RIP Process

[vvvslaxman]

http://www.espncricinfo.com/bangladesh-v-india-2015/content/story/884927.html Time to start winning Tests - Kohli .....We have learnt a lot but I don't think we have to keep playing with the mindset of 'we have to keep learning all the time'. ....

[Gollum]

Thank God. But now that we will be playing in familiar/easier conditions for the next 3 years, easy to make such a statement.

[Dark Warrior]

Thank God. But now that we will be playing in familiar/easier conditions for the next 3 years' date= easy to make such a statement.

++

[vvvslaxman]

Thank God. But now that we will be playing in familiar/easier conditions for the next 3 years' date=' easy to make such a statement.[/quote'] It is not like Tony selectively used the word process.

[Texan]

Wonder what that "process" earned over countless tours of England and Australia. Hell, we couldn't even beat NZ in NZ.

[vvvslaxman]

Wonder what that "process" earned over countless tours of England and Australia. Hell' date=' we couldn't even beat NZ in NZ.[/quote'] Kohli went after the win in the first test in Australia.

[G_B_]

I think people are being too hard on MSD. Clearly he was being pounded in the media and the words process came out as a defence mechanism. I am sure you have been in a heated argument and the words (which you would not normally make) just come out. As Gollum says with plenty of tests at home to come its not that bold claim to make. Dont get me wrong I like Kohli's aggression. But lets not just bad mouth MSD. I dont think he was that good a test captain overseas but its not as if India have a glorious past outside India pre MSD.

[Raghav_12]

Seems like Kohli was taking a dig at MSD there. :D

[Dark Warrior]

I think people are being too hard on MSD. Clearly he was being pounded in the media and the words process came out as a defence mechanism. I am sure you have been in a heated argument and the words (which you would not normally make) just come out. As Gollum says with plenty of tests at home to come its not that bold claim to make. Dont get me wrong I like Kohli's aggression. But lets not just bad mouth MSD. I dont think he was that good a test captain overseas but its not as if India have a glorious past outside India pre MSD.

Bingo. Also we haven't lost a single test against aussies at home when MSD lead the side. :--D

[The Realist]

Bingo. Also we haven't lost a single test against aussies at home when MSD lead the side. :--D

And the record v Eng home and away?

[Dark Warrior]

And the record v Eng home and away?

England, who?

[CricketBuffOne]

Finally, hearing something which makes sense. Otherwise, countless overseas tours, and the same statements after every match/series, and unfortunately the same results. Hope, under Kohli, fortunes will change as far as winning overseas is concerned.

[Shivaji bhonsle]

Process. Lol. That single word makes me go absolutely crazy. What a stupid excuse that was. Lol. We kept hearing that word from 2011 to 2015. Who can forget " project Raina"? Ha ha ..

[Shivaji bhonsle]

I think people are being too hard on MSD. Clearly he was being pounded in the media and the words process came out as a defence mechanism. I am sure you have been in a heated argument and the words (which you would not normally make) just come out. As Gollum says with plenty of tests at home to come its not that bold claim to make. Dont get me wrong I like Kohli's aggression. But lets not just bad mouth MSD. I dont think he was that good a test captain overseas but its not as if India have a glorious past outside India pre MSD.

MSD used it countless times whenever we lost in test matches. Its not like he used it only once. MSD's biggest failure was, he didn't build a test team. He chose unadkat ahead of umesh yadav in a test match we played in south Africa. His biggest failure was in identifying real talents. Who can forget how he kept picking vinay Kumar ahead of Shami? His love for military medium pacers was astonishing. With such bowlers we simply cannot win any test matches outside Asia. Add to that his poor batting average outside Asia , he was poor and he should have realized it a long time back and he should have let captaincy go in test matches. But his ego was so big that he used srini perfectly when Mohinder Amaranth wanted to remove him from captaincy. Poor Amarnath left the job and now no one remembers what happened at that time. Im so happy when Dhoni retired and I hope he retires from Odis as well to save the embarrassment. Yesterday I was watching India 's tour of Pakistan, 2006 matches on Ten cricket. Dhoni was unbelievable those days and I wish he retires with dignity unlike Sachin who dragged his feet so long.

[Austin 3:!6]

If Kohli achieves the same W/L ratio in tests as MS Dhoni, consider job well done. People are simply too hard on Dhoni as a test captain and most importantly as a wk test batsman. India will never find another MS Dhoni, I can give it in writing.

[G_B_]

MSD used it countless times whenever we lost in test matches. Its not like he used it only once.

Its a sort of thing you are forced to defend. Once the cat is out of the bag there is not much you can do. A lot of the time the reporters ask him questions which lead him down the same path as the process. In a way though I thought MSD handled himself well in press conferences. The Indian media are scum. While MSD should have kicked a lot of people to the curb in terms of performances in the test arena, its right he publicly defended them.

MSD's biggest failure was, he didn't build a test team. He chose unadkat ahead of umesh yadav in a test match we played in south Africa. His biggest failure was in identifying real talents. Who can forget how he kept picking vinay Kumar ahead of Shami? His love for military medium pacers was astonishing. With such bowlers we simply cannot win any test matches outside Asia. Add to that his poor batting average outside Asia , he was poor and he should have realized it a long time back and he should have let captaincy go in test matches. But his ego was so big that he used srini perfectly when Mohinder Amaranth wanted to remove him from captaincy. Poor Amarnath left the job and now no one remembers what happened at that time. Im so happy when Dhoni retired and I hope he retires from Odis as well to save the embarrassment. Yesterday I was watching India 's tour of Pakistan, 2006 matches on Ten cricket. Dhoni was unbelievable those days and I wish he retires with dignity unlike Sachin who dragged his feet so long.

