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It’s top three or bust for team India

giri26

T20I Debutant
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Apr 1, 2009
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The World Cup is just about a year away and there are problems galore for the Indian ODI team.

India just lost the ODI series 2-1 to England. They have lots to think about in terms of their team combination.

The Indian ODI team over the years has become a top heavy side. They are a team which relies heavily on Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to come good every game they play. The batting proceeding them has been lacklustre and non-existent in recent times.

KL Rahul who was promoted to number three for the T20Is ahead of the captain, once again showed how frustrating it is for the fans to constantly support him. After that wonderful hundred in the first T20I, Rahul went missing from the rest of the series.

Suresh Raina made a comeback into the ODI team but looked completely out of place with the bat and Hardik Pandya cannot be relied upon to provide consistent runs at number 6.

The biggest problem for India is the MS Dhoni conundrum.

The genial wicket keeping batsman has been struggling at the highest level for a while now and India haven’t been able to take a call on his spot. The number 4 position is still a concern and the team hasn’t been able to slot the right player into that spot yet.

The shaky middle order means that India are far away from being a settled ODI unit. The Indian bowling attack as well is looking extremely suspect.

Virat Kohli has been heavily relying on the spin twins of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav to provide him the breakthroughs but when they don’t come off, the bowling looks toothless.

The absence of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah hurt the Indian bowling plans and the backups weren’t able to step up to the plate.

Even though a 2-1 loss does not seem that harsh, the manner of defeats for sure is very concerning.

The India A team which is also in England right now has thrown in some very interesting names. Rishabh Pant has been brilliant with the bat in both the List A and first class games. Prithvi Shaw and Shubman Gill have shown that they are ready to play at the highest level.

MA Agarwal and H Vihari also had a brilliant series with the bat. There are other batsmen like Sanju Samson and Shreyas Iyer waiting in the wings as well.

The bowling of the A-team saw some interesting names thrown in as well like Khaleel Ahmed, Prasidh Krishna and Deepak Chahar. Apart from that we have Krunal Pandya as the spin bowling all-rounder.

He can replace one of the specialist spinners to give India the much needed lower order boost with the bat.

The Indian selectors in the coming months need to take some tough decisions. MS Dhoni has been a legend for India and still probably is India’s best wicketkeeper but his batting has declined a lot and this series has shown that India need to look for alternatives.

The selectors have a large pool of talented youngsters to pick from and I hope that they do try out some young names in the upcoming games.

The world cup is not that far away and with limited time at hand the team is racing against time to figure out the right combination ahead of the marquee tournament.

Article by [MENTION=25545]giri26[/MENTION]
 
Not sure if Dhoni's retirement at this point would be right. He has always showed up on big occasion even this year in IPL.

He should have retired in 2016 only because he was losing India games even then but now if he retires I dont think any youngster will be able to establish himself as quickly. He is still a world class keeper and won't bottle in a high pressure game.

Ofcourse, I dont see him play any great knock or turn the course of the game with the bat but can seize chases where there is no quick scoring pressure. He is still hard to get dislodged. A youngster, in contrast, might get out early and as a result, India can collapse on that very day.

Also, Rahul needs to be given consistent run so that he establishes himself in ODI cricket. 2-3 matches and then dropping again makes no sense.

Indian bowling is good but the bench strength in bowling department is very poor.
 
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However, Dhoni will continue to cost India 15-20 extra runs in WC 19 whenever India bats first. He did that even in WC 2015 only.
 
Dhawan
Rohit
Kohli
Rahul
Risabh (wk)
Hardik ( Medium pace / Bowls 5-8 overs)
Krunal ( left arm spin / Bowls 5-8 overs)
Bumrah ( bowls 10 overs)
Shami/Yadav/BK ( bowl 10 overs)
Chahal ( bowl 10 overs)
Kuldeep ( bowl 10 overs)
 
Well written article. Good analysis of Indian 'problem' and possible solutions.

Not to sound cliché but it seems there is no shortage of talent in India, in both disciplines of the great game.

Let's see how VK & co. fare against the English!
 
India's pathetic middle order in ODIs

Is it the worst amongst the top 8 teams?

Has it won the team any matches in this entire WC cycle beginning 2016? One game from Pandey and one game won by Kedar in the last 3 years is all I can recall (and one from Yuvi in his "comeback")
 
A quick stats analysis suggests the following (is quite obvious)
Since Jan 1, 2016

Our top 3 has scored 66% of total runs scored by the team (9558 runs of 14544 total runs) and has scored 35 of the 39 100s scored.

Average for top 8 teams is top 3 scoring 50% of total team runs and 75% of team 100s
 
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