India the Test Future?

[dan08]

Not saying Pandey is ready for international cricket and if I were to pick one of those 2 at the moment, I'd have Rohit. But IMHO Pandey has the ability to blossom into a top quality batsman. Just needs to tighten his game up a bit. A county stint would help.

He can't play county cricket as he doesn't meet the overseas player criteria:

He has to meet one of the following which at the moment, he doesn't...

a. The cricketer must have played a minimum of one Test Match during the 24 months immediately prior to
the date of the Governing Body Endorsement application or 5 Test Matches during the 60 months
immediately prior to the date of the Governing Body Endorsement application for his country who must
be a Full Member Country of the ICC (Full Members are Australia, Bangladesh, India, New Zealand,
Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe as well as the ECB) which were approved and
recorded by the ICC as authorised Test Matches (consisting of five days); or
b. During the 24 months immediately prior to the date of the Governing Body Endorsement application
the cricketer must have played in at least fifteen One Day Internationals and/or International Twenty20
matches for his country (in both cases his country must be a Full Member Country of the ICC) which
were approved and recorded as authorised matches by the ICC ;or
c. Be currently centrally contracted to the Cricket Board of the cricketer’s home country and in the current or
most recent Test Match or One Day International or International Twenty20 team squad where the home
country is a Full Member Country of the ICC; or
d. Was granted a work permit as a player-only in 2008 and a Tier 2 Player Only Governing Body Endorsement
in 2009, 2010 & 2011.

He also doesn't meet the Kolpak criteria: http://www.ecb.co.uk/ecb/publications/k ... 99,BP.html So, he has no chance of playing county cricket until he has played international cricket.

[shankycricket]

Sensible as always from Aakash Chopra

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/co ... 68077.html

[OffStumpYorker]

Not saying Pandey is ready for international cricket and if I were to pick one of those 2 at the moment, I'd have Rohit. But IMHO Pandey has the ability to blossom into a top quality batsman. Just needs to tighten his game up a bit. A county stint would help.

He can't play county cricket as he doesn't meet the overseas player criteria:

He has to meet one of the following which at the moment, he doesn't...

a. The cricketer must have played a minimum of one Test Match during the 24 months immediately prior to
the date of the Governing Body Endorsement application or 5 Test Matches during the 60 months
immediately prior to the date of the Governing Body Endorsement application for his country who must
be a Full Member Country of the ICC (Full Members are Australia, Bangladesh, India, New Zealand,
Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe as well as the ECB) which were approved and
recorded by the ICC as authorised Test Matches (consisting of five days); or
b. During the 24 months immediately prior to the date of the Governing Body Endorsement application
the cricketer must have played in at least fifteen One Day Internationals and/or International Twenty20
matches for his country (in both cases his country must be a Full Member Country of the ICC) which
were approved and recorded as authorised matches by the ICC ;or
c. Be currently centrally contracted to the Cricket Board of the cricketer’s home country and in the current or
most recent Test Match or One Day International or International Twenty20 team squad where the home
country is a Full Member Country of the ICC; or
d. Was granted a work permit as a player-only in 2008 and a Tier 2 Player Only Governing Body Endorsement
in 2009, 2010 & 2011.

He also doesn't meet the Kolpak criteria: http://www.ecb.co.uk/ecb/publications/k ... 99,BP.html So, he has no chance of playing county cricket until he has played international cricket.

Besides why should english cricket help develop other countries players when the boards of these players operate a closed door policy in thier FC games, It should be a Quid-pro-quo, For every player from a full member in a county (Kolpac or otherwise), an English player should be guaranteed a place in that countries FC tournament (even if its just as a squad member).

[andy]

I think Manish Pandey can develop into a solid test match batsman, however he does need exposure to different conditions to which he is comfortable in india.

[shankycricket]

I think Manish Pandey can develop into a solid test match batsman, however he does need exposure to different conditions to which he is comfortable in india.

Read that article and you will know a bit more about where Manish Pandey stands at the moment. He is trying to be a slogger these days, which must be disappointing for an Indian fan, as he has immense talent.

[andy]

well that is a real shame then, because like i said he is talented, and he dosent need to slog, in limited overs cricket he could play the anchor role..

[meninblue]

well that is a real shame then, because like i said he is talented, and he dosent need to slog, in limited overs cricket he could play the anchor role..

atm there are many batters who are ahead of him in the order of getting chances.

