Coming back from a successful tour of SA, India are favorites on paper simply because they are playing at home. A reality check would show that India lacks penetrative bowling and hence in my opinion, their chances take a beating. It’s not a surprise that past world cup winning teams have had successful bowlers throughout the tournament. In this squad barring Zaheer Khan (only to a small extent) others are very ordinary.
An ODI series win (in SA) which was there for the taking was lost due to poor strategy. Even though Ashwin and Chawla may be resigned to drinks, they should have played a couple of games against SA, given that they are in the WC Squad. There is a question mark over the form of Raina & Nehra and they should not be in the 1st choice 11 for WC.
India haven’t played with their 1st choice 11 for a long time. Sachin’s last proper ODI was almost a year back. Yuvraj, Raina and Dhoni are not in much form. Sehwag missed the ODIs against SA and NZ and was out of form in tests (v. SA). So I am worried a bit on our batting front. Our bowling has always been ordinary – so am just hoping against hope that they bowl well.
Strategy
• Sachin to hold the innings while others go berserk. Dhoni should be flexible in changing the batting order as and when required.
• If need be, Yusuf Pathan should come up the order….esp when spinners are bowling.
• When spinners are bowling the middle overs, effort should be made to cut the singles by having extra fielders inside the circle and make the batsmen take risks.
• Take the Batting Powerplay when set batsmen are playing – not at the end of the innings…else it’ll be too late.
• Bat first….ALL the time
Missing Out
• Robin Uthappa as an extra batsman and backup keeper (instead of Piyush)
• Irfan Pathan as all-rounder (instead of Nehra)
Strengths
• Dhoni’s captaincy
• Batting – if players are in form and not injured
• Lot of part time spinners
Weaknesses
• Very poor fielding unit
• Nehra, Munaf are liabilities. To an extent Sachin, Sehwag, Zaheer also are…
• Not a great bowling lineup to send shivers down the spine of opposing batsmen
• Lack of practice for Sehwag, Sachin, Gambhir and Praveen Kumar
• Yuvraj, Raina, Dhoni are not in form (they didn’t light up the scoreboards in SA)
Dark Horse / X-Factor
• Virat Kohli
My Take
• Quarterfinals (Semis if lucky)
• I hope am proved wrong and India wins it
My Playing 11
• Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Kohli, Yuvraj, Dhoni*(wk), Y Pathan, Harbhajan, Zaheer, P Kumar, Munaf Patel
Drinks
• Raina, Nehra, Ashwin, Chawla
PS: As always, any comments/feedback will be highly appreciated.
An ODI series win (in SA) which was there for the taking was lost due to poor strategy. Even though Ashwin and Chawla may be resigned to drinks, they should have played a couple of games against SA, given that they are in the WC Squad. There is a question mark over the form of Raina & Nehra and they should not be in the 1st choice 11 for WC.
India haven’t played with their 1st choice 11 for a long time. Sachin’s last proper ODI was almost a year back. Yuvraj, Raina and Dhoni are not in much form. Sehwag missed the ODIs against SA and NZ and was out of form in tests (v. SA). So I am worried a bit on our batting front. Our bowling has always been ordinary – so am just hoping against hope that they bowl well.
Strategy
• Sachin to hold the innings while others go berserk. Dhoni should be flexible in changing the batting order as and when required.
• If need be, Yusuf Pathan should come up the order….esp when spinners are bowling.
• When spinners are bowling the middle overs, effort should be made to cut the singles by having extra fielders inside the circle and make the batsmen take risks.
• Take the Batting Powerplay when set batsmen are playing – not at the end of the innings…else it’ll be too late.
• Bat first….ALL the time
Missing Out
• Robin Uthappa as an extra batsman and backup keeper (instead of Piyush)
• Irfan Pathan as all-rounder (instead of Nehra)
Strengths
• Dhoni’s captaincy
• Batting – if players are in form and not injured
• Lot of part time spinners
Weaknesses
• Very poor fielding unit
• Nehra, Munaf are liabilities. To an extent Sachin, Sehwag, Zaheer also are…
• Not a great bowling lineup to send shivers down the spine of opposing batsmen
• Lack of practice for Sehwag, Sachin, Gambhir and Praveen Kumar
• Yuvraj, Raina, Dhoni are not in form (they didn’t light up the scoreboards in SA)
Dark Horse / X-Factor
• Virat Kohli
My Take
• Quarterfinals (Semis if lucky)
• I hope am proved wrong and India wins it
My Playing 11
• Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Kohli, Yuvraj, Dhoni*(wk), Y Pathan, Harbhajan, Zaheer, P Kumar, Munaf Patel
Drinks
• Raina, Nehra, Ashwin, Chawla
PS: As always, any comments/feedback will be highly appreciated.
Posts
1 comment:
You got one thing perfectly right. Sachin will hold the game - while others will go berserk. That is something we missed in the 2007 WC. Our think tank managed to do enough nonsense that it thought Robin Uthappa was a better No.2 anchor than Sachin.
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