Agg, none of ur posts/links on Dhoni have any real meat in them... so one says he can't play short pitched bowling. another offers emperical advice based on a sample of 4 games that he can't play on bowler friendly pitches. one would think you'd really point to something with a bit more substance. no?
anyway, the shortpitched bowling weakness was debunked when he took pak's shortpictched stuff to the cleaners in his Test 148. And to judge him in pace-friendly conditions, we'll have to wait and see as yet.
Dhoni's main weakness in the test arena is to try and hit thru the line. Once he realises that Test cricket batting is as much about shot selection as anything else, he'll harness his potential a lot more. The heartening thing about most of his recent test dismissals (expect the latest Harmison one) is that he has got out trying to play aggressive shots outside off stump. This will be less of an issue once he learns to leave balls in conditions where the ball is doing something. This is not to say he's a great batsman. No way. There will be balls where all he'll manage is to get out ackwardly.
So Parthiv patel huh?! well, I dont watch domestics, so no idea how much he's improved his keeping. Last I saw him on the intl stage, he was a joke. Actually costed us games with his keeping. Thats saying a lot, cos you usually can't say that about too many international keepers ever.
From what I saw of Karthik when he was around, he was a better keeper. Based on that my backup to Dhoni would be him..
Parthiv's overall average:
overall 19 669 69 31.85 0 4 - - - - 39 7
Innings of significance he has played:
Runs W/R Ct St I *+ R Match
19* - - - 3 + 2nd Test v Eng in Eng 2002 at Nottingham [1612]
No. of runs don't say much here but he batted for over 2 hours against hostile short pitch stuff on the last day and saved us the match.
37 - - - 2 + 1st Test v Aus in Aus 2003/04 at Brisbane [1671]
This was another invaluable one. It was here that SG scored a match saving 144.
62 - - - 1 + D 4th Test v Aus in Aus 2003/04 at Sydney [168
62* - - - 3 + 2nd Test v Pak in Pak 2003/04 at Lahore [1695]
This was on a green top
69 - - - 2 + 3rd Test v Pak in Pak 2003/04 at Rawalpindi [1697]
Here he opened the innings on a green top. For the first 15 overs, the ball was moving around viciously. I still remember that Balaji a month ago in an interview with TOI had talked about this match and said that this wicket was so seaming that all he had to do was pitch the balls in the right areas and pitch was doing the rest. I would call this a match winning 69 because it laid platform for others to come and score runs.
46 - - - 2 + 1st Test v Aus in Ind 2004/05 at Bangalore [1713]
He was the highest scorer here.
54 - - - 2 + 2nd Test v Aus in Ind 2004/05 at Chennai [1714]
Kaif and Patel batted beautifully and were instrumental in getting a significant lead against the Aussies.
20 - - - 2 + 3rd Test v Aus in Ind 2004/05 at Nagpur [1718]
- DNB 1 0 3 +
32 - - - 4 + 3rd Test v Aus in Ind 2004/05 at Nagpur [1718]
The above scores are on the famous Nagpur pitch. 20 was the 2nd highest score and 32 was the highest score.
And his career avg of 31 against quality opposition and that too mostly in away matches and many times in challenging conditions is significant. Dhoni's sample size is small? I can give you many instances (from both tests and ODI) where he has neither played seaming ball nor quality short pitch bowling even on flat pitches (I can give you about 10 such examples but I don't have time to do that now). Point is not no. of instances, but every single time he has looked the same with no improvement in technique to handle such stuff. I know you will give me 148 at Faisalabad, but that was on one of the best batting wickets I have seen (the wicket was flatter than the flattest
). The only thing about it was that it was in a pressure situation. Many DGers have also discounted VVS 90 on the same pitch because it was a "featherbed".
The only thing going against PP was his keeping. He was dropped after Aus series because of poor keeping (he had one of the highest batting averages for India in that series). The good thing is that the guy has potential and he had kept well before he did some major goof-ups behind the stumps. But I saw major improvement in the Challengers where he was as good as DK or Dhoni. As of today, I would say that his keeping is in the same league as Dhoni's, if not DK's.
Since we are building a team for the future and blooding youngsters with potential, PP definitely fits this bill. Ignore him at your own peril, and Team India's
.
AuthorTopic: Dhoni should play only ODIs, Parthiv Should Play Tests (Read 1079 times)
January 21, 2006, 11:33:21 PM