Team building and creating back-up players for injury management and replacing old / out-of-form players

[express bowling]

 

 

The question often arises , " Which is more important---- having good players or a good captain ? "  How can a good captain do well if he does not have good players ?

 

I feel that it is important to have a good captain, a good coach, good players as well as a good system of player development and selection in place.

 

Good captains and coaches bring out the best from the players already playing but the really good ones try to develop as well as find the types of players that are needed for winning consistently....as they know that without good players they can't do well regularly.  They build their own team.

 

Kohli has said from the beginning that his priority is taking 20 test wickets and he wants to play with 5 bowlers. But, this is only possible if there are multiple all-rounders in the team. So, we have seen  a conscious attempt to develop as well as pick more all-rounders.  Bowlers have been told to practice batting  more seriously and we have seen Ashwin and Jaddu doing much better with  the bat as time went by. We have also seen the inclusion of 2 new all-rounders Hardik ( seamer ) and Jayant ( spinner ). This is lending immense balance to the team.

 

Another attempt has been trying to improve the accuracy of fast bowlers and playing as many genuine fast bowlers as possible. We have a few quick bowlers now and they have not been sufficiently  accurate...but, they have improved their accuracy recently.

 

Kumble has talked about unity of purpose of all stake-holders of Indian cricket and has regularly liasoned with the A team coach Dravid for picking players with actual international cricket potential and not just good FC records. This will create a good supply chain for team India across formats.

 

This is the kind of pro-activeness we want to see from the team management of our national team.

 

 

Planning for the future would help build a better team --

 

What is required for our test team ?

 

-- A couple of more wicket taking fast-bowlers  

Preferably those who have  (  good skills  +  good pace  +  have good bouncers and use them regularly )   Nathu Singh, Shardul Thakur, Aniket Chaudhury and some other new guys who fit these criteria, need to be tried.   I feel, even Hardik Pandya has potential, given the way I saw him bowling in  Australia on the last A tour.

Shardul and Hardik are already in the Indian team and have played for our A side.

 

 

-- One or even 2 wicket-taking wrist spinners   

Preferably those who can  (  turn the ball big, have decent googlies and flippers and get zip and bounce off the deck. )

They will come in handy when playing outside Asia.

Kuldeep Yadav. Y. Chahal, Shreyas Gopal etc. are the front runners

Given the competition they have among spinners, it is important that they develop their batting too.

 

 

-- Back-up batsmen to cover for injuries

Preferably those who are  (  good against rising, short balls + have decent off-stump play against seamers +  decent player of spin )

Who are our options ?

Parthiv is good against bounce and spin but not sure about his off-stump game. He gives us an option as an opener though.

Abhinav Mukund is a decent choice and is an opener too.

Karun Nair failed on the A tour to Australia...not eve a single decent innings. Not sure he can handle pace.

Hardik Pandya played a gem of a knock on the last tour to Australia, with his team in trouble...played bounce and off-stump deliveries well...but lacks consistency so far.

Who are the other choices who tick the above boxes ?

 

 

-- Good wicket-keeper + potentially 40+ average batsman

Front runner is obviously Rishabh Pant....but his he will need to practice his wicket-keeping much more.

Hopefully, he will be ready in 12 to 18 months.  Trying him in LOIs will give us some idea about his batting.

 

 

Given how pro-active our team management has been.....I am really hopeful these aspects will be looked into too. With our next big test tour outside Asia almost 12 months away...there is time to do all this....and are very important too.

 

We do not want some injuries hampering our success on that tour and the next ones.....especially regarding pacers and batsmen. We must be ready in advance.

 

Please give your inputs regarding what else is needed and your choices regarding the types of players needed and why ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2016 by express bowling

[philcric]

@express bowling great post.

 

Its annoying when ppl say the captain is only as good as the team. Its probably true to an extent in the short term results but definitely not in team building and team progress over a fair period of time. Captain has a large say in team building and progress esp. in countries like India, Aus, Pak, Eng n SA where there's a large talent pool to work with. The captain needs to have desire, willingness, patience, good plans, man management and understanding of the game. Of course a bit of luck too.

