakistan skipper Wasim Akram, feel that at least some of the lads are ready for big time. But are they? Is it too early to push them into the deep end? Jagdale, who is also a former national selector, believes that ideally they should all play first-class cricket for at least 2-3 years before they are considered for selection. Ŧveryone says that the difference between the under-19 and senior level is maturity. But how are they going to become mature? It is by playing against quality competition and spending time in the middle. Even the World Cup that weÃ×e won is a one-day competition. Playing three-day or four-day cricket is a different game altogether. You donÃÕ want them to be caught short later in their careers. An incomplete education can be pretty dangerous. India has one of the best systems in place for junior cricket. There are tournament under-15, 17, 19, 22 levels and even Rahul Dravid says that nowhere else in the world do junior cricketers play as much cricket as they do in India. And that is primarily the reason why the Indian players are technically a lot better than most of their counterparts. Every under-19 team throws up a few players into India reckoning. The 1998 event in South Africa saw Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, LR Shukla and Amit Bhandari make the cut, while the 2000 edition had Mohammed Kaif, RS Sodhi (both were in the 1998 team too), Yuvraj Singh and Ajay Ratra progress to the senior grade. From the 2002 event, in New Zealand, Parthiv Patel and Irfan Pathan made the grade. In 2004, Ambati Rayudu, Robin Uttappa, Shikhar Dhawan, Suresh Raina, RP Singh, Dinesh Karthik thrust themselves on the national scene. The 2006 event threw up Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma and Piyush Chawla. The 2008 event saw Virat Kohli emerge as a star player but the likes of Saurabh Tiwary and Ravindra Jadeja also managed to make it to the national team. But even while the under-19 team is an important step in their careers, the players need to realise that in the real world, this victory will count for little. ŧor example, there was a lot of praise for Harmeet and the way he bowls. But it was mostly due to the fact that there are few spinners at the tournament like him and perhaps few of the batsmen would have ever played spinners who have good control over flight and loop, said Jagdale. Ūn first-class cricket, though, there will be others like him. Can he succeed there too? For skipper Unmukt Chand, who has already been picked for IndiaÃÔ A team that will tour New Zealand in September, the challenge will be even greater. He has already been hyped up as the next big thing and through this all; he needs to find a way to stay grounded. Ū would only say that give them time, they have the raw talent but what can they make of it? asked Jagdale. Indeed, in a short while, the young cricketers will get back to their daily grind. The U-19 World Cup triumph will quietly fade away from public memory. but it will continue to inspire them and millions of other young cricketers to take up cricket. And in a sense, thatÃÔ success too.

http://www.firstpost.com/sports/bcci-to-unmukt-u-19-team-can-you-survive-the-next-two-years-434877.html

[rkt.india]

