Bowling is the worry, not fab four

Anil Kumble is his name; India's greatest bowler and by far our greatest match winner. Take any of India's victory in last 18 years home or away, you will see Kumble taking atleast 5 wickets in a match (this is w/o exception). Such has been his contribution.

Replacing Kumble is the biggest worry for Indian cricket more than the entire Fab Four put together. Harbhajan is not in his class by any strech of imagination and to my mind he should not even be in the team (notwithstanding his one-off good performance in Sri Lanka).

The spin bowling cubpoard is very bare. India does not have a single quality spinner to replace Kumble. Piyush Chawla, Pragyan Ohja and Amit Mishra are some of our best spinners in domestic cricket. Dont see them playing too much international cricket though !

Over past 50 years India has always played to its strength at home. Always slow, dusty, crumbling wickets to serve likes of J Patel, Venkat, Bedi, Chandra, Shastri, Maninder, Kumble, Bhajji. Our bowling strenghts now will lie with our swing bowlers - likes of Ishant, Pathan, Zaheer, RP can move the bowl both ways in swining conditions. On their day, Zaheer and Ishant can bowl fast and generate good bounce. Given the sorry state of our spinning community, time is ripe to prepare fast, bouncing wickets to support our GenNext cricketers!

Phasing out the Fab Four

Indian selectors have done the right thing by showing the door to Sourav Ganguly. His form and fitness have been wanting fora  while. He has done yoeman service to his country but its time to move on.

Critics of the phasing out policy have questioned the depth in Indian team to replace the fab four. Clearly, it an issue but unless we start phasing out Indian cricket will end up having to fill in a huge hole in its batting order. A situation as disastraous as one Australia faced in mid 1980s when Lillee, Marsh and Chappell retired together.

In next tweleve months, India should show the way to Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar -- in order of the form (or lack of it) they show in coming series against Australia, England, Pakistan and New Zealand. VVS Laxman eternally on the brink of losing his place perhaps should continue for 2-3 years yet to shepherd the young guns of Indian cricket..

So who are the young guns who can replace the gaints? Yuvraj Singh, Badrinath, Kaif, Raina, Rohit Sharma come to mind.

Inspite of his recent fitness and form, Yuvraj to my mind is a very prodigious talent who needs to get his head right. On his day, Yuvraj is just unstoppable. He is a must in Indian test line up. Badrinath is another talent who has struggled to break into this formidable batting line up. Whatever little I have seen of him has given be enough faith in this chap. He is India's Michael Hussey - a possible late debutant but has talent to become one of top batsmen around.

Kaif is an enigma. He seemingly lost his way but his superb batting for Uttar Pradesh got him back in national reckoning. His performance in IPL was horrible to say the least and he looked short of class but test cricket is a differnt ball game. If Kaif has worked on this two weaknesses ie. the short ball and the fast incutter, he should prove to be an able replacement.

Raina is another crickter who has seen the lows and has worked really hard to cement his place back in the Indian team. If he curbs his instinct to fish outside the offstump, should prove to be  a tough and aggressive customer.

R0hit Sharma is sheer class and talent but his temperament for the longer form of the game is in question. I somehow get the feeling that he is someone who raises his game on the bigger stage. His performances in Ranji Trophy are pathetic but he is someone whom selectors should persists with.

Apart from these five cricketers, I would keep an eye for Shikar Dhawan and Manoj Tewary. Batting depth indeed will be tested but its better start to grooming talen now

Indo Aussie test series

Its been a while since I have updated my “blog” but financial markets have been volatile and chaotic and having a markets job is most stressful! Gee – I make my job sound bigger than what it really is Coming back to cricket, Indian cricketers get a complete break up from competitive international action in month of September. Welcome break to rest the tiring creaking bones. Now focus shifts to India – Aus test series at home. In terms of selection of team for such a crucial series, I would suggest that we don’t make wholesome changes but nevertheless may a change or two would be required in the middle order. Sourav Ganguly (incidentally my fav cricketer) must face the axe. He has been far too tentative in his last few tests and against Australia any such weakness would be ruthlessly exposed. But real issue is who will replace Sourav? Contenders include Yuvraj, Kaif, Rohit Sharma and Badrinath. Yurav in current form should not even be playing ODI. Kaif has always been fallible to the short ball and Rohit Sharma has not scored enough first class runs to warrant a test place. I strongly feel Badrinath has to fill in the gap. He has played enough first class cricket and scored tons of runs to get a look in. Others in the middle may just get to keep their place though Dravid needs to start scoring again. He seems woefully short of confidence, so surprising for a batsman who was easily India’s best batsman from 2002- 2006. He may well be pushed down the order to get a more attacking VVS at No 3 in the order. My ideal team in order for first test would be: 1. Sehwag 2. Gambir 3. Laxman 4. Sachin 5. Dravid 6. Badrinath 7. Dhoni 8. Kumble 9. Harbhajan 10. Zaheer 11. Ishant
In other parts of cricketing world, the entire English media is raving about English cricket’s so called revival in ODI cricket. I can only smile – English media has the tendency to over estimate its cricket and cricketers. Jack Russel for all his was best wicket keeper in the planet; Graham Thorpe was best player of spin in world cricket; Darren Gough was the next Ian Botham.. the list is endless. Guys, this is just one series where they have played well and they have a long way to go. Too early to be jingoistic of their performance. No doubt it is amazing to lead SA 4-0 in the series but too early to speculate on possible revival. They have a long way to. Btw, even more interesting is to note that Matt Prior is the solution to their wicket keeping problem. I have studied wicket keeping very closely over the years and I can bet my last dollar his technique is so poor that he is unlikely to be England’s keeper a year from now.

In coming posts, I would be sharing my views on timelines to phase out the Fab Four and also look at replacements. Till then, cheers