[rkt.india]

A good captain builds his own team.

[Cricketics]

To start with, Kohli is trying to make this side the greatest test side India has ever produced by ensuring that we are capable of winning games and are not just being happy with big scores being put up by our batsmen which would mean nothing for the team if we do not take twenty wickets. 

 

Bowling

Kohli needs to say to the management that we need a Foreign Bowling coach for our Seamers. Yes, when it comes to batting, we are the greatest country on earth and have the best players and coaches, but when it comes to pace bowling, we absolutely suck or do not have the best resources. We have some people who are good like Zaheer, but we should not settle for good, we need the best of the best, which is not available in India. It is overseas, saat samundar paar. That is where you will find all the best coaches for bowling. Bruce Reid helped us during the 03-04 tour in Australia and our bowlers mentioned how well the knowledge of the local coach helped all Indian bowlers. Yes, we need to get someone like Alan Donald or Shane Bond or anyone out there sitting overseas. Let us not settle with Indian bowling coaches. Let a foreign bowling coach come and teach them the hard way. People like Shami can get better at fitness to last longer and then players like Umesh can find more consistency.

Zaher has been brilliannt for us and should make a great mentor but I will pay Zaheer and ask him to be the coach tor the A side of India, the national team need a bowling coach from overseas who will bring their training methods to our players, something which Zaheer won't. 

 

Shami is at stage where he is the best bowler in the country and then at the same time, the worst bowler when it comes to fitness too. Hence, he needs something different which Zaheer might not be able to help him with. 

 

 

Fielding Coach

Let's get someone like Paul Collingwood in the cosching team. This guy has fielded in every location on the ground and was one of the best I have seen after Jonty Rhodes, if not the best. He was safe everywhere, weather at point or when standing at slip. Let's talk him into some contract, BCCI. He can fix errors of all our fielders and can make Rahane and other slip fielders better to seamers.

Rahane defines Indian fielding standard to fast bowling. When he is at slip to a spinner, he takes amazing catches. But if he is standing on slip to seamers, he has a knack of dropping few. This is the story of most  of our fielders. Collingwood or someone like him can bring their skills and training to our daily fielding routines which can make these fielders a solid slip cordon unit when fielding to seamers. 

[fineleg]

It is baffling that a rich board like BCCI has not immediately appointed a wonderful (fast) bowling coach and an excellent fielding coach, and a top notch batting coach (though current one is sorta ok, need better). Spin can be covered by head coach kumble.

Edited December 3, 2016 by fineleg

[Samcric]

Need a fast bowler (not a medium fast bowler) as the bowling coach. Should be able to guide our bowlers on the technical aspects of generating 90+ speed and guide them on how to be fit and manage/avoid injuries. Someone like Brett Lee or Shane Bond would be ideal.

[vayuu1]

I think instead of opting for a foriegn coach a guy like zak can be real handy, since he know about the bowlers pretty well and has been successful all around the world, plus he has a lot of tricks in his kitty, fielding coach, Collingwood was really good.

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk

[Vijy]

10 hours ago, express bowling said:

 

 

The question often arises , " Which is more important---- having good players or a good captain ? "  How can a good captain do well if he does not have good players ?

 

I feel that it is important to have a good captain, a good coach, good players as well as a good system of player development and selection in place.

 

Good captains and coaches bring out the best from the players already playing but the really good ones try to develop as well as find the types of players that are needed for winning consistently....as they know that without good players they can't do well regularly.  They build their own team.

 

Kohli has said from the beginning that his priority is taking 20 test wickets and he wants to play with 5 bowlers. But, this is only possible if there are multiple all-rounders in the team. So, we have seen  a conscious attempt to develop as well as pick more all-rounders.  Bowlers have been told to practice batting  more seriously and we have seen Ashwin and Jaddu doing much better with  the bat as time went by. We have also seen the inclusion of 2 new all-rounders Hardik ( seamer ) and Jayant ( spinner ). This is lending immense balance to the team.

