Fourth Test: India v England, 8-12 Dec.

[yuppie]

When is Indias next away test, and where is it?

I know they still have at least 6 more tests at home.

But its time for them to travel to see how good they actually are. Get rid of the lingering questions.

Are they a great team in the making, or are they the same as every other test nation going around at the moment. Great at home and hopeless away. (Except SA who won in Australia;))

Please dont remind of tour outside Asia .

I think its time though to see where they are. This Indian team is doing some pretty great things at home. The problem is the longer they play at home the longer it is till they will have played in foreign conditions making it harder for them to adjust.

To many games at home will make it harder to play overseas. Their record at present makes them the number 1 team, it would be great for test cricket to see them play in foreign conditions. Sadly though that is still a year away.

Again, will talk about this on another thread.

[rich1uk]

the most depressing thing for me about this tour is how much we have contributed to our own demise

poor captaincy, incompetent selection, no clear idea of what the best team is, trying to fit poor players into a preconceived system, knee jerk changes and no apparent plan of how to proceed

the only silver lining on a very dark cloud is we dont play tests again for 7 months and there is time to hopefully resolve some of those issues

[Arthur Crabtree]

Moeen keeps scoring the occasional big score that makes one believe he can bat at this level but I'm beginning to doubt that's true.

Perhaps a little mitigation in him having bowled 43 overs.

[rich1uk]

Moeen keeps scoring the occasional big score that makes one believe he can bat at this level but I'm beginning to doubt that's true.

Perhaps a little mitigation in him having bowled 43 overs.

there is for today but we are batting a guy at #4 who has a career batting average in FC cricket under 40 and even tho he has been moved around the order a bit hasn't really shown he is likely to improve much on his test average of 33. add that to a bowling average of 40 then its kinda hard to see what value he adds.

we bottled it imo and moved him up the order from #7 or #8 because he played a couple of decent innings and everyone started protesting he was too good to bat that far down, when in reality he hasn't really proved he is too good to bat at #8 in the modern game and by moving him up the order we have compromised the balance of the team.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Fair enough. I think there's room in a side for one player who doesn't quite get in for his batting or his bowling, but as England have a surfeit of all rounders, it isn't really necessary. Of course, England picked him because they maintained he was the best spinner in the country, but that's a message that gets obscured by his occasional moves up the order. Probably he now has to fight Adil Rashid for a spot down the order again. Next summer:

Haseeb
Cook
Root
Jennings
New batter
Stokes
Bairstow
Mo/Rashid
Woakes
Broad
Anderson

Though Bairstow could bat at five and Buttler at seven (for me, only if JB2 keeps as well).

[rich1uk]

Fair enough. I think there's room in a side for one player who doesn't quite get in for his batting or his bowling, but as England have a surfeit of all rounders, it isn't really necessary. Of course, England picked him because they maintained he was the best spinner in the country, but that's a message that gets obscured by his occasional moves up the order. Probably he now has to fight Adil Rashid for a spot down the order again. Next summer:

Haseeb
Cook
Root
Jennings
New batter
Stokes
Bairstow
Mo/Rashid
Woakes
Broad
Anderson

Though Bairstow could bat at five and Buttler at seven (for me, only if JB2 keeps as well).

which is the team i would like to see in home conditions

we have seen how under utilised a 6th bowler is so having 4 bowlers at 8-11 with stokes as your all-rounder is enough

and i made my feelings clear about the wicket-keeper position yesterday so for me it would be bairstow at #5 with buttler or foakes keeping

[Durhamfootman]

when you pick the wrong squad in the first place, it's hard to recover from early set backs with late call ups. Had England called up Foakes or Gubbins instead of Dawson (which seems a pointless selection) and slotted him into the top order and left Moeen at 7 or whatever, they might have debuted like KJ, but more realistically England would have ended up being criticised for having too many newbies in the top 4 whilst half century hero Moeen was left floundering with the tail too far down the order to make a difference. Sometimes you just can't win in these situations, which is why Bayliss and Cook should not have been padding out the squad with players like Finn and Batty, and giving themselves nowhere to turn to when things went a bit t1ts up

[Dr Cricket]

They should hav no issues yuppie.
India playing 13-15 consective away game all in a 18 month period.
If they can't adapt then they are really awful after concentrating on overseas cricket for years.

