Tuk-tuk thread: List of low S/R starters (90s style batsmen mode) in current ODI team

[sandeep]

2 hours ago, kira said:

Ganguly was a beast odi batsman, dravid was not, stupid to group them together in odis

Ganguly was "beast" only in relative terms.  And he was a terribly slow starter - always over-reliant on hitting power-play boundaries to keep his SR above 50.  Ran between the wickets like a senior citizen too - Biggest contrast with Veeru opening instead of Gangu was not just Veeru's sehwagian boundary hitting.  Veeru was one of the best judges of a sharp single in ODI cricket along with Tendy, in the early 2000s.  He added this to his game after playing in a handful of games against Australia.  He quickly realized that a stolen single is just as attacking as an audaciously hit boundary.  Ganguly was brilliant at hitting good balls for 4 through the off-side, but was a full-on tuk-tuk machine apart from that.  OP has nailed it correctly.    One thing I will strongly disagree with OP on this is the presence of Dhawan on this list.  He doesn't belong here, unlike Rohit Sharma - today's Ganguly.  

 

Shikhar is very much a 'flow' type batsman - if he connects with a boundary in the 1st 10 balls he faces, he will be away and carry his and the team's run-rate quite well.  If he can't get going in his 1st dozen balls or so, he will start taking risks, hacking away, and 'press' in search of that boundary.  Very rarely will we have Dhawan innings last past 30 balls, and the run-rate is not good - he's just not good enough to hack and tuk-tuk that long.  And it must be said, he does put team before self, and takes risks.  More often than not, he comfortably surpasses Mr. 264 in SR in the 1st 10 overs.  

 

OP has nailed one of the central problems with our ODI batting unit - and a pet peeve of mine for the last 2-3 years.  We leave too many runs on the table in the 1st 30 overs - and we are not going to be a champion ODI side until we fix this.  India's MO for winning ODIs is to outclass and out-gun teams with our batting - we have hardly won ODI tournaments with the ball, apart from a lone series in Toronto.  And we don't outgun teams in the last 10 overs, we always do it by scoring at a higher rate than opponents in the 1st 40 - due to our superior ability to hit boundaries.  Of late, other teams have caught up and left us behind in this department - because as OP points out - too many slow starters in the top order.  

 

We don't want VK to have to take risks to keep the run-rate going - we want our run-machine to have a buffer to play himself in comfortably, because if we do that - odds are that he will play an anchor innings that will set up a match-winning platform for us. Having an MS or Yuvraj in the middle order is OK, as an insurance policy for the days where VK fails.  Having both of them hurts us a bit, but is offset slightly by the power-hitting abilities that both old boys still possess if they play a long-ish innings.  Not ideal, but not the worst thing in the world either.  Let's give the duo a bit of a rope, and see how they handle the quicker, slightly more bouncier tracks in the Champions trophy.  

 

It really boils down to the openers.  We are a batting unit that consistently gets into the low 300s inspite of being 20-40 runs short in the 1st 15 overs.  If the openers get their act together, we will join England, Oz, and SA in the short list of teams that threaten to score 350 more often than not, unless the opposition can manage to take 4-5 wickets for double digits.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Rightarmfast]

/\ Sandeep, You cant defend the OP here. It is pretty clear that the person has never watched Ganguly play. He was one of the best ODI players of his era. Btw, he used to open with Sachin and it was Sachin's job to score fast. They used to rotate this policy. Heck, Ganguly and Sachin had a record partnership for opening. Clearly the OP doesnt know the subject!

[kosingh]

I was a big Ganguly fan. I'm surprised people are bringing up Sourav's scoring rate. His ODI strike rate of 73.7 is comparable to Inzamam (74.24), Kallis (72.89),  Mohammad Yousuf (75.10),  Stephen Fleming (71.49), Nathan Astle (72.69), Michael Bevan (74.16), Gary Kirsten (72.04).  

 

For the longest time Sachin lacked a decent ODI opening partner. And that problem was finally solved with Ganguly- a fantastic partner. 

[fineleg]

Can you focus on the S/R - we can remove Ganguly from subject - if Gangulians are getting their panties twisted on this. The bigger focus of the thread is the S/R and not so much on the Bengali pride - though fact is he was a tuk-tuk at start of inn, and poor poor runner, except for boundaries when he unleashes the offside shot. But I know gangulians will go on and on, so focus on the S/R for this thread.

 

Done - now talk abt topic.

Edited January 23, 2017 by fineleg

[Laaloo]

2 minutes ago, fineleg said:

Can you focus on the S/R - we can remove Ganguly from subject - if Gangulians are getting their panties twisted on this. The bigger focus of the thread is the S/R and not so much on the Bengali pride - though fact is he was a tuk-tuk at start of inn, and poor poor runner, except for boundaries when he unleashes the offside shot. But I know gangulians will go on and on, so focus on the S/R for this thread.

 

Done - now talk abt topic.

RATTLED

[fineleg]

^ More a qn of been there done that with Gangulians. They will go on and on for ever defending their slow coach Dada. So, let them keep hyping up Dada or Dalda. Lets focus on current team S/R at start of each batsman's innings.

[sandeep]

1 hour ago, Rightarmfast said:

/\ Sandeep, You cant defend the OP here. It is pretty clear that the person has never watched Ganguly play. He was one of the best ODI players of his era. Btw, he used to open with Sachin and it was Sachin's job to score fast. They used to rotate this policy. Heck, Ganguly and Sachin had a record partnership for opening. Clearly the OP doesnt know the subject!

