Are you satisfied with the 5-5-1 combination for Indian Test team?

[Cricketics]

Are you convinced that this 5 bowler theory is the way to go for Indian test team if we are to win more matches in future?

 

Forget what surface we are playing on for a moment. In the past, even with good bowling surfaces, we have been reluctant to play 5-5-1 and have always gone for 6-4-1. At times, we have tried under Dhoni the 5-5-1, but have not repeated.

 

Are you convinced yet that this side under Kohli can deal with 5-5-1. Yes, our batting has struggled a bit, but it will also put onus on our batsman, in particular the opening order, who will ensure they put price on their wicket. Playing 5-5-1 means we are looking at a little collapse from the lower batting order or starting from no.6 down. But this will also ensure that our top order get more consistent and then we can play the 5-5-1 combination more often.

 

Honestly, this gives us the best chance to win matches. One can say that the extra bowler which is spinner for now and could be seamer in future, might go under used, but still he will surely be helpful in getting us wickets.

 

It surely helps us that our no. 6 or 7 would be Ashwin or wicket keeper and that followed by someone else who can bat too like in the last game we had Jayant, so keeping that in mind, I think 5-5-1 is really good combination and something we should stick with through out this series and get used to it, so in a year's time when we start touring overseas again, we would have gotten used to this combination.

[Vijy]

5-5-1 is not a universal solution. On pitches heavily in favour of bowlers (either pace or spin), a 4-bowler attack is sufficient since the bowling must be bolstered. It would have been ideal if we had batting allrounders, but most of our players are bowling allrounders (like Ashwin), bowlers who can bat (Mishra, BK) and sloggers (Shami, Sir).

 

Ideally, I'd like 5 batsmen, a keeper who avgs 38+ OR a batting allrounder with the same avg, and then the rest.

 

But, since we don't... we must play 5 + 1 + 5 on batting pitches and 6 + 1 + 4 on bowling pitches.

[SLICKR392]

As long as Ashwin bats and bowls the way he is now. I guess this line up is heavily depended on the quality of all-rounder(s) you have. Would work abroad if we have a good enough all-rounder who can bowl seam and bat

[Vijy]

2 minutes ago, SLICKR392 said:

As long as Ashwin bats and bowls the way he is now. I guess this line up is heavily depended on the quality of all-rounder(s) you have. Would work abroad if we have a good enough all-rounder who can bowl seam and bat

Don't have any. Pandya is untested and Bunny is proven failure.

[beetle]

Ashwin for me is a proper batsman.Comes good more often than not....a perfect allrounder who can play either as a batsman or bowler.As long as he is in good form, batting wise,we can play 5-5-1.

[Vijy]

5 minutes ago, radhika said:

Ashwin for me is a proper batsman.Comes good more often than not....a perfect allrounder who can play either as a batsman or bowler.As long as he is in good form, batting wise,we can play 5-5-1.

Proper batsmen don't average less than 40 (in fact, in current batting-dominated world, avg of 42+ is must). Ashwin's avg at 6 is good now, but it remains to be seen how it will be after trips to Eng, SA, and NZ.

[express bowling]

The long-term success of this strategy , used in almost every match, depends a lot on us having 2 all-rounders with good batting ability and preferably a good keeper who can average 40+.

 

Ashwin is one of them.

 

We need a 5th bowler who can give us some overs and is good with the bat.

 

On turning tracks, Jayant Yadav  looks good for that role.  Only problem is that we won't be able to introduce a good  wrist spinner in that case.

 

On seaming tracks, this 5th bowler / allrounder role will have to go to  Hardik Pandya.

 

A good wicket-keeper who has the potential to average 40+ with the bat also needs to be found. Will Pant develop into one after 12 months or so  ?

Edited November 24, 2016 by express bowling

[Vijy]

12 minutes ago, express bowling said:

The long-term success of this strategy , used in almost every match, depends a lot on us having 2 all-rounders with good batting ability and preferably a good keeper who can average 40+.

 

Ashwin is one of them.

 

We need a 5th bowler who can give us some overs and is good with the bat.

 

On turning tracks, Jayant Yadav  looks good for that role.  Only problem is that we won't be able to introduce a good  wrist spinner in that case.

 

On seaming tracks, this 5th bowler / allrounder role will have to go to  Hardik Pandya.

 

A good wicket-keeper who has the potential to average 40+ with the bat also needs to be found. Will pant develop into one after 12 months or so  ?

Maybe not. As for Pandya, if there are no alternatives, better to pick BK, Umesh and Shami and use BK as the "allrounder" - can give about the same number of runs as Pandya.

[express bowling]

12 minutes ago, Vijy said:

Maybe not. As for Pandya, if there are no alternatives, better to pick BK, Umesh and Shami and use BK as the "allrounder" - can give about the same number of runs as Pandya.

Don't think so.

 

We need to develop Pandya as the batting all-rounder/ 5th bowler for away tours...and that is the precise reason why he has been picked in the squad.  Bhuvi is a bowler who can bat on certain days and will never qualify as a batting all-rounder.

 

We need to play 4 seamers when playing outside Asia...along with Ashwin.

 

My bowlers would be Shami, Ishant, Bhuvi / Umesh, Pandya and Ashwin.  

