So I was wrong about Gambhir

He does deserve his place in the side, and irrespective of how he does against quality pace, he's proven that he is top class and one of the first names on the team sheet.

Calling SG to contribute to this thread.

Thank You.

He's been India's most consistent batsman in all forms of the game for the last 12 months.

Good on you to accept a mistake. Gambhir has been a class act for some time now. Natural opener too. Resilient and attacking when the occassion demands. India is lucky to have him.

Count me in though I'd like to see him succeeding in places like SA, Aus and Eng in tests.

IMO he still fishes too much outside off stump. Sometimes he gets too cheeky that he wants to guide ball to 3rd man even when slippers are there.

In short, he got to improve his off side game.

SG wrote:Count me in though I'd like to see him succeeding in places like SA, Aus and Eng in tests.

He'll do fine in England, which has pitches that are either flat or with some swing. Need to see SA and Aus though!

I think everyone has stopped calling him UMB except SG.


On a general note: I am also happy to say he has turned my opinion of him. I turned it around after seeing his 200 against Aus a couple of months back and seeing him play Mendis/Murali in Lanka.

Still a moody git though.

He looks like and elfish version of Aamir Khan.

I like the fact that he's got balls. I mini Ganguly if you like...

Can't see a Ganguly in him but he's got spunk, I'll give you that. The guys got it all. He adjusts his game and is surprisingly successful in all the three forms.

spangler wrote:He looks like and elfish version of Aamir Khan.

The British boxer or the Indian actor?

The actor

Hmmm, Dorrie, whilst I agree that Gambhir has done well and deserves his place - I don't think there's anyway that Aus attack, that England attack and the normal Kiwis could be called anything other than minnows.

Brass Monkey wrote:Hmmm, Dorrie, whilst I agree that Gambhir has done well and deserves his place - I don't think there's anyway that Aus attack, that England attack and the normal Kiwis could be called anything other than minnows.

Would have loved to see GG handle McGrath/Warney/Pollock etc. Too bad he missed the better part of the action in recent past. Still Aus has a somewhat formidable attack going by their 2-1 win in SA.

Batman wrote:Would have loved to see GG handle McGrath/Warney/Pollock etc. Too bad he missed the better part of the action in recent past. Still Aus has a somewhat formidable attack going by their 2-1 win in SA.

When India played them, they had green-as-phuck or defunkt broken paceman and gash-weasel spinners. Not the greatest.

SG wrote:IMO he still fishes too much outside off stump. Sometimes he gets too cheeky that he wants to guide ball to 3rd man even when slippers are there.

In short, he got to improve his off side game.

'Cheeky' is good. That's not a flaw in his technique, that's just confidence and audacity - qualities I like to see in a batsman.

Sehwag called Gambhir "the second wall of the Indian cricket team, this one from the north". So just as the Southern Wall seems to be crumbling, have we found a reliable Northern Wall, apart from the Himalayas?

i thought gambhir was a minnow basher and he was. but glad to see him improve his game and surprise me. now he needs to keep it up for 2-3 years at least to prove that he can be a fine asset to this team. has certainly been one of our most important batsmen of the last 12 months or so

Any good batsman worth his bat has got to also be a minnow basher.

yes. but gambhir was a minnow basher and nothing else. had a poor record against the proper teams

now its time for yuvraj to try and step up to the plate (again). his average outside the sub-con is 15 or something, and so far this tour he hasnt shown anything to assure one that the stat is about to change much. hope the next test is not a road as well so that we can see if yuvraj is worth persisting with. not many tests left in the big 3 of the middle order, dont want a situation where 4 spots in the middle are left empty

i jumped bandwagon a long time ago !

to be fair, he got labelled a minnow basher when there wasn't really a big enough sample to justify that tag. yes, he cashed in bigtime against the minnows (a good trait as hh_pink says) but hadn't played too much against the other teams and/or did not get an extended run in the team.

his technique still doesn't justify his 50+ avg but he's been piling them on at almost 60 avg in domestic cricket for what 6-7 yrs now? gotta have something about him!

imo he should open the ODI too

as for yuvraj, though obviously far more talented, he either looks majestic or absolutely shocking. he needs to learn to fight it out and not just bat like a millionaire in every game. but he will come good i am sure.

HH_pink wrote:

SG wrote:IMO he still fishes too much outside off stump. Sometimes he gets too cheeky that he wants to guide ball to 3rd man even when slippers are there.

In short, he got to improve his off side game.

'Cheeky' is good. That's not a flaw in his technique, that's just confidence and audacity - qualities I like to see in a batsman.

Cheekiness isn't any good when you try to guide through slips as Gambhir tries to do so often. And if you remember he has perished many times in doing that.

I'll give him that he looks so confident out there. IMO its his confidence which has stood him (as well us) in good stead in last 12 months or so as IMO he still doesn't have much of a technique for an opener.

The One wrote:now its time for yuvraj to try and step up to the plate (again). his average outside the sub-con is 15 or something, and so far this tour he hasnt shown anything to assure one that the stat is about to change much. hope the next test is not a road as well so that we can see if yuvraj is worth persisting with. not many tests left in the big 3 of the middle order, dont want a situation where 4 spots in the middle are left empty

Yuvraj is at his best when he just goes out there and lets his instinct take over. The good thing is that most of his significant test scores have come when India really needed him to perform.