Indian squad for the T20 World Cup

Squad: MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Vinay Kumar, Rohit Sharma
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Seems a little low on pace and what is Piyush Chawla doing there? Where are Ojha, and Pandey? Vinay Kumar selected on the back of 2 performances in the IPL.
Chikka needs to be dropped.

how many under fitness clouds?

We're screwed.

isnt nehra injured? bowling looks very weak. just zaheer and bhajji give any sort of confidence

Should have had Pandey in there..

Agreed with you guys about Pandey. What about Tiwary who plays for Mumbai? Even Uthappa has been in good form.

I suppose Ohja isn't there because they have Jadeja?

My biggest problem with the squad is the staleness. It's same old same old, playing it completely safe, and failing that making braindead decisions like Chawla FFS ahead of Mishra and Ojha. Unless the batting performs a lot better than expected, we're not getting past the 2nd round.

Henry Nolonga wrote:Agreed with you guys about Pandey. What about Tiwary who plays for Mumbai? Even Uthappa has been in good form.

I suppose Ohja isn't there because they have Jadeja?

Agree with you there. Saurabh Tiwary was an absolute must. Uthappa maybe, but Ojha ahead of Piyush anyday. What troubles me more is the lack of at least one more pacer to cover all casualties. Nehra seems injued, but surely he'll have recovered by the end of April.

a just recovered nehra (who is highly injury-prone anyways) seems like a huge gamble. and that too for a player who is not exactly a world-beater

i guess the pace options are limited for india. ishant is bowling terribly, balaji has no pace and not much control and the younger pacers have not exactly commanded attention so far

the windies should be spin-heavy conditions anyways. so we have sehwag, pathan and yuvraj to help the specialists

Yes. Nehra isn't necessarily the best option, but that doesn't change the fact that we are low on pace. Maybe Irfan with his alround capabilities may have been an option, but only as a second string bowler. But he wasn't in the initial 30, if I remember right.

The other side of the story is of course being too batting heavy. Every good name that comes to mind would only enhance the batting. Ideally IMO, one needs to carry 8 batsmen and seven bowlers. India seems to be lucky with its 2 wks, who would probably walk into the side even just as batsmen. Yet the missing Pandey and the reliable Kohli will be missed. I'd have left out Rohit Sharma instead.

Trivedi from Rajasthan would have been a pretty good option pace wise- He's always looked a clever bowler, and what about Ashok Dinda? He's always looked pretty impressive.

I think they feel Ohja is too one dimensional. He's probably the best ODI/T20 spinner in India, but he cant bat, and his fielding is below average.

Rohit ahead of about 4 other batsmen is a dubious selection. I guess it's the fact that he always looks so damn good at the crease (before inevitably throwing his wicket away). The selectors have been sucked in there.

I wonder if the selectors tried to talk SRT out of international T20 retirement? He's in scintilating form right now in all forms of the game. This is arguably the most consistent form he's shown in his entire career.

they did try. but sachin has said the same thing time and again (including at the presentation ceremony last night) - he retired from t20s in 2007 and is not going to review that decision

and rightly so. india needs him fit for the tests and the world cup next year. he has gone on record to say that the fact that he plays only tests and picks and chooses his odis has helped him stay relatively injury-free over the last 2-3 years

dinda and trivedi are not international class imo. they will be found out pretty soon

they have the right number of pacers (4). the biggest question mark imo is over nehra

I Pathan couldn't have been a bad option for Windies pitches imo, considering our other 'pacers'. If he can bowl with WK standing up to the stumps he can do an OK job. Obviously his batting is a huge bonus.

Sehwag
Gambhir
Raina
Yuvi
*+ Dhoni
Y Pathan
I Pathan
R Jadeja
Harbhajan
Praveen
Zaheer

Plenty of batting and plenty of bowling although no stand out bowlers.

Both of the Pathan brothers are competent at both of the main skills, but neither is outstanding at either batting or bowling.

Yusuf when he gets it right, will win you the match (unless you are RR).

definitely low on pace. vinay is similarish to praveen isnt he? a gamble was required, someone with a bit of teji like umesh yadav or dinda.

but the batting on its own will be enough to win back the cup. its lethal.

also, bring back irfan.

Irfan is gone, so I guess we'll have to do without him unless someone decides to get injured between now and then. Even so, I can't imagine him getting the next available berth.

Four pacers would normally be enough, but both Zaheer and Nehra aren't in the best of spirits, which leaves us with just Praveen and Vinay Kumar, should one of Zaheer/Nehra fail or get injured. The batting does look good but would probably need 200+ scores to make up for the poor pace dept. It would seem Chikka, in all his parochial glory, has missed a trick with an over-reliance on spin. However, he has selected ample variety in an off-spinner, a left-arm spinner and a leg-spinner in Chawla. (Mishra would have been better) Its also true that WI wickets may be similar to the ones on the subcontinent, yet the proximity of the wickets to the sea will definitely assist good swing. That again opens up the question; where is either Sreesanth or Irfan? Besides, with the availability of so many world-class part-time spinners in the squad, three regular spinners is definitely one too many.

What the hell is Rohit Sharma doing in this team?

Has he done anything of note in say, last 6 months?

And when you see Kohli not being there, his inclusion looks all the more inexplicable. Perhaps, Kallis's success hurt his chances.

PS: Same is true for Yuvraj though at least he has past credentials to flaunt.

And Chawla ahead of Mishra and Ojha?

Gimme a break.

Hope he proves me wrong though.

As the IPL progresses Irfan, Kohli and Saurabh Tiwary continue to rub Chikka's nose in the dirt. I have a premonition the blinkered chairman has dug a shithole for himself. India can't possibly win (after having seen the Oz squad) and it would seem the limitations of his selection will come back to haunt him. To me it looks like we are a bit spin-heavy.
My choice:
Mishra/Tiwary in >> Chawla out (doesn't have to be like for like)
Irfan Pathan in >> Ashish Nehra out
Kohli in >> Rohit Sharma out
Would like to see one extra pacer in but can't find one he could replace.

Rohit Sharma seems to do better than Virat Kohli in 20-20s. And the reverse in case of ODIs. Kohli a better fielder. Sharma a better bowler. I don't think Sharma is a bad pick compared to Kohli.

And Pandey would probably have been a better pick than both of them.

Pandey's feet have been all over the place in this IPL. Robin Uthappa on the other hand is in tremendous form.

philcric wrote:Rohit Sharma seems to do better than Virat Kohli in 20-20s. And the reverse in case of ODIs. Kohli a better fielder. Sharma a better bowler. I don't think Sharma is a bad pick compared to Kohli.

Not as far as this IPL is a barometer. Actually the only place where Rohit should come into discussion is for tests, but even there he'd be hard-pressed.
In any case, this squad is packed with batsmen. Its really the pace bowling dept. that needs correction. I heard Chikka in an interview yesterday - Jeez. Sounds like he's still in his diapers. All fire and flames for Vijay (of course TN), yet the man is nowhere near the T20 squad.
Great innings that from Vijay, BTW.