[andy]

i know there are..

but adi do you think he has a chance of playing test cricket at some point in the future?

[meninblue]

i know there are..

but adi do you think he has a chance of playing test cricket at some point in the future?

Virat, Rohit, Ajinkya, Pujara, and Abhinav are the contenders who are ahead of Manish Pandey at the moment by a fair margin. Also batting of Saxena, Bisht and Kanitkar have been pillars of Rajasthan being winners of Ranji trophy for two consecutive years. Suryakant Yadav from Mumbai has been very impressive at a very young age. So atm its unlikely to see Manish in this playing X!. Neither is Manish in scheme of things of the selectors and the think tank including the captain.

Given the fitness issues of Sehwag and Gautam uncertainty about selection of Rohit, Raina and Yuvi, retirements of Rahul and unavailability of Sachin and VVS in couple of years there are more batting chances for the forthcoming years. That was not the case with when Saurav, Sachin, Rahul and VVS were certain selections throughout their their career. So for the future yes, he might be seen given the various factors and improvement of form and / or experience. He relies more on hand eye coordination rather than on footwork. There have been exceptions but more often such batters are bound to have an inconsistent time in test matches. Age is very much on his side and he plays for one of the prominent Ranji team. So its not over for him if he shows improvement.

[andy]

India certainly have some talented youngsters coming through, but a bit of a worry for them is that, they have struggled badly in the carrieban on their recent tour against the windies..

[Red Devil]

The only batter to emerge with credit from the 'A' tests against WI is Chet, so I'd guess that the next Ind test batting line-up would be Sehwag and Gambhir to open (given that no-one else is really staking a claim to their positions, even though they have both been struggling for the last couple of years) with SRT at 4. The other 3 will be VVS, Virat and Chet, but the order is not certain. I suspect they will bat Chet at 6 - with probably VVS at 3 and Virat at 5. Personally my order would be Sehwag, Gambhir, Chet, SRT, VVS, Virat.

The only other players to emerge with any credit were the seamers B Kumar (who only played the first test - still not sure why he didn't play after that) and Shami Ahmed.

Saxena and Rohit Sharma made decent all-round contributions, but probably not strong enough to push for a test spot - especially Rohit whose batting was disappointing even though he contributed well with his off-spin.

[sussexpob]

Personal RD I think that the line up you suggest is not solving any of the questions that India need to address in the near future.

I think that you have to either be ruthless and slash the oldsters in the team and pick a few of the names mentioned, or maintain selection parity and make sure that one of your already capped younger guys gets into the team for 2 years minimum ( Mukund, Vijay, Sharma, Pujara to name some of those players who have been around the team and selectors minds for a few years)....

At the end of the day all that seems to be happening is a full circle effect.... names get mentioned on the short term, a player scores 3 FC centuries in a short space of time and he gets 3 tests to prove himself and then is ditched forever. This type of selection has NEVER worked, for a masterplan and full details of its crap effect see "England 87-01".

There are, imo, two different ways to manage a selection policy. The first is the ruthless approach, I would count Australia's late 90's to late 00's in this as very successful. The key to that was that one man was picked in advance to fill a position and was given 2 or 3 years wait to play. India should be identifying the men now to replace their top 6, and those men picked in squads consistently without fail. When the batsman proves past his worth you are quick to cut him, and your replacement is given time to play unless he dramatically fails. The second key to this plan is the most effective, and that is to rehabilitate the career of the failures.... I have said this countless times on this board, but everyone of those Australian legendary batsman fought for their career, had time out the international game, came back stronger players.... for an Indian example, see Sehwag or Laxman, both had severe lean spells they came back from.

The second policy is to simply give players the time. Kohli looks a talent, give him 20 tests and he will be a world beater, very rarely do you see such a talented stroke player. Give the others a go, I mean I doubt that Mukund's baptism in England vs the Worlds best seam attack, facing the new ball in helpful conditions was an adequate assessment of his worth to the side.... again you could use the example of how England destroyed the mental capacity of their two most talented fc batsman in the 90's by making sure both were always one failed test match away from the chop...

I doubt either of these will happen though because both require a bit of faith, patience, and extreme hard work and synergy behind the scenes, something that only a handful of teams in history have successfully implemented.

[greyblazer]

I like Mukund's temperament but with his technique he will struggle to do well.

[shankycricket]

With India set to resume Test action in a few days, it seems right to bump this thread!

[andy]

good thinking shanks!