Ranji observations and questions (for Sadiq)
Champak Bhumiya
anyonw know why the following people are not in the Mumbai team?
Paranjpe,Kambli and Dighe ? also Salvi seems to be doing quite well.
How fast is he ? Can he reverse swing the ball?
also I am impressed with the performance of Utpal Chatterjee and even
at this
age he is bowling so well and he has been consistent for a while now
in
domestics. It is strange that he has been nowhere on the selectorial
radar for so many years and we have tried so many other LAS none of
whom seem to have
done consistently well.
also how has Mark Ingty done this season? I couldn't find score-cards
of any of Assam's matches this season because of the weird groupings.
Champak (who was dissappointed with the performance of Irfan Pathan
and Harvinder Singh)
rkusenet
> Champak (who was dissappointed with the performance of Irfan Pathan
> and Harvinder Singh)
Harvinder Singh's career is over. Hopefully he has a better
future as a samosa/chole-bhature seller in Amritsar.
rk-
NumeroUno
Africa domestic.
"Champak Bhumiya" <aajkita...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7975ec3e.02121...@posting.google.com...
sidd
"Champak Bhumiya" <aajkita...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7975ec3e.02121...@posting.google.com...
> at this
> age he is bowling so well and he has been consistent for a while now
> in
> domestics. It is strange that he has been nowhere on the selectorial
> radar
Nothing strange about it. Reverse-regionalistic, pro-Agarkar Ganguly is so
scared
of the South and Mumbai lobby that he will destroy the careers of any
promising player
from Bengal; next in line is Ranadeb Bose, whose record is better than
Balaji but is nowhere on the radar either. Which is a joke, really, since
Ganguly does not get into the current Bengal team on merit.
rkusenet
"sidd" <sid...@hotmail.com> wrote
> Nothing strange about it. Reverse-regionalistic, pro-Agarkar Ganguly is so
> scared of the South and Mumbai lobby that he will destroy the careers of any
> promising player from Bengal;
of course u have to say this given that a bong is a captain
of the team. If SRT is the captain, u would say "with a captain
from Mumbai and sambaar lobby very strong, there is no way
a player from Bengal would get a chance".
In other words, ur whining stinks as much as fish.
> next in line is Ranadeb Bose, whose record is better than
> Balaji but is nowhere on the radar either. Which is a joke, really, since
> Ganguly does not get into the current Bengal team on merit.
Ranadeb Bose!!! Yeh to naam se hee bekaar bowler lagta hain.
rk-
rkusenet
"rkusenet" <rkus...@sympatico.ca> wrote
> > next in line is Ranadeb Bose, whose record is better than
> > Balaji but is nowhere on the radar either. Which is a joke, really, since
> > Ganguly does not get into the current Bengal team on merit.
>
> Ranadeb Bose!!! Yeh to naam se hee bekaar bowler lagta hain.
this is not to say that Balaji is class. He is pits. But then
u don't have to replace one shit with another shit. Or may be,
that Bose dude atleast deserves a chance to prove that he
is another crap player from WB.
rk-
Kamesh
"rkusenet" <rkus...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:atlfje$9ffm$1...@ID-75254.news.dfncis.de...
>
> this is not to say that Balaji is class. He is pits. But then
> u don't have to replace one shit with another shit. Or may be,
> that Bose dude atleast deserves a chance to prove that he
> is another crap player from WB.
Dilip Doshi was the finest left arm spinner, India had after Bedi.
{Vada Pao screwed him single handedly}
Subroto Banerjee was the best outswing bowler India had after Kapil Dev.
{victim of Bonda - Vada Pao nexus}
:-)
Kamesh
[ - Now RK will add me to the "all time brain dead supporters list" of
Subroto Banerjee and Dilip Doshi -]
>
> rk-
sidd
>
> "sidd" <sid...@hotmail.com> wrote
>
> > Nothing strange about it. Reverse-regionalistic, pro-Agarkar Ganguly is
so
> > scared of the South and Mumbai lobby that he will destroy the careers of
any
> > promising player from Bengal;
>
> of course u have to say this given that a bong is a captain
> of the team. If SRT is the captain, u would say "with a captain
> from Mumbai and sambaar lobby very strong, there is no way
> a player from Bengal would get a chance".
>
I am not interested in hypothetical cases. In the past, it is true
that players from Bengal ( and other states too, I may add )
that were not part of the Delhi-Mumbai-South axis of
fashionable teams were not given a chance when players of
similar or lesser domestic caliber were. I dont think any
reasonable person will disagree with this.
Ganguly did some good things after becoming captain. He
mostly chose players based on merit. An example is Kaif,
from UP, and Bangar, from Railways. But he has a strange
chip on his shoulders regarding players from Bengal .. it is
almost as if he is trying too hard to not "appear regionalistic".
He publicly proclaimed his preference for Dighe over Dasgupta
when Deep was chosen; this is a stupid thing to do for the
captain of the team. I am not saying DDG is a good wicketkeeper;
I have never said that, and never supported or opposed him;
he played for a while based on some better than average
batting performances, then was sacked when his keeping
became a liability.
My contention is very clear; there was a clear bias in the
selection of players from certain parts of the country; this bias
has diluted a little in recent times but it is still there. My other
contention is that Ganguly does the reverse-push on Bengal
players, not just that he does not lobby for them. Lobbying
and anti-lobbying are both unfair.
Also regarding Ganguly, I have long ceased to be a fan of his.
At one time I was, and I believe he did perform well for a while,
but now he is a liability as a batsman and not much better as
a captain. I have no problems if he is axed.
Contrary to what people like you imply, and what may be
gathered from a reading of posts I sometimes make in a
sarcastic mode, I am not a regionalist. I support Bengal
and wish people are chosen into the team on merit.
> In other words, ur whining stinks as much as fish.
>
> > next in line is Ranadeb Bose, whose record is better than
> > Balaji but is nowhere on the radar either. Which is a joke, really,
since
> > Ganguly does not get into the current Bengal team on merit.
>
> Ranadeb Bose!!! Yeh to naam se hee bekaar bowler lagta hain.
>
I rest my case. You didnt mention anything about Balaji, who has
already received one chance in which he gave 40 runs from 4 overs.
Before that event, there was a flood of posts on RSS regarding
him, he became quite a well-known figure inspite of the fact
that he had done nothing to deserve it. Based on his domestic
record, I agree he should get a chance. But on that criteria, Bose
deserves a chance too. Now your response above shows the
mentality I am against. I never said Bose would be the next
great thing. You assumed it, attributed implications to my statement,
then came out with a rejoinder which both smacks of ethnic regionalism
and poor taste, and even poorer humour.
> rk-
>
>
rkusenet
>Contrary to what people like you imply, and what may be
>gathered from a reading of posts I sometimes make in a
>sarcastic mode, I am not a regionalist.
look buddy, none of us are mind readers. We only form
opinion about others based on their postings. You
have given sufficient demonstration of being an A class
regionalist, not only to idli munchers, but also
to fish eaters ( see attached post below)
rk-
ps: if u r really not a regioanlist, then good for u.
======================
From: Sougata Mukherjea (sou...@my-deja.com)
Subject: Re: Left out again
View: Complete Thread (20 articles)
Original Format
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Date: 2000/02/20
In article <88pkvv$sah$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
sidd <sid...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Selected - Murali Kartik. Qualifications - idli muncher from
> south of the Vindyas.
>
> Not selected - Utpal Chatterjee. Qualifications - best left arm
> spinner in the country. Disqualification - not idli muncher from
> south of the Vindyas.
Sidd,
I am sick of your pro-Bengal posts. Its really pathetic.
While Utpal may have got a bad deal in the past, he's too old for
comeback now.
Karthik has been hailed to be a promising player by people like Maninder
and Bedi. He played very well in West Indies with the India-A side.
Moreover he was impressive on the first day of the current game.
============================
Shripathi Kamath
"sidd" <sid...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:NZrL9.178613$pN3.13156@sccrnsc03...
>
<snip>
> At one time I was, and I believe he did perform well for a while,
> but now he is a liability as a batsman and not much better as
> a captain. I have no problems if he is axed.
>
His last 20 tests have been
Mat Runs HS BatAv 100 50 W BB BowlAv 5w Ct
St
filtered 20 1093 136 40.48 2 5 0 - - 0 16
0
His last 20 tests abroad have been
Mat Runs HS BatAv 100 50 W BB BowlAv 5w Ct
St
filtered 20 1120 128 37.33 1 7 3 2/69 124.33 0 12
0
His last 10 tests abroad have been
Mat Runs HS BatAv 100 50 W BB BowlAv 5w Ct
St
filtered 10 692 128 49.42 1 5 0 - - 0 5
0
Any particular reason you consider him a liability as a bat? I agree that
the last 3 or 4 tests he has not batted well, and he is not quite the same
bat who averaged 50 in tests at one point (I think he played much easier
opposition early on) but hardly a reason to dismiss him as a bat so soon.
NumeroUno
"Champak Bhumiya" <aajkita...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7975ec3e.02121...@posting.google.com...
How come YUVRAJ not playing? Is he injured?
NumeroUno
"Shripathi Kamath" <firstnam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:uvskc7k...@corp.supernews.com...
captaincy. He is clueless as a captain and no idea how to bat in Test
cricket.
Recent Matches (against WI & NZ)
Mat Runs HS BatAv 100 50 W BB BowlAv 5w
Ct St
Ganguly 4 68 29 11.33 0 0 0 - -
0 9 0
Dravid 4 231 100* 46.20 1
- - - - 2 0
Sachin 4 365 176 60.83 1 1 0 - -
0 2 0
Laxman 4 271 154* 54.20 1
- - - - 1 0
Sehwag 4 300 147 42.85 1 1 1 1/27 51.00
0 5 0
Shripathi Kamath
"NumeroUno" <nume...@email.com> wrote in message
news:BysL9.133411$Q71....@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
Pray explain what that means? Especially the clueless captaincy part.
Under his captaincy, they have won a fair number of tests, home and abroad.
True, he has not won a series abroad yet, that is not entirely different
from many test captains India has had.
For example, what could he have done as a captain differently in the last
test? He failed as a bat, like just about every bat did. Why would he be
called a clueless captain on that basis? Defending a meagre total of 161,
did well enough with his limited resources to contain NZ to 240 or so.
He is a bat that averages 40+ in test cricket, and has done about as much
over the last 10-20 tests, with pretty good numbers abroad in recent tests.
<snipped stats of 4 tests already conceded as poor>
[it might be easier to understand if you simply do not like him]
NumeroUno
unable to perform in the last few years. He is a liability in the test team.
Do you remember Ganguly's any move which you can term as an intelligent
move?
Also, have you noticed that whenever he has more than 4 bowlers, he
underbowls one of them. He does not know how to manage more than 4 bowlers?
Shripathi Kamath
Your opinion aside (I concur with the ODI assessment btw), his batting stats
over the last few years are ok as can be seen from his stats. He has faced
better bowling than early in his career, so I guess that I disagree with the
liability part.
> Do you remember Ganguly's any move which you can term as an intelligent
> move?
>
Nice try, dude :-)
You said "he is clueless as a captain",
I asked "please explain"
you respond "show me that he has made an intelligent move"
Not quite the same thing, is it?
But to indulge you further, he made a bunch of them in the last overseas
victory, some rather bold ones, like electing to bat first on that pitch, or
trying out Bangar as an opener. Like any move, I am sure there were others
helping out, but the buck stops with him. Can't think of mistakes in the
last WI series for instance, can you? I mean they won that 2-0.
> Also, have you noticed that whenever he has more than 4 bowlers, he
> underbowls one of them. He does not know how to manage more than 4
bowlers?
>
Neither here nor there. There is no requirement to bowl all of his bowlers
let alone have to defend his underbowling someone, hardly a reflection on
his captaincy. They picked bowlers for situations, given the actual
conditions, he may bowl some more than others, some a LOT more than others.
By that token he underbowled both Srinath and Zaheer Khan against WI, but
the need was that of spinners, and he did what he could.
You are not referring to Agarkar being underbowled in the last test, are
you?
As a comparison, Stephen Fleming, arguably the shrewdest captain in tests
today did not even bowl Vettori in the last test.
>
Shripathi Kamath
"Kamesh" <kamesh...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:atlh7u$b5bv$1...@ID-154916.news.dfncis.de...
>
> "rkusenet" <rkus...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:atlfje$9ffm$1...@ID-75254.news.dfncis.de...
> >
> > this is not to say that Balaji is class. He is pits. But then
> > u don't have to replace one shit with another shit. Or may be,
> > that Bose dude atleast deserves a chance to prove that he
> > is another crap player from WB.
>
> Dilip Doshi was the finest left arm spinner, India had after Bedi.
> {Vada Pao screwed him single handedly}
>
> Subroto Banerjee was the best outswing bowler India had after Kapil Dev.
That's a blasphemous lie. Yograj Singh was. Gavaskar said so himself when
he stated that "Yograj Singh has now added the outswinger to his arsenal"
after the 1980-81 Aus-NZ tour.
IIRC Subroto bowled like one innings, correct? Somewhere in Aus/NZ in the
mid eighties? Sure you are not confusing him for Subrata Guha, he of the
fiery pace? He had a marvelous average too. Too bad it wasn't his batting
average
> {victim of Bonda - Vada Pao nexus}
>
> :-)
> Kamesh
> [ - Now RK will add me to the "all time brain dead supporters list" of
> Subroto Banerjee and Dilip Doshi -]
>
[If not, I will for ignoring two other WB players. Certainly Gopal Bose and
Michael Dalvi (erstwhile TN, or erstwhile WB, can't remember) were worthy of
a look-see, I mean Pranab Roy wasn't that much better]
> >
> > rk-
>
>
>
Kamesh
> > Subroto Banerjee was the best outswing bowler India had after Kapil Dev.
>
> That's a blasphemous lie. Yograj Singh was. Gavaskar said so himself
when
> he stated that "Yograj Singh has now added the outswinger to his arsenal"
> after the 1980-81 Aus-NZ tour.
>
> IIRC Subroto bowled like one innings, correct? Somewhere in Aus/NZ in the
> mid eighties? Sure you are not confusing him for Subrata Guha, he of the
> fiery pace? He had a marvelous average too. Too bad it wasn't his
batting
> average
Who was the guy in the WC squad in 92? I might have got the names wrong.
That should surely put me in your list if not RKs
Kamesh
Shripathi Kamath
"Kamesh" <kam...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:atlnqa$enpr$1...@ID-154916.news.dfncis.de...
>
> "Shripathi Kamath" <firstnam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:uvso41t...@corp.supernews.com...
> > > Subroto Banerjee was the best outswing bowler India had after Kapil
Dev.
> >
> > That's a blasphemous lie. Yograj Singh was. Gavaskar said so himself
> when
> > he stated that "Yograj Singh has now added the outswinger to his
arsenal"
> > after the 1980-81 Aus-NZ tour.
> >
> > IIRC Subroto bowled like one innings, correct? Somewhere in Aus/NZ in
the
> > mid eighties? Sure you are not confusing him for Subrata Guha, he of
the
> > fiery pace? He had a marvelous average too. Too bad it wasn't his
> batting
> > average
>
> Who was the guy in the WC squad in 92? I might have got the names wrong.
Like I remember? Guha played in the late sixties, I just threw it in there.
> That should surely put me in your list if not RKs
>
Nah.
> Kamesh
>
> >
> > > {victim of Bonda - Vada Pao nexus}
>
Ok, how wqere you victimized, exactly?
>
Kamesh
So, I looked up on statsguru and here's what I found. He bowled just one
innings in the Sydney Test, India came real real close to winning.
First inn, Aus 313, India 483
Second inn, Aus 173-9....
Rain Gods and Umps helped Aus in this game....Also Warne went for 150 of 45
Subroto Banerjee Banerjee 18 4 47 3 (Marsh, Taylor, M
Waugh)
He never played any tests after that even after this performance. Srinath in
the same match didnt get any. Kapil and Prabhakar got 3 each in the first
innings.
His ODI performance
overall 6 40 202 5 3/30 1/26 40.40 5.05 48.0
0 0
Kamesh
NumeroUno
NumeroUno
Bangar as opener, Kaif and Yuvraj in one dayers, etc. The credit should also
go to to Wright and his advisors (Dravid, Sachin, Selectors, Retired
Players, etc.).
I want to judge him by analysing his moves on the field like field placings,
bowling changes, etc. I noticed that he is not shrewd and tactical. I agree
that he has a very strong personality.
rkusenet
> First inn, Aus 313, India 483
> Second inn, Aus 173-9....
>
> Rain Gods and Umps helped Aus in this game....Also Warne went for 150 of
45
>
> Subroto Banerjee Banerjee 18 4 47 3 (Marsh, Taylor, M
> Waugh)
>
> He never played any tests after that even after this performance. Srinath
in
> the same match didnt get any. Kapil and Prabhakar got 3 each in the first
> innings.
A little known fact which very few like to mention.
He did not come to field during the second inngs as
18 overs he bowled in the first inngs exhausted him
thoroughly . Or may be he wanted to rest.
In any case by not bowling in the second inngs, he
proved himself thoroughly useless and unfit for strenuous
test matches.
I won't blame anyone for not selecting him again.
My pet phrase Chatterjee-Banerjee = No Energy was coined
after that match only.
rk-
sidd
> "sidd" <sid...@hotmail.com> wrote:-
>
> >Contrary to what people like you imply, and what may be
> >gathered from a reading of posts I sometimes make in a
> >sarcastic mode, I am not a regionalist.
>
> look buddy, none of us are mind readers.
> We only form
> opinion about others based on their postings. You
> have given sufficient demonstration of being an A class
> regionalist, not only to idli munchers, but also
> to fish eaters ( see attached post below)
>
I dont have the time to quote some of your posts, and neither
do I want to. Please address any of the points I have raised,
if you feel like. For instance, why did Subroto get dropped
after his single test outing of 3/47 while people like Agarkar
and Ganesh got many more chances. Why is Mohanty off
the radar today? What made you comment on Bose in the
manner you did?
>
> rk-
> ps: if u r really not a regioanlist, then good for u.
