IMO Aussies management / think tank have studied the Indians on Indian tour of England excellently. If you carefully analyze the wickets they have prepared, it suits Aussie pacers the way they can exploit the Indian batsmen weaknesses and negating the strength of Indian bowlers. It seems to me that the four bowler attack of Aussies has played a huge role in such a preparation. Although Siddle has been very successful in this series, IMO our batsmen have failed to exploit his weakness, which could have exposed their 4 bowlers attack. Until Dravid does not ticks, i am very skeptical about winning a test on this tour.
Ishant IMO should not have been carried. Irfan is the one whom i would have liked to see in absence of Praveen. If something is wrong between Irfan and someone else, they should have carried Balaji. Praveen's injury was a huge blow. Ishant needs to deliver a five fer. Umesh seems to be a wicket taker so i don't mind him seeing going for a few runs. It's very difficult to get an Indian pacer who can take wickets, bowl long spells without injury and choke runs at the same time. Zak is a well know story as far his injuries, abilities, performance is concerned.
Sachin's retirement is a topic of discussion. Sachin stays in Bandra, Mumbai. I would like to share that every day after series, over there he pays some money out of his pocket to the groundsman so that he can get the wicket ready for him the way he wants and maintained well. He has a knock daily for an hour at least. Yuvi and Rohit Sharma stay in Bandra as well and they both have house one above the other in same building. Rohit and Yuvi had put on weight at same poitn of time in their career. I have been made aware of some of their lifestyle when they are together. Also their work ethics are very different to Sachin's and i would not like to post much about this on a forum atleast. When fitness is a key you have to control booze. When a assistant coach to Lalchand Rajput finds players together with bottles of liqour and cigarette packets lying in their rooms, it's not a nice sight. Without a fit body things will just become difficult for someone still not able to get settled in test squad. But in a nutshell they do not devote time to cricket and don't work hard as much as Sachin does. Sachin has a balanced lifestyle, some other cricketers do not balance it well. That was a problem with Vinod Kambli too. Bapu Nadkarni who has seen Sachin and kambli play many long innings in early part of their domestic career, had at that point of time, acknowledged that Kambli was better than Sachin . Sandeep Patil was of the same view as well. Kambli had to marry Noela David, a receptionist after having an affair with her. Divorce followed. Kambli came from a very poor family. Behavior was a huge problem with him. Even kambli did not look after his dad and moved to a flashy house and lifestyle but did not show much intent and care for his dad. When Ajit Wadkear was the team manager Kambli was at his prime. Wadekar used to tolerate all the bad habits of Kambli. Sandeep Patil later became the team manager. He was a strict disciplinarian and Kambli found it tough with his habits and his behavior was no longer taken leniently. Kambli's form dripped, his team mates too didn't like kambli because of his behavior. Azhar had received many complaints about that too. Kambli was dropped considering all the factors. When poor kambli became rich so as to afford luxuries of the world, he ditched his dad too. In an interview last year kambli comes and speaks Sachin could have supported him more. Total rubbish. Manjrekar and Kambli, Sachins two best mates have digged rubbish comment about Sachin. Both change their opinions as quickly as Ian Chappell does. Insiders who have been part of Mumbai's cricketing system know the truth. Sachin is thus hold in high esteem amongst the knowledgeable fans who are aware of Sachins work ethics, lifestyle, behavior etc. There are stories which are never printed in media. Hidden truth and outspoken cricketers cause more trouble to cricketers like Sachin. The normal cricket fans reads and passes on information what one reads in media, sadly most of the comments come from people who could not mange themselves or people who change their views as wind blows across Arabian sea.
In the context of work ethics, no Indian player, especially the new comers can be compared with Sachins work ethics, lest be abilities, skills, talent, fitness craze etc.
