India Tour of England, June-Sept 2014

[undisputed chap]

I never insinuate Dhoni as a better batsman than Dravid as you want to believe it to be. I was just giving people a perspective who thinks he is one of the worst Wk batsman in overseas condition. Its a fact he avgs way more that some legends in Indian cricket in certain countries like NZ' date=' Pak etc. He bats too lower in batting order to score a century, similar to Misbah ul Haq for Pakistan.[/quote'] Comparing dhoni to misbah :facepalm:. Misbah bats in a team of idiots & along with YK is the only one from avoiding them being bowed out under a 100. Whereas dhobi is often the only1st wicket to fall in a collapse. His incompetence is the main reason why 250-5 becomes 280 a.o instead of 320+

[rkt.india]

India's bowling leader conundrum

India will have vivid memories of playing cricket's 2000th Test match. Zaheer Khan was into his 14th over at Lord's when he cringed and clutched the back of his leg. The follow-through was aborted and he limped into the dressing room and was never seen on the tour again. India had lost their bowling captain on the first afternoon of a four-Test series. It was not simply a case of a cog gone missing. Zaheer's injury contributed to the rest of the attack losing focus. They appeared deflated for the remaining 18 days of the series and England took advantage. Only once did Andrew Strauss' side fail to pass 300, as they trampled India 4-0 to snatch the No. 1 Test ranking. "Test cricket can be a lonely place if things go wrong," says Allan Donald, South Africa's bowling coach. "And it is a long period of time when things go wrong. And the challenge is how you pull it back." His message will ring starkly on MS Dhoni and his side as they prepare to tackle their first five-Test tour, and like 2011 there will be no Zaheer, who is recovering from a side strain. Ishant Sharma is the only bowler remaining from the 2011 debacle and looks Zaheer's likely successor. Yet he struggled for consistency in line, length and accuracy in both warm-up matches and hardly looked like he had emerged as India's best bowler in the Tests against New Zealand. "Once again not having a clear leader, someone who has been there before, done it before in those conditions [is the challenge for India]," says Eric Simons, who was India's bowling coach on the 2011 tour. Zaheer had been the focal point of the bowling plan three years ago, and when he was injured "we knew we were going to struggle." Praveen Kumar, Zaheer's new-ball partner, bowled the remaining three balls to complete the over at Lord's and subsequently took on the mantle of lead seamer. He was India's best bowler with 15 wickets in three Tests before he too was sidelined, with an ankle injury picked up while playing football. "In 2011 we were left with just three fast bowlers after Zaheer's injury," says Praveen. "There was always someone injured which put undue pressure on the rest of the two bowlers. So that was lesson learned, to keep yourself fit to last longer during the series." India will need to last five Tests, compressed into 42 days, and their first response to this challenge was to pick six specialist fast bowlers along with Stuart Binny, a seam-bowling allrounder. Another notable improvement from the last trip is the freshness of India's bowlers. In 2011, Praveen and Ishant had come to England after a whole tour in the West Indies. Simons is excited by the pace the current set of bowlers can summon and Praveen has tipped their youth to help them push harder. Both of them believe India's bowling has the correct "balance" this time. "The more balls you feed a batsman, the more comfortable you will feel and the more likely you will get his wicket," says Praveen, tipping Uttar Pradesh team-mate Bhuvneshwar Kumar to do well if he can adjust to the change in conditions. "He just needs to adapt to the lengths: in India you bowl back of length but in England you need to pitch it fuller." Donald, who has coached Warwickshire, echoed similar sentiments and said the Duke ball will increase the threat posed by Bhuvneshwar. "Where he is going to be significant is not just with the new ball. The Duke ball swings for a long time - not just when there is a cloud cover, but also when the sun is out. And for Bhuvi, who swings it both ways, if he does it consistently he could be a handful." Zaheer's absence will be felt. "He will be massively missed," says Donald. "He swings the ball nicely. He is a clever bowler. In South Africa last year, even if he did not take many wickets, he kept coming against us, he bowled long spells and he was in very good physical