You know what, I wanted to write a blog post about my thoughts on who should play in Indian team for world cup yesterday itself. But as the fate had it, an old friend called and I kept on discussing the composition of Indian team over the phone for 3 hours. We Indians can talk about politics, bollywood and cricket for unlimited time and everyone of us is no less an expert than Harsha Bhogle. On every tea stall you can find men of all ages discussing cricket and giving their two bits. So, here is mine.
If there was any better chance for India to win a world cup than this one then it must be in some fantasy game only. The batting lineup is so strong that till yesterday everybody was hotly debating on place for Kohli in eleven, a player who is at 2nd spot in ICC ranking currently. In my view only players with good form should be allowed to put their feet on the field. Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir …. any question there, I think not! Then come the real brainer, the middle order. I think kohli deserves the 4th spot due to shear volume of runs he has scored in last year. Dhoni is fixed at 6th. So question remains placing 2 out of Yuvi, Yusuf and Raina in 5th and 7th spot.
My thinking is that Yusuf Pathan is in form of his life so he must be used at 5th spot. Also there is Dhoni at 6th position, in case Yusuf falls early. In most matches 5th spot comes after 35th over and a good hitter is required at that point. Yuvi and Raina are out of touch and Yusuf is a better player of spin than Yuvi. So Yuvi and Raina must be rotated at 7th spot based on their bowling performance.
Now comes the bowling line up. From start I am of the view that advantage of playing in India must be grabbed by fielding two specialist spinners, Harbhajan and Piyush. There is no need to flaunt the fact that we also can field 3 fast bowlers like other teams, in-spite of poor fitness and form of all of them. So pick two out of pacers. If upto me, it’s Zaheer and Munaf. We can not let Sree play just to see his drama on field. Bowling is largely a defensive exercise in ODI and bowlers must be consistent, if not piercing. That leaves Nehra and SreeSanth out.
So let us see what everybody thinks….
February 20, 2011 at 10:28 PM
Obviously No one wants headless Sreesanth in Indian lineup, but playing two spinner or three seamers is still a matter of debate if we have Praveen Kumar in squad its an advantage as we saw Munaf got all his wickets in smart slower deliveries and Praveen is an expert in this area. My stake on playing Chawla/Nehra is 50/50 . Chawla adds strength in spin bowling but we already have so many part timers who are doing well and can do well in absence of Chawla , and Nehra who is struggling recently may become more useful under lights, and as dew will be around so he has advantage over spinners.