>
> ======================
> From: Sougata Mukherjea (sou...@my-deja.com)
> Subject: Re: Left out again
> View: Complete Thread (20 articles)
> Original Format
> Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
> Date: 2000/02/20
>
> In article <88pkvv$sah$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> sidd <sid...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > Selected - Murali Kartik. Qualifications - idli muncher from
> > south of the Vindyas.
> >
> > Not selected - Utpal Chatterjee. Qualifications - best left arm
> > spinner in the country. Disqualification - not idli muncher from
> > south of the Vindyas.
>
> Sidd,
> I am sick of your pro-Bengal posts.
I really dont care what Sougata thinks. I vaguely remember he
used to post here, and I dont think much of his posts from
cricketing, flaming or humour points of view. Those 3 criteria
are what gets my interest.
Besides, it is well-known that there is a class of Bengalis
who hate themselves. Else why would they adopt the slogan
"China's chairman is our chairman?".
Cheers.
sidd
> I do not give 100% credit to Ganguly for all the off-field moves like -
> Bangar as opener, Kaif and Yuvraj in one dayers, etc. The credit should
also
> go to to Wright and his advisors (Dravid, Sachin, Selectors, Retired
> Players, etc.).
>
Ganguly doesnt get 100% credit for things that work.
Ganguly gets 100% blame for things that go wrong.
Go figure.
Piyush
equal to bangar speed or little bit more.
"Kamesh" <kamesh...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:atlh7u$b5bv$1...@ID-154916.news.dfncis.de...
>
Champak Bhumiya
> innings in the Sydney Test, India came real real close to winning.
>
> First inn, Aus 313, India 483
> Second inn, Aus 173-9....
>
> Rain Gods and Umps helped Aus in this game....Also Warne went for 150 of 45
>
> Subroto Banerjee Banerjee 18 4 47 3 (Marsh, Taylor, M
> Waugh)
>
> He never played any tests after that even after this performance. Srinath in
> the same match didnt get any. Kapil and Prabhakar got 3 each in the first
> innings.
Champak
rkusenet
>For instance, why did Subroto get dropped
>after his single test outing of 3/47 while people
bcos he learnt the hard way that a test match means
two inngs. Buddy, Banerjee had no stamina to last a
test match. Do u know he wasn't even in the ground
during the Syndey test second inngs.
> Why is Mohanty off the radar today?
this is the question I have asked
100 times in rsc. I think he got the biggest raw deal.
>What made you comment on Bose in the manner you did?
U took it seriously. I am sorry.
rk-
Champak Bhumiya
> Who was the guy in the WC squad in 92? I might have got the names wrong.
which he hit of Derek Pringle's last over giving us an outside chance of
winning the first tie against England only for Srinath to completely ruin
it in the very next ball by getting runout in the most stupidest fashion.
Champak
Champak Bhumiya
> that players from Bengal ( and other states too, I may add )
> that were not part of the Delhi-Mumbai-South axis of
> fashionable teams were not given a chance when players of
> similar or lesser domestic caliber were. I dont think any
> reasonable person will disagree with this.
well it it also true that many players part of "Delhi-Mumbai-South"
axis as you call it were given a raw deal. examples being Kuruvilla &
Mazumdar(Mumbai),Sharath & Ananthpadmanabhan(South), Vivek
Razdan(Delhi)
>
> Ganguly did some good things after becoming captain. He
> mostly chose players based on merit. An example is Kaif,
> from UP, and Bangar, from Railways. But he has a strange
> chip on his shoulders regarding players from Bengal .. it is
> almost as if he is trying too hard to not "appear regionalistic".
> He publicly proclaimed his preference for Dighe over Dasgupta
> when Deep was chosen; this is a stupid thing to do for the
> captain of the team.
This is not true. Under Ganguly's captaincy and vice-captaincy besides
DDG, Saba Karim and Debang Gandhi have played for India and people can
argue
that there were more deserving cases than the above two. also it is
possible thatGanguly needed someone with more experience and hence
Dighe was chosen over DDG.
Raghu Jetley
> "Kamesh" <kam...@yahoo.com> wrote
>
>> First inn, Aus 313, India 483
>> Second inn, Aus 173-9....
>>
>> Rain Gods and Umps helped Aus in this game....Also Warne went for
>> 150 of 45
>>
>> Subroto Banerjee Banerjee 18 4 47 3 (Marsh,
>> Taylor, M Waugh)
>>
>> He never played any tests after that even after this performance.
>> Srinath in the same match didnt get any. Kapil and Prabhakar got 3
>> each in the first innings.
>
> A little known fact which very few like to mention.
> He did not come to field during the second inngs as
> 18 overs he bowled in the first inngs exhausted him
> thoroughly .
He should have come on the field & refused to bowl
for a couple of hours.
Amol Cricketwallah
> news:atlffi$969n$1...@ID-75254.news.dfncis.de...
> >
Will get to the rest later - but this demands a response first :-)
> > > next in line is Ranadeb Bose, whose record is better than
> > > Balaji but is nowhere on the radar either. Which is a joke, really,
> since
> > > Ganguly does not get into the current Bengal team on merit.
> >
> > Ranadeb Bose!!! Yeh to naam se hee bekaar bowler lagta hain.
> >
>
> I rest my case. You didnt mention anything about Balaji, who has
> already received one chance in which he gave 40 runs from 4 overs.
> Before that event, there was a flood of posts on RSS regarding
> him, he became quite a well-known figure inspite of the fact
> that he had done nothing to deserve it. Based on his domestic
> record, I agree he should get a chance. But on that criteria, Bose
> deserves a chance too.
IMHO, if you are serious about thinking Bose deserves a national
chance at the moment on the basis of his record and you think the
fact that he is not on the radar is due to regionalistic bias - then
you will *always* be disappointed, and will see lots of examples of
bias in selection. Because, again IMHO, Bose is not on the selectorial
radar at the moment because he has not earned it at the moment -
maybe he will by seasons' end. But, as of right now, he isnt on the
radar for a good reason (and it has nothing to do with regionalistic
bias).
You cannot just look at fc stats, and say "oh, he deserves to be
given a chance" - you have to look further, see how he did every
season, when he actually did well enough to demand a place for
himself by weight of performance. You cannot say "oh, Ranadeb Bose
has 39 fc wickets at 23.5, he should be playing for India since
Balaji did" and allege regional bias. For if you do, why cant the
same be said about Gagandeep Singh (78 wickets at 21.1), or Amit
Uniyal (35 wickets at 25.3), or even Aavishkar Salvi (26 wickets at
16.8)? Just those simple stats dont tell you very much at all -
you have to look far deeper than that.
Iam not sure if youre being serious about Ranadeb Bose or not - I
will admit to being surprised to see that name tossed around, because
he has not even been a regular on the Bengal team with any degree of
consistency before this season! And there is a good reason for
that. Lets look at Ranadeb Bose in detail, for example...
Debut in 1998/99. Wasnt in the Bengal XI to start the year - the pacers
were Subroto Bannerjee and Laxmi Ratan Shukla. He made his entrance
in the game against Assam. Assam wasnt a particularly strong side,
they made 168 and 254 (Bose had a terrific debut, 20-5-50-5 and
11-1-57-0). Next match he played Tripura, perhaps the weakest team
in the nation - he had a wonderful 2nd match against them (20-7-45-2,
and then destroying them with 16.1-6-24-7)! Thus, after 2 matches
(admittedly against pretty weak opposition), he had 14/176 for an
average of 12.5!
That was it for the East Zone League matches. But Bengal made the
SuperLeagues that year, and the following were Ranadeb Bose's
performances in those games:
vs Baroda : 34-6-77-3
vs Rajasthan : 20-4-60-1
vs Hyderabad : 14-3-34-0
& 20-6-48-0
Thus in 3 SuperLeague games, he had 4/219 for an average of 54.75.
At this point, he was dropped for Bengal's last SuperLeague game
against Punjab - Laxmi Ratan Shukla had been away on India Duty and
he returned, so Bose went back to the reserves.
That was his debut season (98/99): 5 matches, 18 wickets at 21.94.
A very encouraging start for a young bowler, but surely not more than
that (especially looking at the drop-off in the SuperLeagues) - surely
he wasnt likely to be in India contention at that point, nor should he
have been?
---
Next season was 1999/2000. This time Bose started the season in
Bengal's XI, following on from the encouraging debut year.
vs Assam : 20-3-59-0
& 7-0-14-0
vs Tripura : 11-2-36-1
& 8-2-17-1
Note, these are the 2 weakest teams in the East Zone - and against
them, Ranadeb Bose had 2/126 for an average of 63.00! Following
on from his previous year's fade-out in the SuperLeague, this was
a quite poor showing.
After this performance to start the year, Ranadeb Bose was dropped
from the Bengal side for the rest of the season. Bengal played
Laxmi Ratan Shukla as their lead paceman (he was no longer on India
duty), and brought in Sumit Panda as their #2 pacer (a good U19
paceman who played for India U19, Panda was from Assam to start with
but Bengal poached him to strengthen their side). When they wanted
another paceman (or one of the above was not around), they used
Abdul Masood as their pacer. Panda played 4 games on the season,
Masood played 3 games - and Bose played only 2, the first 2 after
which he was dropped.
Second Season (99/00): 2 matches, 2 wickets, avg 63.00
At this point, Ranadeb Bose is surely not in India contention - he
was, after all, dropped by Bengal for most of the year.
---
Next season was 2000/2001. Ranadeb Bose was not selected for Bengal
for a single match all season long - Bengal went with Laxmi Ratan
Shukla and SS Paul for pace, and brought in Sabir Ali when a 3rd
paceman was needed. They also tried Sujoy Parui for a couple of
matches when a 4th pace option was needed - but Bose remained on
the sidelines through it all.
Third Season (00/01): 0 matches, not in Bengal side
At this point, Bose is as far from India contention as it is possible
to be, surely, since he was not in the Bengal side once for the entire
length of the year.
---
Next season was 2001/02. Bose started the season on the bench, but
was included in the XI from the 2nd match onwards (as Paul, Sabir
Ali etc had not done all that well). His performances were:
vs Tripura : 12-7-20-2
& 10-3-34-2 (BTW, Tripura was 89 allout and 120 allout)
vs Bihar : 8-2-22-2
& 8-2-27-0
vs Orissa : 27-9-80-1
In that Orissa match Bose got the first wicket - Orissa were 8/1.
Then they slid to 58/2. And then Shiv Sundar Das and Sanjay Raul
put on a partnership of 436 - Raul 210, Das runout for 253.
Bengal went all the way to the semi-finals this year - but Ranadeb
Bose was dropped from the side after the above 3 games in the East
Zone league itself. He had taken 7/183 at an average of 26.14 in
the 3 East Zone League games, but he didnt play another match. Bengal
went with Laxmi Ratan Shukla as their #1 paceman, and brought in SS Paul
and Sabir Ali for the knockout games (more than that, however, Bengal
realized its pace attack wasnt very good and concentrated on its
strength, which is spin - they went with Utpal Chatterjee and
Saurashish Lahiri who took 39 and 30 wickets respectively. Shukla
took 11 and was 3rd highest wickettaker - nobody else took more
than 8 for the entire season).
Fourth Season (01/02) : 3 matches, 7 wickets, avg 26.12.
This was, of course, at the end of last season. Could Ranadeb Bose
be considered anywhere on the national radar at this point? Remember,
he had 3 East Zone League games (and the numbers might look ok), but
he was then dropped by Bengal for the rest of the year! When the
season got to its business end (and Bengal had their best season in
quite a while, going to the semi-finals), he wasnt making the final
XI for any of those games. And SS Paul and Sabir Ali were being
picked ahead of him for the 2nd paceman spot (with Laxmi Ratan
Shukla firmly ensconced as Bengal's #1 paceman).
When this season of cricket began in India (2 months ago), the above
was what Ranadeb Bose had accomplished. Can you think of a single
point of time in that 4-year career where he *should* have been in some
sort of national contention? You said "he deserves a chance too, just
like Balaji" - at what point in the above 4 years would that have
been true? IMHO it was true at no point whatsoever, until this
season began - he was nowhere on the selectorial radar (as you say),
but that was IMHO completely justified. Heck, he was barely on the
Bengal selectors radar (and he wasnt on the East Zone selectors
radar - he had not been picked for a single Duleep Trophy squad in
this 4 year period, and not particularly unfairly either, surely?)
It is hard to get into India contention unless you take a large
number of wickets, usually, especially as a paceman. Ranadeb Bose's
best-ever season had been his first - when he had 18 wickets in 5
matches. After that he had 2 wickets in a year, 0 wickets in a year
and 7 wickets in a year.
More importantly, selectors usually consider level of competition as
well. Until the start of this season, Ranadeb Bose had 27 career fc
wickets - and 15 of those had come against Tripura (which most people
would agree is probably the weakest side in Indian cricket)! Against
Tripura he had 15 wickets at an average of 11.5. Against everyone
else he had 12 wickets at an average of 44.00.
Balaji's case was a little different - he made his debut only last
year, and he played 7 matches (all the games his team played). In
this time he claimed 32 wickets, at 22.25 - almost 5 wickets/match,
and at a very good average (including against some good teams -
Karnataka and Hyderabad are good teams down South, plus TN beat
Bombay in the knockouts etc).
And Balaji wasnt just picked on the basis of those 7 matches either -
on the basis of those 7 matches, he was selected in the India-A
side to South Africa. At the end of that tour, basically all the
bowlers had sucked - but the manager (Yashpal Sharma IIRC) said after
the tour that Balaji had been India's best paceman. So Balaji was
then sent on a 2nd India-A tour - to Sri Lanka this time. The tour
was heavily rain-affected, but 3/4 OD games were played against
SL-A - and once again Balaji was the best paceman on the tour.
*Then* Balaji was picked for BPXI to play the touring West Indians -
and he had the best figures of any of the Indian pacemen in the
game (better than Yohannan or Bangar). *That* is when Balaji was
"given a chance" for 1 match of the of WI ODI series! IMHO, all that
above is in no way comparable to Ranadeb Bose - Balaji was *far* more
advanced and thus far more deserving of a "chance" when the season began
(and he got his chance before Ranadeb Bose IIRC had played a single game
this season).
Now, Ranadeb Bose is currently having the best season he has ever
had - he is now back in the Bengal side, and is doing well this year.
His performances this year have been:
vs Rajasthan : 22-9- 46-2
vs Himachal Pra: 32-8-110-6
& 26-10-58-4
vs Railways : 10-3- 25-0
& 9-3- 20-1
This is clearly his best year in the last 4 - due primarily to the
terrific game against Himachal Pradesh he now has 13 wickets in 3
matches at 19.95. If he keeps this form up for the entire season,
he will get into national contention quite easily - but only if
he actually keeps it up for the whole year. Remember, even right
now after 3 matches of the Ranji season, Aavishkar Salvi has 19
wickets at 11.4. Rakesh Patel has 12 wickets (in 2 matches) at
15.5. And even the much-condemned Balaji has 11 wickets in 1
match at 11.7!
As of the moment, though, this is still only 3 matches in this
season, surely? And the level of performance must be kept up longer
than that to deserve an India callup. I mean, how many people are
talking up Ramesh Powar as the answer to India's allrounder problems
right now (since, after 3 games, the off-spinner is averaging 15.5
with the ball and 61.00 with the bat)?
Sadiq [ looking behind the numbers ] Yusuf
Amol Cricketwallah
> I recently was going through some Ranji scorecards.
> anyonw know why the following people are not in the Mumbai team?
> Paranjpe,Kambli and Dighe ?
Paranjpe is probably not playing a whole lot - he was already playing
very little in the past couple of years. He got married, was doing
an MBA etc - moving on to life after cricket. He probably still plays
a bit for his office etc (saw him captain Roofit a year or so ago),
but I doubt he wants to make the time-committment to Ranji cricket
anymore.
Dighe retired at the start of this season - after many years of hard
work and captaining Bombay for a very long time, he had earned the
right to go relax :-) Served Bombay very well for a very long time,
an old-style hard-working pro - and he had the good fortune of
having one truly memorable international moment which he will be
able to treasure the rest of his life (but then it is a moment some
of his fans will carry to their dying day as well :-)
Kambli is off playing domestic cricket in RSA this season - he will
probably be unavailable for the entire year for Bombay.
All of which leaves Bombay with much reduced experience, and a severe
shortage of batsmen. Dighe at domestic level could play as a specialist
batsman almost - he averaged over 40, had a dozen centuries, and could
open or bat #6 as needed. Now with his absence and then Kambli and
Paranjpe both gone (and the entire backup line emigrated and playing
elsewhere), Bombay is down to playing 4 batsmen in the Ranji XI,
and trying to make up the difference with allrounder types. They will
probably do this for the next game too - Jaffer, Mane, Amol, Nishit
Shetty, then the allrounders (Morris, Bahutule, Powar) plus a
keeper. And then Pawar/Kulkarni and Salvi.
> also Salvi seems to be doing quite well.
> How fast is he ? Can he reverse swing the ball?
>
Salvi is doing very well - he has had a wonderful year so far. He was
always the quickest of the younger Bombay bowlers, which is why he
was picked last year to start with. He had a few games and didnt do
very much (but had a 5-fer on limited-overs debut, and took lots of
OD wickets in his 4 games). Sachin played him in the nets at MIG
over the off-season and said that he was impressed with his potential
etc. He apparently really improved over the off-season, and has
really carried Bombay's bowling in the first 3 games - 19 wickets
at 11.4 so far.
In terms of pace he is "sharp" from what I hear - apparently has
increased his pace over the off-season as well. A friend has batted
against him a year ago, and said he was quite quick - that he would
say slower than only Zaheer and Agarkar in Bombay club cricket. And
that was last year, he is apparently a little quicker now. Still
probably slower than Zaheer and Agarkar, but pretty ok now from
what I hear (nobody has radars, of course, but I would hope that
means low 130s, maybe - though maybe thats just a hope).
The thing is he apparently "feels" sharp in terms of pace out in the
middle - at least at that level. Friend has played Agarkar and
Zaheer as well - and even though Agarkar is usually faster on the
radar, he always says that Zaheer "feels" fastest out in the middle.
What the cricketers call bowling a "heavy ball" - something like a
mixture of speed and pace-off-the-track and bounce etc. And Salvi
supposedly "felt" a fairly good speed, a year ago. Anyway.
