Is the Indian team carrying too many old warhorses?

Muralidharan said...

Present day form and current peformance should be the basis for selection of the team. Emphasis should be given for fitter players as today's game involves and needs top class fitness. Fielding standard has improved a lot and this aspect also plays a major part in chosing the player. If the senior players are consistent and perform currently well and are fit without any injuries, then they can be an asset in the side. If not, they should make way for the youngsters. A pool of 30/40 players should be identified by BCCI and they should keep in mind the future of Indian cricket is in the hands of the youngsters and not with the players who are getting aged and not performing. A senior player may have scored tons of runs in the past, but presently he may be out of form. In that case they itself humbly should accept the reality and take a break and play First class cricket and score runs and come back to form and come back into the side with peformance and form which will do Indian cricket lot of good.(Posted: April 6, 2007, 5:38 pm) 

said...

It is a matter of concern that team INDIA is carrying too many oldies.their fielding is sloppy,running between wickets is poor.Even Bangldesh is a very good fielding side.In both the crucial matches our so called great batsman of indian cricket (may have piled up tonnes)but failed to click as a team.Its very easy to blame the coach,but the players have to perform in the middle. Coach can only make stratigies but players have to perform.Here not a single Indian batsman applied .Hows it that Bangladesh batsman clicked and not one indian played to carry Indian team thru to a victory.so lets form a team with a blend of youth and experience for one day series against Bangladesh.(Posted: April 6, 2007, 4:49 pm) 

Aniruddha Sen said...

Indian world cup team was in fact YOUNGER than Australia, S. Africa, New Zeland and Sri Lanka, the four prospective semi finalists. India had only three regular 30 plus (Saurav, Sachin, Dravid) and that is not at all unusual. The problem was elsewhere. They have six in 25-30 age group(Agarkar, Dhoni, Bhajji, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Sehwag. This group is supposed to make the backbone and make superstars for future. A main reason of India's failure was that the coach couldn't groom THIS GROUP well and couldn't improve their fitness. That's why India looked an unfit team.(Posted: April 6, 2007, 12:14 pm) 

Aniruddha Sen said...

At start of world cup, the average age of players of countries (arranged as per ICC ODI ranking) are: Australia 30 yr 6 mnth, S. Africa 30 yr 1 mnth, Newzeland 28 yr 7 mnth, Pak 27 yr 7 mnth, Sri Lanka 29 yr, India 27 yr 9 mnth, England 27 yr 6 mnth, W. Indies 27 yr 1 mnth. If anything, it shows that (1) we are NOT TOO OLD in comparison to others (2) The stronger teams RATHER HAVE OLDER PLAYERS. About no of 30+ players: Australia 9, S. Africa 7, N. Zeland 6, Pak 3, Sri Lanka 6, India 4, England 5, W. Indies 3. Again, we are not too bad! It just shows that A STRONG TEAM IS USUALLY A MIX OF YOUNG AND OLD! So, what Greg was cribbing all along? He had just created some artificial issue that can at best succeeed in creating a guilty feeling in the mind of seniors. In strong teams, as we see, that didn't happen. They have trained the 'young' and 'old' and achieved success. Despite the cribbing of Greg, we actually had ONE OF THE YOUNGEST TEAMS. But Greg wanted it STILL YOUNGER, not because he believed that as road to success, but he believed that he will get more 'yes sirs' from the young. (Posted: April 3, 2007, 11:15 am) 

Sudheir Arun said...

The time has come for Indian Cricket to look forward and start building for the next Worldcup NOW.Definately Sachin/Dravid/Ganguly will not be playing then so what is to be gained by picking them for the next year or so.We should now have seperate teams for ODIs and Tests.Let the seniors concentrate on test matches.For ODIs,accent should be on fitness/fielding/running between wkts and above all "a positive attitude".Anybody who is not a good fielder should be shown the door,irrespective of what he has done in the past.Only then can India dream of winning the next world cup.(Posted: April 2, 2007, 12:46 pm) 

Spanish Donkey said...

Players like Dravid,Tendulkar and Ganguly are probably best available players for India now,but I dont agree with the argument that India's future depends on them.When youngsters like Raina,Venugopal Rao were included in the team, everyone compared these two with Sachin,Dravid,Ganguly and came to a foregone conclusion that they shouldnot play for India.First of all,how can they compare a newcomer with Sachin,Saurav and Dravid who have more than 300 match experience.Sachin took 75 matches to score his first hundred,but he scored his hundred when he asked to open.Ganguly made his debut as an opener,Dravid made his as a No.3 batsman.But Raina started his career at No.7,it is obvious that he cannot score as well as the top order batsmen.But I dont support the sacking of these trio after our WC debacle,even before the WorldCup I always maintained that they should move on and let somebody occupy their places after the World Cup.In terms of matchwinning abilities Sachin,Dravid,Ganguly stand no way near to Ponting,Inzi and Jaya suriya.(Posted: March 30, 2007, 8:44 am) 

said...

Th question is not whether you give youngsters a chance but how you groom them, How they are made to feel at home in the team. For the record the no of youngsters makimg it to the national side with distinction was more in 2000-2001 than in the last 2 years. In fact if one looks at the 2003 squad apart from Sachin, Sourav, Dravid, and Shrinath everybody else was playing world cup for the first time. I Think the present management has failed miserably in providing the youngsters the right kind of ambience for the youngsters to excel. (Posted: March 30, 2007, 12:45 am) 

mamidi26 said...

its not the age of 30 that matters here, but the fittness that matters. I have seen Robin Singh showing extra ordinary performance in batting/fielding/bowling areas even in 30's. Why is not the FITNESS considered during the selection criteria? Unfortunately, this time selection has been done based on the FACE value rather than the FORM value. I don't dare to question the credibility of any of these aged players, as they contributed a lot during their time. But now its high time for all of them ( sachin, Dravid, Ganguly ) to submit " ROYAL RETIREMENT " and give chance to young and dynamic blood like Suresh Raina/Romesh Powar/Kaif..etc.(Posted: March 29, 2007, 11:16 am) 

John Paul said...

Ofcourse yes. All these days we used world cup as an excuse whenever we lost a series. Now we need a fresh begining. If the old horses do not resign please sack them. BUT WHO WILL BELL THE CAT?(Posted: March 29, 2007, 6:51 am) 

Seshadhri Vijaya Raghavan said...

No doubt it is a dad's army.Remove Dravid,Sachin,Ganguly etc and bring in fresh legs who can save atleast 30 runs a match.(Posted: March 28, 2007, 8:33 pm)