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