No hurry for Salvi yet, anyway - this is the first year he is really
breaking out in the Ranjis. Let him play the entire season first, and
the Duleeps as well and lets see how he does there. Maybe even 2
full good domestic seasons before we decide to try to push him into the
next level. That way he'll have a much better chance of really being
ready.
> also I am impressed with the performance of Utpal Chatterjee and even
> at this
> age he is bowling so well and he has been consistent for a while now
> in
> domestics. It is strange that he has been nowhere on the selectorial
> radar for so many years and we have tried so many other LAS none of
> whom seem to have
> done consistently well.
>
Utpal is a very solid bowler - few better in domestic cricket, or
cannier. Bengal also knows where its strength lies, and will go with
heavy spin pitches as much as possible at home. They will rely on
Utpal and Sourashish Lahiri to get the wickets, and on Dasgupta,
Debang Gandhi, Rohan Gavaskar and Subhomoy Das to put up the runs
on those tracks. Utpal will thus always have very good stats.
He has been an amazing domestic bowler though - at his peak he was
brilliant. The East Zone teams used to be very weak - but at his peak
he had like 3 years averaging 13 and 14 with the ball each year. He
wont do anything quite that brilliant again, but he will still be
very solid IMHO (probably will average about 20 or so this year
I'd guess - he will get spin tracks, but his average should go up
just a little bit since this is the Elite Group etc). And he is
a truly dedicated bowler too - I dont know how many Ranji wickets
he has, but I predict he will be way up on the list by the time
he retires (though probably not near the Rajinder Singh Goel
level).
> also how has Mark Ingty done this season? I couldn't find score-cards
> of any of Assam's matches this season because of the weird groupings.
>
Ingty according to CI has 6 wickets in 2 matches at 34.00. Probably
not an accurate stat (though his stats wont be much improved from
that, either) - CI is still missing the scorecard of the Assam/Gujarat
game. That game was a high-scoring draw on a flat pitch in Gujarat,
however, with Gujarat putting up a huge score (500+) and Assam
responding with over 400 and saving the follow-on, and a tame draw
resulting - so Ingty probably didnt do too much in that game.
BTW, Assam isnt that hard to find - they are in the Elite Group,
which is probably the suprising fact that makes them hard to find.
Check scorecards of any round of the Elite Group (except Round 2 IIRC,
when Assam played Gujarat and CI decided the match didnt happen) and
Assam should be right there. They are in Group B of the Elite
Group - have played Orissa, Gujarat and Punjab to date IIRC. They
actually dominated Punjab for 2-and-a-half days - but Punjab came
roaring back and they ended up losing on the final day. If they
had managed to hold on in that game, they would have been one of
the bigger surprises in the Ranjis so far this year - because they
would then have been about 3rd in Group B, IIRC. They still have
to play Baroda, TN, UP etc this year.
> Champak (who was dissappointed with the performance of Irfan Pathan
> and Harvinder Singh)
Huh? Whats disappointing about the performance of Irfan? He has had
a very solid season to date - 13 wickets at 22 this year so far. He
isnt quite ready for international cricket at the moment, but he
is still a kid - and his progress has been wonderful in the past
12 months.
Baroda in general had a poor time of it in the first 2 matches, and
Irfan did very little (ordinary against Punjab, 3/98 against
TN on a flattish pitch doing a lot of bowling - Baroda made 380-odd,
TN replied with 400+). Baroda finally got to play Orissa in
highly-helpful conditions in their 3rd match, and blew them away to
put themselves right back in contention in Group B. And Irfan got
6/31 and 3/36 in this match, which was a pretty damn good performance.
Overall Irfan has been what would be expected - not great, because
he is too young and hasnt played enough first-class cricket. But he
is bowling a lot which is good, and he is clearly improving all the
time, at least in terms of stats. Combined with his Duleep Trophy
performance last season (early this year in calendar terms), things
are pretty encouraging on that front. Hopefully in a year or two he
will be ready to take a step up (though unfortunately I think they will
push him in before he is ready, too).
Harvinder hasnt done all that well, and Iam not sure how much of an
option he is anymore - he really has never been quite the same bowler
after his injury. Even when he did well and made his comeback to the
Indian team a year or so ago, he didnt quite look the same to me
at least - I used to think he would end up quicker than Agarkar
for example, and post-injury he was slower than that. This season
Harvinder hasnt been helped by the pitches anyway - Railways played
Delhi on a very flat pitch (where Gambhir got another double-century,
and Railways batted out the entire last day losing only 2 wickets
with Pagnis getting another century), and in Railways latest match
they played Bengal on a spin-trap designed especially for Utpal
and Saurashish Lahiri (Santosh Saxena, a Bombay import who opens the
bowling for Railways now, had 6 overs, 1/6 in the 2nd innings - but
wasnt given the ball again because the spinners did all the bowling).
On those kinds of tracks no Indian paceman is very likely to pick
up wickets anyway.
Sadiq [ Round 4 of the Ranjis starts in a couple of days ] Yusuf
Amol Cricketwallah
> "Kamesh" <kamesh...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:atlh7u$b5bv$1...@ID-154916.news.dfncis.de...
> >
>
> mid eighties?
Yep, and a few ODIs. Not in the 80s, but rather in the 90s - he was
picked to go to Australia on the tour of 1992, and stayed on for
the World Cup as well. And also went to RSA the next year.
BTW, for all the talk of regionalistic bias and not picking players
from Bengal - Subroto Bannerjee had a grand total of 4 first-class
wickets (at an average of 33.00 IIRC) when he was picked to play
test cricket for India, and that too on a tour of Australia :-)
He was basically picked straight from MRF - the selectors were
sort of desperate for fast bowlers, and MRF had started out only
a couple of years previously. So everyone was basically convinced
that if you were from MRF you *must* be good - and so bowlers were
just picked straight out of there for the Indian test squad :-)
[This, of course, was a time when India were actually *not* that
badly off in terms of pace bowling. Kapil and Prabhakar were clearly
the top 2 pace bowlers in the country at the time, and were pretty
good in 1991 prior to Australia. Srinath was coming on, and had
played ODIs in Sharjah prior to the Australia tour (also had a 5-fer
in the Iranis IIRC). Chetan Sharma was still only about 25 years
old and an experienced had for India (he had the best strike-rate
of any Indian bowler in the 1980s) - Chetan Sharma was main paceman
in contention for Australia who was left out due to the MRF-craze.
And then there were Wassan and Razdan - Razdan was an ex-MRF product
who had been abandoned after a test 5-fer, and Wassan had actually
bowled quite well a few months previously on India's tour of
England in the only test match he got to play. Yet India went with
the MRF tyro for Australia ]
Sure you are not confusing him for Subrata Guha, he of the
> fiery pace? He had a marvelous average too. Too bad it wasn't his batting
> average
>
> > {victim of Bonda - Vada Pao nexus}
> >
> > :-)
> > Kamesh
> > [ - Now RK will add me to the "all time brain dead supporters list" of
> > Subroto Banerjee and Dilip Doshi -]
> >
>
> [If not, I will for ignoring two other WB players. Certainly Gopal Bose and
> Michael Dalvi (erstwhile TN, or erstwhile WB, can't remember) were worthy of
> a look-see, I mean Pranab Roy wasn't that much better]
>
Michael Dalvi has been done to death on rsc before :-) He simply did
not have the first-class record neccesary to play for India IMHO.
As for Gopal Bose - he did get a "look", but didnt quite make it (and
probably didnt get enough of a look, he could have gotten more). Gopal
Bose was originally an off-spinner who turned into a batsman. He was
taken on the 1974 tour of Sri Lanka and he played the matches there -
they were "unofficial tests". He was then carried to England in 1974
as well - and he had a horrendous tour, which probably cost him
heavily. He managed only 328 runs from 18 innings on tour in
England - that works out to an average of 18.2, over a pretty large
sample size. What was more damning was that Madan Lal managed 399
over 18 innings, and Abid Ali 470 in 22 innings - and both had been
originally been picked for the tour of England as bowlers! Because
of these poor performances in England he couldnt get a chance to
open with Gavaskar there - Solkar, Engineer and Sudhir Naik opened
instead in the tests (Engineer had an 80 opening in 1 test, Naik a 77
also in 1 test).
Bose had another chance when WI came to town, when Gavaskar got
injured for 3 games. But the selectors called up Sudhir Naik instead
of Bose. Thus Naik ended up playing 3 "official tests" for India
while Bose played none. Maybe this was unfair - but while Bose was
a very attractive player (and Naik was far stodgier), Sudhir Naik
*did* have many more runs than Bose at domestic level. Both went to
England, and Bose failed in the fc games there. And when Naik got his
chance, he had a brave 77 (77 out of 216 allout, which demonstrates
its worth)- really quite a good knock and probably deserving
of first-callup in India when there was a vacancy. When he got his
callup in Delhi, Naik got 48 and 6. So he got the next test in
Calcutta, where he got 0 and 6 (among cries of "moja chor" at
the Eden Gardens - maybe one of the reasons for that chant was the
presence of Naik over their Native Son?). And that was it - Naik
never played another game again.
This also, of course, was a time that Ramnath Parkar was pushing
for a spot - a very talented and flamboyant player, who was never given
much of an opportunity.
Gopal Bose was not out of the picture yet anyway - he got another
"unofficial test" against the visiting Sri Lanka team under
Anura Tennekoon. And he did well against them, too. But he didnt
make it to the team for the tour of NZ/WI - he was almost 29 years
old by this time, anyway. The selectors went for Parsasarthy
Sharma of Rajasthan and Anshuman Gaekwad of Baroda, and covered
with 19-year-old Dilip Vengsarkar who could open if needed (he
had just opened for Bombay in the Ranjis and scored 175, and again
in the Duleep Trophy and gotten 45 - he was likely to be picked
anyway as middle-order backup after his amazing batting in the
Irani Trophy against the spinners, but he was also seen as
opener-cover if needed).
And after returning home, of course, Gaekwad was Gavaskar's
regular partner - and then was displaced by Chetan Chauhan (who had
been doing very well for a couple of years for Maharashtra, but was
ignored for the tours of WI/NZ - he was only picked after he moved
to Delhi).
As for Pranob Roy - a different time. Got 2 tests against England
in 1982, splitting the series with Srikkant as Gavaskar's partner.
He also went to England in 1982 (probably lucky to make it), but
didnt get a test match - Shastri was opener by the end of the
series. Roy then vanished and was replaced by another from Bengal,
Arun Lal (who split time with Srikkant in Pakistan in '82). But
both Arun Lal and Srikkant failed in Pakistan, and Shastri ended
up opening again by the time the series ended (and when he opened
he batted for 488 minutes to get 128 - well into the 2nd day
of the testmath, after coming in to start the test). After the
series both Arun Lal and Srikkant were dropped, and Gaekwad came
back as the regular partner to Gavaskar.
Sadiq [ lots of partners, Gavaskar had ] Yusuf
>
> > >
> > > rk-
> >
> >
> >
rkusenet
"Raghu Jetley" <jraghu...@yahoo.com> wrote
> He should have come on the field & refused to bowl
> for a couple of hours.
I think of the 18 overs he bowled, he was more like Akhtar.
I think SA is only marginally > Subroto Banerjee.
http://tinyurl.com/3m2j
rk-
Amol Cricketwallah
> "rkusenet" <rkus...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:atlffi$969n$1...@ID-75254.news.dfncis.de...
> >
>
> that players from Bengal ( and other states too, I may add )
> that were not part of the Delhi-Mumbai-South axis of
> fashionable teams were not given a chance when players of
> similar or lesser domestic caliber were. I dont think any
> reasonable person will disagree with this.
>
Maybe Iam not a reasonable person, but I do. You say youre not
interested in hypothetical cases - well, can we have a list of
players who were denied by the Delhi-Mumbai-South axis purely
on the basis of regionalism, then? (BTW, I dont think Ive heard
of a Delhi-Mumbai-South axis before, anyway :-) If you provide
a list, we can go thru it case by case maybe, and get an idea
of what each went thru (but please, no cases like Ranadeb
Bose? :-) There are players all over the country who get a
raw deal for one reason or another - if you wish you can list
all the players from Bengal (or the East) that you wish, and we'll
analyze them (and then, if you permit, I promise to throw up at
least an equal list of "badly treated" ones from elsewhere :-)
> Ganguly did some good things after becoming captain. He
> mostly chose players based on merit. An example is Kaif,
> from UP, and Bangar, from Railways. But he has a strange
Oh come on :-) Kaif is from UP yes - but he also made his debut
under Tendulkar, not Ganguly. And it doesnt matter a whit who
would have been captain, Kaif would have played anyway - the guy
was captain of India U19 and won the U19 World Cup, for crying
out loud. Surely he wasnt appointed U19 captain because of
Ganguly or Tendulkar (it was under Tendulkar's tenure that Kaif
was U19 WC skipper). And lots of players from that U19 team were
big names who were going to be picked one way or the other, regardless
of who was captain (Yuraj, Sodhi, Ratra etc all came from that
U19 side).
The spread of Indian cricket and the picking of players
from all over has nothing whatsoever to do with Ganguly or Tendulkar
or any other Indian captain - it has to do with the recent spread of
cricket into all parts of the country on a major scale. We have seen
players from Andhra, Kerala and Orissa in the past few years - a couple
made their debuts under Tendulkar, a couple under Ganguly. Dravid
could be appointed captain tomorrow, and we'd still see debutants
from all over - it is the way the Indian team is going to be. That
team under Kaif that won the U19 World Cup for India? It had...
0 Players from Bombay, 0 Players from Karnataka, 0 Players from
Delhi, 0 Players from Bengal, 0 Players from Maharashtra, 1 Player
from TN (who was in the 14, but didnt play a single game in the
XI), and 1 player from Hyderabad (who was also in the 14, but didnt
play a single game in the XI).
Given that scenario, how can any Indian captain not end up having
players from various parts of the country under him, eventually?
And how can credit for that diversity go entirely to him?
As for Bangar - you really think Ganguly picked him? Alone? I mean,
Bangar was doing well for Railways, and was an allrounder at a time
when India needed allrounders. He was given BPXI-type games even
in Tendulkar's tenure (and even Azhar's, IIRC). When he got a BPXI
game against England a year ago, he claimed 5-40 or so with the
ball with reverse-swing. That is what won him a test spot, as much
as anything (and he batted at #7 in the test match, despite being
a Ranji opener for the past 6-8 years).
> chip on his shoulders regarding players from Bengal .. it is
> almost as if he is trying too hard to not "appear regionalistic".
> He publicly proclaimed his preference for Dighe over Dasgupta
> when Deep was chosen; this is a stupid thing to do for the
> captain of the team. I am not saying DDG is a good wicketkeeper;
When Deep was chosen, Dighe was the #1 keeper - he had been keeper
in the previous 6 tests (and India had won 2 of those tests abroad).
Both Wright and Ganguly considered Dighe as the #1 keeper, and said
so. Dighe would have played ahead of Deep, even in RSA. But on the
morning of the first test match, 15 minutes before play while everyone
was out doing their warmups, Dighe wrenched his back and had to drop
out - that is how Deep got into the final XI (Dighe had wrenched his
back badly enough that he had to fly home, and he was out of all
cricket for more than a month IIRC). Deep meanwhile batted well in
RSA and won a spot, which he kept from that point onwards. But
early support of Dighe had nothing to do with anti-Bengal feelings,
it was merely a reflection of the reality on the ground at the
time (BTW, it might be pointed out that in the very first test
that Ganguly captained, it was on his express wish that Saba Karim
got his test debut against Bangladesh. Now Saba Karim was a fine
player - but he had been injured badly, his eyes were affected, and
he was not a good keeper anymore. In fact he was so badly injured
taht he had not even played a first-class game in months - he had
just played some league match somewhere, when he was brought in to
make his debut against Bangladesh in Ganguly's captaincy debut.
Poor Karim tried hard, but his injury was too bad and he kept
horribly the entire match - he was then left out, and he retired
from all cricket only 1 or 2 matches later IIRC, never really
recovering from the injury. If Ganguly was so anti-Bengal, why
would he have picked Karim to start with, especially without proof
of his fitness?)
> I have never said that, and never supported or opposed him;
> he played for a while based on some better than average
> batting performances, then was sacked when his keeping
> became a liability.
>
> My contention is very clear; there was a clear bias in the
> selection of players from certain parts of the country; this bias
> has diluted a little in recent times but it is still there. My other
> contention is that Ganguly does the reverse-push on Bengal
> players, not just that he does not lobby for them. Lobbying
> and anti-lobbying are both unfair.
>
Which Bengal players is Ganguly doing a current-reverse-push on?
In fact, which Bengal players have been doing so well that they
need any kind of reverse-push at the moment, to start with? Which
Bengal player at the moment is not in contention when he really
should be (since you say above youre not including Deep)? Their
best batsman is Rohan Gavskar (who is not good enough to contend
for test cricket at the moment, with India stacked with batsmen
already), their best bowler is Utpal Chatterjee (who is a terrific
old veteran, but is nearing 40 - when did our selectors last pick
a 40-year-old, no matter where he was from?)
Sadiq [ sheesh ] Yusuf
Champak Bhumiya
field in the second innings and didn't have any injury.
Champak
Raghu Jetley
What's your point ? Where did SA come into the picture ?
Vijay Kumar K
> news:atlh7u$b5bv$1...@ID-154916.news.dfncis.de...
> >
>
>
> mid eighties? Sure you are not confusing him for Subrata Guha, he of the
> fiery pace? He had a marvelous average too. Too bad it wasn't his batting
> average
>
In the recent thread on "did not get enough chances XI", I had picked him to
open the bowling for India with Rajinder Pal. In FC games, Guha had 299 wickets
@ 20.29. In comparision, Srinath has 291 @ 22.69 (not counting the Test
figures). Surely, not a much worse bet if you were a selector picking on the
basis of FC ability (granted Guha was from an era and a zone where getting
those kinds of figures was more possible).
Subroto Banerjee was not even in the same league on FC terms (135 wkts @ 29.83).
There was another Banerjee who was probably much worse done by (he can at least
cherish being part of a unique FC record and FC folklore) - Shute Banerjee
played just 1 test (his record came on an English tour - scoring a century at
#10, with Sarwate getting a 100 at #11 against Surrey, IIRC). Shute Banerjee
had 385 FC wickets @ 26.68. Sadly, his batting partner in that memorable tour
match did not have a decent Test outing either, despite having similarly
impressive FC figures.
