India A tour of South Africa, 2013

[FischerTal]

No I would like pandey there, but he has to increase his pace a bit to be in the reckoning.

[Old guy]

No I would like pandey there' date=' but he has to increase his pace a bit to be in the reckoning.[/quote'] huh increase pace why ? dont tell me u are one of those guys who will select any bowler who just clocks over 140 ? this guy did not even got proper spells in 2nd match and almost no support had shami played im sure he would have picked tons of wickets again with his bounce and swing .. to me if he can trouble batsmen even now with his current pace then asking for increase in pace to be selected is just dumb and might actually make is lose some other important skills

[FischerTal]

huh increase pace why ? dont tell me u are one of those guys who will select any bowler who just clocks over 140 ? this guy did not even got proper spells in 2nd match and almost no support had shami played im sure he would have picked tons of wickets again with his bounce and swing .. to me if he can trouble batsmen even now with his current pace then asking for increase in pace to be selected is just dumb and might actually make is lose some other important skills

I'm not asking for a 140+ bowler. Just someone who operates in the 135-140 range. This is the same thing kapil dev said about pandey in the ranji knockouts. You can't always rely on support bowler because that sometimes hides your own shortcomings. He should have got out Parnell or harmer way earlier IMO

[G_B_]

Yeah to me any quick worth his salt is an out and out genuine quick as in close to 137-138 upwards. We do not have too many examples one would think of bowlers in the 130-135 range consistently picking up top order batsmen and going on to 300 odd test wickets just one of those things i guess.

true....

[jj_28]

From the Test Series Vijay should not be in the squad and be replaced with either Rohit or Rahane who both look better and more suitable to conditions over seas Saha should be the backup to Dhoni in the both formats for me or at least in the longer format Pandey must be given a chance in Test

Test team should be Dhawan Pujara Kohli Tendulkar Rohit Rahane

ODI team should be Dhawan Rohit Kohli Raina Rahane/Saha Dhoni

[GolGappe]

Saha as a specialist batsman in ODI team?

[Old guy]

come on have u guys even seen pandey bowl? i dont care what speed he clocks but he easily makes all batsmen feel uncomfortable and has decent bouncer too.. then add his height yeah he is no morkel but anything over 6 feet always gives u some extra bounce .. also u dont get every wicket ..cricket is team game its very rare that one bowler destroys whole team and pandey did that in last game in overs he got (which were very less ) he destroyed top order in first inning too but with no back up things got out of hand

[Old guy]

Yes I have hardly seen him bowl i went by how it usually plays out isn't it am not really all that sure a 130-135 kph can be a spearhead of your attack if that's a word we can use. I am not saying it cannot be done never say such stuff mean all m saying is yet even when he hasn't been picked for the international squad m not sold on his picking up top order wickets like the ones SA have right now consistently. Surely we have to keep in mind all the attributes that we mention the fellow has but also the batting side have seen it all they know most of your tricks even they have come to play u would def back your countryman now m not debating that :).

anderson is spearhead of england philander is normally as big as threat as steyn with far lesser pace and we all know mcgrath.. zaheer khan has simiar pace to pandey and he is best bowler we produced in some time..so please dont think about picking guys just bcos of pace i remember people saying maybe it was outy on this site only that pandey has best out swinger in india..rkt also said that..and tbh if he is not good enough then no one else in domestic cricket is good enough that is harsh reality so better play the best bowlers u got!

[Old guy]

first of all we are selecting team for south africa tour so talking about how he does in subontinent condition is dumb.. then pandey has done well in flat tracks at home and was highest wicket taker no ? now he is best bowler on this a tour..now what more does he need to deserve a spot?

[Old guy]

See if we are going to pick horses for courses then we aren't even talking. He hasn't even made his debut so its my personal opinion and i would want to reserve it as to how he will pan out in the long run - you might have a different opinion and some other 10th fellow will have his so again we aren't discussing that.

im no gonna predict his future all im discussing about is one simple thing.. should he debut for india in next series against south africa or not ? imo he should and whatever happens after that will be seen but one thing i do know is he bloody deserves it more than anyone else :winky:

[kumar713]

Vijay gonna get raped by Steyn & Co

[rkt.india]

Things we learned from SA A tour is that Cheteshwar Pujara is our best batsman among the "A" team and probably even for our National side too. So as you are recommending him to move on opening spot. I would say, let's not touch his slot of no. 3. He's doing his best at no. 3. This is where he impressed everyone when DHoni promoted him in 2010 series against Australia and he scored that match winning knock in chase and sealed no. 3 slot. So let him just bat there. He hasn't become Dravid yet that he can switch between opening and test. Dravid was great on confidence to do anything for the team. Let's not put Pujara into that situation and mess up his run. Couple of failures against Steyn, Morkel can dent his confidence. Let him come at no. 3

Even Dravid did not have much success opening.

