He's still a millionaire.
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Couch Talk 196 with Simon Taufel
6 years ago
Showing posts with label vinay kumar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vinay kumar. Show all posts
India's squad for the Windie tour
India's selectors threw up a squad for the tour to the West Indies today - and there were no surprises. Partly because Srikkanth and Co. have lost the ability to shock us, but mostly because it is, after all, a tour to the West Indies.
Squad: Gautam Gambhir (c), Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel (wk), Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, S Badrinath, Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, R Ashwin, Praveen Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel, Vinay Kumar, Yusuf Pathan, Amit Mishra, Wriddhiman Saha (wk).
With MS opting out (I presume), Gambhir will be the skipper (Fact: this originates from the Dutch word 'schipper', meaning 'shipper', or captain of the ship. I know there's a joke in here somewhere, about one-legged captains who can't run.) Raina will be the eager deputy, hoping to learn many things, like how Powerplays aren't magically constant.
Something barely interesting just became even less interesting
India announced its squad for the ODI series against Australia (which begins on Sunday the 17th) today. The seniors get some more rest, which leads me to believe that the board of selectors aren't currently able to distinguish Australia from Zimbabwe. It's like they just don't care about World Cup preparation, the rankings, and other ODI-related nonsense. See, they've got me doing it now. Anyway, it's a 14 man squad, and the missing players are:
Sachin (okay, I get this one),
Sehwag, Gambhir, Ishant (minor injuries)
Zaheer, Harbhajan, Ojha (just because)
And this is the squad:
MS Dhoni (capt & wk), M Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Saurabh Tiwary, R Ashwin, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel, Vinay Kumar, Ravindra Jadeja, Rohit Sharma
So another player is set to make his debut, as Shikhar Dhawan (Delhi, ex(?)Mumbai Indian) is set to open alongside Murali Vijay in the absence of our top 3 first-choice openers. Yuvraj pops back in despite his dodgy domestic one-day form, and Tiwary is retained. Despite Ojha's exclusion, Mishra doesn't make the cut, so the spinner's duties will be with R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja (why, why, WHY), Yuvraj and Raina. Munaf Patel keeps his all-rounder's spot, while Vinay Kumar returns with plenty to prove. I'm not sure what that is, but I'm hoping to get an interview with him and ask which movies he likes and if frogs really can't see the color green, thus making all other frogs invisible.
Er, yeah, that's it.
The loss doesn't matter
India's loss to Zimbabwe in the first ODI of the tri-series doesn't matter too much. It is definitely a step backwards for us, but not because we lost.
It's pretty clear that the whole point of this series, from the selectors' point of view, is to try out new players - especially uncapped fast bowlers. And going by that, it was a disappointing game.
Vinay Kumar, Ashok Dinda and Umesh Yadav were all playing their first ODI, and barring certain moments, they looked mostly toothless. To be fair, it was a flat pitch and none of them are exactly express. Vinay Kumar picked up a couple of wickets but went for runs at the death. Umesh Yadav didn't bowl a consistent length, but managed to get a few deliveries to rear up. Always a good sign. Ashok Dinda just isn't good enough for international cricket - he had a few good spells in the IPL but he will struggle in different conditions. Bowling-wise, this game showed us again that spin is our strength. Playing Pragyan Ojha would definitely have won us the game, but then we wouldn't have seen much of one of the pacers.
The batting wasn't too great - it was a 350+ pitch and we struggled for the most part, only picking up the pace in the last 10-15 overs when Rohit Sharma went crazy and Jadeja supported him well. Dinesh Karthik and Murali Vijay played out too many dot balls, did the hard work of playing out the new ball while making Mpofu look threatening, and then got themselves in a spot by running poorly. Raina looked comfortable while Sharma was riding his luck. One of the two openers needs to be more aggressive, and I would definitely consider sending in Yusuf at one down - he has played long innings in domestic cricket and an opportunity wouldn't hurt.
Okay, enough rambling about nothing.
Three of Zimbabwe's five biggest chases have been against India.
India v Zimbabwe and other stuff that doesn't matter
India play Zimbabwe tomorrow in the first match of a tri-series. There are so many reasons not to bother with this series.
For one, it involves Zimbabwe, which is still a long way from a quality side. And there's Sri Lanka. Again. Between all the tests, ODI's, T20I's and the IPL, our players and their players are either sick of each of other or really good buddies. I suspect the former.
I also don't care much for ODI's. It's sort of a confused format - we know that tests are long and batsmen are all blocky, and we know that T20's are slambangy and really short. I don't know why, but for some reason I can watch five whole days of test cricket, and still am unable to sit through 100 overs of an ODI.
But I will be watching this tri-series, or at least India's games. One obvious reason is that India's playing. Another is that this mass resting of players actually has me intrigued - I don't think I've ever seen an Indian side devoid of its stars. The fact that Suresh Raina - who has only recently cemented his spot in ODI's - is the skipper, will go some way in showing us what we can expect from the future.
Sri Lanka hasn't rested as many players as India, and we can be sure that the 'bounce us out' strategy will be employed at some point by them as well as Zimbabwe. ODI's may be less manic than T20's, but this is a superb test of temperament for the likes of Raina, Kohli, Karthik and Rohit Sharma. Yusuf Pathan has a good chance of doing well this series, but he's still rubbish. Kieron Pollard has a similar reputation as a slogger and is doing a far better job than Yusuf. Naman Ojha is not ready for this level, and Jadeja lacks confidence as well as any sort of definition of his role.
The quicks will be observed closely, none more so than Umesh Yadav, seemingly the only bowler in India who bowls 140+ right now. Vinay Kumar is an old-school Indian medium pacer whose strength lies in accuracy, while I see limited opportunities for Pankaj Singh and Ashok Dinda.
PS. Also, this blog has been added to http://cricket.superblogroll.com, the blogroll for Cricket Blogs.