Gangu was a quality opener, scored a lot of ODI hundreds and took apart attacks once set.  Murdered spinners for fun too.  And yes, until Veeru came along, he was the best option to partner Tendy at the top of the order.  Definite upgrade from the likes of Ajay Jadeja - yes, India has had him open the batting!.  

 

But none of this can obfuscate the fact that "Dada" was extremely poor runner between wickets, and a dot-ball machine in the early part of his innings.  Sorry to burst the nostalgia bubble, but them's the facts.  Its a different matter that the era was different, his was a time where 285+ was considered enough to generate scoreboard pressure and usually win the game.  The fact that people brought up the likes of Mohammed Kaif's SR to defend Gangu, says it all.  

[Yoda-esque]

Dhoni has a SR of almost 90 in ODI...

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[PSB_Zone]

21 hours ago, Malcolm Merlyn said:

71 for Dravid and 73 for Dada.

Thats similar na, specially ganguli got the field restrictions overs..

[rkt.india]

15 hours ago, Rightarmfast said:

/\ Sandeep, You cant defend the OP here. It is pretty clear that the person has never watched Ganguly play. He was one of the best ODI players of his era. Btw, he used to open with Sachin and it was Sachin's job to score fast. They used to rotate this policy. Heck, Ganguly and Sachin had a record partnership for opening. Clearly the OP doesnt know the subject!

OP is referring to Ganguly style of batting. Not saying that Ganguly was not a great batsman. 

[kira]

4 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

OP is referring to Ganguly style of batting. Not saying that Ganguly was not a great batsman. 

There were far better examples to refer to tuk tuk style instead of ganguly, why would the OP choose ganguly instead of dravid unless he has some bias against ganguly. Ganguly was one of the greatest ODI player in the world, to insult him by describing his style as tuk tuk is absolutely uncalled for. The OP has clearly not seen ganguly bat in the late 90s.

[kira]

27 minutes ago, PSB_Zone said:

Thats similar na, specially ganguli got the field restrictions overs..

When ganguly was an opener his strike rate was near 75 and dravid during the same period had a strike rate of 69, once sehwag became the opener ganguly no longer had the advantage of field restrictions. 

[express bowling]

We need some new-age batters, those who have started playing international cricket after T20 has become popular .... this is the only way to solve this problem.

 

Look at  Kedar Jadhav who has a career SR of 121 albeit in a few matches only....but  his SR will remain high even when he plays more due to the playing style he has developed.

 

Introducing more new-age batters, like Pant, Hooda, Kishan etc. , will solve this problem.  But bring in proper batsmen with high FC averages and not T20 hacks.

 

Not everyone introduced will succeed but this has to be the way out by bringing in more new guys.

[rkt.india]

28 minutes ago, kira said:

There were far better examples to refer to tuk tuk style instead of ganguly, why would the OP choose ganguly instead of dravid unless he has some bias against ganguly. Ganguly was one of the greatest ODI player in the world, to insult him by describing his style as tuk tuk is absolutely uncalled for. The OP has clearly not seen ganguly bat in the late 90s.

no. there was no better example. OP is not talking about batting slow like Dravid but batting slow at the start of the innings and then later start increase scoring gradually like Rohit Sharma does these days. 

[kira]

Just now, rkt.india said:

no. there was no better example. OP is not talking about batting slow like Dravid but batting slow at the start of the innings and then later start increase scoring gradually like Rohit Sharma does these days. 

Ganguly's strike rate was fine for his era 

[The Realist]

1 hour ago, express bowling said:

We need some new-age batters, those who have started playing international cricket after T20 has become popular .... this is the only way to solve this problem.

 

Look at  Kedar Jadhav who has a career SR of 121 albeit in a few matches only....but  his SR will remain high even when he plays more due to the playing style he has developed.

 

Introducing more new-age batters, like Pant, Hooda, Kishan etc. , will solve this problem.  But bring in proper batsmen with high FC averages and not T20 hacks.

 

Not everyone introduced will succeed but this has to be the way out by bringing in more new guys.

Won't happen under the current selectors as they are still living in the past

[jusarrived]

Dhoni and Yuvi play anything but 90s style of batting

[Rightarmfast]

3 hours ago, rkt.india said:

no. there was no better example. OP is not talking about batting slow like Dravid but batting slow at the start of the innings and then later start increase scoring gradually like Rohit Sharma does these days. 

Your memory doesnt serve you right. Ganguly's strike rate was good for that time. Absolute gun players then were Shahid Afridi, but he was way too inconsistent. jayasuriya would top, after that used to be Sachin... Ganguly was absolutely fine as one of the leading openers, but never an All Time Great like Sachin. Apart from Sachin, who was the other batsman who was consistent and had higher strike rate? Please share your wisdom

[kosingh]

Strike rates of Indian batsman in the Ganguly  era (1996 - 2007).  

 

[sandeep]

5 hours ago, kira said:

When ganguly was an opener his strike rate was near 75 and dravid during the same period had a strike rate of 69, once sehwag became the opener ganguly no longer had the advantage of field restrictions. 

Gangu made the greatest ODI opener in ODI history drop down to #4 so he could still take advantage of field restrictions.  Let's not go there.  Gangu-love is OK, but hagiographical falsehoods are just that.  Falsehoods.