Here, just to refresh, is my "hard-done-by" India XI (Name-Tests played-FC Runs-
FC Batting Avg.-FC wkts-FC Bowling Avg-FC c+st)
Raman Lamba 4 8776 53.84
L Rajput 2 7988 49.30 59 45.22
G Kishenchand 5 7187 47.91
Ajay Sharma 1 10120 67.46 87 31.01
Ashok Malhotra 7 9784 50.95
R B Kenny 5 3079 50.47
C S Pandit 5 8209 48.57 281+41
Dhiraj Parsana 2 2943 26.51 320 22.24
Rajinder Pal 1 1046 11.12 337 21.89
Subroto Guha 4 1067 12.70 299 20.29
V V Kumar 2 673 7.64 599 19.98
To make it a touring party of XVI, add the following
Gursharan Singh 1 5719 43.32
Hemant Kanitkar 2 5006 42.78
MV Narasimha Rao 4 4845 40.71 245 28.05
Vijay Yadav 1 3988 36.25 237+46
Chandu Sarwate 9 7430 32.73 494 23.54
Shute Banerjee 1 3715 20.63 385 26.68
The surprise names for me were Guha, Pal, Kenny, Kishenchand & Parsana - no one
even talks about them and they had pretty phenomenal FC records (e.g., Michael
Dalvi had 4635 runs @ 35.93, and he is a legend on RSC, thanks to RK's cousin)
Vijay
rkusenet
The point I am making is that u have a tendency
to exaggerate. Just like u exaggerated SA ~= AA :-)
JS refused to bowl few times and that pretty late
in his career. IIRC the first time he did it was in NZ
1999. U make it sound as if he did it very frequently.
Most recently he bowled a marathon spell in the POS test
which we won. He also bowled a lot in 1996-97. Some 450
overs in 9 test matches, plus countless ODI. It even
prompted Holding to say that had he bowled that much,
he would have been finished.
< not directed against RaghuJ >
Subroto failed stamina test in his very first match.
I won't blame selectors for kicking him out. It is
amazing that every m****fucker who has
pimped for SB in the past, fails to mention SB's
stamina. All they mention is that he took 3/47
in his first match and never played again and how
India did a big mistake by going for JS instead of
SB. Well I have a news for them.
Like Subroto, Srinath also took 3 wkts in his
first match (Marsh,MarkWaugh and Taylor). So they
can shove this 3 wkt thing <at that place>.
rk-
yeskay
> ...
>
> Here, just to refresh, is my "hard-done-by" India XI (Name-Tests played-FC Runs-
> FC Batting Avg.-FC wkts-FC Bowling Avg-FC c+st)
>
> Raman Lamba 4 8776 53.84
> L Rajput 2 7988 49.30 59 45.22
> G Kishenchand 5 7187 47.91
> Ajay Sharma 1 10120 67.46 87 31.01
> Ashok Malhotra 7 9784 50.95
> R B Kenny 5 3079 50.47
> C S Pandit 5 8209 48.57 281+41
> Dhiraj Parsana 2 2943 26.51 320 22.24
> Rajinder Pal 1 1046 11.12 337 21.89
> Subroto Guha 4 1067 12.70 299 20.29
> V V Kumar 2 673 7.64 599 19.98
>
> To make it a touring party of XVI, add the following
>
> Gursharan Singh 1 5719 43.32
> Hemant Kanitkar 2 5006 42.78
> MV Narasimha Rao 4 4845 40.71 245 28.05
> Vijay Yadav 1 3988 36.25 237+46
> Chandu Sarwate 9 7430 32.73 494 23.54
> Shute Banerjee 1 3715 20.63 385 26.68
>
> The surprise names for me were Guha, Pal, Kenny, Kishenchand & Parsana - no one
> even talks about them and they had pretty phenomenal FC records (e.g., Michael
> Dalvi had 4635 runs @ 35.93, and he is a legend on RSC, thanks to RK's cousin)
>
> Vijay
I'd add some Bonda guys who were good:
Sudhakar Rao R 1 ODI (in NZ '76, I think) 4014 runs at 39.74 (MO bat)
Raghuram Bhat 1, 374 wkts at 22.66 (SLA), surely a shot in the XV as a
bowler.
Raghu Jetley
> "Raghu Jetley" <jraghu...@yahoo.com> wrote :-
> > > "Raghu Jetley" <jraghu...@yahoo.com> wrote
> > >
> > >> He should have come on the field & refused to bowl
> > >> for a couple of hours.
> > >
> > > I think of the 18 overs he bowled, he was more like Akhtar.
> > > I think SA is only marginally > Subroto Banerjee.
> > > http://tinyurl.com/3m2j
> >
> > What's your point ? Where did SA come into the picture ?
>
> The point I am making is that u have a tendency
> to exaggerate. Just like u exaggerated SA ~= AA :-)
At that point, SA & AA had around the same statistics.
After 13 matches Akthar had 34 wkts @ 40.44
rkusenet
> At that point, SA & AA had around the same statistics.
> After 13 matches Akthar had 34 wkts @ 40.44
Hmm interesting ...
When it comes to JS vs Nehra or Khan, a 4fer in away victory
is enuf to rate them > JS. Why not the same on SA vs AA.
In his first 13 matches, SA had important contribution in
2 matches Pak won.
5fer vs RSA (his second test match)
4&4 vs India in 'that' test (his seventh match)
Aag has won ???? matches. (forget away, even at home)
At one stage was AA ever comparable to SA.
rk-
ps: I however agree that AA does not chuck.
Shripathi Kamath
"Amol Cricketwallah" <cricke...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a374a779.02121...@posting.google.com...
> "Shripathi Kamath" <firstnam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<uvso41t...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > "Kamesh" <kamesh...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:atlh7u$b5bv$1...@ID-154916.news.dfncis.de...
> > >
<snip>
>
> This also, of course, was a time that Ramnath Parkar was pushing
> for a spot - a very talented and flamboyant player, who was never given
> much of an opportunity.
>
Parkar pushed for, got a spot, and was sent down the tubes with Sardesai in
1972-73 against England. Don't think he pushed for a spot beyond that. He
was a very good cover fielder, and as you say a flamboyant stroke maker.
I may have sounded only half-serious in my comments to Kamesh, but felt that
when they had tried quite a few, these two perhaps were never considered.
IIRC Gaekwad didn't exactly have a stellar domestic record when he broke
into the ranks, Bose certainly deserved a shot. Vengsarkar himself made it
on the basis on a one great knock in the Ranji, and a ODI style innings in
the Duleep (how he made into that side that early is not exactly clear).
Likewise, Pranob didn't have much of a fc career if you think Dalvi wasn't
too impressive.
>
> Sadiq [ lots of partners, Gavaskar had ] Yusuf
>
None better than Chauhan imo. Batting partner, that is.
>
> >
> > > >
> > > > rk-
> > >
> > >
> > >
samarth harish shah
<snip>
> I may have sounded only half-serious in my comments to Kamesh, but felt that
> when they had tried quite a few, these two perhaps were never considered.
> IIRC Gaekwad didn't exactly have a stellar domestic record when he broke
> into the ranks, Bose certainly deserved a shot. Vengsarkar himself made it
> on the basis on a one great knock in the Ranji, and a ODI style innings in
> the Duleep (how he made into that side that early is not exactly clear).
If I'm not mistaken, the "ODI style innings" you're referring to actually
came in the Irani Trophy, not the Duleep Trophy. The 110 for Bombay vs.
Rest of India at Nagpur in 1975, in which he hit Bedi and Prasanna for
huge sixes. It was after this innings that he was given the nickname
"Colonel", after CK Nayudu, because Vengsarkar's sixes reminded some
journalist of CKN.
We had this thread on how many players broke into the Indian team (either
first time or comeback) after a sterling Irani Trophy performance. This
was so long ago that both Kumble and Nayan Mongia - who must both be very
thankful to the Irani Trophy - were regulars in the Indian team.
Vengsarkar was one prime example of a player who caught the eye and broke
into the Indian side based on an Irani Trophy performance.
-Samarth.
Shripathi Kamath
"samarth harish shah" <shs...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.31.021217...@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu...
> On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Shripathi Kamath wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > I may have sounded only half-serious in my comments to Kamesh, but felt
that
> > when they had tried quite a few, these two perhaps were never
considered.
> > IIRC Gaekwad didn't exactly have a stellar domestic record when he broke
> > into the ranks, Bose certainly deserved a shot. Vengsarkar himself made
it
> > on the basis on a one great knock in the Ranji, and a ODI style innings
in
> > the Duleep (how he made into that side that early is not exactly clear).
>
> If I'm not mistaken, the "ODI style innings" you're referring to actually
> came in the Irani Trophy, not the Duleep Trophy. The 110 for Bombay vs.
> Rest of India at Nagpur in 1975, in which he hit Bedi and Prasanna for
> huge sixes. It was after this innings that he was given the nickname
> "Colonel", after CK Nayudu, because Vengsarkar's sixes reminded some
> journalist of CKN.
I stand corrected, it was the Irani trophy. My mild surprise still stands:
how did someone make it to the Irani side so easily and eased into tests
based on that one knock, while a Gopal Bose did not?
>
> We had this thread on how many players broke into the Indian team (either
> first time or comeback) after a sterling Irani Trophy performance. This
> was so long ago that both Kumble and Nayan Mongia - who must both be very
> thankful to the Irani Trophy - were regulars in the Indian team.
> Vengsarkar was one prime example of a player who caught the eye and broke
> into the Indian side based on an Irani Trophy performance.
>
Considering the amount of time it took for Vengsarkar to warm up in tests,
IIRC he was quite dismal for his first 10 tests or so, one would have
thought that a Gopal Bose would have gotten a shot in earlier times when the
batting was still worse. He too had a great Irani match in 74 or so ,
followed by a pretty successful tour against Sri Lanka at that time.
> -Samarth.
>
rkusenet
"Shripathi Kamath" <firstnam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> Considering the amount of time it took for Vengsarkar to warm up in tests,
> IIRC he was quite dismal for his first 10 tests or so, one would have
> thought that a Gopal Bose would have gotten a shot in earlier times when the
> batting was still worse. He too had a great Irani match in 74 or so ,
> followed by a pretty successful tour against Sri Lanka at that time.
DBV scored his first 50 only in his 11th test.
rk-
ps: VVSL scored it in his very first test and that too
against Donald and co, on a bad track.
sidd
> Vengsarkar himself made it
> on the basis on a one great knock in the Ranji, and a ODI style innings in
> the Duleep
While Moloy Banerjee didnt get a chance after his 190 in the Irani.
> (how he made into that side that early is not exactly clear).
Take a wild guess!
sidd
"Vijay Kumar K" <vijay...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:f9e9d452.02121...@posting.google.com...
>
> The surprise names for me were Guha, Pal, Kenny, Kishenchand & Parsana -
no one
> even talks about them and they had pretty phenomenal FC records (e.g.,
Michael
> Dalvi had 4635 runs @ 35.93, and he is a legend on RSC, thanks to RK's
cousin)
>
Actually Guha was talked about a lot at one time. No one talks about him now
since most here werent even alive then.
> Vijay
rkusenet
> Actually Guha was talked about a lot at one time. No one talks about him now
> since most here werent even alive then.
and pretty soon u will also stop talking about Ranadeb Bose,
thanks to Sadiq's post :-)
rk-
sidd" <sid...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<NZrL9.178613$pN3.13156@sccrnsc03>...
> "rkusenet" <rkus...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
Shripathi Kamath
>
> "Shripathi Kamath" <firstnam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> > Considering the amount of time it took for Vengsarkar to warm up in
tests,
> > IIRC he was quite dismal for his first 10 tests or so, one would have
> > thought that a Gopal Bose would have gotten a shot in earlier times when
the
> > batting was still worse. He too had a great Irani match in 74 or so ,
> > followed by a pretty successful tour against Sri Lanka at that time.
>
> DBV scored his first 50 only in his 11th test.
>
I think it was in that 'fixed series' of '78 against Aussies, my point (ok,
simply a trolling post) was that Kamesh was not being fair when he did not
point out Dalvi and Bose. Apparently Dalvi has been done to death, and
talking of Bose *is* death.
> rk-
> ps: VVSL scored it in his very first test and that too
> against Donald and co, on a bad track.
>
Help me out here, what's the inside joke? Who said or proved DBV > VVSL or
VVSL > DBV or... ? I got the SMG v. DBV part of 83/83 against WI, only
recently. How did VVSL figure into this?
>
sidd
>
>
> > At one time I was, and I believe he did perform well for a while,
> > but now he is a liability as a batsman and not much better as
> > a captain. I have no problems if he is axed.
> >
>
> His last 20 tests have been
> Mat Runs HS BatAv 100 50 W BB BowlAv 5w
Ct
> St
>
> filtered 20 1093 136 40.48 2 5 0 - - 0
16
> 0
>
>
> His last 20 tests abroad have been
> Mat Runs HS BatAv 100 50 W BB BowlAv 5w
Ct
> St
>
> filtered 20 1120 128 37.33 1 7 3 2/69 124.33 0
12
> 0
>
>
> His last 10 tests abroad have been
> Mat Runs HS BatAv 100 50 W BB BowlAv 5w
Ct
> St
> filtered 10 692 128 49.42 1 5 0 - - 0
5
> 0
>
> Any particular reason you consider him a liability as a bat? I agree that
> the last 3 or 4 tests he has not batted well, and he is not quite the same
> bat who averaged 50 in tests at one point (I think he played much easier
> opposition early on) but hardly a reason to dismiss him as a bat so soon.
>
>
This is hard for me to argue, since the stats look good. But the fact of the
matter is, I have two major problems with SCG ...
1. He has NEVER looked comfortable against genuine pace in hostile
conditions.
2. He still, after playing 70-odd tests, doesnt have a single innings which
one
could point to and say "wow".
About his captaincy, I believe he is good off-the-field ( selections etc )
but average on-the-field. He cannot be considered a captain of the class
of Brearley, Waugh etc. But he is undoubtedly a better captain overall
than some previous Indian captains, but NOT by that much of a margin
which makes his captaincy indispensable.
>
>
>
rkusenet
> > rk-
> > ps: VVSL scored it in his very first test and that too
> > against Donald and co, on a bad track.
> >
>
> Help me out here, what's the inside joke? Who said or proved DBV > VVSL or
> VVSL > DBV or... ? I got the SMG v. DBV part of 83/83 against WI, only
> recently. How did VVSL figure into this?
history: back in 1998/1999/2000 VVSL was one of the most
bashed player in rsc. A set of gang was very loyal to
him and had faith in his class. Another gang would,
from time to time, post mazaa aa gaya, whenever he
sucked, which incidentally was almost every match.
Came 167 (Sydney) and it was dismissed as a useless
knock played when there was no interest left in the
series and in the match. blah blah.
For the record, I too had very opinion about VVSL,
solely based on his inability to score runs. However,
since I am a dedicated DBV basher, I use to compare
VVSL with DBV and try to prove that, if DBV could
get so many chances initially , why not VVSL.
This went for sometime ..... till ... mar 14 2001.
rk-
Kamesh
>
>
> I think it was in that 'fixed series' of '78 against Aussies, my point
(ok,
> simply a trolling post) was that Kamesh was not being fair when he did not
> point out Dalvi and Bose. Apparently Dalvi has been done to death, and
> talking of Bose *is* death.
If I had known about them, I would have definitely mentioned. I got to know
about them reading these posts.
Kamesh
Kamesh
"rkusenet" <rkus...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:atoa7q$15aku$1...@ID-75254.news.dfncis.de...
> history: back in 1998/1999/2000 VVSL was one of the most
> bashed player in rsc. A set of gang was very loyal to
> him and had faith in his class. Another gang would,
> from time to time, post mazaa aa gaya, whenever he
> sucked, which incidentally was almost every match.
> Came 167 (Sydney) and it was dismissed as a useless
> knock played when there was no interest left in the
> series and in the match. blah blah.
>
> For the record, I too had very opinion about VVSL,
> solely based on his inability to score runs. However,
> since I am a dedicated DBV basher, I use to compare
> VVSL with DBV and try to prove that, if DBV could
> get so many chances initially , why not VVSL.
>
> This went for sometime ..... till ... mar 14 2001.
He was a victim of India's "Opener Kaun" operation. (still plaguing us by
the way)
He got the opportunity playing in the middle order against Aus and that did
wonders. Now he has the "aukat" to refuse opening the innings unless this
"golden duck" continues for a some more innings.
It's almost as if the quickest way out of the Indian Team is to play as an
opener. Only a matter of time that Sehwag faces the fire. Sehwag might
manage to get out of the situation by simply blasting some 65 in 40 balls
and staying clear of the selectorial axe.
Bangar seems to be the only exception to my openers conjecture.
Kamesh
>
> rk-
>
>
Shripathi Kamath
Nobody really does. The truly greats play well enough, but rarely
comfortable in hostile conditions, certainly not all the time. I mean he is
not Tendulkar, or Dravid, or whoever, but he is ok. For e.g. I think Laxman
is pretty decent against pace, but he looked sophomoric against NZ the last
test. Shit happens.
Ganguly just needs to practice the just short of length ball on or just
outside his off stump :-) McGrath pointed it out, and it is still a glaring
weakness.
> 2. He still, after playing 70-odd tests, doesnt have a single innings
which
> one
> could point to and say "wow".
>
Well, I suppose. And yes, if we were considering him for an ATG, yeah. But
he has had a few moments. His century at Leeds was pretty decent, his 90
odd in SL to get a rare win chasing 250+ and that too abroad was a good
knock.
> About his captaincy, I believe he is good off-the-field ( selections etc )
> but average on-the-field. He cannot be considered a captain of the class
> of Brearley, Waugh etc.
You don't say!
> But he is undoubtedly a better captain overall
> than some previous Indian captains, but NOT by that much of a margin
> which makes his captaincy indispensable.
>
I think that he is a good if not very good captain, very motivated to win,
makes some tactical mistakes now and then, makes rather daring decisions
which sometimes work. He is not afraid to take chances, and has managed to
lead this side to quite a few victories.
I don't know why he becomes a bash target, it is not exactly the case that
we have a long line of shrewd captains waiting to take over. The one before
him could not handle the pressure, and quit.
