Sport Today

First, Congrats to the West Indies for playing excellent
cricket and winning the Test. Putting India to bat and
bowling them out for 102 was a great performance by any
standards by the West Indian bowlers. Inspite of the loss
the Indians feel that the first innings batting collapse
was a pyschological event and dropping and changing players
for T4 and T5 are not going to make thing better mentally.

As far as India is concerned, the emergence of the
Jaffer and Das as an opening pair is very heartening.
Winning or losing is part of the game but Ganguly has put
together an excellent team for the future. This team
can win outside India and it certainly has given
Jaffer enough practice for future matches in T4 and
T5 as well as the English tour. Ganguly form and
silken touch is back and leads the series in batting
average:

Name                Mat    I  NO  Runs  HS     Ave

SC Ganguly            3    5   2   213  75*  71.00
R Dravid              3    5   1   278 144*  69.50
VVS Laxman            3    5   1   256  74   64.00
SR Tendulkar          3    5   0   204 117   40.80
W Jaffer              1    2   0    63  51   31.50
SS Das                3    5   0    78  35   15.60

Jaffer is simply exquisite of the back foot driving
and slashing on the point and cover boundaries all
along the ground. With his inclusion and Das, the
top order of Das, Jaffer and Dravid should give
stability at the top 0rder most of the time. At 80
for no loss the openers.

The batting lineup of Das, Jaffer, Dravid, Sachin,
Ganguly and Laxman should gel over a period of time
once they all get adapted to the bouncy tracks.
Jaffer in particular will need at least 20 more innings
before he can get used to the surfaces outside India.

The attack of Srinath, Nehra, Khan and Harbhajan also
looked very formidable and over a period of time
Ganguly's men will prevail based on the law of averages.

Nikhil [who feels we need not make any more changes] Shah

You must be kidding!

Not really. Let us look at the series averages here

Name                Mat    W  Ave  Econ    SR

A Nehra               2   26.22  2.84  55.3
Harbhajan Singh       2   34.66  2.44  85.0
J Srinath             3   35.11  2.65  79.3
Z Khan                3   35.25  2.93  72.1

When was the last time 4 Indian bowlers averaged below
35? They are forming into a good team. Since we don't
have bowlers of the caliber of Australia and Pakistan
who can run through sides, bowling as a team is important.

The bowling team average and strike is quite good is you
look at history of Indian bowlers outside India. In addition,
Harbhajan, Khan and Nehra are all young and below 24 years
of age( I think). Srinath went wicketless in this match
and Sachin was out of touch, both of them are consistent
performers. I would they they should bounce back in T4
and T5. We will need to win the toss and put WI to bat
on surfaces which are going to be fast and bouncy.

Nikhil [ who thinks there will be improvement in T4/T5] Shah

On Sunday 05 May 2002 13:41, Nikhil Shah, purporting to be

Excuse my curiosity, but you cannot have 26.22 wickets :) 26 would have been
nice, though.

I apologize, those are averages :-) Thanks for the
correction.

If you notice the averages and srike rates, Harbhajan
has done better or almost as good as Srinath and Khan
inspite of being a spinner :-) Anil typically averages
40 with an SR of 90. Harby was also on a Hatrick :-) and
can do a good job against the tail-enders.

Put inspite of the loss, Indian fans have to be quite
content with the development of Jaffer :-) The 102 batting
collapse in difficult conditions can be avoided in the
future when Das and Jaffer being to gel as openers.

If Ganguly wins the toss, he has a better chance of
keeping the game close and pull of a win with players
like Sachin. The problem has never been the middle order
and if the openers can prevent a batting collapse
we can keep the series competitive unlike in the past
where going into T4 and T5 we would be down by 0-2
typically outside India :-)

Both Jaffer and Das average 53 and 42 respectively,
they should be able to survive the first 15 overs
on the average if are given enough chances. What the
average of 53 and 42 means is that they have the
talent, and temperament and technique can come with
experience and attitude :-)

Nikhil [ who thinks we have an exciting series ahead of us] Shah

You are correct here. This pack of Indian bowlers is
better than what we had outside India for a long time.

The key to this big loss. Our best batsman & best bowler
didn't perform at all.

In T3, Ganguly told he would have batted if he won the toss (as I heard
in this newsgroup). I don't know how he judged it. Again as I heard from
this newsgroup, Srinath told that the pitch is bouncier only the first
few hours of the match which means that is the exact time India should
not bat.

I don't think so. From WI point of view, I could not understand why they
are not preparing fast pitches that help their bowlers (Lloyd has also
expressed this concern). I am happy from the Indian point of view that
we could win a match (T2) on a pitch that is not a threat to indian
batsmen (less pace, less bounce). Also interesting is that I don't hear
that Ganguly is facing lot of short pitch deliveries. In T1 he was taken
out with a barrage of those deliveries. In fact in T2 I1, Hooper came
into bowl against a guy who is good against spinners. He was lucky to
get Gang's wicket.

Takeiteasy.

Right, even when the pitch is fast, India can score 200-250,
it was a case of not doing well enough in the first innings and getting
bowled out at 102 meant that getting out of the situation was
not easy. Even a score of 200-250 is not high, but it can still keep
you in the game and the pyschological collapse of 102 was
difficult to recover :-)

Had Ganguly won the toss and had the elected to
bat, they could still stay in the Test match with an initial score
of 200-250 in the first innings and bowl WI out in the
first innings within 300-350. That way India would bat under
less pressure in the second innings and WI would have to
chase around 250.

