Share your thoughts about the present state of the Indian test team

[Gollum]

Must be said today was one of the most distressing days as an Indian cricket fan in a very long time. Pretty sure all of us on ICF suffered through the Indian innings, in fact the torture began yesterday itself when our bowlers and captain lost the plot after the 2 back to back howlers that went against us. Never have I felt this bad about a test match since may be the Karachi test in 2006 or the Shaun Udal special in Mumbai the same year. :(( Please use this thread to share your thoughts about the deep hole we find ourselves in after the glory days of 2006-11 which culminated in our becoming the number one test team. The way things are going we may never become a number one team again. What should have been a straightforward walk in the park ended as a painful defeat. The worst part is that this Lankan team is extremely weak and we had them by the balls when Sanga and Angelo were dismissed. We haven't won a series there in 22 years and here we might have blown away the best opportunity to set that record straight. At least earlier we ran into very good Lankan teams but this team was more like Bangladesh. :facepalm: Here's what I think 1. This team has forgotten how to win test matches, especially overseas. Johannesburg, Auckland, Wellington, Adelaide and now this. Lord's was more about England brainlessly throwing away the match than India winning it. We lack the killer instinct and quite often under tight situations we collapse and surrender meekly. Need a psychiatrist more than a coach to fix this issue. I understand that our bowlers aren't the best in the world but quite often we see the team losing focus or worse, panicking when the finish line is near. 2. Our batting stocks are at an all time low. Fab 5 era was the best era as far as Indian batting was concerned. VK is no Sachin. Rahane is no VVS. Vijay is no Dravid. Dhawan is no Sehwag. There is no fighter like Dada. Kohli, Vijay and Rahane are all very good but if we use the yardstick of our great batters of the bygone eras, they fall well short. Che has looked mediocre, Maggi is useless and Dhawan is unreliable. Always we had at least one batsman(sometimes 2-3) in the ICC top 5 rankings. Look at the present ICC rankings table and you will understand how much we have sunk. 3. We might well be amongst the worst players of spin bowling. Never thought I would be saying this but the happenings of the past 3 years have convinced me that we are no longer masters against spin bowling. Gone are the days of Azhar, Sidhu, Dada, SRT,RD,Viru,etc. Only peak Che is great against spin bowling. Vijay and Kohli are above average and the remaining are horrible. The way Rahane and Dhawan play even mediocre spinners makes me cringe. Less we talk about Maggi, the better. At this rate expect many teams to notch up wins on Indian soil, something that was so rare back those days. The only thing working for us is that there aren't any ATG spinners in the world but then we made Moeen look like Murali. 4. Our general game against seam and bounce is comparatively better. Against swing again we are sitting ducks. 5. This batting unit is mentally fragile. But even the team with fab 5 was mentally fragile in the early to mid 2000s. Bangalore 2005, Mumbai 2006 are shining examples of our superstar batsmen choking in the 4th innings. However they worked on it and in the 2007-11 period we notched several memorable 4th innings chases. Only Kohli inspires some confidence in this regard. Che, Vijay, Rahane aren't that bad but must improve a lot. But I am sure that this match will have a scarring effect on many of our youngsters. Teams will note this tendency of ours to collapse all of a sudden(remember Adelaide too) 6. Maggi must be thrown out and K L Rahul isn't ready yet. The former is useless, garbage. The latter looks like a scared deer caught in headlights. He needs to toughen up. Even that 100 in Sydney wasn't entirely convincing. At the moment Dhawan is the best partner for Vijay. Rahul can be a back up but isn't good enough to be in the XI. He may break in eventually but ain't happening in the coming 2-3 years IMO. 7. Ashwin and Mishra are our alpha and beta spinners. Bhajji must be kicked out but that might not happen. 