Cricket

I used to look forward to test matches in India, Gambhir has single handedly sucked the fun out of it.

More than anything, this smug condescending arrogance he has about everything he does is repulsive. I don't know why I find him so revolting.

Kudos to SA, they're clearly at the top of their game. India are going through a phase of transition post some big names leaving, but they're doing it under the wrong leadership and wasting Bumrah's brilliance, again.
 
Stunned by how bad India were, it's one thing to lose but just didn't expect India to ever be this badly beaten at home.
 
KM said:
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Both utter twats.
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What a shit time for our fans in India.

At least we're doing well in the Ashes.
 
India lack clarity of thought. They play 4 all rounders. Not good enough to take wickets and not good enough with the bat to stand up and arrest collapses on a minefield. They need to simplify things and pick their 5 best batters and 4 best spinners, 1 keeper and worry about the all rounder slot after that. They need to identify who their 2nd spinner is. Jadeja is on his way out, and he was as good as a specialist spinner in India. He will not be replaced by bits and pieces spin of Sundar.

Indian cricket has been built on having 3-4 gun batters who'll play 10 years, and that is the system that works for us. The best player of spin in India cannot be out of the side. At home it should be: Jaiswal, KL, Shreyas Iyer, Gill, Jurel, Rishabh, Jadeja, Kuldeep, some spinner, Bumrah, Siraj.

The Jurel role should be played by a batter who can average >45 and if you believe Sundar can do it, then play him there but evaluate him as a batter. Eventually when Jadeja retires, Sundar or Axar can play that slot. They need to identify who the 2nd spinner is. And if it's a minefield, bench Siraj for Axar.

Instead, they've mucked it all up by picking IPL all rounders and deluding themselves into thinking they have batting till 9 and 7 bowlers(you need only 4 to win test matches).
 
TheGame said:
Prasidh Krishna on great form @zing.
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him and Rana, feels like we are back to that Venkatesh prasad era, we knew we were going to get smacked around.

These idiots are destroying the pipeline. small incident but noticed something, Yash looks increasing frustrated (making errors on basic fielding stuff), Rinku does not even get a look in, Arshdeep looks isolated when someone drops a catch or doesn't do exactly what's expected. these are again my own eye tests, but team seems disjointed and the next guys are not given right guidance. Given Gambhir's own track record, I am not surprised. most likely he's done after T20 WC.
 


Interesting move. Retiring players out has started to creep in over the last few years but it felt like it was only a matter of time before we start seeing teams purposely missing chances to keep a struggling batter in, I wonder if we'll get more of this now.
 
Bumrah, Varun and Pandya are absolute cheat codes.
 
KM said:
Bumrah, Varun and Pandya are absolute cheat codes.
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The Indian t20 process is basically 1) Refuse to select all the best batters 2) Send them out in a random order 3) Tilak Varma and 1 other will make some runs 4) Bumrah and Varun will win it

Our batting is actually very good but Agarkar/Gambhir run it like a circus

The bowling selects itself and is very high class
 
zing said:
The Indian t20 process is basically 1) Refuse to select all the best batters 2) Send them out in a random order 3) Tilak Varma and 1 other will make some runs 4) Bumrah and Varun will win it

Our batting is actually very good but Agarkar/Gambhir run it like a circus

The bowling selects itself and is very high class
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Rinku and Kishan are back which are good moves.
 
Just seen a scorecard in an Indian domestic match on ESPN. Bihar in 50 overs, 574/6 :eek: . Vahibhav Suryvanchi, 190 from 84 balls, 16 fours and 15 sixes, :lol:. Someone else scored 120 from 40 balls at a strike rate of 320! The bowling figures are something else. :lol:
 
Bangladesh will refuse to travel to India for the T20 World Cup due to safety and security concerns, they've asked the ICC to relocate their games. Comes a few days after the BCCI told KKR to release Mustafizur from their IPL squad.
 
It still baffles me why the Aussies dropped Steven Smith from their T20 lineup. He hit his 4th century today against the Thunder in 41 balls. He now has the most centuries in bbl history having played only 35 innings, and also has the 2nd highest average of anyone at 48.81.
 
charlton66 said:
It still baffles me why the Aussies dropped Steven Smith from their T20 lineup. He hit his 4th century today against the Thunder in 41 balls. He now has the most centuries in bbl history having played only 35 innings, and also has the 2nd highest average of anyone at 48.81.
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Agree with this, he is in some form as well.

Really enjoyed watching the BBL, another great game today.
 
The Babar Azam controversy has me perplexed — how’s this guy picked in any team sport?
 
zing said:
The Babar Azam controversy has me perplexed — how’s this guy picked in any team sport?
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BBL signing Pakistani players certainly increased interest from Pakistanis, I was following every match that involved a Pakistani player when never having cared before (apart from when one or two Pakistani players were picked before eg: Rauf, Hasnain etc). Also increased interest from Indian fans hate watching :lol:

Signing Babar and Rizwan was clearly just a marketing ploy because both haven't been fit for t20 cricket for a couple of years now, especially in Australian where both struggled even during their best years in 2019-2022. The Pakistani bowlers have generally been better and it's no surprise to see they performed pretty great, Rauf is the highest wicket taker, Hasan Ali and Shadab did well before having to leave and Zaman had a great couple of games.

There have been murmurings of Babar's arrogance from within the PSL. Wasim Akram once said Dean Jones at Karachi Kings asked him to drop down the order and he flat out refused. The latest story between him and Smith just confirms it, you'd have to be a massive prick to get angry for a couple days and not understand the situation about why Smith turned down the single. Rizwan seemed a better guy personally and there didn't seem to be negative stories coming out about him when he had to be retired out.

It would really disappointing if both are selected for the World Cup. We handled the transition away from them to more aggressive, younger, openers poorly and keeping Babar in the team will just slow that transition down further.
 
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This India team might just be the most ridiculous T20 team ever.

They were 8/2 after 2 overs and are now 196/3 chasing 200+ within 15 overs.
 
Skills said:
This India team might just be the most ridiculous T20 team ever.

They were 8/2 after 2 overs and are now 196/3 chasing 200+ within 15 overs.
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It is the best t20 team in the format’s history. They are ridiculously over powered.

International t20 isn’t widely followed so I don’t see people outside India talking about this much.

T20 is the kind of format anything can happen, but we are huge favs next month.
 
MDFC Manager said:
Good on Bangladesh for sticking to their guns.

Indian Cricket Council behaving as expected though.
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Interesting that it was ok for India to move their matches out of Pakistan for the Champions Trophy for security reasons, but not ok for Bangladesh to be able to do the same when they feared for their team in India.
 
I think regardless of who you blame for this it's just sad to see where we are going with international cricket
 
charlton66 said:
Interesting that it was ok for India to move their matches out of Pakistan for the Champions Trophy for security reasons, but not ok for Bangladesh to be able to do the same when they feared for their team in India.
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I don’t think it’s the same. The India Pakistan thing was planned years in advance. Bangladesh are doing a bit because the IPL canceled their cricketer’s contract and are making this request last minute.

I don’t think the icc are in the wrong to deny it.

If Bangladesh genuinely thought they were at risk, why didn’t they make the request earlier? This happened a couple of days after Mustafizur’s contract was canceled.
 
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