 

Another attempt has been trying to improve the accuracy of fast bowlers and playing as many genuine fast bowlers as possible. We have a few quick bowlers now and they have not been sufficiently  accurate...but, they have improved their accuracy recently.

 

Kumble has talked about unity of purpose of all stake-holders of Indian cricket and has regularly liasoned with the A team coach Dravid for picking players with actual international cricket potential and not just good FC records. This will create a good supply chain for team India across formats.

 

This is the kind of pro-activeness we want to see from the team management of our national team.

 

 

Planning for the future would help build a better team --

 

What is required for our test team ?

 

-- A couple of more wicket taking fast-bowlers  

Preferably those who have  (  good skills  +  good pace  +  have good bouncers and use them regularly )   Nathu Singh, Shardul Thakur, Aniket Chaudhury and some other new guys who fit these criteria, need to be tried.   I feel, even Hardik Pandya has potential, given the way I saw him bowling in  Australia on the last A tour.

Shardul and Hardik are already in the Indian team and have played for our A side.

 

 

-- One or even 2 wicket-taking wrist spinners   

Preferably those who can  (  turn the ball big, have decent googlies and flippers and get zip and bounce off the deck. )

They will come in handy when playing outside Asia.

Kuldeep Yadav. Y. Chahal, Shreyas Gopal etc. are the front runners

Given the competition they have among spinners, it is important that they develop their batting too.

 

 

-- Back-up batsmen to cover for injuries

Preferably those who are  (  good against rising, short balls + have decent off-stump play against seamers +  decent player of spin )

Who are our options ?

Parthiv is good against bounce and spin but not sure about his off-stump game. He gives us an option as an opener though.

Abhinav Mukund is a decent choice and is an opener too.

Karun Nair failed on the A tour to Australia...not eve a single decent innings. Not sure he can handle pace.

Hardik Pandya played a gem of a knock on the last tour to Australia, with his team in trouble...played bounce and off-stump deliveries well...but lacks consistency so far.

Who are the other choices who tick the above boxes ?

 

 

-- Good wicket-keeper + potentially 40+ average batsman

Front runner is obviously Rishabh Pant....but his he will need to practice his wicket-keeping much more.

Hopefully, he will be ready in 12 to 18 months.  Trying him in LOIs will give us some idea about his batting.

 

 

Given how pro-active our team management has been.....I am really hopeful these aspects will be looked into too. With our next big test tour outside Asia almost 12 months away...there is time to do all this....and are very important too.

 

We do not want some injuries hampering our success on that tour and the next ones.....especially regarding pacers and batsmen. We must be ready in advance.

 

Please give your inputs regarding what else is needed and your choices regarding the types of players needed and why ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aniket is a very solid prospect. Nathu is still rather raw, and there are some others doing well this season - Kulia, Sayyed, etc. But, what I would like to see is a few more left armers emerge - at one stage, we had Zak, RP, Irfan, Nehra, etc (not simultaneously though).

 

As for wrist spinners: frontrunners should be Kuldeep and Quadri. Chahal had a good FC season, but his overall record is not great (almost akin to Karn Sharma). Gopal, as long as he's in Kar, will continue to be underbowled, and therefore underdeveloped. Kuldeep and Gopal can bat, especially the latter.

 

As for back-up batsmen, I don't agree with most of the choices - Pandya has done very little to merit the tag of "back-up batsman" - he is not India's answer to Kallis. Pappu bats well against spin, but he is far too loose outside off stump to be a full-time batsman. I agree re Karun though, no idea why he made it thus far. Amongst the ones I can think of in Tests - Bawne, Iyer, Mukund, Vihari come to mind. But, we need not worry too much about back-up batsmen - plenty of those <23 also show potential; some of them such as H. Rana and Sarfaraz have stalled somewhat. Some of the current U19 people are also promising, such as Salman Khan, Lomror, Rohilla, etc.

 

As for batsmen-keepers, Pant and Kishan are the obvious options. There are others such as Tare, Saini, etc. in the mix who are older, but I'm not sure about their keeping.