Yuvi, Raina and Rohit do not look as the solutions to for near future in test team. Rohit is better than both of them IMO. Having said that Rohit like Dravid has a tendency to go across early, making him LBW candidate more often. Rohit gets confident as soon as he strikes few balls in middle and that is what his downfall is. I remember one Ranji knock wherein Rohit played a stupendous knock only to throw his wicket away. He needs to wait and show more patience. Patience is the only key to convert decent starts to a 50+ a 100+ or a double in longer format. The general observation is that the players faults can be rectified only until age of 14, otherwise it becomes very difficult. Put it into perspective the age sachin started going to schools of cricket (clubs/nets). Acharekar perhaps had a lot of impact on him due to this factor. Offcourse Sachin being Sachin was willing to learn right things and more keen to learn and improve even before he was ten. Yuvi, Rohit and Raina are ahead of the time wherein they can change major flaws. That is likely to be reflected in their overall averages throughout the career even on batsmen friendly test match wickets and deteriorating quality of pace and spin bowlers in a reduced 4 bowlers attack. Yuvi and Raina are natural stroke makers like Rohit. I doubt they have time to change the game a bit to suit and adapt to test cricket even during these easy days for the batsmen.
As far as batsmen are concerned, we need to give Pujara and i agree with Dilbert and Red about it. Athough Pujara has a couple of technical flaws he must be preferred over Yuvi, Rohit and Raina. Even Abhinav Mukund and Wasim Jaffer. Anyone who says Jaffer is done and dusted for age or whatever must avoid saying that to Saurav Ganguly. I am a fan of Wasim as well, not because the other options are are Yuvi, Rohit and Raina, but for the fact that he is one of the most successful Ranji cricketer and a huge scorer. Offcourse Wasim has gone on air that he would like to bat in middle order. When he previously entered the squad the middle order was not vacant with Ganguly being a successful middle order test player. Wasim opened the innings. Now we have a number 6 to be grabbed, having tried Yuvi, Raina and Kohli. Hope some sense wil prevail. Norrth zone is the zone to play for and favored now. Sadly Wasim is from West Zone. Ajinkya Rahane is a good player as well and played nice knocks in England V/s Lions and in ODI. Perhaps the kanga League experience, playing during monsoon and on lush green wickets has helped him to adjust better than any other eqaully fresh Indian opener on his first tour against England in England.
I would say Pujara, Wasim, Ajinkya are the candidates. Abhinav too deserves a chance but he will perhaps have to wait longer.
As far as captaincy is concerned i believe a captains performance depends a lot on the resources in hand. The captaincy options available to India are good and they have played enough of grass root cricket, domestic cricket and international cricket that there is not much difference in captaincy. Someone or other will be better than other but there will not be a huge gap atleast between these guys. So, go with Dhoni. He is a senior. Sehwag and Gambhir are likely to give major losses to their insurance companies.
Rahul, Sachin and VVS are no more the options. You need to keep guys like Yuvi, Raina, Rohit in check as a captain if they make a mark into it. A junior will find it much difficult to control them and more so if you add Virat to it. The wicketkeeping difference is not much between Dhoni and other available. A rest from few games in T20, IPL and some ODI series might help him work on his test batting and contribute better than in recent times. It is better to consider a long term plan and persist with Dhoni, irrespective of the fact we lost 4-0 in England and we are likely to lose this series as well. I will persist with Dhoni and like to see him being rotated for rest in certain formats and in certain tournaments.
As far as the coach is concerned Duncan is fairly good at it. The only thing i wonder is that whether it was right off him to say that Indian players are proven world class ones and rather than they learning from me, i can learn something form them. A statement on that line from the coach, will not be a professional one and can bring complacency. Gary Kirsten, when he joined was down to earth acknowledging the Indian superstars but put hsi words very well. Again as i believe a cricketers skills can be molded easily upto the age of 14 and then it becomes very difficult. So the coach is more about getting the team to be cohesive, man manager and strategy builder along with captain and management or think tank. These guys must convey the plans along with drills to the captain and the players performance by means of execution will determine the success of coach or the team in the test format. The away record is not impressive as we struggle a lot in some conditions, even against teams with inexperienced bowling attacks. That surely needs to be taken care of. As pointed above the youngsters need to get complacency out of their head, practice harder and only then success will follow them in test cricket.
Test FL's - 8 , ODI and Tests Combo FL's - 1, ODI World Cup - 1, ODI FL's - 7, ODI and T20i combo FL's - 1 ,
T20 Franchisee FL's - 7, T20i Cup FL's- 1, T20 FL's- 5 , 50 Overs Domestic FL's - 1, 40 Overs Domestic FL's- 1