Ganguly was chosen for the job, and has done well for his talents. So what
if India has not won a series abroad, yet? It is not a bulletin.
A drawn series abroad is still better than a lost one, no matter who they
play.
--
Shripathi Kamath.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why
several of us died of tuberculosis.
-- Jack Handey
> >
> >
> >
>
>
Shripathi Kamath
Kamesh, you need to turn on your troll filter, and *not* take me so
half-seriously in these jibes.
[Of course, you better remember these names the next time you feel Agarkar
(your favorite) was jobbed by the selectors]
--
Shripathi Kamath.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why
several of us died of tuberculosis.
-- Jack Handey
> Kamesh
>
>
>
Saurav C Ganguly
>This is hard for me to argue, since the stats look good. But the fact of the
>matter is, I have two major problems with SCG ...
>1. He has NEVER looked comfortable against genuine pace in hostile
>conditions.
>2. He still, after playing 70-odd tests, doesnt have a single innings which
>one could point to and say "wow".
Is the above based on a well-known fact that there is a class of
Bengalis who hate themselves. Else why would they adopt the slogan
"China's chairman is our chairman?".
Ambrish Sundaram
Shripathi Kamath wrote:
> "Amol Cricketwallah" <cricke...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:a374a779.02121...@posting.google.com...
>
>>"Shripathi Kamath" <firstnam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>
> news:<uvso41t...@corp.supernews.com>...
>
>>>"Kamesh" <kamesh...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>>news:atlh7u$b5bv$1...@ID-154916.news.dfncis.de...
>>>
>
> <snip>
>
>>This also, of course, was a time that Ramnath Parkar was pushing
>>for a spot - a very talented and flamboyant player, who was never given
>>much of an opportunity.
>>
>>
>
> Parkar pushed for, got a spot, and was sent down the tubes with Sardesai in
> 1972-73 against England. Don't think he pushed for a spot beyond that. He
> was a very good cover fielder, and as you say a flamboyant stroke maker.
>
Ramnath Parkar was a pretty good batsman in f-c cricket in the earlier
part of his career. But I also distinctly remember reading that he faded
away in the latter part of his career after he was injured off the
bowling of, IIRC, Maharashtra's Pandurang Salgaonkar. Coming back from
his injury, he was not the same batsman again, as he had trouble facing
good pace bowlers.
I remember watching him and talking to him at the V.Sivaramakrishnan
benefit match in Chennai in the early 90s. Was a thorough gentleman - no
airs whatsoever. Semmed very genial.
Ambrish Sundaram
Shripathi Kamath
"Ambrish Sundaram" <asun...@twmi.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3DFFC377...@twmi.rr.com...
>
>
> Shripathi Kamath wrote:
>
> > "Amol Cricketwallah" <cricke...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:a374a779.02121...@posting.google.com...
> >
> >>"Shripathi Kamath" <firstnam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >>
> > news:<uvso41t...@corp.supernews.com>...
> >
> >>>"Kamesh" <kamesh...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> >>>news:atlh7u$b5bv$1...@ID-154916.news.dfncis.de...
> >>>
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> >>This also, of course, was a time that Ramnath Parkar was pushing
> >>for a spot - a very talented and flamboyant player, who was never given
> >>much of an opportunity.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Parkar pushed for, got a spot, and was sent down the tubes with Sardesai
in
> > 1972-73 against England. Don't think he pushed for a spot beyond that.
He
> > was a very good cover fielder, and as you say a flamboyant stroke maker.
> >
>
>
> Ramnath Parkar was a pretty good batsman in f-c cricket in the earlier
> part of his career.
He was awesome pre 72-73. Very aggressive stroke maker, and scored a bunch
of runs in domestics, IIRC a 195 in IC and deservedly got a chance. Was
semi-decent in the first test in the second innings in a low scoring match,
got only one more test.
Pretty amazing how many openers were tried in short succession just to find
a partner for SMG. The mo wasn't too great either.
> But I also distinctly remember reading that he faded
> away in the latter part of his career after he was injured off the
> bowling of, IIRC, Maharashtra's Pandurang Salgaonkar.
Now there was a character who probably deserved a shot. I saw him once
bowling to Vishwanath and company in the 1974-75 Irani Cup, and get
dismantled by Vishy in Ahmedabad. He had a long run up, but his pace belied
that, and imho (and my memory isn't that good on his pace) he was probably
military medium. I suppose if you can't face his pace...
Other memory of that match was Pataudi being desperate to show his form
opened in the second innings, and ROI tossed waist high full tosses on the
leg side with no square leg. He got a stylish 37 and retired. Sisters of
Mercy would have gotten that.
Unceremoniously Wadekar was shoved aside, Pataudi was made captain.
BTW, that was another match in which Gopal Bose did well to get a 50 and a
100. The previous IC he had a 170, and scored a 100 in a tour to Sri Lanka.
He never played in tests
> Coming back from
> his injury, he was not the same batsman again, as he had trouble facing
> good pace bowlers.
>
> I remember watching him and talking to him at the V.Sivaramakrishnan
> benefit match in Chennai in the early 90s. Was a thorough gentleman - no
> airs whatsoever. Semmed very genial.
>
I also remember him playing in a sub fc match around 1971 in Bhopal -
Hyderabad Blues Vs some concoction of a decent Indian side (Gavaskar,
Parkar, Jaisimha). Parkar was rather amazing in the covers, and batted
quite aggressively. Hyderabad Blues had Narasimha Rao who did well in that
match, and a character called P.R. Man Singh.
For those that may remember, P. R. Man Singh was the captain of Hyderabad
Blues. He batted at # 11, he was not a wicket keeper, and he did not bowl,
but I digress.
Only wish the selectors back then (and sometimes even now) had not pressed
the panic buttons as frequently as they did.
Mohinder Amarnath for one would have benefited, and likewise India.
> Ambrish Sundaram
>
Raghu Jetley
> Considering the amount of time it took for Vengsarkar to warm up in tests,
> IIRC he was quite dismal for his first 10 tests or so, one would have
> thought that a Gopal Bose would have gotten a shot in earlier times when
the
> batting was still worse. He too had a great Irani match in 74 or so ,
> followed by a pretty successful tour against Sri Lanka at that time.
>
This has been discussed to death here.
DBV opened the innings in the beginning of
his career(first 4 matches).
In his 2nd test, he put on 60 with SMG (DBV-30) for
the opening stand in the 3rd inning & helped
us draw the match.
In his 5th test he played in the MO in the 1st inning
& scored 39.
The 2nd inning he opened. This was the match where Bedi
declared the innings closed at 97/5 - DBV made 21 & was
the 2nd highest scorer.
It was all away matches till now.
Next Series he played in the MO at home & failed.
Then in his 7th test (played in Brisbane), he opened
again & top scored with 48 in a typical Indian collapse
of 153 all out.
In the next match, in the MO he scored 49 & 9 (Perth)
Next match 37 in an Indian collapse of 256 (Melbourne).
Then a 48 in Sydney.
Then a 44 & 78 in Adelaide.
So though he scored a 50 only in the 11th match,
he had already secured his position in our then
weak batting line-up.
Raghu Jetley
> 1. He has NEVER looked comfortable against genuine pace in hostile
> conditions.
> 2. He still, after playing 70-odd tests, doesnt have a single innings
which
> one
> could point to and say "wow".
His debut series in England was very very good. He matched
SRT stroke for stroke in the partnership they had.
Also his innings in SL in the 2nd test (which we won) recently was
a very useful inning - I can't say how good it was aesthetically because
I didn't see it.
That said SCG has the ability to play some gritty knocks sometimes.
Knocks which are pleasing to watch but ones which are very gritty - these
don't come often though. His 60 in Aus 99 was probably one.
Shripathi Kamath
"Raghu Jetley" <jraghu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:atoifl$18n53$1...@ID-27262.news.dfncis.de...
>
> "Shripathi Kamath" <firstnam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:uvv9b2b...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > Considering the amount of time it took for Vengsarkar to warm up in
tests,
> > IIRC he was quite dismal for his first 10 tests or so, one would have
> > thought that a Gopal Bose would have gotten a shot in earlier times when
> the
> > batting was still worse. He too had a great Irani match in 74 or so ,
> > followed by a pretty successful tour against Sri Lanka at that time.
> >
>
> This has been discussed to death here.
Yes, so RK told me, as well. Thanks though for explaining your position, at
least I know which sides you and RK has respectively taken.
However, I was discussing a slightly different point about a different
character Gopal Bose, who IIRC never competed with DBV. This was not
rediscussing the DBV point. Any resemblance to that was unintentional.
Incidentally, and this is not specifically addressed to you, if discussing
something that has been done to death was the norm, the Agarkar bashings and
rehashings should have died off by now. IIRC *that* has been discussed to
death almost certainly since I a newbie have lurked in, and surely for long
even before that.
<snipped RJ's innings by innings analysis of DBV's initial career with no
prejudice>
Raghu Jetley
>
> "Raghu Jetley" <jraghu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:atoifl$18n53$1...@ID-27262.news.dfncis.de...
> >
> > "Shripathi Kamath" <firstnam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:uvv9b2b...@corp.supernews.com...
> >
> > > Considering the amount of time it took for Vengsarkar to warm up in
> tests,
> > > IIRC he was quite dismal for his first 10 tests or so, one would have
> > > thought that a Gopal Bose would have gotten a shot in earlier times
when
> > the
> > > batting was still worse. He too had a great Irani match in 74 or so ,
> > > followed by a pretty successful tour against Sri Lanka at that time.
> > >
> >
> > This has been discussed to death here.
>
> Yes, so RK told me, as well. Thanks though for explaining your position,
at
> least I know which sides you and RK has respectively taken.
>
> However, I was discussing a slightly different point about a different
> character Gopal Bose, who IIRC never competed with DBV. This was not
> rediscussing the DBV point. Any resemblance to that was unintentional.
>
> Incidentally, and this is not specifically addressed to you
And when I said "this has been discussed to death before", I wasn't
particularly
asking you not to discuss it again - I just wanted to get my post in before
*yeskay*
says that DBV should never have been given so many chances.
:-)
> , if discussing
> something that has been done to death was the norm, the Agarkar bashings
and
> rehashings should have died off by now.
I don't particularly participate in Agarkar test match discussions nowadays
because there is nothing new to say - every performance is worse than
the previous - ODO's however is a diff matter.
Shripathi Kamath
<snip>
> And when I said "this has been discussed to death before", I wasn't
> particularly
> asking you not to discuss it again - I just wanted to get my post in
before
> *yeskay*
> says that DBV should never have been given so many chances.
> :-)
>
Ah! preemptive piggybacking! Sorry dude, guess I ruined a good troll for ya
:-)
[removes hook from upper lip, reattaches what's left of the worm, and casts
it back in]
Champak Bhumiya
> >> Srinath in the same match didnt get any. Kapil and Prabhakar got 3
> >> each in the first innings.
> >
> > A little known fact which very few like to mention.
> > He did not come to field during the second inngs as
> > 18 overs he bowled in the first inngs exhausted him
> > thoroughly .
>
> He should have come on the field & refused to bowl
> for a couple of hours.
have ANY injury after first innings.
Champak
samarth harish shah
>
> "sidd" <sid...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:CSNL9.399381$QZ.63969@sccrnsc02...
> > 1. He has NEVER looked comfortable against genuine pace in hostile
> > conditions.
> > 2. He still, after playing 70-odd tests, doesnt have a single innings
> which
> > one
> > could point to and say "wow".
>
> His debut series in England was very very good. He matched
> SRT stroke for stroke in the partnership they had.
>
> Also his innings in SL in the 2nd test (which we won) recently was
> a very useful inning - I can't say how good it was aesthetically because
> I didn't see it.
It was a very scratchy knock. Dravid's 70-odd was better, but SCG stayed
till the end rather than "running away", so he wins on that count.
> That said SCG has the ability to play some gritty knocks sometimes.
> Knocks which are pleasing to watch but ones which are very gritty - these
> don't come often though. His 60 in Aus 99 was probably one.
A couple of the 50s vs. Pakistan at home in 1998-9 come to mind. A couple
of good innings in WI and England earlier this year. A good knock in SL in
1997 to save the match. (The test after the SL 952-Jayasuriya 340 test.)
Also hit a couple of good 50s in Johannesburg in 1996-7 in Dravid's
company.
He's played a few good knocks now and then, as you say. I don't know about
the definition of this "wow" factor. Amongst the top 6 Indian batsmen, he
is the one who has been most adversely affected - in terms of test
batsmanship - by the deluge of ODI games, IMHO.
<snip>
-Samarth.
Sundar Subramanian
> He's played a few good knocks now and then, as you say. I don't know about
> the definition of this "wow" factor.
He definitely has one inning which, IMO, would scream for a placement in the
"wow" category, namely that pulsating knock at Headingly. If "wow" is to be
assigned to only solitary knocks of substance when others fail then probably he
doesn't have one. How many "wow" knocks does Sachin have? 136, 169 (RSA), 155
(Chennai), 116, and many more. Dravid's will be the one at Headingly and the
one in RSA (148).
Best,
Sundar
rkusenet
"Raghu Jetley" <jraghu...@yahoo.com> wrote
> So though he scored a 50 only in the 11th match,
> he had already secured his position in our then
> weak batting line-up.
yeah right. indian team was overflowing with top class
batsmen when laxman was in thakela form in early 2001.
rk-
jai
> He was a victim of India's "Opener Kaun" operation. (still plaguing us by
> the way)
> He got the opportunity playing in the middle order against Aus and that
did
> wonders. Now he has the "aukat" to refuse opening the innings unless this
> "golden duck" continues for a some more innings.
not fully true. As far as I recall he quit opening even though it was
jeopardizing his test career. He didn't do it after he got aukat. He forced
his way back into the middle order with some ridiculous string of 9 or 10
centuries in FC.
And after that Kolkotta happened and the matter wa sealed.
Ironically we have seen his two best knocks at #1 and #3.
jai
sidd
> "sidd" <sid...@hotmail.com> wrote
>
> > Actually Guha was talked about a lot at one time. No one talks about him
now
> > since most here werent even alive then.
>
> and pretty soon u will also stop talking about Ranadeb Bose,
> thanks to Sadiq's post :-)
First of all, there is not much parallel between the two. Guha was an
established Ranji
player for a very long time, like Utpal. If there is an analogy, it is
between those two.
What was surprising is that one can say Utpal as a spinner has more
competition in
India ( aka Shivalkar ); but there is no reason why Guha was not tried out
more than
he was, since there were not tons of Akhtar's and Sami's fighting it out.
As to Bose, I only mentioned him in relation to Balaji. I didnt mention Bose
is
great or should immediately get a chance ... I was showing that players from
certain states get higher exposure and more chances. I keep mentioning this
is my theme but people keep analysing it in different ways. I think I will
just stay quiet on the matter, since there seem to be some other guys here
who are also aware of some of these issues.
Regarding Bose, also, he is having a good season on tracks not helpful to
seamers ( as Sadiq mentioned so helpfully ) ... and there are no more
Tripura's
around any more, so we shall see. I have watched him a few times and he
looked impressive. But then, Nehra looks more impressive than Zaheer
but just look at their averages. Cricket is a strange game.
sidd
> "sidd" <sid...@hotmail.com> wrote:-
>
> >For instance, why did Subroto get dropped
> >after his single test outing of 3/47 while people
>
> bcos he learnt the hard way that a test match means
> two inngs. Buddy, Banerjee had no stamina to last a
> test match. Do u know he wasn't even in the ground
> during the Syndey test second inngs.
>
I am not sure that is the whole story. Anyway, you are entitled
to your opinion. Also, I am not suggesting he would have been
better or even close to Srinath; my point is completely different,
but I have mentioned it elsewhere and dont wish to keep
repeating it.
> > Why is Mohanty off the radar today?
>
> this is the question I have asked
> 100 times in rsc. I think he got the biggest raw deal.
>
Because you know more about Mohanty than some other
guys who got a raw-er deal. Not necessarily from Bengal/EZ.
Also, if Mohanty was as unlucky as Burman / Guha, you
would never have known of him and would joke about him
if someone mentioned his name.
> >What made you comment on Bose in the manner you did?
>
> U took it seriously. I am sorry.
>
I dont believe in giving or taking apologies, but I get a sneaky
feeling you are pulling my legs.
Ah well, I am too old for this.
> rk-
>
>
sidd
"Amol Cricketwallah" <cricke...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a374a779.02121...@posting.google.com...
> > >
>
> Will get to the rest later - but this demands a response first :-)
>
>
> > > > next in line is Ranadeb Bose, whose record is better than
> > > > Balaji but is nowhere on the radar either. Which is a joke, really,
> > since
> > > > Ganguly does not get into the current Bengal team on merit.
> > >
> > > Ranadeb Bose!!! Yeh to naam se hee bekaar bowler lagta hain.
> > >
> >
> > I rest my case. You didnt mention anything about Balaji, who has
> > already received one chance in which he gave 40 runs from 4 overs.
> > Before that event, there was a flood of posts on RSS regarding
> > him, he became quite a well-known figure inspite of the fact
> > that he had done nothing to deserve it. Based on his domestic
> > record, I agree he should get a chance. But on that criteria, Bose
> > deserves a chance too.
>
>
> IMHO, if you are serious about thinking Bose deserves a national
> chance at the moment on the basis of his record and you think the
> fact that he is not on the radar is due to regionalistic bias -
I said if Balaji is on the radar, Bose should be too. I dont think
he deserves to be ... as you point out, that will happen if he
has a complete good season.
> then
> you will *always* be disappointed, and will see lots of examples of
> bias in selection.
But that is true ... there has always been lots of bias in selection to
India XI. Under SCG, the bias is a little less than before. The worst
in my memory was under Bedi and SMG's captaincy and GRV's
selectorial tenure. Now those were shameful days.
Currently, the worst thing going on is the sage of Ajit Agarkar..
<snipped rest in agreement, partially or fully>
Amol Cricketwallah
> "samarth harish shah" <shs...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
> news:Pine.GSO.4.31.021217...@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu...
> > On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Shripathi Kamath wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > I may have sounded only half-serious in my comments to Kamesh, but felt
> that
> > > when they had tried quite a few, these two perhaps were never
> considered.