 

My team would be Vijay, Rahul, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, Ashwin, Pandya, Saha, Bhuvi / Umesh, Shami, Ishant

Edited November 24, 2016 by express bowling

[CoverDrive]

Yes because you do need that 5th bowler who can give break to the top bowlers. Jayant Yadav did very well this test and he was useful with the bat. 

 

With Ashwin playing well you can do that. finally it is about taking those 20 wickets. 

 

Replace Umesh with Bhuvi and you get a safer batting lineup. though Umesh has contributed usefully with bat so don't think it will mak ethat big of a difference. 

[rkt.india]

It is more like 5-2-1-3

 

two of them are alrounders now in Ashwin and Jayant.

[Cricketics]

13 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

It is more like 5-2-1-3

 

two of them are alrounders now in Ashwin and Jayant.

YES, one can't call it that way. If Ashwin sucks for next 10 games in a row, he can not make it to Indian team based on his batting. We would rather play someone else then, isn't it? Hence. even though he is sort of an all rounder for us, he is first a bowler for us and will be counted as bowler when it comes to understanding the team combination.

[rkt.india]

1 hour ago, Cricketics said:

YES, one can't call it that way. If Ashwin sucks for next 10 games in a row, he can not make it to Indian team based on his batting. We would rather play someone else then, isn't it? Hence. even though he is sort of an all rounder for us, he is first a bowler for us and will be counted as bowler when it comes to understanding the team combination.

you can talk like that about any alrounder. I doubt likes of Stokes can make it to XI based on his bowling alone if he fails 10-15 tests with the bat. This is a hypothetical scenario you are talking about and not in present situation. There is hardly any alrounder who can make XI solely on his second suite if he fails for a long time in his stronger suit, not even Kallis could have done that.

[Unleashed]

I like this combo tbh, more attack oriented and more result oriented. Kohli's captaincy while tactically has to improve but I just like the way that how he goes for the kill rather than waiting for mistakes to happen. Excited to see how Pandya performs in this team, I've a feeling that he could be excellent for us long term. His bowling was really good in the ODI series whilst he also showed maturity with the bat and almost won us a match.

[Cricketics]

45 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

you can talk like that about any alrounder. I doubt likes of Stokes can make it to XI based on his bowling alone if he fails 10-15 tests with the bat. This is a hypothetical scenario you are talking about and not in present situation. There is hardly any alrounder who can make XI solely on his second suite if he fails for a long time in his stronger suit, not even Kallis could have done that.

Yes, hence we should not consider any player as a particular all rounder when deciding a combination. When South Africa used to play and consider their combination, they would not count pollock and Kallis as all rounders.  They would count Kallis as batsman and Pollock as bowler as that is their prime job. So calling this 5-5-1 as 5-2-1-3 is not legitimate argument. 

 

Regardless, even if Ashwin by chance is not available for a particular test, we might still need a 5-5-1 combination to win a test on a good bowling wicket. We might still need to play an extra bowler who might not be as good as Ashwin, but is worth a shot to play as the 5th bowler to win us the game.

 

Point is that our batting will get more consistent and players would start taking more responsibility in scoring runs when they know that there only 5 batsmen who have to do bulk of scoring. 

[The Realist]

In the current line-up problems will arise when Ashwin loses form - difficult to see who else will be able to makeup the volume of runs he has scored lower down the order. 

[Vijy]

1 hour ago, The Realist said:

In the current line-up problems will arise when Ashwin loses form - difficult to see who else will be able to makeup the volume of runs he has scored lower down the order. 

That's really the point - I don't know if Ashwin can average around 40 at 6 as he's been doing now for a long period of time. Would prefer a batting allrounder to come in

[Vijy]

8 hours ago, express bowling said:

Don't think so.

 

We need to develop Pandya as the batting all-rounder/ 5th bowler for away tours...and that is the precise reason why he has been picked in the squad.  Bhuvi is a bowler who can bat on certain days and will never qualify as a batting all-rounder.

 

We need to play 4 seamers when playing outside Asia...along with Ashwin.

 

My bowlers would be Shami, Ishant, Bhuvi / Umesh, Pandya and Ashwin.  

 

My team would be Vijay, Rahul, Pujara, Kohli, Rahane, Ashwin, Pandya, Saha, Bhuvi / Umesh, Shami, Ishant

That's harder than walking on water - Pandya has shown no evidence of playing long-format innings, even in FC.

[New guy]

What we dont realize is the pressure a proper fifth bowler puts on the batsmen. We see the fifth bowler being under-bowled and conclude he is not needed. However the few overs bowled by Jayant did not let England relax and off the hook against part-timers. These small things affect the opposition a lot

 

Not to forget that batsmen like Ashwin have flourished under the additional responsibility

[Vijy]

11 minutes ago, New guy said:

What we dont realize is the pressure a proper fifth bowler puts on the batsmen. We see the fifth bowler being under-bowled and conclude he is not needed. However the few overs bowled by Jayant did not let England relax and off the hook against part-timers. These small things affect the opposition a lot

 

Not to forget that batsmen like Ashwin have flourished under the additional responsibility

Having Jayant certainly helped in the concluded Test. However, Ashwin's workload should be carefully managed. Irfan went from being a swing bowler to an allrounder who batted at 3 sometimes in ODIs, and I felt that it distracted his focus. I know that the two cases (and cricketers) are different.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Vijy