8. Yadav and Aaron are brainless gits. They aren't wicket takers and leak runs like crazy. All along I was mad at MSD but now I understand why he didn't trust them. 140kph full tosses, half trackers and wides won't get you wickets, they will only release the pressure. We need genuine speedsters I agree but these 2 aren't the solutions we are looking for. We have tolerated these jokers enough, but I think time is up for them. Once Shami comes back he slots in place of one of them(at least he has the knack of picking wickets). Ishant may be garbage but he is among the best we've got. So Ishant, Shami(injured presently) and Bhuvi are our only options . Play 2 or all 3 of them depending on the conditions. Hope Bhuvi comes in place of Varun in the 2nd test. 9. Saha needs to be given a longer run, at least till the end of this year. He isn't a Dhoni but he is the best in this country. Unless some better keeper batsman comes in we are stuck with the Bengali. Just hope he plays to his potential. 10. 6+5 is retarded when our 6th batsman is Saha. 7+4 is a must unless we can unearth a Kapil Dev or Gilchrist. Ashwin should be treated as a bowler who can bat, not as an all rounder. He is a gun number 8 batsman and a poor number 7 batsman. Let us not make him another Irfan Pathan. 11. IPL has ruined Indian test cricket. Most of our players seem to be having a jolly good time even when they are losing. No hurt, no shame, no pride in their performances. IPL $$$ is a bigger priority than the country. Not to forget that our retarded selectors select test teams based on IPL performances. Hence we have Bhajji and Rohit Sharma in the team(MI lobby, earlier CSK lobby was dominating the XI). Most of our players have a very weak defensive game thanks to so much of tamasha cricket. Hitting C grade bowlers for sixers in Chinnaswamy highways is a whole world apart from the grueling longer version and our rockstars have been finding it out the hard way the past few years. Can't chase 176 on a phatta against the Lankans bowling with the Kookaburra, give me a break !!! IPL isn't going anywhere and our players won't stop participating, so our only hope is that at least our selectors don't use that circus as a yardstick to select our test team. Discards like Che, Rahul and Vijay(soon to be probably) better hope for calls from counties, they will learn more from 1 county game than 10 seasons of this pig **** tournament. 12. Kohli the captain isn't going to be radically different from Dhoni. Yes he is more aggressive but let us see how long that lasts. MSD for all his faults was a gun captain in his initial years, especially on turning pitches. Kohli too doesn't look like a master tactician and has many negatives which Dhoni didn't have. He will soon feel the pinch of our weak bowling attack in difficult conditions and I expect him to struggle then. MSD had his favorites but so does Kohli. At least Dhoni started openly favoring some of his men only after 4/5 years as captain. On the contrary in his very 3rd test as captain Kohli has made some inexplicable selections. Karn over Ashwin in Adelaide, Raina over Pujara in Sydney and Maggi-Bhajji combo here. Looks like he too will play a lot of politics in the team. I expect Maggi and Bhajji to get an uninterrupted run under Kohli. Ashwin, Vijay, Rahane may be casualties before these 2 pals of our new captain. Moreover these 3 are all legitimate captaincy threats for VK and that must be going through the back of his head. 13. Shastri is a douchebag. Failure in Australia tests, CB series, WC, Bangladesh ODIs and here. He can only talk and he too is a slimy politician. Wonder how many of these stupid selections were his brainchild? We need a good coach ASAP. In fact even Bangar looks like a biased fellow, Indian cricket will progress only when these people are sacked. We need good patriotic unbiased men in these roles. Also I don't think Arun has had any positive impact on our bowling front. 14. DRS is India's enemy number 1. Have lost count of the number of times the umpires have screwed us over in these away tours. It is pigheadedness on the part of our players, cheerleaders and BCCI to still not agree to this wonderful system. At the moment the umps have decided to give all marginal calls/howlers against India because we have lost the right to complain courtesy our stance w.r.t this issue. 15. Our catching will cost us many matches. Although it was very good this match, still think it was a one off. We will return to our usual standards very soon and there will be intense competition amongst our players as to who can drop the maximum. 3 years and still no settled slip cordon.:facepalm:

