Indian ODI squad..........

......... to be announced today for SL ODI series.

Irfan and Uthappa under scrutiny

It'd be nothing sort of travesty if that show pony Uthappa makes the squad ahead of Badri or Dhawan.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni will lead India's 16-man squad for the five-match ODI series against Sri Lanka while Virat Kohli, the under-19 captain, gets a maiden call-up. The majority of the squad will then will feature in the Champions Trophy in September, with Ishant Sharma, who will be rested for the series against Sri Lanka, coming in and Parthiv Patel and Munaf Patel returning home.

Squad for Sri Lanka ODIs
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Parthiv Patel, Irfan Pathan, Praveen Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, RP Singh, Munaf Patel, Pragyan Ojha.

SG wrote:It'd be nothing sort of travesty if that show pony Uthappa makes the squad ahead of Badri or Dhawan.

While its good that Uthappa isn't chosen, it looks like selectors seem to have given up on Badri.

Squad for Champions Trophy
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Irfan Pathan, Praveen Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha.

No Sreesanth. Pity, i think he's a good bowler.

I'm not sure Kohli is ready. He's got talent, but his shot selection needs to improve.

Naeem wrote:No Sreesanth. Pity, i think he's a good bowler.

He isn't fit even though he himself has declared himself fit.

As for him being good bowler, might be for tests, certainly not for ODIs.

Henry wrote:I'm not sure Kohli is ready. He's got talent, but his shot selection needs to improve.

Agreed.

It was such a good chance to blood either of Dhawan or Badri.

IMO dropping Yousuf Pathan is a bad move. He can provide a lot of balance to the ODI team in sub-continental conditions.

Sehwag
Gambhir
Tendulkar
Raina / Rohit
Yuvraj
Dhoni
Yousuf Pathan
Irfan Pathan
Praveen Kumar
Harbhajan / Chawla
Ishant

would be my first choice line-up.

Yep, Yousuf would've been a better choice than Irfan/Praveen who both are cannon fodder on subcon pitches.

philcric wrote:IMO dropping Yousuf Pathan is a bad move. He can provide a lot of balance to the ODI team in sub-continental conditions.

Sehwag
Gambhir
Tendulkar
Raina / Rohit
Yuvraj
Dhoni
Yousuf Pathan
Irfan Pathan
Praveen Kumar
Harbhajan / Chawla
Ishant

would be my first choice line-up.

And no way Tendulkar would/should bat at 3. He is best suited to open the batting.

SG wrote:

Henry wrote:I'm not sure Kohli is ready. He's got talent, but his shot selection needs to improve.

Agreed.

It was such a good chance to blood either of Dhawan or Badri.

Missed opportunity by not picking Dhawan. We really need to test him out at international level to find out how good he really is.

leg glancer wrote:

SG wrote:

Henry wrote:I'm not sure Kohli is ready. He's got talent, but his shot selection needs to improve.

Agreed.

It was such a good chance to blood either of Dhawan or Badri.

Missed opportunity by not picking Dhawan. We really need to test him out at international level to find out how good he really is.

India seems to have too many talented up-coming batsmen. How many batsmen can you give chances to? All the batsmen in the current team have earned their places and performing well (atleast in ODIs).

SG wrote:

philcric wrote:IMO dropping Yousuf Pathan is a bad move. He can provide a lot of balance to the ODI team in sub-continental conditions.

Sehwag
Gambhir
Tendulkar
Raina / Rohit
Yuvraj
Dhoni
Yousuf Pathan
Irfan Pathan
Praveen Kumar
Harbhajan / Chawla
Ishant

would be my first choice line-up.

And no way Tendulkar would/should bat at 3. He is best suited to open the batting.

Viru-Gambhir are forming a solid opening pair in all 3 forms of the game. Unfair and counter-productive to break a 'potentially' long term opening partnership. Tendulkar has been missing many ODIs very often. Its up to him to 'fit-in' into the team which is doing well without him, and not the team changing its structure to accomodate his preferences.

At the moment, on form (and fitness), Sehwag and Gambhir are better ODI batsmen than Tendulkar,, and more importantly they have a solid partnership going on.

Dhawan is far more ready than Kohli. There's a real touch of class about the way he bats.

philcric wrote:

SG wrote:

philcric wrote:IMO dropping Yousuf Pathan is a bad move. He can provide a lot of balance to the ODI team in sub-continental conditions.

Sehwag
Gambhir
Tendulkar
Raina / Rohit
Yuvraj
Dhoni
Yousuf Pathan
Irfan Pathan
Praveen Kumar
Harbhajan / Chawla
Ishant

would be my first choice line-up.

And no way Tendulkar would/should bat at 3. He is best suited to open the batting.

Viru-Gambhir are forming a solid opening pair in all 3 forms of the game. Unfair and counter-productive to break a 'potentially' long term opening partnership. Tendulkar has been missing many ODIs very often. Its up to him to 'fit-in' into the team which is doing well without him, and not the team changing its structure to accomodate his preferences.

At the moment, on form (and fitness), Sehwag and Gambhir are better ODI batsmen than Tendulkar,, and more importantly they have a solid partnership going on.

couldnt agree more with the first part. we'd to stupid to break up an in form partnership - they obviously share a great understanding and enjoy batting together.

however, i think its a bit unfair to call sehwag/gambhir better odi batsmen than sachin even on current form. sachin doesnt really have any current odi form - his last odi contributions were those match winning knocks against australia in the CB series.

my team would be:

sehwag
gambhir
raina
tendulkar
yuvraj
dhoni
irfan / rohit
praveen
harbhajan
zaheer
ojha / RP

Is that the right picture?
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/india/content/player/26806.html

He looks like an Aussie...does he bat like one too?

At the moment, on form (and fitness), Sehwag and Gambhir are better ODI batsmen than Tendulkar

Couldn't disagree more. May be on fitness (which is expected as at 36, Tendulkar is no spring chicken) but certainly not on form.

And its just a matter of time that UMB runs out of his luck.

PlanetPakistan wrote:does he bat like one too?

We'll never know as Indian selectors are hell bent on not giving him a chance. Hell when duds like Venugopal Rao can be given so many chances why can't Badri get one single chance?

SG wrote:

At the moment, on form (and fitness), Sehwag and Gambhir are better ODI batsmen than Tendulkar

Couldn't disagree more. May be on fitness (which is expected as at 36, Tendulkar is no spring chicken) but certainly not on form.

2008 ODI Stats:

Sachin
10 10 1 399 117* 44.33 85.25 1 2

Viru
13 13 0 579 119 44.53 125.59 1 4

Gambhir
19 19 3 908 113 56.75 92.27 3 5

Of course Tendulkar didn't have the luxury of facing the attacks of HK, UAE and B'desh which both UMB and Sehwag had.

He faced only 2 nations this year in ODIs which faced each other in last year's WC final, pinnacle of all ODI cricket.