Who or what do you think is the weakest link in Indian Cricket team

[marioratnakar]

I got this idea from some other post, but there it was discussed as a team in the whole. Although cricket is a team game, individual performances do matter. Our team which looks really good on paper, is not as good in the middle. So i would have to agree to the saying that a batsman is as good as his last innings or may be a team is as good as its last match's result. Let the posts flow.

I think that commitment from all the players is a weak link in our team, may be not the weakest.

[Rachael]

The obvious contenders would be as follows:

{i} Opening batsmen capable of seeing off the new ball when the conditions favour the bowlers rather than the batsmen... and attritional batsmen in general: if Dravid were ever out injured for an extended run... India had better just start praying as the chances of Sehwag and co batting through 4-5 sessions against quality opposition seems to me to depend almost entirely on the flatness of the pitch - against swing, seam, or steep bounce.. without Dravid... collapse looks a certainty.

{ii} Seam bowlers capable of going through long spells without a four-ball every over: Pathan will surely master this when he finally get out of nappies... but he's still a kid and still bowls like one... and none of the others are any better at combining quality and experience.

That said.. the real weakness is possibly in the squad as a whole rather than in the first XI: the backup players.

[Andy Mellon]

I think you've hit the main nails on the head their Rachael - although Chopra could probably deputise for Dravid if necessary.

The other problem I see is the pressure of expectation on the Indians, which is unlike that for any other country. Not only do you have to be successful, but you've got to do it with attacking flair or else the local supporters will get on your back and you could face being dropped. Even Dravid has to do battle with the pressure of this expectation.

A prime example of a player who must be suffering from this burden has to be Pathan. Yes, he's a great prospect with the ball and bat, but he's not there yet - and a decent proportion of Indian fans and the Indian media think he's already there. Give the guy a chance to mature and India will have the seamer they need. Keep the pressure on him and he may break!

[greg]

I feel sorry for Pathan.The way the Indian fans have hyped him up like he is going to be as good as Kapil Dev is grossly unfair and puts too much pressure on him.He is a young bowler who seems to be struggling in test cricket from all the expectation.He was bailed out during the England series by two other debutant fast bowlers who looked far more dangerous than Pathan did yet in the one day series he seems a different player.More confident and more certain of what he is meant to be doing.

I agree with Andy that the pressure on him could ruin him before his potential is fulfilled.

[Vrock]

In ODI's Pathan is looking very good and he's mixing up his slower deliveries which is pivotal in India.

In Tests he does appear to have the weight of the Indian hopes on his shoulders and the pressure must be extremely high. He has one decent over per spell in which he looks really on perfect line and can take wickets in that over. But he can get hit about if he doesn't have that one magical over.

[Colourful Chaddi]

I am not overly worried about Pathan bowling in Test matches, his performances are satisfactory in my opinon. What can we really expect from him when he is going to bowl on such bland picthes and when he bowls less than 12 overs day because Kumble and Harbhajan are bowling nearly all the time. India will not worry about him too much, our attack, especially at home revovles around the spinners Kumble and Harbhajan rather than Pathan. In away matches we will want to see more from Pathan but his perfromances have been good so far and I am sure he will do better. He is also contributing with the bat this season (an avearge of 36 with five 50's) so he is justifying his place in the side.

In ODI cricket he has been excellent and is now one of the best players around in the shorter format. He knows his role in the side and we are more dependant on him than we are in Tests that is why he is been so successful. He has been bowling much more cleverly and that was seen in the 3rd ODI against England when he fooled the batsmen with his slower balls and off cutters- he has finally learned some variations which will make him more successful on home soil!

If anyone disagree with me saying he is one of the best OPI player around then just look at these stats for this season:

                     Mat  Runs  HS   BatAv 100  50   W    BB  BowlAv 5w  Ct St
filtered              21   402  83   33.50   0   3  43  5/27   18.83  1   3  0

Now back the the topic of the thread on India's weak link. In my opinon I don't believe there is much of a weak link in the Indian side, not in the ODI side anway. I have been impressed with India's performance so far this season where we have lost only 2 Tests and 5 ODIs. We have only lost one series this season and that was 1-0 to Pakistan in the 3rd Test where Mohammed Asif tottally outclassed out batsmen. Yes our performance against England was not great but it was not becasue we played bad cricket it was because England played excellently.