But unfortunately, the innings of 102 was what really sealed
 the Test match for the WI.  In professional  sports these
things do happen and in India's case it happens more
often :-) What Ganguly and his men ought to do is forget about
the 102 innings like a bad dream :-) and regroup for T4 and T5.

One needs to be careful about preparing pitches for fast bowlers
as well because Srinath, Nehra and Khan are equally quick and
accurate :-) The Indians have improved as far as pace is concerned
and it could play against the WI. If the WI had to bat first, they
would have to face Srinath, Nehra and Khan who are equally deadly
in conditions conducive to fast bowlers. Khan has been bowling
as first change and averaging 35 in the series. Those are good
numbers for a fast bowler outside India who is playing a support role :-)

The fact that Ganguly is being sorted out on the on side or short
pitch bowling remains a myth. The reason is he is averaging 71
in this series as a batsmen. Another reason is, the bowlers keep
on barraring the short pitch balls and he keeps getting more and
more practice against his main so called *weakness* which he
should be practicing in the nets :-)  Because of this weakness, he
seems to be getting better, because the opposition bowlers
seems to be giving him the practice in a real Test match situation.

Whenever a batsmen has a particular weakness, and the bowlers
keep bowling the same stuff at the batsmen, the batsmen can
get used to it and strengthen his weakness :-) The short balls
and the "on" side play can be one weakness which can be
improved in a match itself :-)

Regards

Nikhil

You must be kidding!

You must be kidding!

What's Das's average in this series?

How my heart aches to not see Sehwag in the long term batting line-up for
India!  He'll get in and stay in, I just don't know in whose place yet.  If
I have to take a guess he'll likely replace one of
Das/Jaffer/Laxman/Ganguly(if he loses his captaincy), whoever fails first
after Sehwag gets fit.  Once he's in, he'll use the opportunity, he's done
that several times already!

Not really :-) if you check the averages of bowlers outside India,
we don't have a bowler who averages below 30 outside India
with more than 100 wickets. Srinath, who is averaging 35 in this
series is supported well by Nehra, 26, Khan, 35 and Harby, 34.
Our spinners average 40+ outside India. The averages are higher
because of drawn matches, but still, I think, our toporder batting
collapses
are still a problem and our bowlers eventually end up under
pressure to sustain the batting collapse.

Das's average is poor agreed in this series :-) I am reffering to
Das and Jaffer as a pair who put together 80 runs in the second
innings. Das's career average and his series average is low,
but he has a very low strike rate, this works out well with
Jaffer. Das's average strike rate of 0.4 also is helpful in
wearing the new ball out against teams like WI, NZ, and
Zimbabwe where the middle order can dominate the
game :-) Jaffer is an exquisite stroke player and both of
them look very promising for the future and complement
well with each other.

Let me bring up the openers we have experimented with
one more time.

                 Domestic         International     Matches
                Average              Average          played

Merchant          71                  47               18
Jaffer            53                  19               6
Gavasker          51                  51               214
Rathore           49                  13               10
Gandhi            47                  34               7
Sidhu             44                  42               78
Das               42                  36               37
Ramesh            42                  37               37
Chauhan           40                  31               68
Srikkanth         34                  29               72

As the number of chances get bigger the international
average converges to the domestic average. You can
never realistically expect Das's average to increase over
42 over a period of time since I don't think a player can
do better than his domestic average :-)

But I don't see Das a great opener and the opportunities
given to Rathore and Gandhi were tough jobs to begin
with where the schedule was in favor of Das when he
first started playing for India as compared to Rathore and
Gandhi.

But from the above examples one can see that the
probability of success is higher if the player with the
highest domestic average is given a longer run. A high
domestic average can mean superior talent and
temperament and technique can be cultivated based on
attitude. Das has a great attitude and is always willing
to improve himself technically.

Regards

Nikhil

You must be joking. Das should be dropped. He does not look
comfortable at all. For most of the time he was trying to survive out
there. Never looked confident. Lacks the technique against fast
bowling on fast pitches.
As far as Jaffer, I like this guys spirit (a wonderful 50). He should
be given atleast another few tests and I think he will settle down as
a permanent opener.

Why can't we try Dinesh Mongia as an opener ? If he can bat for more
than a ball he is still better than Das.

I wouldn't say formidable. They are certainly better than most of the
pace group bowling I have seen before. But they are still medium pace
bowlers (may be fast medium).

weren't we feeling the same way with Das and Ramesh after the Sri Lanka
series ?
I am really concerned about Das's inadequacies in shot selection after
seeing him repeatedly on the SA tour.

jai

Das has a great attitude and is always willing

I'd belive it when I see some results. An international match is not a
training ground. He should have improved himself technically, *before*
he came into international cricket. :)

Anindya

thought it fit to write:

!!
Mongia is not the opener even for his Ranji team. I don't think that that is
a good idea. Maybe bring back Bangar and tell him to just play dourly.
Jaffer can provide the momentum.

Why Bangar ? On WI pitches, his RMF would be more valuable than Mongia's
part time spin.

Srinath and Khan and definitely fast medium. More than that in patches,
sometimes.