[Bigg Brother]

Nothing to share.agreed about every point. Can't get over myself from today's loss.Can't believe what I saw today.It was humiliation of highest order.

[Bigg Brother]

What panicking me most is, 1.Bhajji 2.Rohit 3.DRS. Who on earth will bench Pujara for Rohit? And Inclusion of Bhajji and oppose of DRS are out of my mind.

[Vilander]

I think BCCI and Indian fans have come to a cross road. Its either t20, money and glitz. Or have two separate teams compensate test cricketers equally well weed them off t20, accept DRS. If BCCI and Indian fans disagree, its time to pick up other sports and follow them instead. BCCI should be cleaned of the power mongers time to get some real administrators who know their roles.

[kosingh]

lol @13

[Anik Krishna]

Please tell me the fascination behind Saha. Even for a lower middle order bat.. he's stats aren't even OK mark. Yes he did good in the first innings. But majority speaks not one or two sudden good innings out of nowhere. Also generally people have patience for the young ones like 19/21 years of age players. But even in that case Saha is not long race horse as he's already 31. Can't really say he must set the world on fire. But he has played more than plenty of matches and averages 19 and 14 in tests and ODIs respectively. And honestly his keeping is good though. However it's your team you are the fans. But just expressed my views on him.

[HippoSucks]

2. Our batting stocks are at an all time low. Fab 5 era was the best era as far as Indian batting was concerned. VK is no Sachin. Rahane is no VVS. Vijay is no Dravid. Dhawan is no Sehwag. There is no fighter like Dada. Kohli, Vijay and Rahane are all very good but if we use the yardstick of our great batters of the bygone eras, they fall well short. Che has looked mediocre, Maggi is useless and Dhawan is unreliable. Always we had at least one batsman(sometimes 2-3) in the ICC top 5 rankings. Look at the present ICC rankings table and you will understand how much we have sunk.

You can’t expect India to replace multiple ATGs like Sachin and Dravid. India was very lucky to have such batsman in the team but you can’t hope to have players of their calibre ready to replace them. When de Villiers, Amla, Smith and Kallis leave from South Africa, they won’t have direct replacements of equal skill either. The ICC player rankings are hardly accurate. If after 4 consecutive overseas tours Indian batsman averaging 50 are ranked below others who accumulated runs at home, then it is a shortcoming of the ranking calculation method (as it doesn't account for differences between home and away performances).

[zen]

Welcome back to the early and mid 90s :hello:

[MechEng]

In my opinion the team peaked in 2008 Australia test series, especially the Perth test where RP Singh bowled at least 2 perfect yorkers every over and troubled Hussey and Gilchrist . And Ishant Sharma in that test bowled like an ATG, that spell to Ponting reminded me of Ambrose vs Steve Waugh Trinidad 1995, the difference being Waugh won that battle against Ambrose. Ishant got Ponting after completely upsetting his rhythm in a spell of 9 overs. It was because of that spell, Ishant got the license to play 63 Tests in spite of under performing. The selectors are persisting with him because they think he can still bowl that kind of spell again. Why is Pakistan doing well in tests? It's because they are playing less cricket, especially limited overs cricket. Playing controlled amount of cricket in a year hasn't killed their soul, whereas Indians play horrendous amount of cricket in a year sucking away all soul and passion from them.

[The Dark Horse]

We've been selecting the wrong people since long. Now that the big guns are gone, it's showing clearly

[Desi Cartman]

Share your thoughts about the present state of the Indian test team Things that don't make sense to me: 1. Return of bhajji 2. No drs 3. Dropping Pujara

[Marut]

In one word - "sucks"!

[Adi_91]

Things that don't make sense to me: 1. Return of bhajji 2. No drs 3. Dropping Pujara

If Kohli does not prefer Pujara because he doesn't score quickly, then who inspired yesterday? In fact, had one batsman showed character by scoring briskly, it would have made a huge difference!

[The Realist]

Excellent points made by Gollum - difficult to disagree with any of them. One other point worth noting is that we are constantly fed the BS that this is a young team, its still learning blah blah blah... Well the bowlers are probably the most experienced bunch playing in test cricket currently yet in terms of mentality and decision making they still perform like novices. In retrospect Dhoni did the smart thing by leaving when he did as there are only dark days ahead - winter is well and truly coming.

[Adi_91]

Excellent points made by Gollum - difficult to disagree with any of them. One other point worth noting is that we are constantly fed the BS that this is a young team, its still learning blah blah blah... Well the bowlers are probably the most experienced bunch playing in test cricket currently yet in terms of mentality and decision making they still perform like novices. In retrospect Dhoni did the smart thing by leaving when he did as there are only dark days ahead - winter is well and truly coming.

I wonder how Dhoni even played until recently. He must have felt like landing a smash on our bowler's faces. Even in the finals of the big events recently (2013 CT and 2011 WC and even 2007 W20), the bowlers almost lost the match for him from winning positions. God, they never let him have a comfortable victory ever.