shape. "You earn the right to be leader of the group. That is what Zak has done over the years. He has shown he has terrific skills. It is a wonderful feeling knowing you are the leader of the group. You are not talking about Zak the man. You are talking about Zak the bowler. The impact he has on a team in a dressing room, on the training ground, during a Test match and the skills he brings in - that is a huge thing that goes missing." Ishant is the most experienced bowler India have but Donald asserts that alone does not hand him the responsibility of leading the attack. "In Test cricket, the game is played in the head over five days. Yes, skills have a lot to do with it but mentally you need to be very, very strong. The Indian attack needs to find that belief. How do you build that belief? You can't depend on a certain individual. The quicker this attack bowls with each other the quicker they will find who the leaders are in that group." Donald said the process of finding a leader was not straightforward. "Is it in Bhuvi's make-up to be able to take that role? He is not that type of person. He is a very quiet guy, does what he needs to do. Then you look at Varun Aaron, who is very much brash and very much willing to lead from the front, but the process of how he sets himself up is very important at the moment. It can be very long days on flat wickets in July in England. There are some pointers that a bowling coach can pick up on. Donald elaborates: "I look at characters. I looked at Morne Morkel. I looked at Dale Steyn. What do they bring to the team in terms of their character because that has a huge impact in the longer format of the game. When to engage, when to be aggressive, who is willing to take up the leadership role. Minor things like that." Ishant has played 55 Tests. He has been India's workhorse for much of his seven-year career but there are aspects of his game that needs amending if he wants to be their go-to bowler. "He needs to think like a Glenn McGrath and Shaun Pollock," says Simons. "He needs to think about patience, about not trying too much. He has the height, pace and variations. McGrath and Pollock did not try much but they were just patient. You will not get reverse swing in England like in India, so use your natural instincts and be consistent bowler that he should be." Praveen said Ishant's confidence is another area that needs improvement. "At times the bowler is not sure if he is doing well. At such times he needs to speak to the right sort of people. Ishant now has a chance to play the senior bowler's role. He needs to think now that I am the senior and I need to take the responsibility and I need to bowl more aggressively. "He has played a lot of cricket and there are ups and downs in a career. But he should have more confidence in him and inspire himself, and then go and play." Along with the lack of a defined bowling structure, the visitors will be dented by the retirements of some senior batsmen who could have guided the bowlers on what kind of lengths and lines might trouble the opposition. "One of the things India are going to miss, and this might sound ironic, is the top Indian batsmen," says Simons. "They play a crucial role in guiding the bowlers on strategy. "One of the things the fast bowlers need to keep in mind in England is to be patient. In England you play a bigger role as a seamer based on the friendly conditions but the key thing is to find and stick to the right line and length. And that is where a Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, would tell a fast bowler, to stay put. They would help the bowler think from the batsman's point of view." It was for this reason that Duncan Fletcher and the team management sought Dravid to mentor to the team. "What people don't understand is that the bowlers think like bowlers. I want Rahul to talk to them and make them think like batsmen," Fletcher told bcci.tv last week. "That way they will know what areas a batsman likes and doesn't like, which will help them a great deal in forming their strategies. The problem is that the Indian bowlers don't bat or practice batting when they're playing domestic cricket. And so, while they understand their bowling, they don't understand batting." It is an inexperienced attack that will bear the responsibility of taking 20 wickets over five Tests. Fletcher said that could work in India's favour but Donald has a word of caution. "You can't have a mentally weak guy, or attack, that just waits for one another to make the play. You got to have that courage and guts to be able to do that willingly, and every time the crap hits the fan."