> > > IIRC Gaekwad didn't exactly have a stellar domestic record when he broke
> > > into the ranks, Bose certainly deserved a shot. Vengsarkar himself made
> it
> > > on the basis on a one great knock in the Ranji, and a ODI style innings
> in
> > > the Duleep (how he made into that side that early is not exactly clear).
> >
> > If I'm not mistaken, the "ODI style innings" you're referring to actually
> > came in the Irani Trophy, not the Duleep Trophy. The 110 for Bombay vs.
> > Rest of India at Nagpur in 1975, in which he hit Bedi and Prasanna for
> > huge sixes. It was after this innings that he was given the nickname
> > "Colonel", after CK Nayudu, because Vengsarkar's sixes reminded some
> > journalist of CKN.
>
> I stand corrected, it was the Irani trophy. My mild surprise still stands:
> how did someone make it to the Irani side so easily and eased into tests
> based on that one knock, while a Gopal Bose did not?
>
How did he get into the Irani Trophy? Simple - Bombay won the Ranji
Trophy the previous year, and Vengsarkar was on the Bombay team
that played Rest of India in the Irani Trophy :-) And it was a pretty
damn good Rest of India team too - Gopal Bose opening, GR Vishy in
the middle-order, Madan Lal, Bedi and Prasanna forming the attack.
A low-scoring game too - ROI 210 allout, Bombay had gone from 90/0
to 98/3 when Vengsarkar came in (losing Gavaskar, Ramnath Parkar
and Sudhir Naik - 3 test players). And the 19-year-old kid proceeded
to smash 110 in double quick time against Prasanna and Bedi, hitting
them for (IIRC) 6 sixes in the process. Bombay ended up with a 95
run lead due to this (and ROI were allout for 212 in their 2nd
innings too - but it was a 3-day game, and so not enough time for
an outright win for Bombay who were left 118 to win with no time).
Only 4 scores over 50 in the entire match, 2 by Vishwanath (72 and
52), Mankad scoring 58 in Vengsarkar's company, and Vengsarkar
himself scoring 110. Bose, BTW, scored 35 and 26 in the 2 innings
he played.
Remember, India's batting pretty much sucked in these days. And
suddenly you had a 19-year-old emerging, who had smashed what many
thought were the best bowlers in the world (Bedi and Pras) to
all parts of the park! The selectors were always going to jump on
that sort of talent right away, in those difficult times.
As for Gopal Bose - as you point out, he had a very good Irani
Trophy match in 1973/74, and then played well in the "unofficial
test" against SL. But, as I said before, he *did* make the team
on that basis! He made it immediately after, when India went to
England in 1974 - he was on the squad. It was only after he failed
on a long tour in almost all the first-class games that he was
discarded (he played 18 fc innings in England, and averaged about
18 - less than Madan Lal and Abid Ali, who had been selected as
bowlers). Remember, he was left out only *after* that England tour,
that was when he dropped out of contention for the home series
against WI (when India tried Naik for 2 tests - Naik who had
succeeded in England, and then Gaekwad).
Thus, by the time 1975-75 rolled around, the selectors had the
option of Gopal Bose - who had been picked a 2 years ago because
of Irani performances and had failed in England, and who was now
29 years old. He was still a valid contender - but he had not done
*that* well in the latest Irani Trophy match, he was 29, and he
had already been taken and done poorly in England, all of which
would count against him.
And then there was Gaekwad - who was 24-years old, had played 3 tests
that year, and had done decently (an 80, a 54 and a 42 in his 3
tests to date). And there was Vengsarkar - 19-years-old, who had
just played a brilliant innings in the Irani Trophy right before
the tour (he was mostly a middle-order guy, but had also opened in
a Ranji game and scored 175, so he could cover that spot too). And
there was 26-year-old Parsasarthy Sharma from Rajasthan, who had
played 2 tests uptil this point (and made 54, 49, 6 and 9 - but
had been runout twice out of those 4 innings!)
When you have that choice - who would you pick? Remember, our batting
basically sucked in those days, we had a lot of very ordinary batsmen
surrounding Gavaskar and Vishwanath. There was now an option in
Gaekwad who was 24 - and could conceivably serve India for quite a
while to come. And there was Vengsarkar, who was only 19 - he could
conceivably be an important part of an Indian team well into the
future. Even Parsasarthy Sharma, who had carried Rajasthan's batting
for many years, was now 26 years old - not *that* old. And against
those three you had to weight the claims of someone who
had not done well in England on his only tour, and was now 29 years
old. IMHO, it was not a particularly surprising final choice at all,
for the twin-tours of 75/76 I think Bose had relatively little
chance to make it.
Bose's best chance IMHO came earlier - he did very well in the Iranis
in 73/74, and thus made the England tour of 1974. His failure on that
tour is what killed him. For, when he returned home, there was a
home series against WI upcoming - and there were many opportunities
there, with Gavaskar injured. Bose also did well in the Iranis to
start this home season. But his very poor showing in England was still
fresh in everyone's mind, and it counted against him heavily - Sudhir
Naik was the obvious choice to play ahead of him (because of Naik's
success in the final test in England), and both Gaekwad and Parsasarthy
got games ahead of him too, and both did quite decently in their
opportunities. Bose did get another chance to play an unofficial
test against Sri Lanka - but he probably knew it was all he was
going to get, because as a 29-year old he would not be picked ahead
of the younger Gaekwad and Parsasarthy, not after they had already
done well in *real* tests against WI.
> >
> > We had this thread on how many players broke into the Indian team (either
> > first time or comeback) after a sterling Irani Trophy performance. This
> > was so long ago that both Kumble and Nayan Mongia - who must both be very
> > thankful to the Irani Trophy - were regulars in the Indian team.
> > Vengsarkar was one prime example of a player who caught the eye and broke
> > into the Indian side based on an Irani Trophy performance.
> >
>
> Considering the amount of time it took for Vengsarkar to warm up in tests,
> IIRC he was quite dismal for his first 10 tests or so, one would have
> thought that a Gopal Bose would have gotten a shot in earlier times when the
> batting was still worse. He too had a great Irani match in 74 or so ,
> followed by a pretty successful tour against Sri Lanka at that time.
>
Again - he did get in, after that Irani Trophy match, he won a place
on the tour of England. He just did poorly in the fc games there
and couldnt force his way into the actual tests. (Not much different
from Brijesh Patel on a tour of England in the early 80s - which
turned out to be Brijesh's last ever tour as well, with no test match
to show for it).
Sadiq [ Gaekwad and Vengsarkar both ended up lasting for ages, anyway] Yusuf
> > -Samarth.
> >
Amol Cricketwallah
>
> > Vengsarkar himself made it
> > on the basis on a one great knock in the Ranji, and a ODI style innings in
> > the Duleep
>
>
Huh. Could you please point me to the year which this happened in?
Looking at my records, I cant find a Moloy Bannerjee scoring a 190
in the Iranis - if you let me know, I'd like to look up the
circumstances.
Sadiq [ confused ] Yusuf
> > (how he made into that side that early is not exactly clear).
>
> Take a wild guess!
samarth harish shah
<snip>
> Again - he did get in, after that Irani Trophy match, he won a place
> on the tour of England. He just did poorly in the fc games there
> and couldnt force his way into the actual tests. (Not much different
> from Brijesh Patel on a tour of England in the early 80s - which
> turned out to be Brijesh's last ever tour as well, with no test match
> to show for it).
Excellent post, Sadiq. This toured England/did poorly in the fc games
there/couldn't force his way into the tests/never played for India again
seems to be true for a fair few Indian batsmen. Apart from Brijesh Patel,
Pranob Roy (both '82) and Gopal Bose ('74), all of whom you've mentioned
recently, there were Abbas Ali Baig and Kenia Jayantilal in '71 and
Sandeep Patil in '86.
Hmm.
-Samarth.
Amol Cricketwallah
> >
> Funny you should mention Subroto Guha...(You did mean the same Guha, right?)
> In the recent thread on "did not get enough chances XI", I had picked him to
> open the bowling for India with Rajinder Pal. In FC games, Guha had 299 wickets
> @ 20.29. In comparision, Srinath has 291 @ 22.69 (not counting the Test
> figures). Surely, not a much worse bet if you were a selector picking on the
> basis of FC ability (granted Guha was from an era and a zone where getting
> those kinds of figures was more possible).
>
I disagreed with your XI so much the last time that I didnt even want
to post in :-)
To me, that is just stats - you cant really compare stats at all in
the Ranjis IMHO, not across the decades like this. Heck, comparing
only across zones is hard enough to do, because some zones are just
incredibly easy, while others are difficult. This was even more so
in the old days.
I dont disagree with you entirely about Subroto Guha in one respect -
when he emerged in the domestics he was young (only about 21 IIRC),
and supposedly tall with shoulders that appeared fairly strong etc.
He could swerve the ball supposedly. Eden Gardens was a good pace
track in those days - and when the breeze picked up off the Hoogly,
he could apparently make great hay.
He was given a chance against WI on their tour in the 3-day games, and
he did very well. He got 11 wickets in a match against them in one
Central-Zone-East-Zone-Combined-XI vs WI tour game - that was what
brought about a lot of hype. But it might also be remembered that
that game was supposedly played on a matting wicket - and there are
some bowlers who are really awesome on matting, who may not be quite
as deadly on normal wickets.
Anyway. Subroto Guha thus earned a trip to England in 67, and he got to
play a test there. And then he got to play Australia in 3 tests
at home in 1969 too.
Know what Subroto Guha's test record was? 4 tests, 3 wickets,
average 103.66
We can talk all we want of how well he did in the East Zone Ranjis
etc. I think he was sort of harshly treated, mostly because he was
young, and maybe he got better with time etc. But really, comparing
his first-class figures from the East Zone in 1967 to Srinath's
in today's cricket just gives you no kind of accurate picture, IMHO.
I understand youre only listing people statistically, but even so.
I mean, lots of people had gaudy stats in those days. Sadanand Mohol
of Maharashtra played 1 test as a paceman in those days - he had
4 test wickets at 27.25 (which doesnt look bad, does it)? Mohol
also had 113 Ranji wickets at 20.02 - and yet he only ever played
1 test match!
Ghulam Guard didnt do well in tests - 2 tests, 3
wicketst at 60. But he had 110 Ranji wickes at 18.86.
Players who played more for India werent doing badly either -
Ramakant "Tiny" Desai played in a much harder zone, and he had 239
Ranji wickets at 15.6 for his career! Dattu Phadkar played for
Railways, and had 216 wickets at 16.6. There were a lot of gaudy
stats at this time.
You want a *really* hard-done-by player? I'll give you one..
HT (Bal) Dani of Services played one test match for India - he didnt
get to bat, and he took 1 wicket for 19 runs (average 19.00).
And what did Bal Dani do in the Ranji Trophy? Why, he had 160 career
wickets at an average of 19.35. Not bad, you might say... but wait!
He also had 5104 runs at 47.70! An allrounder who captained his
team, he averaged 47 with the bat and 19 with the ball - and he
was given one single solitary test match for India (when he was all
of 19 years old, and that too against Pakistan)! And in that one
chance he got, he was made to bat way down the order, and never got
a chance to go out in the middle at all. He opened the bowling for
India, was given 10 overs, and took 1 for 19 - getting the opening
batsman out. And that was it - never another test match in his life.
And then there was the strange case of Ajit Pai - only 85 fc wickets
at 25, but got into the Indian test team because of a good looking
performance in the Irani Trophy. And, once there, he claimed 2/31
in 19 overs in the match - average 15.50. And was promptly dropped
again, never to heard from since :-)
> Subroto Banerjee was not even in the same league on FC terms (135 wkts @ 29.83).
>
> There was another Banerjee who was probably much worse done by (he can at least
> cherish being part of a unique FC record and FC folklore) - Shute Banerjee
> played just 1 test (his record came on an English tour - scoring a century at
> #10, with Sarwate getting a 100 at #11 against Surrey, IIRC). Shute Banerjee
> had 385 FC wickets @ 26.68. Sadly, his batting partner in that memorable tour
> match did not have a decent Test outing either, despite having similarly
> impressive FC figures.
>
To me it is sort of hard to consider Shute Bannerjee hard done by
per se. He was a very good bowler - but he also played at a time
when India didnt play too many tests, and he had very stiff
competition. I mean, he toured England in 1936 - those were probably
his salad days, but he couldnt make the final XI. How could he? He
was competing with people like Mahomed Nissar and Amar Singh!
He then toured again in 1946 - by this time he was 35 years old
already! But India had played no tests in that 10-year-period -
nobody had gotten to play a test. Shute Bannerjee finally got to
play 1 test match for India - and he was 37-years-old when he finally
got that chance. A victim of circumstance as much as anything -
lack of test matches at the time, and stiff competition (by the
time Shute was in his late-30s and fading, he was competing with
the likes of Phadkar, Rangachari etc for a place). Plus there
were allrounders of the calibre of Lala Amarnath - who would take
the new ball himself in most matches. Shute Bannerjee did get to
play 8 "unofficial" tests for India too, however - which were
considered test matches at the time (against teams like the
Australian Services XI, Commonwealth XI etc - teams that had
Hasset, Miller, Worrell, Laker etc).
Heck, when the Indian team to Australia was picked in 1947/48,
it even had Fazal Mahmood! He dropped out however and didnt tour -
and eventually ended up becoming the first great fast bowler for
Pakistan.
BTW, I dont think Sarwate was hard done by either - he got quite a
few games, and IMHO didnt really deserve to play much more than
he did. Yes he and Shute had a great last-wicket stand - that is
because neither were really last-wicket batsmen :-) I mean,
Sarwate even opened the batting for India a couple of times.
By the late 40s I dont know if either were good enough test bowlers
to play more for India.
> Here, just to refresh, is my "hard-done-by" India XI (Name-Tests played-FC Runs-
> FC Batting Avg.-FC wkts-FC Bowling Avg-FC c+st)
>
> Raman Lamba 4 8776 53.84
> L Rajput 2 7988 49.30 59 45.22
> G Kishenchand 5 7187 47.91
> Ajay Sharma 1 10120 67.46 87 31.01
> Ashok Malhotra 7 9784 50.95
> R B Kenny 5 3079 50.47
> C S Pandit 5 8209 48.57 281+41
> Dhiraj Parsana 2 2943 26.51 320 22.24
> Rajinder Pal 1 1046 11.12 337 21.89
> Subroto Guha 4 1067 12.70 299 20.29
> V V Kumar 2 673 7.64 599 19.98
>
> To make it a touring party of XVI, add the following
>
> Gursharan Singh 1 5719 43.32
> Hemant Kanitkar 2 5006 42.78
> MV Narasimha Rao 4 4845 40.71 245 28.05
> Vijay Yadav 1 3988 36.25 237+46
> Chandu Sarwate 9 7430 32.73 494 23.54
> Shute Banerjee 1 3715 20.63 385 26.68
>
This might be an ok statistical list, but IMHO that is all it is -
not a whit more than that. My personal opinion is that players
like Gursharan Singh ought to be getting down on their knees every
day and Thanking the Lord that they had the chance to actually play
a game for India in the first place :-) I mean, 43.32? Give me
a break :-) KP Bhaskar wasnt at a dissimilar time, and he averaged
56 without ever getting a chance (of course I wont even mention
the Bhave's and Sugwekar's - who averaged 70 each. Or even someone
like Mukund Parmar, if you wish to look him up).
And for bowlers - Rajinder Singh Goel and Shivalkar would run
rings around Narasimha Rao and Dhiraj Parsana, and neither got to
play a test match for India. Once again, Narasimha Rao and Dhiraj
Parsana were incredibly lucky people and should be thanking their
stars for the great good fortune - instead of moaning they were
"hard done by" IMHO :-)
Oh BTW, if youre looking up keepers - at least till a year before
his retirement Dighe's Ranji average was over 40 (with over 10
Ranji tons IIRC). And Saba Karim's was even higher - ridiculously
high, much more than Vijay Yadav's I would think.
> The surprise names for me were Guha, Pal, Kenny, Kishenchand & Parsana - no one
> even talks about them and they had pretty phenomenal FC records (e.g., Michael
> Dalvi had 4635 runs @ 35.93, and he is a legend on RSC, thanks to RK's cousin)
>
Again, a lot of this has to do with weakness of zones, and the times
they played.
For example, in 1966/67, India was desparately short of pace bowlers,
and searching hard for them. That year in the Ranjis the following
were some of the best pace bowlers in each zone:
Sadanand Mohol (Maharasthra) : 22 wickets at 19.54
Rajinder Pal (Punjab) : 27 wickets at 11.54
Subroto Guha (Bengal) : 18 wickets at 15.16
Vasant Ranjane (Railways) : 21 wickets at 18.80
Kalyansundaram (Kerala) : 18 wickets at 15.21
These are ridiculous numbers - but yet none of them were particularly
outstanding bowlers as such, as was demonstrated at the international
level. I mean, even North Zone was weakish in the 50s and 60s - Delhi was
a crap side most of the time until players like Bedi moved there,
really. Punjab was the one good side, but it had lost a lot of players
to Pakistan after partition too.
Sadiq [ what would have happened if Fazal Mahmood stayed? ] Yusuf
> Vijay
Amol Cricketwallah
> "Amol Cricketwallah" <cricke...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:a374a779.02121...@posting.google.com...
> > "sidd" <sid...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:<NZrL9.178613$pN3.13156@sccrnsc03>...
> >
> >
> > chance at the moment on the basis of his record and you think the
> > fact that he is not on the radar is due to regionalistic bias -
>
> I said if Balaji is on the radar, Bose should be too. I dont think
> he deserves to be ... as you point out, that will happen if he
> has a complete good season.
>
And this is precisely the area of disagreement. Because, Bose does
*not* deserve to be on the radar of selection at all - and you seem
to agree with that statement. OTOH, you also imply by your statement
that Balaji should not be on the radar if Bose is not - and why
should that be the case?
Maybe Bose will get into contention if he has a full good season -
usually even that isnt sufficient by itself. Regardless of his
stats, he hasnt had that yet. OTOH Balaji *has* already had that -
he had an excellent full season (one of the best of any paceman
in the Ranjis last season overall). And even *that* wasnt
enough - he then had to be the best Indian paceman on 2 consecutive
India-A tours! And only *then* was he selected. I mean, the 2
cases are not even close to comparable.