The stars in perspective

In this age of anxiety, selectors alone cannot manage talent. Coaches and captains have a larger responsibility When Ian Chappell greeted IndiaÃÔ under-19 World Cup victory by questioning whether its best bowler and batsman should be there in the first place, he may have set off a debate about more than the immediate future of young Harmeet Singh and Unmukt Chand. Is the U-19 team the ÅÓight career path for a talent like Singh, he asked in a column for Cricinfo. Being Chappell, he was coasting along on a disdain of coaches: ŵhatÃÔ why the big money needs to be spent on finding the right selectors rather than being lavished on a small-town population of coaches who often make decisions to justify their existence rather than in the best interests of the players. So he may not have much patience for SinghÃÔ Mumbai Ranji coach Praveen Amre, who has emphasised with good reason the need for the young spin bowler to get in a full season of first-class cricket first. On the other hand, you could argue, Yuvraj Singh did not have to labour in first-class cricket before finding space in IndiaÃÔ squad for the Twenty20 world championships. The Chandigarh-born batsman had a sudden and bravely fought brush with cancer, and has been out of the game for more than a year. YuvrajÃÔ old mentor, Sourav Ganguly, for one, couched his reservations about the selection in worry about the strain this induction could put him through. Harmeet and Unmukt are potential stars we are still getting a measure of and, in these post-Dravid-post-Laxman times, Yuvraj is a veteran among superstars. Yet the crossroads we see them at reflect a common challenge for selectors, captains and coaches: how do you handle stars? With media coverage of sport increasingly organising itself around individuals, how do managers separate considerations of team interest from calculations of the interest a particular sportsperson draws? In fact, with the commerce of sport dictated by bids for broadcast rights, and the implicit importance of stars, is such a separation even possible? Put another way: how do team sports reckon with the brand value of individuals? Look at tennis. Mahesh Bhupathi may have been the player common to IndiaÃÔ medal hopes in menÃÔ and mixed doubles at the London Olympics, but he was allowed to get away with upsetting both formations. It took the pathetic aftermath of that spectacle for the All-India Tennis Association to drop Bhupathi and his partner in stubbornness, Rohan Bopanna, from a forthcoming Davis Cup play-off. It is a matter of considerable pride for Indian tennis that its players have tended to punch way above their rankings when playing as a team recall the brilliant run of the Davis Cup team of the Amritraj brothers and Ramesh Krishnan in the 1980s. And more than the medal-less takeaway for tennis at London, it was that history that Bhupathi and Bopanna upset. And you have to wonder if it was put to them so. Those who fail to learn from past mistakes are destined to relive them. It was at an Olympics too that Indian hockey had allowed its long and proud tradition to be unsettled by indiscipline. In 1968, factionalism was sought to be papered over with the designation of Prithipal Singh and Gurbux Singh as joint captains and for the first time since they began competing in hockey at the Olympics in 1928, India failed to make it to the final. In fact, barring the heavily boycotted Moscow Games of 1980, after that strange captaincy India never made the final again. It is perhaps with good reason that the Davis Cup has provisions for a non-playing captain. Tennis players spend vast stretches of their careers competing as individuals, regularly partnering other players in doubles irrespective of nationality, so the temporary unity required in a Davis Cup setting is often better fostered by an authoritative elder whoÃÔ not seen to be at odds with those he leads. But even in an age when every batsman counts in competitive cricket, there may be takers among struggling teams for a particular strategist as extra baggage in their playing eleven: Mike Brearley. I exaggerate, but only just. He is all of 70 years old, but his track record in remaking the fortunes of the Middlesex county and England Test sides by dint of his captaincy is part of cricket lore. And it is more than worth the while of those in leadership roles in sport today to turn to him for advice. Introducing an updated edition of his classic The Art of Captaincy, Brearley recounts a psychoanalystÃÔ study of his work. And this is what he found that she found: Å¢ leader or manager in any field, including sport, has to be able and willing to take in and think about the anxiety of those who work in the team. Sometimes it is a matter of getting to the bottom of an anxiety that has already been covered over. It then has to be conveyed, often subtly, to those in the team that their predicament and anxieties are bearable. That is, the leader has to rise to the responsibility of ÅÄontaining anxiety and handing it back in a form that can be thought about? It would certainly be useful in hazarding the way to deal with superstars, those in a team as well as those dropped or left out. Teams are made of individuals and a teamÃÔ fortunes are written by the collective effort of those on its rolls. Equally, an individualÃÔ career is a sum of her outings in multiple settings. In cricket, for instance, in Tests, ODIs and T20s, but also in the service of national, first-class and club sides. Careers in sport, already relatively short in span, are always fraught with the possibility of being cut shorter by injury or loss of form. Add to that the multiplier effect of stardom in terms of endorsement deals and team contracts, and you can understand the anxiety that accompanies a sportspersonÃÔ aspiration. We donÃÕ know whether Kevin PietersenÃÔ anxiety to optimise his chances in the England and IPL calendars, the probable cause of his recent meltdown, was persuasively processed by his coach and captain. We donÃÕ know what inputs Yuvraj has received from his board and his team about the unusual circumstances of his return to the squad. Just as we donÃÕ know how young Harmeet is being engaged on possible concerns that biding oneÃÔ time may in fact render one history. Or whether, amidst this hysterical national debate on his attendance, UnmuktÃÔ mentors are counselling perspective. But one point is clear: in this age of anxiety, selectors alone cannot manage talent. Coaches and captains have a larger responsibility cut out for them.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-stars-in-perspective/996062/4

[Chandan]

NZ A Squad: Reece Young(captain} Brent Arnel Trent Boult Neil Broom Dean Brownlie Tom Latham(wicketkeeper) Andy McKay Tarun Nethula Hamish Rutherford Neil Wagner Sam Wells Luke Woodcock George Worker ---------------------------- I'm glad that they have very experienced squad who'll thoroughly test our players. Boult will certainly test our batsmen and we'll get to see if Chand can handle fast short-pitch bowling, with some sharp inswing or not! Maybe a make or break tour for Mukund. There is a huge dearth of openers in India but if he keeps on failing, think it'll be his chance! Does anyone know what kind of pitch Lincoln has as all matches of this trip are to played there? Also I noticed this tweet from Unmukt Chand on 9th Sept: "Had a good start with the India A. Scored 85 out of a total of 170. Feels good to play against the red ball after a long time." Now which match was he taking about? Is India playing any practice matches too? Has the team reached NZ? Who'll be covering the series? If anyone has answer to even one of the above question, please respond.

[Magneto]

NZ A Squad: Reece Young(captain} Brent Arnel Trent Boult Neil Broom Dean Brownlie Tom Latham(wicketkeeper) Andy McKay Tarun Nethula Hamish Rutherford Neil Wagner Sam Wells Luke Woodcock George Worker ---------------------------- I'm glad that they have very experienced squad who'll thoroughly test our players. Boult will certainly test our batsmen and we'll get to see if Chand can handle fast short-pitch bowling, with some sharp inswing or not! Maybe a make or break tour for Mukund. There is a huge dearth of openers in India but if he keeps on failing, think it'll be his chance! Does anyone know what kind of pitch Lincoln has as all matches of this trip are to played there? Also I noticed this tweet from Unmukt Chand on 9th Sept: "Had a good start with the India A. Scored 85 out of a total of 170. Feels good to play against the red ball after a long time." Now which match was he taking about? Is India playing any practice matches too? Has the team reached NZ? Who'll be covering the series? If anyone has answer to even one of the above question, please respond.

Must be an NCA camp match. The NCA camp started on the 3rd for ten days. The team is still in India I guess. No one will broadcast it. I hope the NZ cricket board has a tweeting a/c (that they take seriously) like the WI cricket board