[express bowling]

 

10 hours ago, Vijy said:

 

As for back-up batsmen, I don't agree with most of the choices - Pandya has done very little to merit the tag of "back-up batsman" - he is not India's answer to Kallis. Pappu bats well against spin, but he is far too loose outside off stump to be a full-time batsman. I agree re Karun though, no idea why he made it thus far. Amongst the ones I can think of in Tests - Bawne, Iyer, Mukund, Vihari come to mind. But, we need not worry too much about back-up batsmen - plenty of those <23 also show potential; some of them such as H. Rana and Sarfaraz have stalled somewhat. Some of the current U19 people are also promising, such as Salman Khan, Lomror, Rohilla, etc.

 

I included Mukund in the list.

 

What I said about the backup batsmen was....we don't have many ready choices who tick all the boxes.

 

Iyer has issues against both the short ball as well as the off stump delivery. We don't know much about batsmen like Bawne or Vihari. 

 

The reason I included Pandya was...he was one of the few batsmen  to play a long innings in the unofficial test match on our A tour to Australia....when the team was under a lot of pressure. But...also said that he lacks consistency.

 

We need to find another solid test batsman as backup.....perhaps Mukund is the best bet as of now.

 

 

[Vijy]

11 hours ago, express bowling said:

 

I included Mukund in the list.

 

What I said about the backup batsmen was....we don't have many ready choices who tick all the boxes.

 

Iyer has issues against both the short ball as well as the off stump delivery. We don't know much about batsmen like Bawne or Vihari. 

 

The reason I included Pandya was...he was one of the few batsmen  to play a long innings in the unofficial test match on our A tour to Australia....when the team was under a lot of pressure. But...also said that he lacks consistency.

 

We need to find another solid test batsman as backup.....perhaps Mukund is the best bet as of now.

 

 

Bawne is considered a solid bet by many - if one digs through past seasons, you can find some matches where he essentially pulled Mah to draw (seems to be more of a blocker). Another advantage is that he has loads of FC experience (around 10 yrs) despite being very young (23-24 I think).

 

Pappu also has issues, arguably more than Iyer (who is much more raw) - let's not forget that Pappy has been around for nearly 15 years now. As for Pandya, that one innings against Aus A on a difficult track was high class, but I dunno whether it was a fluke or the norm.

[express bowling]

5 minutes ago, Vijy said:

Bawne is considered a solid bet by many - if one digs through past seasons, you can find some matches where he essentially pulled Mah to draw (seems to be more of a blocker). Another advantage is that he has loads of FC experience (around 10 yrs) despite being very young (23-24 I think).

 

Pappu also has issues, arguably more than Iyer (who is much more raw) - let's not forget that Pappy has been around for nearly 15 years now. As for Pandya, that one innings against Aus A on a difficult track was high class, but I dunno whether it was a fluke or the norm.

We don't know whether Bawne can play high pace and steep bounce.  He is not even in our A team.  Would be nice if he is chosen.

 

We talking about their capabilities as of today and not just potential  that maybe realized after a few years....which is why Pappu's name comes in, whose main issue perhaps would be only against good quality swing / seam movement, but he is decent against pace, bounce and spin.

 

Main thing is...we don't have many  " ready-for-today" options waiting in the wings as far as test batsmen are concerned.  Mukund is the closest.

 

[Vijy]

6 minutes ago, express bowling said:

We don't know whether Bawne can play high pace and steep bounce.  He is not even in our A team.  Would be nice if he is chosen.

 

We talking about their capabilities as of today and not just potential  that maybe realized after a few years....which is why Pappu's name comes in, whose main issue perhaps would be only against good quality swing / seam movement, but he is decent against pace, bounce and spin.

 

Main thing is...we don't have many  " ready-for-today" options waiting in the wings as far as test batsmen are concerned.  Mukund is the closest.

 

True. Mukund's past experience on some reasonably difficult pitches in int'l cricket will also help him. Pappu also flashes a lot outside off (even in absence of swing/seam).