I have been impressed with the bowling, both the spinners and seamers. I have been impressed with the newcomers in the side such as Raina, Jaffer and Dhoni. The fielding has been very good at times, we have a very good wicket-keeper batsmen and we now have a team that plays with great attitude.

If there is a weak link than that would be the lack of from from some of our key batsmen- Sehwag and Tendualkar.

[Vrock]

Originally Posted by Waseem

Yes our performance against England was not great but it was not becasue we played bad cricket it was because England played excellently

India were dismissed for 100 in the final test...Take something as simple as Dhoni's dismissal. He has a slog at Shaun Udal and for some reason Monty Panesar misses the ball and doesn't take a catch. Dhoni must have been thrilled with that kind of luck in such a pressure situation. Then a few balls later he does the same thing again, whether he did because of the pressure of he was intentionally going for an all out attack. For me, this does not matter, he played the wrong shot in the wrong situation. That is poor cricket.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Vrock

Dhoni [...] played the wrong shot in the wrong situation. That is poor cricket.

Yes... but as the commentators on TMS noted at the time.... that's also very common in club cricket: embarrasment at still being at the wicket when everyone watching knows one deserves to be back in the pavillion... the difficulty of re-focussing after thinking one had gifted one's wicket... perhaps even anger that the execution of the shot was poor and a desire to prove that one CAN play the shot better (i.e. that execution rather than shot selection was the problem - any, all or more might have an impact.

Dhoni is just a kid... and is a novice at international level: he screwed up... but in an understandable fashion. The key thing is that he learns from the experience!

[Vrock]

(I'll keep this short to get back on topic).

What was Dhoni trying to prove? That he could play a big shot and be the hero of the day but at the same time risk going to zero? He would have been regarded just as high as if he had blocked the good balls and waited to smash the bad ones to the boundary.

Opening batsmen: Sehwag is looking very much out of touch at the moment, after starting his career statistically well he appears to have hit a grey patch and the only thing that looks to be getting him runs is to completely change his approach to the game and play a more watchful innings. If he can continue this, great, as long as he actually makes the runs and doesn't suffer overall for this.

India's catalogue of openers gives them a fair level of choice: Jaffer, Gambhir and Dravid (Sehwag guarantee at the moment). Jaffer appears to have come back to Test Cricket on form and batting well, if he and Sehwag can get a good level of understanding together then India could have a winner.

[marioratnakar]

Whoa, didnt know that one topic could stir a very fascinating and intense discussion. Thanks guys.

Rachael, I have to disagree with you on one point. While the lack of good, dependable openers is definitely a huge gap, the bench strength is not that weak. Whether they get used or not is a different question altogether.

And as Andy mentioned expectations of a billion people would defnitely weigh down the shoulders.

I probably do not agree with Waseem that there is no weak link in the team. If you look at the statistics of the players who are representing India, just the statistics, the team is formidable. However, India does not convert every good start into a win. They still have the tendency to gift away matches at crucial junctures. They do not capitalize the momentum gained by previous win. They win 6-1 when they could win 7-0. To me it definitely seems like there is something wrong. I am not trying to be too critical of the performance, but consistency definitely is not there.

The ODI wins definitely is a very good sign, but these wins are partly because they were gifted to us, not by merit. I am not talking about all four ODIs.

VRock, I do agree with you on most of the points except about Dhoni. Dhoni should not have done it, but I would agree with Rachael's comments.

All said and done, I am a fan of the kind of cricket played by Matthew Prior rather than by Pathan. When faced by similar situations, one chose to walk while the other stood his ground. Neither were wrong (at least I think so), it is just a difference of perception of the game.