I agree. Nobody said he was a good captain. Certainly not overseas. That Amarnath thing was a disgrace.

[Gollum]

MSD used it countless times whenever we lost in test matches. Its not like he used it only once. MSD's biggest failure was, he didn't build a test team. He chose unadkat ahead of umesh yadav in a test match we played in south Africa. His biggest failure was in identifying real talents. Who can forget how he kept picking vinay Kumar ahead of Shami? His love for military medium pacers was astonishing. With such bowlers we simply cannot win any test matches outside Asia. Add to that his poor batting average outside Asia , he was poor and he should have realized it a long time back and he should have let captaincy go in test matches. But his ego was so big that he used srini perfectly when Mohinder Amaranth wanted to remove him from captaincy. Poor Amarnath left the job and now no one remembers what happened at that time. Im so happy when Dhoni retired and I hope he retires from Odis as well to save the embarrassment. Yesterday I was watching India 's tour of Pakistan, 2006 matches on Ten cricket. Dhoni was unbelievable those days and I wish he retires with dignity unlike Sachin who dragged his feet so long.

I disagree with your point on Dhoni not building the test team. Remember Dhoni is one of the rare captains who gives players a long run and doesn't discard them after 1 or 2 failures. Check his recent treatment of the oldies: Yuvi, Bhajji, Zak,Gambhir. Thanks to him Vijay is in the team. Any other captain wouldn't have bothered with Vijay after his disastrous 1st few test matches. But Dhoni had faith in him and persisted with him because he saw something in him. Today Vijay is one of the best openers in world cricket and an established name for the next 5-6 years at least. Contrast this to how Dada treated Sadagopan Ramesh who was a rare talent but after a couple of failures we never heard of him again. Here I am talking about players who didn't set the stage on fire their 1st match but had the potential to serve the team's cause in the long run. Even Rahane who looked so out of depth in the Delhi test would have never seen a 2nd match under Ganguly for a significant amount of time. But Dhoni persisted with him, see how much respect Rahane has for Dhoni( check his latest interview). Dhoni always backs players when he sees something in them. FFS he even gave Raina enough chances to cement his place in the XI. In the England tour he persisted with Dhawan and Kohli when they couldn't buy a run. He backed Pujara when he was struggling. He backed Binny who saved us the 1st test match in England. Contrast that to Kohli who dropped Pujara in the 4th test for Raina who by then had proved to the world that he wasn't good enough for test cricket. That was a low blow. I agree wholeheartedly with you that his idea regarding fast bowling lacks logic and foresight. He should have had more trust in Yadav and Shami should have been picked earlier. He had this weird fascination for military medium. But as we saw in the Australia tour Aaron was leaking runs at 6 rpo and our 2 genuine quicks were smashed to all corners of the ground. May Dhoni in the net sessions observed these things and hence didn't trust these two enough. If we see the 4 overseas tours our 3 best bowlers were Ishant, Shami and Bhuvi. All these 3 operate in the 122-138 kph range and that brought them maximum success. In spite of all that I still believe that Yadav and Varun deserve more chances so I agree with you that Dhoni went wrong in this area. Dhoni's real problem in overseas tests was his lack of tactics, strategy and attacking mindset. He is an ultra defensive captain who is very adamant, he should have been a bit more attacking and way more flexible. Even in ODI,T20s he has this same problem. He isn't a great thinker of the game or someone with a whole lot of brains. His greatest attributes were his calm demeanor, leading by example, not throwing his team mates under the bus(very strong bonds with the players) and absolute command over the squad. He has built a pretty good test methinks. With Kohli, Vijay, Rahane, Pujara, Ashwin,Shami,Yadav, Ishant as our core I believe we can rise to the top of the rankings once again. Kohli must realize how lucky he is to have such talented, battle hardened, committed players at his disposal presently. If this team doesn't win a couple of overseas tours 3 years down the line, I will stop following Indian cricket. Regarding his batting, I agree it wasn't anything special outside SC but I think he was our best WK bat ever. I don't think we are ever going to unearth another WK bat as good as him in the near future. What he lacked in ability he compromised with grit. He was the main reason we won the 2007 series in England(remember his rearguard in Lord's ). Even in the 2014 England tour he played a few gritty innings when others around him capitulated. He and Ashwin saved the MCG test last year. I remember quite a few of his innings outside SC which may not have been big scores but were vital for the team and played a big part in context of the match/series situation. He should have left test captaincy but may be he wanted redemption, that's why he stayed put. He doesn't play for records that much he proved when he retired after 91 tests. He could easily have gone on to play for another 3 years in SC, played 100+ tests and improved his batting average which took a hit in the overseas tours. I think compared to our other superstars he is very unselfish viz a viz personal milestones and to an extent he has inculcated this thinking among our next gen players. Regarding Mohinder Amarnath, he wanted Gambhir as our captain :giggle:. Gambhir who did nothing noteworthy in the overseas assignments in 2011-12 and wasn't worthy of a spot in our national team on merit. Smacks of politics, bias and nepotism. Glad that didn't bear fruit, that would have set us back by 10 years. Also there weren't any worthy candidates among the young generation to replace him at that point. Kohli was way too immature and a brat back then. Even now I am not convinced in his captaincy abilities but let us wait and see. I believe he should retire from T20s but hold that call in ODIs. He is still a force to reckon with in that format and retiring from the other 2 formats may help him get a break, some much needed rest and a crystal clear purpose. Let him play for another 18 months in ODIs, till the CT 2017 and then take it on a series by series basis or quit immediately after that(all depends on his form, motivation, team results).