From: Sanjay.Naik@launchpad.unc.edu (Sanjay Naik)
Subject: Re: A few reports/rumours from India
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 06:14:59 GMT

In article <009664CC.5CEADC00@vms.csd.mu.edu> 9063iyerm@vms.csd.mu.edu writes:
>
>Sometime back, I received mail from a friend in India wherein he refers to the
>rumours that have been floating around the cricketing circles. He says that
>Manjrekar, Shastri(unfit), Raman, Jadeja, Chetan Sharma and Banerjee will in all
>probability be axed. Sidhu, Ankola, Abey Kuruvilla, Kambli should find places
>in the team. Prabhakar sems to have consolidated his position as opener(62).
>
	Isn't is pathetic that we have to ask our opening bowler to open our
batting too. Proof of how bad our batting is. In the old days we used to have
guys like Abid Ali and Sunny doing both jobs, the only difference being
that we had spin wizards from heaven coming on later. Now, ...... :(

>Azhar may remain as captain. 
>
>These are according to the friend. I have my own doubts about the last part.
>Also, Ankola may not be the one to get the nod. And based on the SAARC tourney
>performances, the pacers may just remain in the sidelines for a while longer,
>since Prabhakar, Kapil and Srinath are going to meet the requirements fairly
>well(Srinath hit the jackpot by getting the MOM award!!). 
>
>Srikkanth has scored a couple of hundreds in Ranji so far this season, against
>Karnataka and Goa. He too may be vying for a place, though I don't know if he
>will even be considered. I personally don't believe in axing older players
>simply because they are older, as in the case of Mohinder Amarnath. If a player
>is good enough to play, he should be played no matter how old he is.  Axing
>Srikkanth after the Pakistan tour was a mistake, and he never recovered fully
>from that setback. Vengsarkar's confidence did not get a boost by the
>in-now-out-now attitude of selectors before the OZ tour. And a good player
>retired when he was still good enough for a few more seasons. 

	I hope that we don't pick Srikkanth again. He's never had a great
test record and a century against Goa is irrelevant. He got onto the Oz
tour partly because he scored some double ton against a weak opposn. and the
South selectors really pushed for his selection. His performances in Oz were
disappointing. Ofcourse Srikkanth was a tremendously entertaining batsman and
much loved by the Indian supporters because of his big hitting just like
Kapil. These days all you have to do to become popular with The Indian fans
is to strike a couple of big blows every now and again and fans will love
you for evermore, even if you're a pretty ordinary player. Look at Sidhu, 
I think Neeran Karnik dreams about him at night. Only kidding, Neeran :)

But I agree with you about axing players because of age. Amarnath was very
badly treated. As for Vengy, I think he really had come to the end of the
road. I saw some highlights (all 10 mins) of the Oz tour, when I was in India
and Vengy was flinching when Mark Waugh dug a couple in short. A wonderfully
elegant player, but the Oz tour had to be his last series. Going back to
Srikkanth, he was unfairly stripped of the captaincy but his inability to
get past Akram's first over had a lot to do with it. After the Pak series,
it was going to be difficult for him to retain his place as a batsman, hence
a new captain. That was last time Manjrekar had a good series, since then
he's had repeated failures.

>In many ways, Gavaskar was good for India(I have my reservations about his
>defensive approach, politics, etc) because he stood by his core of players and
>extracted good performances from them. So did Kapil, whose only blemish came in
								 ^^^^^^^

	I felt that it was more than a blemish - his captaincy and batting in
that game left a lot to be desired. I think he forgot to tell Maninder and
Shastri that they were allowed to prevent Gooch from sweeping - that's not
to take credit away from Gooch, who played a super innings, thanks partly
to our friend Kris. He then made amends of the spill when batting by lifting
his head in the air and missing the ball when going for a huge hit early in
his innings. The only trouble was that the ball hit the stumps.

 >the'87 WC. They both had the advantage of a solid core, which always
>delivered. Azhar is handicapped by the wayward performances of his top batsmen,
>including himself. They seem unable to shrug off the bad phase and get into the
>groove. Look at Manjrekar. I had a lot of respect and admiration for him, but
>he has been disappointing time and again. No doubt everyone is convinced that
>he has it in him to come good, but the lean trot has been a mite too long for
>anyone's comfort, most tellingly for Manjrekar himself and the Indian team.
>
>
>-Murali
>
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>%                                Murali Iyer                                  %
>%  Marquette University, CSD                         Residence:               %
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>% //Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are solely mine. If others //   %
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