Whose Retirement has or will leave the biggest hole in Indian cricket

[maniac]

Whose Retirement has or will leave the biggest hole in Indian cricket? Let's keep the fan worship at bay for a moment....look at Aus and the gap left by the retirement of Gilchrist and Warne...2 slots that have left the biggest void for them. For India I would go with Kapil as 18 years gone by since his retirement and we still haven't found a genuine allrounder good enough to replace him or is it Kumble a bowler who would just rollover the opposition on home pitches and atleast be economical overseas for most part of his career Here are the other options Dhoni-As much as I dislike Dhoni the captain-politician,we have a luxury of having a destructive batsman and a more than sufficient keeper...He may be say in the league of Boucher as SA will eventually have a hard time in replacing him....AB DV is only a stop gap as he will be found out as a keeper in SC conditions... Dravid---Call him Boring,brilliant,defensive,perfect whatever side you are on at 90/6 while saving a test as long as RD would be there,there was a sence of assurance that he will definetely hold one end up...the greatest No-3 we have ever had VVS---Most under-appreciated cricketer in India and probably one of the most in the world....this guy has had more match winning innings than any other Indian batsmen not named Sachin(Yes I had to say it...haters can hate but this is a fact and now please let's not drown ourselves with a SRT vs xyz debate) Gavaskar-25 years since retirement...we had to wait for atleast another 20 odd years before we could put together a decent opening combination Srinath--With all due respect to Zak Srinath was probably our only bowler never to lose his pace throughout his career...he was probably our one bowler ever who could bowl devestating spells That brings us to Zak-Not as quick as he used to be but probably our most consistent pace bowler and seeing other bowlers fail around him,definetely one of the most important players for India in recent times Sehwag-No matter how much we criticise him,he is probably one of the sole reasons why some people watch test cricket in India,he has set our expectations so high with his starts that we started to beleive anything is possible while chasing targets..definetely the most destructive opener ever to play the game Last but not the least SRT-I was debating wether or not to include him because...even though I beleive he is the greatest player from India ever(this is a personal opinion and please leave debates out),we have always had a steady inflow of middle order batsman....that is why Azhar,Vengsarkar,Ganguly,Vishwanath etc have been omitted from the list despite them being greats in their own right.That is also the reason why I left out our spin legends like Bedi,Prasanna etc because uptil Harbhajan we did have a match winning spinner in our side.

[vvvslaxman]

Kapil ofcourse. It is hard enough to find a good bowler for us. Even if we find one they all suck at fielding. We had 3 in 1. India has a tradition of producing some good batsmen.

[The Outsider]

Without a doubt Kapil. Just replacing him as a fast bowler has not been possible till date and when you factor in his batting it just makes the task of replacing him all the more impossible. Looking at the way cricket has progressed over the past decade or so, finding genuine all rounders will become even harder.

[BeautifulGame]

Srikanth :cantstop: Imagine the opportunity of not being able to watch Anirudth in test team

[maniac]

Kapil ofcourse. It is hard enough to find a good bowler for us. Even if we find one they all suck at fielding. We had 3 in 1. India has a tradition of producing some good batsmen.

Absolutely agree

[Khalpat]

Anil Kumble

[Cricketics]

None. This is not a Zimbawe of late 90s team where if one of the Flower brother is not playing, then the line up is as good as nothing. Keeping all the greats like Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman in mind, WE STILL HAVE A BLOODY GOOD LINE UP. I am not saying we won't miss Dravid or VVS or Tendulkar, we just aren't dependent on one single player.

[Sarkar]

The greatest player of all time Sachin Tendulkar not just India the whole cricketing world will miss him the aura the adulation no other player will command that.

[jusarrived]

Kapil/Kumble . Our batting will always be fine .

[punjabi_khota]

Kapil/Kumble . Our batting will always be fine .

Except that it was not fine abroad during most of 90s

[veer]

romesh powar...

[Ultimate_Game]

In decreasing order of importance/impact... 1. Kapil 2. Zak 3. Kumble 4. Gavaskar 5. Tendulkar

[Desi Cartman]

Srikant, its a shame that he isnt in the poll options

[ganeshran]

Kumble SRT Kapil Dravid Laxman

[Laaloo]

Afridi

[vamos_rafa]

I voted for Kumble coz I had to select 1. But, I would pick between Zak and SRT as well.

[Haarkarjeetgaye]

Guys. Dont know why Misbah Ul Haq is not there in the poll

[vamos_rafa]

^ So true. He always allowed us to haar ke jeet gaye :winky:

[gaurav92]

Sehwag We wont get a Sehwag like batsman anymore.

[Mariyam]

One way to answer this question is to look at win% of the team when the player was a part of the team and in the immediate aftermath of his retiring. That way the rest of the team would more or less be the same. And we can deduce how much of an impact he had on the side. Since I'm not too good with cricinfo/statistics I'm guessing one of you guys (read Ganeshran :P) does the ^^ exercise for Kapil Dev, Srinath, Kumble, Sachin and Dhoni (when they retire). I think in terms of winning matches, the team will miss Dhoni the most when he retires. Not only is he an excellent finisher, he is also a great leader who can keep his cool in high pressure situations. Can't see us winning as much in the post Dhoni era.