And yet another final against Sri Lanka finishes with a 100 ball 67 runs from the world’s most highly paid cricketer, an innings where one would be forgiven for thinking that “captain aap ka pen to out (as per the ad I saw on Ten Sports)” was saving his ink for the really significant cricket ahead—-the T20 Championship League, significant in the monetary sense at least.
While the result of any tri-angular tournament involving Sri Lanka has as much effect on me as the news of an impending Emran Hasmi release (namely that of absolute couldn’t-care-less-ness) [the best moment of this series being the gigantic Happy Birthday Malinga pictures on the scoreboard with him dressed like Jeetendra in white], the cricket was significant in the sense that it should give us cricket fans some pause to think about the state of India’s team as we head into the last preparatory lap before the World Cup 2011.
Watching Dinesh Katrik walk all about trying to find the gap, something he could do very well once upon a time as evidenced by this famous picture [Link], one could see why still much of our World Cup hopes rest on Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, his fitness and his form. Just like every World Cup from the 90s. Assuming Sachin is available and firing, our opening pair is formidable. Accepted. Number three slot is also pretty strong—-I stop short of calling it formidable because Gautam Gambhir has climbed down somewhat from the spectacular heights he had attained in 2008 and 2009, though I am sure his running around with a guy in the recent Karbon advertisement has nothing to do with the loss of his mo-jo.
The problem starts from Number four with Yuvraj. One of my favorite cricketers and the greatest water-boy of all time (with apologies to Adam Sandler), his slump has gone over and beyond the “loss of form phase”, though it must be accepted that he has had some rotten luck of late. If he does not reclaim some of his fluidity before he finishes the copy of Shantaram he has been reading, India’s chances in the World Cup become pretty slim considering how vital the No 4 slot is in one days. While I do see Yuvraj making it to the World Cup squad, helped by his ability to bowl decent leg-spinners, the Indian administration do have the option of putting in Virat Kohli at this slot (please no Flabby Sharma), though it would take a brave bunch to make Yuvi sit out a World Cup in India.
Number five and six are pretty solid with Dhoni and Raina. Which brings us to the WTC-size hole in the ground—the seventh position. Dhoni has been putting his faith in Ravindra Jadeja, which increasingly seems to be as solid an investment as putting in money today in a company that only makes floppy disks, since the man bats like Dilip Doshi and bowls like…like Ravindra Jadeja. This leaves two other all-rounders with a realistic chance of getting there—the Pathan brothers. Though there has been a lot of calls for Irfan to get a look-in on Cricinfo comment space and he definitely deserves a look-in before the World Cup, my concerns are whether having him in the team would give us a sameness in terms of attack—-with Zaheer and Nehra most likely to play, three left arm medium pacers seem a bit too much. Combined with the fact that the World Cup is being held in India where there will not be much off the pitch for trundlers like Irfan, there is a good case for Yousuf Pathan.
Yes senior Pathan has been a massive disappointment in ODIs but I think one of the reasons for that has been because he has been unimaginatively used. A man of very limited abilities, I believe the best benefit that can be obtained from him will be if we use him like Warne does for Royals. In Royals, Pathan is a floater whom Warne inserts strategically to break the opponent’s plans and force them to rethink stuff. Similarly Dhoni should use him as the joker in the pack, for instance sending him in in the 27th over with the spinners on and call the Batting Powerplay the moment he comes in. His brief then should be to go for Hell and not even think of lasting out the Powerplay. The response of the opponents might be to bring in their faster men but if they do so, then they may be forced to give the spinners more overs at the end where Raina can take a toll on them.
Number eight is Harbhajan Singh and number nine is Praveen Kumar and each of them are better batsmen than Ravindra Jadeja. No but seriously, it gives India quite a deep batting order with Zaheer and Nehra to follow.
Of course the problem will remain our bowling with Zaheer and Nehra as reliable in terms of being available as a pair of 1984 Premier Padminis, Harbhajan Singh never having been able to fill Kumble’s shoes in terms of spearheading the attack and the support cast of Ishant Sharma and Munaf Darling does not inspiring much confidence.
However we always know our bowling sucks but figure our batting will compensate for that.
This very well might happen come 2011 but for that every batsman, mentioned above, needs to be fit because there is absolutely no bench strength as Kartik and Rohit Sharma and the series in Zimbabwe have proven conclusively.
Not the most heartening state of affairs leading up to the World Cup I am afraid.
The Greatbong Blog & Podcast 
First!! for the first time
1st
Its all upto the little master and his last attempt at the world cup!
I find it very difficult to see India doing well in the world cup, because for the simple fact that India is not a balanced team with both Batting and bowling having huge handicaps, and well to say about fielding, Sachin remains our best outfielder and Dravid best slip catcher though the least that can be expected from a “young” outfit is raise of fielding standards. And I wonder which type of pitches BCCI prepare? If they prepare featherbeds, who guarantees that Indian bowlers will be able to defend even a huge score our batsmen can put up? Recently we almost lost against SL (who else?) even after scoring 400+. And if the day when they fail, happens to be a crucial super six fixture , or a semi or a final, then?? And if BCCI prepares bowler friendly pitches, will it be willing to bring back Dravid, or even Laxman as the current lineup is still like the one 10 years back i.e Sachin &co. And nothing else…
“However we always know out bowling sucks that but figure that our batting will compensate for that.”
guess this needs to be corrected… plz excuse the nitpick 🙂
Dhoni should have given R Ashwin a few games. If we ever do want to go in with two spinners, he might be a good candidate. Plus he can bat fairly decently.