Just first-class stats tell you almost nothing - because they dont
tell you who you have played. If you rack up your stats entirely
in zonal Ranji cricket, they will neccesarily be very high. If you play
more Superleagues and knockouts in the Ranjis, they often fall a
bit - but that is the better way to judge, how you do against that
higher level of competition. Then, if you play Duleep Trophy cricket
for your zone, your stats might get worse still - but that is an
even better way to judge. And finally your stats might suffer most
if you play for India-A, or against touring side for BPXI - but
if you do well in *those* matches you ought to have a much better
chance of making the Indian team than you do if you succeed only
against zonal league competition.
Balaji's Ranji stats are excellent - and they have come against
a higher-level of Ranji competition than Bose's, for example (because
they included a higher proportion of games at knockout level).
And Balaji's "overall first-class" stats have been greatly lowered
by the fact that he played for India-A, against South Africa-A -
that is a much higher level of competition than Bose faced in
the East Zone leagues, after all.
Once again - which Bengal players do you think are getting a raw
deal, even in terms of "press mention" etc recently? That is,
which deserve more hype, but have not received it (as you think
Balaji did)?
Sadiq [ Irfan is next in line after Balaji, anyway ] Yusuf
Amol Cricketwallah
> "rkusenet" <rkus...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:TjwL9.2806$pS6.5...@news20.bellglobal.com...
> > "sidd" <sid...@hotmail.com> wrote:-
> >
>
> >
> > this is the question I have asked
> > 100 times in rsc. I think he got the biggest raw deal.
> >
>
> Because you know more about Mohanty than some other
> guys who got a raw-er deal. Not necessarily from Bengal/EZ.
Once again - Mohanty is not entirely off the radar. He was taken
on the India-A tour of South Africa last year - that was his chance
to make a push for national selection. He ended up averaging over
50 with the ball for that tour (against South African provincial
sides, and 2 games against RSA-A). When India-A returned from that
tour, the manager (Yashpal Sharma IIRC) in his report said that in
his opinion the youngster Balaji had been the best Indian paceman
on the tour, better than Mohanty. Given the fact that Mohanty had
international experience and was older (Balaji had exactly 1
season of domestic cricket behind him when he went on that India-A
tour), but Balaji had still done better, Balaji conclusively moved
ahead of Mohanty on the selectorial radar. Why is this entirely
unjustified?
Before this Mohanty had slipped down the stakes in early 2000 -
India had just come back from Australia, and there were fast
bowling spots open, especially for 3rd seamer. Mohanty and
young Thiru Kumaran were bowled in tandem against South Africa
in the 3-day match preceding the first test. Again, in that
match, Kumaran visibly looked more dangerous than Mohanty, and
bowled better allaround (I saw the match, dont remember the
stats but remember the impression quite clearly). The selectors
saw the same match too - and after that match Kumaran was the
3rd paceman ahead of Mohanty, and played quite a few matches for
India for the rest of that season before he did poorly and was
left out.
In the Ranjis this year to date,
Salvi 3 matches, 19 wickets, avg 11.36
Uniyal 3 matches, 15 wickets, avg 21.46
Bose 3 matches, 13 wickets, avg 19.92
Bhandari 3 matches, 13 wickets, avg 25.84
Irfan 3 matches, 13 wickets, avg 22.15
Patel 2 matches, 12 wickets, avg 15.75
Balaji 1 match, 11 wickets, avg 11.72
Barik 3 matches, 9 wickets, avg 26.88
Mohanty 3 matches, 8 wickets, avg 24.12
Note that all those other pacemen are younger than Mohanty, and have
far less domestic experience. The reason I list Ajay Barik is that
he is Mohanty's opening partner for Orissa - he shares the new ball
with Mohanty, and has bowled in tandem with him all season long. Their
stats this season are not entirely dissimilar.
In the latest match, for example, Mohanty got to bowl on a pretty
helpful track against Baroda (not a great batting side this season).
He did well - had 4/69. But that was the track on which Rakesh Patel
had 4/40 in one innings, and Irfan Pathan had 6/31 in the other
innings. And Baroda consequently won by an innings - and this in
Cuttack, an "away game" for them. If a selector was watching this
game, for example, which bowlers do you think he'd come away from
the game talking about? (Add to this the fact that Irfan Pathan
is left-handed, is 20 years old, and was the spearhead of India U19's
pace attack last year. I dont think he is ready myself - but the
selectors are notorious for wanting to put U19 players into national
squads as quickly as they can, because they want to claim they have
a youth policy and the future is bright. All a U19 player has to do
usually is to show them occasional signs that he should be picked).
> Also, if Mohanty was as unlucky as Burman / Guha, you
> would never have known of him and would joke about him
> if someone mentioned his name.
>
Guha's test stats have been mentioned elsewhere - surely when a
bowler averages over a hundred after 4 tests, the selectors cant
be lumped entirely into the "regionally biased" category for being
somewhat willing to look elsewhere?
Barun Burman, BTW, had 109 Ranji wickets at 26.10 - bowling in the
1970s. Abdul Ismail was also a paceman, also bowling in the 1970s in
Ranji cricket (for Bombay). Abdul Ismail had 198 Ranji wickets
at 15.47 for his career. Karsan Ghavri was the one who got to play
for India from the mid-70s onwards - he had 188 Ranji wickets at
25.64, and could also bat fairly usefully. Who was most unlucky,
you can decide for yourself :-)
Sadiq [ no wonder Abdul Ismail's son didnt take up cricket :-) ] Yusuf
> > rk-
> >
> >
Narayanan
> > "Raghu Jetley" <jraghu...@yahoo.com> wrote :-
> > > > "Raghu Jetley" <jraghu...@yahoo.com> wrote
> > > >
> > > >> He should have come on the field & refused to bowl
> > > >> for a couple of hours.
> > > >
> > > > I think SA is only marginally > Subroto Banerjee.
> > > > http://tinyurl.com/3m2j
> > >
> > > What's your point ? Where did SA come into the picture ?
> >
> > The point I am making is that u have a tendency
> > to exaggerate. Just like u exaggerated SA ~= AA :-)
>
> At that point, SA & AA had around the same statistics.
Akhtar had 48 wickets in 16 Tests, if I go by your post @36.5
http://tinyurl.com/3na7
Sundar Subramanian
> there was 26-year-old Parsasarthy Sharma from Rajasthan, who had
> played 2 tests uptil this point (and made 54, 49, 6 and 9 - but
> had been runout twice out of those 4 innings!)
>
> Even Parsasarthy Sharma, who had carried Rajasthan's batting
> of the younger Gaekwad and Parsasarthy, not after they had already
> done well in *real* tests against WI.
Is there any specific reason you keep writing Parsasarthy instead of Parthasarthy? IIRC, "Paachu" played well in a
couple of innings against Lloyd's WI-ians in 1974-'75, but appeared to be a prototype of Inzamam (in the matter of
running between the wickets, that is).
Best,
Sundar
rkusenet
> > > Why is Mohanty off the radar today?
> >
> > this is the question I have asked
> > 100 times in rsc. I think he got the biggest raw deal.
> Because you know more about Mohanty than some other
> guys who got a raw-er deal.
agreed.
and it is because Mohanty, unlike Burman and Guha played
test cricket. I do not follow domestic cricket.
Mohanty took 4 fer in his first test, something Ajit Marshallkar
can not even after 4 yrs and 16 tests.
> > >What made you comment on Bose in the manner you did?
> >
> > U took it seriously. I am sorry.
> >
>
> I dont believe in giving or taking apologies, but I get a sneaky
> feeling you are pulling my legs.
No I am not. That "naam se hee bekaar bowler lagta hain" was
suppose to be taken in a lighter vein.
rk-
Uday Rajan
>
> "Shripathi Kamath" <firstnam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<uvv9b2b...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > how did someone make it to the Irani side so easily and eased into tests
> > based on that one knock, while a Gopal Bose did not?
> >
>
> How did he get into the Irani Trophy? Simple - Bombay won the Ranji
> Trophy the previous year, and Vengsarkar was on the Bombay team
> that played Rest of India in the Irani Trophy :-)
A little bit of luck helped too. Having bagged a duck in his only
Ranji innings to date (or so says Gavaskar in "Sunny Days"),
Vengsarkar was a reserve for the Irani match. However, Solkar
split the webbing of his hand (during fielding practice, one
presumes), so Vengsarkar got his chance.
> And it was a pretty
> damn good Rest of India team too - Gopal Bose opening, GR Vishy in
> the middle-order, Madan Lal, Bedi and Prasanna forming the attack.
> A low-scoring game too - ROI 210 allout, Bombay had gone from 90/0
> to 98/3 when Vengsarkar came in (losing Gavaskar, Ramnath Parkar
> and Sudhir Naik - 3 test players). And the 19-year-old kid proceeded
> to smash 110 in double quick time against Prasanna and Bedi, hitting
> them for (IIRC) 6 sixes in the process.
I thought it was 7, but what's a 6 or two between friends.
Remember this was an odo innings that predated odos as we know
them, really. The WC had happened, but India had played a grand
total of 5 odos to date. He faced something like 80 deliveries,
and it was not just the odo-style batting that caught the eye,
but the fact that he was playing Bedi and Prasanna on (see
Gavaskar, op. cit.) a turning wicket. Two of the world's best
spinners, two of India's best spinners ever.
> Remember, India's batting pretty much sucked in these days. And
> suddenly you had a 19-year-old emerging, who had smashed what many
> thought were the best bowlers in the world (Bedi and Pras) to
> all parts of the park! The selectors were always going to jump on
> that sort of talent right away, in those difficult times.
Yes, that seems correct. However, I agree with Shripathi's
sentiment (cut here for brevity) that they jumped on it too soon.
He did open for Bombay in a handful of innings, and suddenly
found himself as the Test opener. For Bombay, he batted initially
in the middle order, and he was basically a middle order bat by
temperament (ideally, a no. 5 I'd say, though he has some good
innings at 3). He was pushed into the Test side too soon, before
he was ready. And it shows in his initial results.
yeskay
I missed out on that one. I thought I had said RJS should not have been given so
many chances. One may go back and check who got the longest rope thread in
google.
Almost all Indian players have been accused of that, except for SMG and surely
SRT (in future).
yeskay
> I thought it was 7, but what's a 6 or two between friends.
> Remember this was an odo innings that predated odos as we know
> them, really. The WC had happened, but India had played a grand
> total of 5 odos to date. He faced something like 80 deliveries,
> and it was not just the odo-style batting that caught the eye,
> but the fact that he was playing Bedi and Prasanna on (see
> Gavaskar, op. cit.) a turning wicket. Two of the world's best
> spinners, two of India's best spinners ever.
I think he also earned the nickname 'Colonel' or 'Lance Naik' or
whatever from that performance.
Shripathi Kamath
"Amol Cricketwallah" <cricke...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a374a779.02121...@posting.google.com...
If you note, there was at least one test player in that squad of experience
that was not played.
> And it was a pretty
> damn good Rest of India team too - Gopal Bose opening, GR Vishy in
> the middle-order, Madan Lal, Bedi and Prasanna forming the attack.
> A low-scoring game too - ROI 210 allout, Bombay had gone from 90/0
> to 98/3 when Vengsarkar came in (losing Gavaskar, Ramnath Parkar
> and Sudhir Naik - 3 test players). And the 19-year-old kid proceeded
> to smash 110 in double quick time against Prasanna and Bedi, hitting
> them for (IIRC) 6 sixes in the process. Bombay ended up with a 95
> run lead due to this (and ROI were allout for 212 in their 2nd
> innings too - but it was a 3-day game, and so not enough time for
> an outright win for Bombay who were left 118 to win with no time).
> Only 4 scores over 50 in the entire match, 2 by Vishwanath (72 and
> 52), Mankad scoring 58 in Vengsarkar's company, and Vengsarkar
> himself scoring 110. Bose, BTW, scored 35 and 26 in the 2 innings
> he played.
>
Wrong IC and years for Bose.
The case for Bose (in the era where openers or other bats were MIAs):
170 in IC
Good tour of SL,
Failure in England (jsut about everyone else too)
50+ and 100+ in IC
in the XIV when Naik and SMG were gone, but no dice
dropped! forever.
> Remember, India's batting pretty much sucked in these days. And
> suddenly you had a 19-year-old emerging, who had smashed what many
> thought were the best bowlers in the world (Bedi and Pras) to
> all parts of the park! The selectors were always going to jump on
> that sort of talent right away, in those difficult times.
>
This is after Bose should have made it.
> As for Gopal Bose - as you point out, he had a very good Irani
> Trophy match in 1973/74, and then played well in the "unofficial
> test" against SL. But, as I said before, he *did* make the team
> on that basis! He made it immediately after, when India went to
> England in 1974 - he was on the squad. It was only after he failed
> on a long tour in almost all the first-class games that he was
> discarded (he played 18 fc innings in England, and averaged about
> 18 - less than Madan Lal and Abid Ali, who had been selected as
> bowlers). Remember, he was left out only *after* that England tour,
> that was when he dropped out of contention for the home series
> against WI (when India tried Naik for 2 tests - Naik who had
> succeeded in England, and then Gaekwad).
>
You forgot the IC just before the WI series, see above. This is the same IC
where an out of form Pataudi was hauled in with a 37*.
> Thus, by the time 1975-75 rolled around, the selectors had the
> option of Gopal Bose - who had been picked a 2 years ago because
> of Irani performances and had failed in England, and who was now
> 29 years old. He was still a valid contender - but he had not done
> *that* well in the latest Irani Trophy match, he was 29, and he
> had already been taken and done poorly in England, all of which
> would count against him.
>
In the IC that get Pataudi selected, he had a 62 and 100.
> And then there was Gaekwad - who was 24-years old, had played 3 tests
> that year, and had done decently (an 80, a 54 and a 42 in his 3
> tests to date). And there was Vengsarkar - 19-years-old, who had
> just played a brilliant innings in the Irani Trophy right before
> the tour (he was mostly a middle-order guy, but had also opened in
> a Ranji game and scored 175, so he could cover that spot too). And
> there was 26-year-old Parsasarthy Sharma from Rajasthan, who had
> played 2 tests uptil this point (and made 54, 49, 6 and 9 - but
> had been runout twice out of those 4 innings!)
>
> When you have that choice - who would you pick? Remember, our batting
> basically sucked in those days, we had a lot of very ordinary batsmen
> surrounding Gavaskar and Vishwanath. There was now an option in
> Gaekwad who was 24 - and could conceivably serve India for quite a
> while to come. And there was Vengsarkar, who was only 19 - he could
> conceivably be an important part of an Indian team well into the
> future.
I am not arguing for Bose at the start of the DBV era.
He could have been picked anywhere from 1973 to 1974-1975 at least once.
Far less worthy talent donned the opening robes.
> Even Parsasarthy Sharma, who had carried Rajasthan's batting
> for many years, was now 26 years old - not *that* old. And against
> those three you had to weight the claims of someone who
> had not done well in England on his only tour, and was now 29 years
> old. IMHO, it was not a particularly surprising final choice at all,
> for the twin-tours of 75/76 I think Bose had relatively little
> chance to make it.
>
Especially when he wasn't given a chance at home against the WI in 74-75.
Your case against Bose is being made for the 75-76 tour, I am making it
earlier than that. The batting was worse before, and in that setup Bose
certainly should have found a spot.
>
> Bose's best chance IMHO came earlier - he did very well in the Iranis
> in 73/74, and thus made the England tour of 1974. His failure on that
> tour is what killed him.
Ok you finally get down to it.
He was not the only one who failed, but he was one of the few that succeeded
on the Sri Lanka tour. He also had recovered a bit, especially in the IC
before the WI series, *and* was lucky enough to be in the XIV when SMG had
been sidelined, Naik, P. Sharma already discarded. That of all times was
the case for him.
> For, when he returned home, there was a
> home series against WI upcoming - and there were many opportunities
> there, with Gavaskar injured. Bose also did well in the Iranis to
> start this home season. But his very poor showing in England was still
> fresh in everyone's mind, and it counted against him heavily - Sudhir
> Naik was the obvious choice to play ahead of him (because of Naik's
> success in the final test in England), and both Gaekwad and Parsasarthy
> got games ahead of him too, and both did quite decently in their
> opportunities.
Both were GONE in that series by that time.
Also Parthasarathy Sharma was not an opener, the spot that Bose was
contending for.
> Bose did get another chance to play an unofficial
> test against Sri Lanka - but he probably knew it was all he was
> going to get, because as a 29-year old he would not be picked ahead
> of the younger Gaekwad and Parsasarthy, not after they had already
> done well in *real* tests against WI.
>
Must be a different Sharma then.
The one I knew played 2 tests against that WI, very good in the first one
(50 and near 50), and then sucked in every test thereafter.
>
>
> > >
> > > We had this thread on how many players broke into the Indian team
(either
> > > first time or comeback) after a sterling Irani Trophy performance.
This
> > > was so long ago that both Kumble and Nayan Mongia - who must both be
very
> > > thankful to the Irani Trophy - were regulars in the Indian team.
> > > Vengsarkar was one prime example of a player who caught the eye and
broke
> > > into the Indian side based on an Irani Trophy performance.
> > >
> >
> > Considering the amount of time it took for Vengsarkar to warm up in
tests,
> > IIRC he was quite dismal for his first 10 tests or so, one would have
> > thought that a Gopal Bose would have gotten a shot in earlier times when
the
> > batting was still worse. He too had a great Irani match in 74 or so ,
> > followed by a pretty successful tour against Sri Lanka at that time.
> >
>
> Again - he did get in, after that Irani Trophy match, he won a place
> on the tour of England. He just did poorly in the fc games there
> and couldnt force his way into the actual tests. (Not much different
> from Brijesh Patel on a tour of England in the early 80s - which
> turned out to be Brijesh's last ever tour as well, with no test match
> to show for it).
>
Not quite. For one BP did go to Australia *and* played in two tests. Not
only that, he also played in the WI series 74-75.
Raghu Jetley
"yeskay" <w...@not.com> wrote in message news:3E008FEF...@not.com...
He earned the 'Colonel' name then. 'Lance Naik' was quite recent -
about year or 2 years back :-)
Vijay Kumar K
> vijay...@my-deja.com (Vijay Kumar K) wrote in message news:<f9e9d452.02121...@posting.google.com>...
