For all of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s strange tactics in the fourth ODI against New Zealand, (bowling Ambati Rayudu!) India’s captain is right.
His bowlers need to be better. The seam bowlers not only lacked discipline and consistency with their lines and lengths, they seem unable to adapt their bowling as the game unfolds before them. Ishant Sharma is the prime example of this phenomenon and even Dhoni was forced to eventually drop him.
While it is a small sample size, the new crop does not seem to be able to think for themselves either. If Dhoni wasn’t Captain Cool, it might have pushed him to tear his hair out.
His bowlers need to be better. The seam bowlers not only lacked discipline and consistency with their lines and lengths, they seem unable to adapt their bowling as the game unfolds before them. Ishant Sharma is the prime example of this phenomenon and even Dhoni was forced to eventually drop him.
While it is a small sample size, the new crop does not seem to be able to think for themselves either. If Dhoni wasn’t Captain Cool, it might have pushed him to tear his hair out.
Outside of the subcontinent, the lack of control has allowed opposing batsmen to wait out the spinners, as Ross Taylor lucidly explained, and then feast on the waywardness of the rest of India’s attack. Admittedly, Bhuvneshwar Kumar did bowl economically in the first three games, but his cumulative figures of 3 for 129 are not the stuff of nightmares. Well, not for the opposition anyway.
It hasn’t helped that India’s no. 1 spinner – R Ashwin – struggles to take wickets when playing away from home. Over the last 12 months, Ashwin has played 10 ODIs in four different countries and taken just 6 wickets at a strike-rate of 84 and an average of 73.83.
That means he takes wicket one every 14 overs, which is more than double his strike-rate of 34.3 in India over the same time period. It is more than not good enough at the international level, it is horrendous.
It hasn’t helped that India’s no. 1 spinner – R Ashwin – struggles to take wickets when playing away from home. Over the last 12 months, Ashwin has played 10 ODIs in four different countries and taken just 6 wickets at a strike-rate of 84 and an average of 73.83.
That means he takes wicket one every 14 overs, which is more than double his strike-rate of 34.3 in India over the same time period. It is more than not good enough at the international level, it is horrendous.
Source: Cricket News in Hindi
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