[Arthur Crabtree]

India should strengthen their batting by bringing in Rahane for Yadav jr. in the next Test.

[meninblue]

I was wondering who is Englands best spinner. I think there is no conclusive answer to it and Moeen comes in playing 11 in Asia. If there was another spinner who is better than Moeen (Rashid), then i would drop Moeen outside Asia and play Rashid or whoever else is Englands best specialist spinner without considering how well that spinner bats. In Asia though Moeen quickly comes back in playing 11 as second spinner.There is not much point in playing two spinners where pace bowlers get purchase.

[meninblue]

India should strengthen their batting by bringing in Rahane for Yadav jr. in the next Test.

Ajinkya will be back in playing 11. Karun will make way for him.

[Arthur Crabtree]

;)

[Making_Splinters]

For England this will be a tour of, "What if?". Too often we've thrown away positions that have been strong and allowed India to get on top of us.

Still, so far England have played far better than I thought they would of, if we had a decent spinner this would have been a half decent competition.

[hopeforthebest]

Fair enough. I think there's room in a side for one player who doesn't quite get in for his batting or his bowling, but as England have a surfeit of all rounders, it isn't really necessary. Of course, England picked him because they maintained he was the best spinner in the country, but that's a message that gets obscured by his occasional moves up the order. Probably he now has to fight Adil Rashid for a spot down the order again. Next summer:

Haseeb
Cook
Root
Jennings
New batter
Stokes
Bairstow
Mo/Rashid
Woakes
Broad
Anderson

Though Bairstow could bat at five and Buttler at seven (for me, only if JB2 keeps as well).

which is the team i would like to see in home conditions

we have seen how under utilised a 6th bowler is so having 4 bowlers at 8-11 with stokes as your all-rounder is enough

and i made my feelings clear about the wicket-keeper position yesterday so for me it would be bairstow at #5 with buttler or foakes keeping

I don't think looking at this team as having 6 bowlers is the correct way to view it. Three of the available bowlers are likely to have been picked because their batting is stronger than the spare specialist batsmen. Can you really say Duckett or Ballance are worthy of replacing any of Moeen, Siokes or Woakes on current form. Under normal circumstances this team looks odd but with the current squad it's probaby the strongest option except perhaps Dawson coming in. Many times you could claim the Assies have 6 bowlers becaues Smith and Warner can bowl and sometimes do bowl.

[hopeforthebest]

Fair enough. I think there's room in a side for one player who doesn't quite get in for his batting or his bowling, but as England have a surfeit of all rounders, it isn't really necessary. Of course, England picked him because they maintained he was the best spinner in the country, but that's a message that gets obscured by his occasional moves up the order. Probably he now has to fight Adil Rashid for a spot down the order again. Next summer:

Haseeb
Cook
Root
Jennings
New batter
Stokes
Bairstow
Mo/Rashid
Woakes
Broad
Anderson

Though Bairstow could bat at five and Buttler at seven (for me, only if JB2 keeps as well).

which is the team i would like to see in home conditions

we have seen how under utilised a 6th bowler is so having 4 bowlers at 8-11 with stokes as your all-rounder is enough

and i made my feelings clear about the wicket-keeper position yesterday so for me it would be bairstow at #5 with buttler or foakes keeping

I don't think looking at this team as having 6 bowlers is the correct way to view it. Three of the available bowlers are likely to have been picked because their batting is stronger than the spare specialist batsmen. Can you really say Duckett or Ballance are worthy of replacing any of Moeen, Siokes or Woakes on current form. Under normal circumstances this team looks odd but with the current squad it's probaby the strongest option except perhaps Dawson coming in. If ypi want to be completely accurate the team had seven Bowlers with Root.