I have stated it in the past and trotting down memory lane once again for a refresher course, I would rather have Munaf Patel in the team on a regular basis than Ajit Agarkar. As has been mentioned infinite times already, the guy has been causing numerous amounts of pain and threshold when he appears in the bowling line-up, physically and mentally, just plain torture. Munaf Patel is one bowler, who, gets consistent levels of varied pace and averages close-about in the early 140's range, and no matter how good Agarkar's stats are presented on the table with a cherry on top, come World Cup, there will be a major talk amongst the communities on the subject of the most feared bowlers in the world, and I believe if the trio of Chappell/Dravid/Pawar have the resisting capability to persist with Munaf and at least give him a few chances regardless of looking at him from statistical point of view, he is bound to go in either direction, and I would rather exploit his potential (and/or weaknesses) now, as oppose to later. India can afford to lose a few here and there which would not make an immediate difference in the long-run, but looking at things from the general overall point of view, Agarkar should be included as back-up only and Patel should now play every single match from hereon, at least a dozen or so, before a stamp of incompetency is put on his envelope and he is discarded on the sidelines.
Pace is not the be all and end all of the world, most will agree, but when it comes down on picking an individual who possesses that rare killer instinct, that is one of the easiest of decisions a selector would have to make in the blink of an eye.
Good day everyone. I have been a reader of "Pak Links" for many years now. As a matter of fact I used to be a contributor long before any of you were around. I am talking about 5 years ago or so. All the "oldies" are gone now. I posted under the name "Rational". Anyway enough of the past.
This is how i look at it. I believe India is a very strong team and despite losing two matches cannot be written off. They have a very strong batting line up, great fielders and a pretty decent attack.
It is hard to beat them in their current form. West Indies has done remarkably well and India has played some sloppy cricket. I don't understand the rationale of having this Veenu in the team in place of Yuvrag. I hope it was due to an injury and not experementation.
As for the world cup, i think Pakistan has a very outside chance of winning it. We should expect them to make it to the semi finals and that will be an achievement in itself
For me even today Australia remains the team to beat
Welcome back to gs and kk rational2. Yes GS has evolved and lots of oldies are missing here.
It has been a thouroughly absorbing series and I dont think India was playing below their potential. I put it down to their running between the wicket and brilliance of windies. They have really surprised. It seems to me that Lara is third time lucky with his captaincy. still early days though.
Sarwan is crrently the most underrated player nowadays. He is class and he knows how to pace an innings. :k:
Problem with Agarkar is consistency. He could be very good one day and the next he will just lose it. I think Sami and Agarkar need to see the same doctor.
The only time he was consitent was some time back when India was playing Australia. He had the most consistent scores of zeroes throughout the series :-)
Offcouse India does have a strong and match winning batting line up, who is arguing that. Question is can they rely on their bowlers to win matches for them? Irfan Phatan is their premier bowler, if we compare him with other top bowlers of the world like Brett Lee, Shoaib, Pollack, Nitini, Flintoff and McGrath etc where would he rank?
If they trust and put faith on Manuf and others they must be believe that he is better than Irfan for them to succeed, otherwise they are going no where. Just look at Pakistan, when Asif came, everyone concluded that he is better and shows more potential than Sami and Rana combined.
One-dimensional teams are very easy to beat. No matter how good the batting line-up if one of top bowlers of the world have a decent day, India will be in lot of trouble and most of these bowlers are in form. How long they'll rely on Dravid and Yuvraj?
Agarkar is the only decent and consistent bolwer in this tournament for India so far. I don't care if he fails or win.
Agarkar has already been given enough credit as it already is. When he first broke onto the International scene, half of the world labeled him as India’s “benchmark strength” and “the next crop of fastest bowlers”, not to mention terms such as “skiddy” and “pace war” made headlines at the time when he hardly troubled tail-enders with his trundling miseries equaling the amount of pace Shahid Afridi has the capability to generate. When the man himself makes an appearance on National Television constantly complaining and claiming that he has not been given enough chances in the side to prove his worth - that in itself is a mark of dejection.
Agarkar might be a temporary fix on a short-term basis, but once you look at a bigger picture, in the longer-run, I would rather exploit someone who is new to the International scene, provide him with the biggest bottle of potent venomous possible, and persist with him for a good amount of time before discarding that individual off. This is the point where Munaf Patel comes into the picture. If nothing else, the selectors can always go back to the age-old tried-and-tested methods.
Once again, India can afford to lose a couple of games but the most important thing that will come out of those matches, which is a big if, is the holding potential (or weakness) of Munaf Patel himself. He is bound to go in either direction, and as long as he is sidelined with India’s short-term goals in mind, it will be awfully hard to find someone of Munaf’s caliber in the later stages of the game. As mentioned above, one simply cannot rely on the middle-order batters to heave them out of crunch situations every time. Instead, there is a strong need to find someone with that killer instinct.
I am now almost inclined to open a new thread titled “Agarkar vs. Sami & Rao vs. Rao - Who should be hanged first?”
They all have to be hanged, eventually, in one way or the other.
I was expecting a 5-0 whitewash and am pleasantly surprised by the fight shown by the Windies. But I wouldn’t be all gloom and doom if I were an Indian fan just yet. Still 2 games to go and this team is good at fighting back.
While I have always been a fan of Chappell’s innovation and aggressive tactics, I think he might have gone a bit too far here. Pathan is now a regular at the top of the order as opposed to being a pinch hitter. Surely India has better pure batsmen options than Pathan? Experimenting just for the sake of it usually does more harm than good.
Indian bowling hasn’t been surprising, it was always like this, only difference here is that the failure of the batsmen have highlighted it whereas earlier when they would win it, it would be brushed under the carpet. Agarkar has been the best performer by far for India and I think he should always be in the playing 11. He actually gets the ball over 80 mph on a REGULAR basis.
Let’s reserve final judgement on the team until the series is over. I expect Yuvraj will be back in the side (Rao is TERRIBLE). Also, I feel Dravid at one down with another specialist opener might just be the solution to the batting problems.
Many people were expecting WI to be a pushover. They have proved most of the pundits wrong.
Some commentators went a bit overboard in sneering the WI. In particular Mr. Sidhu who declared that "India will plummet WI", even before a single ball was bowled. I don't know what it is with desis and bragging. Most often than not it comes back to bite, yet we never learn.
You never hear others talk like that "sigh"
Just imagine him sitting in front of the TV, wearing his gigantic safaid turban on his head, his index finger pointed straight into the middle of the camera, and picture the following words being omitted from his mouth-piece:
Hindustan West Indies ko aisey kuchal dey gaa, aisey kuchal dey gaa, aisey kuchal dey gaa…
pause for one second with a million-dollar look on his face *
Jaisey Ganga jub chaltee hai, insaan jub usey dekhta hai to aisey lagta hai kay qaid sey bahir nikla hai, jaisey school mein chutti hoti hai aur hazaron ki tadaad mein bachay shor machatey hue bahir nikaltey hain, woh lehar pattharon sey takraati hai, aur tairhey mairhey raston sey jaati hai, rukti nahin hai, pahaar usey kehtay hain bhaiyya, aap hamaray rishtay-daar ho, ruk jao, magar rukti nahin hai, ab us ganga nadee mein eik paani kay bhaag nay socha kay yaar yeh to hamara ang ang gira diya hai, torR diya hai, maar giraya hai, mein is sey alag ho kay dekhta hoon, tu us nay palak kay chalaang lagai aur eik khadday mein jaa kay tik gaya woh paani. Usnay kaha, aaaahaha, kitna aaram hai yeh.*