[rkt.india]

the way i see it Pujara is our best batsman. If Sachin was not there i would make him play at 4 or even 5 to protect him from the new ball. Infact pujara at 5 is something India needs to consider. We need somebody to cash in after the new ball has been seen off. IMO opening with Che will be a huge mistake.

Agree. In SA, first 20-25 overs are huge. They can win lose you matches. I said it earlier too and will say again Pujara and Kohli should bat at 5 and 6 in SA. IN SA, does not matter, whatever good you are, if you are facing likes of Steyn, Philander, Morkel, you will find it difficult to survive against new ball. Best of the best have not done great there. Likes of Dravid who batted at 3 does not have great record in SA. Even SRT had averaged around 40 before last tour.

[rkt.india]

Har samasya ka solution hai Gambhir. Time to poke Gambhir. :)

Corrected.

[vishalvirsingh]

Sure At this Stage Pandey seems to be ahead of Shammi , Unadkat , Sidhart kaul..... And possibly he has booked his seat in the Plane to Africa First 3 seems to be lambu umesh bhuvi and fourth n fifth positions r open Contenders are pandey shammi unadkat mohit Sidharth Kaul Dhawal Kulkarni and Zak Zak may not get the chance to prove his fitness but if by any chance he manages to convince sele Ctors about his fitness he is sure taking one of the positions.....assuming that Zak does not get selected....... Unadkat and Pandey will get selected though I feel Shammi is a better bowler than both for tests

[Chandan]

Horses for courses doesn't mean going into such a major series with a totally tinkered batting line up. Vijay has earned his spot in the test side based on those massive 100s vs Aus and a failure in one FC match shouldn't mean him losing his spot. Unless he in very poor form prior to the SA tour, he should be there. The biggest casualty of the A tour would be DK

Vijay has few Duleep Trophy and practice matches to prove his form. He is looking very shady for SA test series opener. If he has no form at all why should India risk a walking wicket when most of players would be unproven on those tracks anyway? Dhawan: He too didn't succeed in that only inning in the longer format but was inexplicably rested in the second test. Don't know if he was suffering from niggle or anything. Rohit: Will he play in SA? Raina: I'm sure he'll be given a chance in one test and it'll be another disaster in his test career. All in all, despite this successful A tour to SA, our test series there in Dec-Jan looks to end in disaster because openers will fail, inexperienced MO will fail to sustain and inexperienced bowling will fail to shut SA out. What do you say?

[Chandan]

Har samasya ka solution hai Gambhir. Time to call Gambhir. :)

pahle woh apni samasya ha samadhan to kare. Let him start find ways of scoring runs again and prove his form. Only then can he be recalled, no?

[saneindian]

Vijay has few Duleep Trophy and practice matches to prove his form. He is looking very shady for SA test series opener. If he has no form at all why should India risk a walking wicket when most of players would be unproven on those tracks anyway? Dhawan: He too didn't succeed in that only inning in the longer format but was inexplicably rested in the second test. Don't know if he was suffering from niggle or anything. Rohit: Will he play in SA? Raina: I'm sure he'll be given a chance in one test and it'll be another disaster in his test career. All in all, despite this successful A tour to SA, our test series there in Dec-Jan looks to end in disaster because openers will fail, inexperienced MO will fail to sustain and inexperienced bowling will fail to shut SA out. What do you say?

I do not have very high hopes from that tour. Avoiding a whitewash itself would be a good enough progress from our last two away tours. I would rather look at smaller targets, things like team putting some fight taking all 3 tests to the 5th day, Scoring 300+ in a couple of tests, avoiding embarrassing innings defeats, some of the young batsmen like Dhawan, Vijay, Pujara and Kohli scoring some runs and not being total failures and the bowlers not letting SA pile up 500-600 runs like it happened on Eng/Aus tours. And lastly, Dhoni showing some improvement in his captaincy

[King Tendulkar]

Really not fair on rohit to open with him. He is middle order bat. Tendulkar opens in odis, you would never open with him in tests. Rohit should defo play and bat at 6. No way Pujara should open as well. he bats 3 and done really well. Dont mess him up Dhawan opens with either Vijay/Gambhir/Rahane. Take your pick Personally I think Vijay has to be given chance after home performnaces

[G_B_]

I dont know why India does not open with Rahane. Yes he usually bats at 3-4 for Mumbai in the ranjis but he played the first 10-15 ranji games as an opener alongside Jaffer. If Rahane is to be an opener then IMO from this ranji season he must start opening again for Mumbai. He will have 5-6 games to open. There needs to be a clear signal to Rahane that he is in the side as an opener. The comparison with Sachin and ODIs is not fair. Sachin has never ever opened for Mumbai in the ranjis. He started at 6 and made his way to 4 for Mumbai and India. In contrast Rahane started as an opener moving down the order to accommodate other players.