>
> to post in :-)
>
>
> HT (Bal) Dani of Services played one test match for India - he didnt
> get to bat, and he took 1 wicket for 19 runs (average 19.00).
> And what did Bal Dani do in the Ranji Trophy? Why, he had 160 career
> wickets at an average of 19.35. Not bad, you might say... but wait!
> He also had 5104 runs at 47.70! An allrounder who captained his
> team, he averaged 47 with the bat and 19 with the ball - and he
> was given one single solitary test match for India (when he was all
> of 19 years old, and that too against Pakistan)! And in that one
> chance he got, he was made to bat way down the order, and never got
> a chance to go out in the middle at all. He opened the bowling for
> India, was given 10 overs, and took 1 for 19 - getting the opening
> batsman out. And that was it - never another test match in his life.
>
Might be because he was with services and did not leave of absence as often as
might have been required... but yes, a curious case that too.
>
>
> To me it is sort of hard to consider Shute Bannerjee hard done by
> per se. He was a very good bowler - but he also played at a time
> when India didnt play too many tests,
He did play a few years of FC after his test career ended, which is why I
considered him for my XI as he was still playing FC and India were playing
Tests but he was not considered.
> Anyway. Subroto Guha thus earned a trip to England in 67, and he got to
> play a test there. And then he got to play Australia in 3 tests
> at home in 1969 too.
>
> Know what Subroto Guha's test record was? 4 tests, 3 wickets,
> average 103.66
I know his test figures...
Look at these figures after 3 tests...
3 tests, 3 wickets, 359 runs... not impressive, right? but know what that
ended as? 86 tets, 431 wkts @22.29
or try this...4 tests, 6 wkts @60.16 ending with 81 tests, 376 wkts @ 20.94
Question is did Guha have it in him to be even half a Hadlee or a Marshall?
>
> This might be an ok statistical list, but IMHO that is all it is -
> not a whit more than that. My personal opinion is that players
> like Gursharan Singh ought to be getting down on their knees every
> day and Thanking the Lord that they had the chance to actually play
> a game for India in the first place :-) I mean, 43.32? Give me
> a break :-) KP Bhaskar wasnt at a dissimilar time, and he averaged
> 56 without ever getting a chance (of course I wont even mention
> the Bhave's and Sugwekar's - who averaged 70 each. Or even someone
> like Mukund Parmar, if you wish to look him up).
>
> And for bowlers - Rajinder Singh Goel and Shivalkar would run
> rings around Narasimha Rao and Dhiraj Parsana, and neither got to
> play a test match for India. Once again, Narasimha Rao and Dhiraj
> Parsana were incredibly lucky people and should be thanking their
> stars for the great good fortune - instead of moaning they were
> "hard done by" IMHO :-)
>
Remember my list was of players who had played between 1 & 10 tests -
naturally did not include people like Shivalkar, Goel, Bhaskar etc. I know
they had great FC stats.. but they were people who didn't get *any* chance...
the original thread on which I had posted that list was people who didn't
get a *decent* chance...
One of my favourites at that time was Padam Shastri who played for unfancied
Rajasthan and had a couple of grrreat seasons before disappearing into
oblivion again.
> > The surprise names for me were Guha, Pal, Kenny, Kishenchand & Parsana -
> > no one even talks about them and they had pretty phenomenal FC records
> > (e.g., Michael Dalvi had 4635 runs @ 35.93, and he is a legend on RSC,
> > thanks to RK's cousin)
> >
I did consider names of Ranjane, Raghuram Bhat, TA Shekhar and a few others
before posting my original list...
Still, curious about Kenny & Kishenchand... I mean Kenny played in the 58-59
series against Australia, didn't do too badly in the lower middle order, had a
couple of decent partnerships with Nadkarni and then disappeared into FC
oblivion? It wasn't as if we were overflowing with batting talent when
Kishenchand was around either... How good or bad were they... and someone who
was actually around at that time, maybe saw them play...all I have to go by are
the Cricinfo stat sheets and maybe some scorecards....
Vijay
Lenin Maran
news:f9e9d452.02121...@posting.google.com...
> Remember my list was of players who had played between 1 & 10 tests -
A question for the old timers, would Gavsakar have played had Jayantilal
clicked in his only
innings?
Peace,
Lenin
Shripathi Kamath
"Lenin Maran" <lenm...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:atqu60$1ta2g$1...@ID-154951.news.dfncis.de...
Considering that Jayantilal opened with Abid Ali, and that Gavaskar had done
well on the tour before the tests, I would venture "yes". Mankad might have
given him a run, but the selectors would have been hard-pressed to keep
Gavaskar out for more than a test.
> Peace,
> Lenin
>
>
Vijay Kumar K
Indian team, when he and Snehashish were smashing sixes on the Maidan...but
then he came across Patrick Patterson and I lost all respect for him)...
but even early on in this thread, I felt not enough credit was being given to
SCG for his 128 at Headingly - not just as a batsman, but as a strategist. It
was a calculated assault, one that was well planned (and he had the tools to
execute it himself) and one that put us in a position of winning the test. A
big PLUS to him for that. A *wow* innings if any (The 11 overs with the second
new ball cost 96 runs, including five sixes and nine fours at the end of day 2
in gathering gloom)
Among his gritty innings in tests, I recall the 60+ at Sydney, 48 at
Cal (before the VVSL-RSD show hit the road), the 60+ at Delhi (the Kumble
match) vs Pak, 75* at PoS & 60* in B'dos recently... he has shown that he
has the ability to be a good test bat, not just a flamboyant one.... which
is why it is all the more frustrating to see his performance on most test
days.
Vijay
Amol Cricketwallah
> cricke...@hotmail.com (Amol Cricketwallah) wrote in message news:<a374a779.02121...@posting.google.com>...
> > vijay...@my-deja.com (Vijay Kumar K) wrote in message news:<f9e9d452.02121...@posting.google.com>...
> >
> >
> > HT (Bal) Dani of Services played one test match for India - he didnt
> > get to bat, and he took 1 wicket for 19 runs (average 19.00).
> > And what did Bal Dani do in the Ranji Trophy? Why, he had 160 career
> > wickets at an average of 19.35. Not bad, you might say... but wait!
> > He also had 5104 runs at 47.70! An allrounder who captained his
> > team, he averaged 47 with the bat and 19 with the ball - and he
> > was given one single solitary test match for India (when he was all
> > of 19 years old, and that too against Pakistan)! And in that one
> > chance he got, he was made to bat way down the order, and never got
> > a chance to go out in the middle at all. He opened the bowling for
> > India, was given 10 overs, and took 1 for 19 - getting the opening
> > batsman out. And that was it - never another test match in his life.
> >
> I missed that one... yes, he would be a good addition to my fictional XI
> Might be because he was with services and did not leave of absence as often as
> might have been required... but yes, a curious case that too.
>
Hm. Never really heard that "leave of absence" thing before - is that
just a guess? Most things I have read just say he was incredibly
harshly treated. He was basically a follower of Manohar Hardikar - he
did similar things, took over Services captaincy from Hardikar too,
and eventually took over Hardikar's spot in the national selection
committee (well after retirement).
> >
> >
> > To me it is sort of hard to consider Shute Bannerjee hard done by
> > per se. He was a very good bowler - but he also played at a time
> > when India didnt play too many tests,
> He did play a few years of FC after his test career ended, which is why I
> considered him for my XI as he was still playing FC and India were playing
> Tests but he was not considered.
>
He did, yes - but he was 38 years old when he played for India! I mean,
when you have bowlers like Phadkar etc around, would you go back to
playing a 40-year-old pace bowler? His best days were much earlier -
he was a regular participant in the Bombay Pentangular days (where
the Hindus played the Muslims, Europeans, Parsis and The Rest). Between
1936 and 1949, he toured England twice with the squad, but couldnt
break into the final XI (because of competition with guys like
Nissar, Amar Singh etc - far better bowlers). He also played 4
"unofficial" tests in this period - against Australian Services XI etc.
In 1949 he finally played an official test at age 38 - he didnt do
much for a lot of it, but ran thru the WI tail in the 2nd innings.
This was the famous test match which India almost won - one of the
greatest tests played in Bombay, where the umpire basically denied
India a famous victory on the last evening. But by this time Dattu
Phadkar had established himself as the main bowler anyway - and
there was much less need for a 38-year-old Shute. (There was also
Divecha at this time - 32 bowling average in tests, he made it
at least partly because he was an "Oxford Blue" :-).
> > Anyway. Subroto Guha thus earned a trip to England in 67, and he got to
> > play a test there. And then he got to play Australia in 3 tests
> > at home in 1969 too.
> >
> > Know what Subroto Guha's test record was? 4 tests, 3 wickets,
> > average 103.66
> I know his test figures...
> Look at these figures after 3 tests...
> 3 tests, 3 wickets, 359 runs... not impressive, right? but know what that
> ended as? 86 tets, 431 wkts @22.29
> or try this...4 tests, 6 wkts @60.16 ending with 81 tests, 376 wkts @ 20.94
>
> Question is did Guha have it in him to be even half a Hadlee or a Marshall?
>
He didnt :-)
Look, it isnt like the guy was never given a chance - you dont just
get handed a chance in tests (not when you average 103, especially :-)
You have to earn it. And not just by Ranji performances against weak
sides either - but in Duleeps, Iranis etc. It isnt like Guha was
given no looks there.
He basically burst on the scene as a 21 year old - had a couple of
good Ranji games, and then destroyed WI on matting with an 11-fer
IIRC in 1966/67. Calcutta fans were actually demanding his inclusion
for the Eden Gardens test right away.
With those performances, he booked his spot to England. In England he
played a test match and did nothing - 0/105 at Leeds. But that isnt
all he played of course - he also played most of the first-class
matches. He played no less than 10 first-class games on that tour -
and he had a total of 22 wickets in 10 matches, at 35 per wicket.
With these performances he basically bowled himself out of contention.
When Bombay played ROI in the Irani Trophy in 1967/68 (immediately
after the England tour) Guha wasnt in the side (neither was Mohol,
his new ball partner in England who also had a poor tour). Ramakant
Desai and Umesh Kulkarni bowled for Bombay - and they took 5 ROI
wickets in the first hour of their innings, which basically won them
both a spot to Australia/NZ. Ramakant Desai was India's all-time
leading pace wickettaker to this point, and the selectors wanted to
go back to him after the failure of Guha and Mohol anyway - he ended
up a little past it for that tour, but they didnt know that at the
time, not after the Irani performances. And Umesh Kulkarni made it
because he bowled well in that Irani Trophy, and he was a left-armer -
he got Rajagopal with one that moved away, and then got Pataudi
shouldering-arms to a seemingly identical ball which came in instead
and had him plumb LBW. Skipper Pataudi was very impressed, and
Kulkarni was taken on the tour and played in 4 tests over that
double-tour. Surti was another paceman on that tour - an allrounder
who had a terrific time in Australia (so much so that he even went
back in future seasons to play domestic cricket for NSW IIRC).
At the start of next season (1968/69), Subroto Guha was given another
chance - he was again included in the Irani Trophy. He claimed 1/26
and 1/29 in that match (his opening partner, Abid Ali, claimed 1/21
and 3/26 bowling in tandem with Guha - and Abid Ali, of course, was
also an allrounder who opened the batting in this match and scored
48 in the first innings).
Next year, start of the 1969/70 season, Subroto Guha was again
included in the Rest of India side for the Irani Trophy. This time
he claimed 0/35 and 4/45 (it wasnt that bad a track for pacemen,
Ajit Pai had 3/33 and 32 with the bat, Govindraj 2/34 and 1/17
bowling in tandem with Guha).
Due to these Irani Trophy performances both Pai and Guha came into
some sort of contention. Pai got first go - he played against NZ,
had 9 and 1 in his 2 innings, and while bowling had match figures
of 19-5-31-2 - for an average of 15.5 runs/wicket. He was dropped
immediately after, and never played for India again :-) That must
still be the best bowling average by a paceman to have ever played
for India :-)
However, immediately after the NZ home series, Australia came to town -
and Guha was promptly included in the 14 (ahead of Pai etc). He was
left out of the XI in the first test for Venkat, and Surti and Abid
Ali used the new ball. Then he was picked for the next 3 tests
against Australia and opened the bowling. He had:
at Kanpur : match-figures, 2/59
at Delhi : match-figures, 1/54
at Calcutta: match-figures, 0/80
In the 2nd innings of that Calcutta test, he had 3 overs, 0/25 - the
last test bowling he ever did.
Overall for the Australia series, he had 3 tests, 3/193 - at 64.33.
For his career to date he had 4 tests, 3 wickets, avg 103.66.
He was then dropped again for the last test against Australia - and
Mohinder Amarnath made his debut (he was a pure seamer in those days,
who batted #8 even for Punjab in the Ranjis). Mohinder, of course,
took 2 wickets, clean bowling Stackpole and Ian Chappell - but didnt
really look all that great, not so fast or penetrative etc, and was left
out himself immediately after.
Again, to be noted above, Guha wasnt just played once - his first
test was in 1967, his next 3 tests were 2-and-a-half-years later.
It isnt like they took one look at him and abanded him for good.
And, even after the above (test average 103.66 with the ball), they
*still* didnt just decide he was no longer good enough and should not
be considered. He was *still* in contention, still playing Irani
Trophy games etc.
The next year after this series against Australia, 1970-71, Subroto
Guha was *again* included in the Rest of India side for the Irani
Trophy match against Ranji Champs Bombay. This time he had 0/53
and 0/11 (his pace-comrade Govindraj was 2/48 and 0/20; Mohinder
Amarnath was 3/52 and 0/9).
It was only at this point that Subroto Guha finally dropped out of
top-level contention - a good 5-plus years after he had first arrived
on the Indian scene.
By this time several other pace bowling contenders were emerging too,
of course. In 1970-71 Abdul Ismail of Bombay had taken 38 Ranji
wickets at 10.05, for instance.
Abid Ali and Mohinder Amarnath were the new ball bowlers for the
Iranis in 71/72. Then Madan Lal emerged, and Pandurang Salgaonkar.
Mohinder Amarnath continued to play - he was in the Irani Trophy
ROI team every single year for the next 5 years IIRC, but never
did well enough to earn a test spot. He was often 3rd seamer at
this time. Karsan Ghavri emerged too - he played for Rest of India
in 1973 itself (only 2 years after Guha played his last Irani game -
yes Guha was still playing Ranji Trophy, but he was now competing
with Ghavri, Abdul Ismail, Madan Lal, Salgaonkar, plus Mohinder
as fixed 3rd seamer for ROI etc).
Sadiq [ lots of gaudy fc stats in there ] Yusuf
>
> Vijay
Sailesh Krishnamurthy
>> I think he also earned the nickname 'Colonel' or 'Lance Naik'
>> or whatever from that performance.
Raghu> He earned the 'Colonel' name then. 'Lance Naik' was quite
Raghu> recent - about year or 2 years back :-)
What's the Lance Naik wheeze ?
I've always called him "Mind You" ..
--
Pip-pip
Sailesh
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sailesh
Vijay Kumar K
>
>
Vijay
rkusenet
> What's the Lance Naik wheeze ?
>
> I've always called him "Mind You" ..
that was coined by me as a tribute to his success
in his first ten years when he had a batting avg.
of 38.
I came to know about Lance Naik in a radio program
"fauji bhaiyan kee pasand". It use to be broadcast
in VividhBharati (7.05 pm, right after sports news
in Hindi). Heard the name Lance Naik, when the announcer
use to read out the names of those faujis who have
requested the song. I assume it must be some low rank :-)
Actually I don't have any problems with Colonel itself.
AFAIK Colonel is not a high rank in the army. So it
commensurate with DBV's aukat.
rk-
Spaceman Spiff
rkusenet <rkus...@sympatico.ca> drummed on his chest and bellowed:
>
> Actually I don't have any problems with Colonel itself.
> AFAIK Colonel is not a high rank in the army. So it
> commensurate with DBV's aukat.
>
iirc, it goes something like this:
field marshal
general
lt. general
major general
brigadier
*colonel*
lt. colonel
major
captain
lt.
2nd lt.
lance naik is a non-commissioned officer and is 2nd from lowest- just above
sepoy.
now you can judge where dbv falls in this ranking.
--
stay cool,
Spaceman Spiff
You got me working boss man, a workin' around the clock,
I want a little drink of whiskey, you sure won't let me stop.
Big boss man, can't you hear me when I call?
You ain't so big, you just tall, that's just about all.
Shripathi Kamath
"Spaceman Spiff" <spaceman_spiff@no_spam_mail.com> wrote in message
news:3LnM9.56381$4W1....@nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
> Raising himself from all fours,
> rkusenet <rkus...@sympatico.ca> drummed on his chest and bellowed:
> >
> > Actually I don't have any problems with Colonel itself.
> > AFAIK Colonel is not a high rank in the army. So it
> > commensurate with DBV's aukat.
> >
> colonel is a midlevel ranking among commissioned officers in the indian
army.
> iirc, it goes something like this:
> field marshal
> general
> lt. general
> major general
> brigadier
> *colonel*
> lt. colonel
> major
> captain
> lt.
> 2nd lt.
>
> lance naik is a non-commissioned officer and is 2nd from lowest- just
above
> sepoy.
>
Where, if any place, does subedar belong?
Spaceman Spiff
bellowed:
> "Spaceman Spiff" <spaceman_spiff@no_spam_mail.com> wrote in message
> news:3LnM9.56381$4W1....@nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
>> indian army. iirc, it goes something like this:
>> field marshal
>> general
>> lt. general
>> major general
>> brigadier
>> *colonel*
>> lt. colonel
>> major
>> captain
>> lt.
>> 2nd lt.
>>
>> lance naik is a non-commissioned officer and is 2nd from lowest-
>> just above sepoy.
>>
>
> Where, if any place, does subedar belong?
>
>
by the british as a communication layer between the commissioned officers and
the nco's.
--
stay cool,
Spaceman Spiff
Ain't it just like the night to play tricks
when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it.
And Louise holds a handful of rain temptin' you to defy it.
Kamesh
And then you have Subedar-Major and Havaldar-Major...wonder where they fit
in?
Kamesh