Pakistan re-grouped after their thumping on Tuesday to score a clinical and convincing win against their nemesis and favorites India in the finals of the Kitply cup in Bangladesh today.
Just when everyone was expecting the tri-series to meander to an end and were wondering if the intensity of India-Pakistan encounters have diminished due to both an overdose of such contests and the recent decline of the quality of Pakistani cricket, this loss for India has brought back in to focus its bugaboo for the last few years - losing finals!
Once again, India's weak bowling came apart at a crucial time when assaulted by aggressive, attacking batting. Instead of dismissing the loss attributing it to the bowlers having an off-day, India should seriously re-think its team composition.
India has always tended to counter its weakness in bowling by bolstering its batting. I have never been and probably never will be a fan of this strategy. I mean, can anyone remember the last time when the seventh batsman made a difference in a game for India? On the other hand, there has been plenty of times (especially finals) when the fifth bowler - the lack of one - has adversely affected the team.
Instead of going in with just three specialist bowlers, one bowling all-rounder (Irfan Pathan) and making up the fifth bowler with batting all-rounders, India should always go with five bowlers. We have to trust our formidable batting line-up and beef up the bowling by bringing in another specialist bowler. After all, this five bowler tactic did prove worthy in the CB series, when India beat Australia to win an ODI series final after a very long time.
SK,
ReplyDeleteI dont know if we can be too critical of the team.
The way I lok at it, there will be some mis steps along the way, but this team, at its core, is going to win us the World Cup..
Three matches, 3 scores of close to 300, two comprehensive wins, a bowling and fielding unit that, while rough around the edges, gives us the kind of depth we havent seen in a while, a batting line up that bats till 10 ( with all batters capable of putting together a score).
I think this tourney was more good than bad for India
Cheers
Homer,
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to be critical of the players. I definitely agree that we have identified the team for the next world cup and beyond. I am merely questioning the strategy of picking just four bowlers in the playing XI.
Mostly, we have preferred a seventh batsman instead of a fifth bowler. I am just saying that with our strength in batting, we don't really need to further bolster the lineup with a seventh batsman. Instead, we should bolster our bowling with an additional bowler.
In other words, for this series, instead of playing Yusuf Pathan, Dhoni should have played a bowler - say RP Singh or Gony.
If you remember, midway through the CB series, Dhoni dropped an out of form Sehwag and instead picked a fifth bowler. I was elated when he did that and strongly believe that his five bowler tactic went a long way in winning us that series.
I was surprised that he didn't stick to that winning strategy for this series and am saying that he should.
And, welcome to my blog :)
Sk,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the welcome..
As far as team selection goes, context matters- SL won the World CUp in 1996 on the back of their part time spinners choking the runs in the middle overs.
Look at the current team - Yusuf Pathan, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Irfan Pathan, Praveen Kumar and Piyush Chawla are bowlers who can bat or batsmen who can bowl.
MSD is batter and keeper.
The specialists are Gambhir, Rohit Sharma and Raina who bat, and Ishant Sharma, who bowls.
Now, if SRT makes a comeback, there is one more batsman/bowler in the squad..with Raina sitting out ( although Raina and Rohit can both bowl some off spin).
Also, look at it from the right/left balance - 5 left handers and 6 right handers is 4 more left handers than we had in a long time :).
From a perspective of depth and options and flexibility for the WC, this is by far the best mix we have..
Now, if the wicket demands it, we have enough depth in the fast bowling resources to play an additional seamer and enough depth in the batting to accommodate that switch.
And, from a team building perspective, what more can one want!
Cheers
The only point of worry is the temperament of Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina - Sharma for his inability to switch from one form of the game to another quickly ( Amol Muzumdar had commented on this during the Ranji Trophy immediately after the T20 WC) and Raina for his inability to keep his concentration going after getting a start.. Get these in order and we are contenders for the WC.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Picking up on the 4 or 5 specialist bowlers debate, I think it varies with the form of cricket.
ReplyDeleteIn one-day games, I think a experienced fifth bowler is needed. The lack of one has cost teams matches. Collingwood does the fifth bowler job well for England and in an ideal world your fifth bowler would be in the top six.
In test matches though...I'm not convinced you need five specialist bowlers. Presuming that this normally means four seamers. A fourth seamers would get lost in most teams.
The exception is when you have a front line seamer such as Kallis or Flintoff that can act as the fourth seamer and a top six batsmen.
ReplyDeleteSL won the World CUp in 1996 on the back of their part time spinners choking the runs in the middle overs.
Agreed, part time spinners played a key role in the SL win. If you also remember, in that WC, SL's top and middle order was in such good form through out the tournament that the seventh batsman never played any significant role. So, if they had a fifth bowler in the lineup, even in the worst case he wouldn't have made much difference to the results (i am assuming of course that SL would have still used the part time spinners in addition to the specialist bowler. And there is no reason for this assumption to be invalid. I mean, having an extra bowler widens your choice, it doesn't restrict it)
And that is my point. A fifth bowler more than the seventh batsman adds value to the team - at least for Team India