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-india-2014/content/story/758361.html

[Lord]

Shami is our spearhead

[derbyfan]

English newspaper view of India's prospects (written by an Indian fan) Link here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-2684314/India-players-far-cry-galactico-era-Sachin-Tendulkar-Rahul-Dravid-Co.html

[SLICKR392]

I was referring to his commenting on games and being an analyst for long time. There are 11 players on team and all need to be targeted.

Kohli agrees.

Asked whether India were planning to follow Ravi Shastri's advice, to "go for" the under-pressure England captain Alastair Cook, Kohli sought to play down any of those plans. "There's no one man that we're looking to target," Kohli said. "If we play aggressively as a unit, you would want everyone in the opposition to be out. You want to get every wicket possible. It's not about targeting one man in particular as far as I'm concerned. Personally I'm not preparing for a particular player to be bogged down too much or anything like that. If we play aggressively, we'll create problems for all the batsmen and that's going to be our target.

[vvvslaxman]

Shastri wants India to 'go for' Cook Duncan fletcher agrees.. No piont in waiting for bearer. Directly go to the cook.

[Cricket_Hacker]

With what ?Binny?he will make parantha out of Binny Really gets me angry when someone says Binny is an "allrounder"

[Midfielder]

Kohli agrees.

Thanks!

[GoldenSun]

India are improving overseas - Dhoni

MS Dhoni believes he has seen enough on the tours of South Africa and New Zealand to be convinced his side are heading in the right direction. India have not won an overseas Test since Jamaica 2011, but they did come close to winning one each on their previous two trips. In a way this series will be a bigger test for them just through the sheer duration of it - five Tests - but he also has a struggling opposition and pitches that are not likely to be to the hosts' liking. Dhoni sounded accordingly optimistic. "There have been a lot of changes in the Indian side in the last one-and-half or close to two years," he said. "If you talk about the last two Test series that we played abroad - in South Africa and New Zealand - the performance of our team was really good. "Though we lost both the series, we were definitely in a position to win the series or a Test. So I felt there's plenty to learn for the cricketers. If I compare between the first Test we played in South Africa and the last Test we played in New Zealand, there has been considerable improvement. You know, it's a right way of moving ahead." Dhoni chose to stay focussed on "process" more than "results". "It is important for us to take the team forward and give them the right guidance, so that they get the right kind of exposure to do well outside India," he said. "Of course it will be a challenge for them, but as they play a lot more matches abroad, the equation will get much better also. It's a constant process." One of India's main problems away from home has been the unreliable quicks, and they have not had great results in the tour games. However, Dhoni was not overly worried about the pressure they will be under and had words of encouragement for Ishant Sharma who struggled during the warm-up fixtures. "The good thing is that we have got some time to adjust to the conditions here," he said. "They have done the fitness part in the 10-12 days. Now we are going through a phase where we are easing the workload on the fast bowlers. They have been bowling in the right areas, and making the batsmen play which is very crucial in this part. Overall they are looking good. "Hopefully we don't have too many injuries like it had happened in the last series [2011]. I remember we had close to nine or 10 injuries to our top players. And as far as Ishant [sharma] is concerned, he is bowling well. It's very important to get into a good rhythm. So far he has been bowling well and he is also someone who can get a bit more bounce than some of our other bowlers." The nature of pitches in England has changed significantly from the time India last toured here. They might not be what England would love, but Dhoni said they had not changed to an extent that they would help the visitors. "If you come over here, then the first thing the home team would like to do is to ensure that the pitch will not turn at least in the first three or four days," he said. "I don't see any good reason - at most venues - for us to think about two spinners. I think they will look for a hard wicket to start with so that it does not turn and takes the spinners slightly out of play. We are playing five Tests and may be in one venue you may get a pitch where we can play two spinners. So, I don't think we are too confused about the playing XI now." Sidharth Monga is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo

Shocked that this thread wasn't created so decided to jump in and do it myself. :haha::hysterical:. Enjoy!

[Bleed-Blue]

Inside the mind of MS Dhoni In an interview with bcci.tv, MS Dhoni discusses the experience of learning life lessons from seniors in the side, handling a team in transition and a post-retirement plan that involves tagging his collection of stumps to their respective matches. The way I play my cricket, my subconscious mind works more than the conscious mind. And for me, it was never about consciously grasping things from the captain but subconsciously taking in certain personality traits or qualities from every individual that was part of the team. When I started to play for India, I was extremely lucky to have a very good bunch of senior players around me to inculcate things from. What they taught me cannot be restricted to the captaincy box because it was much more than that. What I learnt from them was how to be humble, how to conduct yourself when you're successful and how to figure your way out of tough times. Captaincy is a very small aspect of my life as a cricketer and their impact on me as a person has been much bigger.

[Lord]

[Laaloo]

This guy is so in denial it's not even funny. Even his chamchas dont come to cricket talk to defend him anymore. They are relegated to wishing him happy birthdays in old threads. Sad but expected.

[adi B]

Two draws and janab thinks we are improving

[King Tendulkar]

proves once again that ishant is his gay lover

[Pagalpanti]

FFS when will Ishant get the sack. 50+ tests averaging 40 and the guy is India's spearhead :facepalm:

[Pagalpanti]

Too late shastri.. MS Dhoni - back players when out of form (when asked about Cook) Fletcher - Cook will come back to form soon

[velu]

:((

[Number]

Both Bangladesh and India are improving.

[vvvslaxman]

That is a nice complement from Dhoni towards Software Engineers

[Captain India]

Hopefully this 5-0 loss against England will be the final nail in the coffin for dhoni's captaincy.