And Rohit Sharma should be sent back to domestic cricket and told he won’t be picked for a year, and then only if he scores buckets of runs.
I would suggest why not try out the manish pandeys and the cheteshwar pujaras rather than the umpteen opportunites given to the likes of the flabby rohits n dancing karthiks. The way the younger brigade is faring these days, it just looks like everything would again rest on the broad shoulders of SRT, like it has been for the last 20 years.
@GB Maybe some spell-check prior to publishing. 🙂
This is the best possible Indian team for World Cup:
Rahul Dravid (C)
VVS Laxman (VC)
Robin Uthappa
Murali Vijay
T. Suman
Badrinath
Anirudh Srikkanth
Abhimanyu Mithun
Venugopala Rao
P. Ojha
L Balaji
S Sreesanth
Hehehe…reminds me of the segment called ‘The Last Road to Hell’ from the delightful 80s’ romantic comedy ‘Cannibal Holocaust’. World Cup is going to be a cruise for India.
So are you going to stick with ‘Darling’ for Munaf through the world cup? 🙂
Can anyone confirm or deny that the guy Gautam Gambhir is running around with in the mobile ad is Manish Pandey…..
Coming back to the blog – in the world cup, it will all come down to whether we can out-bat the opposition. Have very little faith in our bowling.
Wasim Akram says bring back Dravid. I am confused.
why was Dravid dropped 2 years ago in the 1st place ?
And now it would be futile to include him as he looks greasy in tests too.
I think it was a stupid mistake to drop him 2 years ago. Something which we will have to live with.
And I sincerely hope that the board doesnt insult him again like they did last year by picking him for 3-4 ODIs and dropping him again.
Including Sachin in the world cup team will be a mistake. He may be able to score in a few meaningless matches against minnows, but he always fails when playing in key matches. Sachin does not have the nerve to withstand the pressure of must win matches.
yuvraj singh leg-spinners??? he is left arm off-spinner….
Great to see Kishor back on this forum, if he is the same one! BTW, given that non-IPL domestic cricket is anyway no longer the criteria for selection, don’t you think the Saurav Tiwaris and Ashwins deserve at least a couple of dekkos?
http://www.iplt20.com/playersProfile.php?id=22&team=Kings-XI-Punjab
“His batting skills are supplemented with clever, loopy left-arm spin.”
@Kishor…..Ojha doesnt belong to South India and with a great squad that you have chosen why not make Sreesanth the Captain ….the man is all brains with all drains
Oh dear, I actually find myself agreeing with Kishor.
Please stop wasting time and bytes writing about cricket. They fix it all.
yawn..old news. write abt match fixing scandal.
Greatbong, what do u expect Karthik to do when he is given out quite unfortunately in 3 out of 5 innings – when he hasnt touched the ball at all ? He was the man of the match in the last one day cup final..
Arnab – A left arm off spinner is not called a leg spinner, though his delivery is comes across as a leg spin to a right hand bat. Yuvi is a left-arm orthodox meaning a left arm offie.
“helped by his ability to bowl decent leg-spinners”
Yuvi is a left-arm orthodox meaning a left arm offie.
=============
As long as we are getting technical, the term is “Chinamen”. But to be qualified as a “Left arm Chinamen” you need to be able to turn the ball more.
And what about Yusuf’s proven failings against the short-pitched ball, even on flat Indian tracks as proved in the IPL?
Welcome back, great Kishor..
Thanks for sharing your insights but i wud have been more thankful if u wudn’t have shared it 😉
@ATM
Yuvi is a left arm orthodox spinner – left arm counterpart of a traditional finger spinning off-spin bowler.
Chinaman is the standard delivery of a left arm wrist spinner (left arm unorthodox) – analogous to a leg spinner. Examples include Brad Hogg, Paul Adams and Michael Bevan.
Kishore, can we please have Venkatpati Raju instead of Pragyan Ojha ….
@Kishor
how dare you missed Rohan Gavaskar!! damn you!
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@ Kishor (Ref. Post no. 8 from the top)…its “India” who will be playing in the WC not “South India”…lol
I see some discussion about spinners, so absolutely arbitrarily –
what is the difference between Ravi Shastri and Mahatma Gandhi?
A – Ravi Shastri was a LEFT-arm spinner!
J.A.P.
always mince your words before release.that way, it is easier if you have to eat them later.cricinfo piece “Dhoni confounds his critics” for your viewing pleasure
http://www.cricinfo.com/t20champions2010/content/current/story/478817.html
And Vikram, always look what you are eating/linking to. Else you throw up 🙂 How is Dhoni winning a meaningless tournament leading a team having people like Morkel and Hussey and Murali in a 20-20 tamasha have *anything* to do with the Indian national team and a 50 overs World Cup?
Looks like your predictions were quite accurate with the team selected for world cup. We now have to see who is in the playing 11