From: rajagopa@charlie.ece.scarolina.edu (Sundararaman Rajagopal)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Subject: no subject (file transmission)
Date: 6 Jan 1993 11:00:10 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Hi netters

It is just so tempting to join in this Indian team bashing that has been going
on in the net ever since the SouthAfrican tour started ( not that the team does
not deserve it).I just thought I would also send my 2 cents worth on this topic.

CAPTAINCY:
Definitely there needs to be a change in the top. Azhar has simply not lived 
upto the expectations of the Indian fans. I am not saying this because we have
lost almost everything since he became the captain but the way we have lost manyof these matches.Take the ODIs in SA for instance. In atleast 5 of the 7 matcheswe were bundled out for 150 or thereabout. Whatever little resistance was there
was provided by our lower order batsman and some lionhearted performance by the
bowlers. What I am trying to say here is that, when someone else was captain 
say, Kapil or Srikkanth we used to perform well until atleast the three quarter
stage of the match. We used to lose  matches only during the last 5-6 overs of
the entire match due to panicking. But what is happening now, is that, by the
25th over of our innings we are in a situation where our tail is trying to play
out the 50 overs. We are not only losing a batsman of the ability of Azhar but
he has not shown, in his stint as a captain,any evidence of motivating the team.Obviously he has also been not leading the team by example cause his own form
with the bat has not been something to cheer about.That he is having problems
concentrating, is obvious from his fielding lapses, which till now were unheard
of. The pressure seems to be telling on him. Sadly, there seems to be no
solution to the problem of captaincy. Kapil,at best is going to be a stopgap
and I think currently he seems to be the best choice. Not that this is going
to bring about a wholesale change in the results. But I guess there will be a
change in the performance atleast. Hopefully the batting problems will be sortedout. This, I am saying because the Indian batsmen are technically OK. It is justthat they dont seem to get their act tegether. May be it is the pressure and
lack of motivation. Kapil and Tendulkar are probably the only 2 guys who can
hold their places in the team. For obvious reasons we would not like to ask
Sachin to take over the leadership. That leaves us only with the former and in
his support kapil's record as a captain is not all that bad.

BATTING: I guess atleast 2-3 places are up for grabs here. The openers tried
out have done little or nothing. Shastri has been a total failure and it is
best to leave him out for both tests and ODIs for sometime atleast. Jadeja
has also not come up with any big score at all. Raman, despite his century
lacks consistency. But he has been the best of the three and deserves another
try. Also, he has not got a long stint at all and this is one reason he should 
be given another chance. I think we should try out Kambli as an opener because
in the limited chances he got he did well. Anyway he should be definitely
in the list for the matches against England. The no:3 spot is also vacant.
Manjrekar, again should be rested for a few matches so that he can get back that
appetite to score runs.He seems to be an enigma, given his technical correctness
A guy who succeeded against the best bowling attack in the world( WI and PAK) intheir own soil cannot be such a bad bat as his scores seems to indicate. I am
sure he will get back his confidence if he gets a couple of big scores in the
domestic scene. That leaves us with Amre, Azhar and Tendulkar who did fairly
well(compared to others). I would also like to try Sidhu again as an opener.

BOWLING: This has been the most encouraging aspect of the tour. While our
batsmen do not seem to have sorted out the problems the bowlers have done quite
well in restricting the SA batting . That too given the fact that bowling
was thought to be our weakest link. We, nolonger have to rely on Kapil for
the initial breakthroughs. Prabhakar, on some occassions has shown the ability
to run through the top order. Srinath has been quite effective and has been 
one of our latest finds, I would say. Although, he has not taken wkts by the
dozen he has always been among the wickets. This is in contrast to some of the
other pacers we have had in the past few years who used to go wicketless for
many an innings. This series should see chetan's carreer coming to an end.
Even after 1 decade of international cricket he seems to have not learnt the
basics and gets carted around by club cricketers. Kumble has come on really
well and if only the batting had measured up, his bowling in the 2nd test
would have been a matchwinning effort. Raju has not been as "pathetic" as he
has been made out. And if Maninder can get back his form I think the bowling
will really look good. Probably, we should try out Srinath as our opening
bowler and as netters pointed out have Kapil as our change bowler. That should
relieve Kapil's task as a bowler little bit, so that he can concentrate on his
batting a lot more. 

I think i have rambled on for quite sometime now. Lets see what the selectors
can come up with. The Indian team to meet England is going to be selected on
the 11th of January. Lets hope for the best.
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket