If you meant him being absent in the subcontinent it was because his keeping to spin is still a work in progress.
Down the road i see india playing him as an extra batsmen in the subcontinent, if his keeping in these conditions doesn’t improve rapidly enough .

If the dropped comment was referring to Pant missing out the Pink ball test, i believe it’s cause of the extra weight he put on.
Even though he looked a bit chunky in the tests he was a part of, he looked alot worse in the ipl coming out of the lockdown.
There were rumours going on that the team management told him to shed that extra weight and at least regain his previous lvls of fitness before he was to be selected into the playing 11.

Green avg 33 in the recent series at home against an indian bowling lineup that had a string of injury concerns but given the relative avg of the batsmen in the tour i am sure most here thought it was a decent one for him.The Eng series,where only virat avg 40 plus from both teams was like that for Pant.

The one in NZ where no indian batsman avg more than 25(even kane and taylor avg 32 or there about) and windies(that tour happened i believe not far off from when eng lost over there and cricinfo listed the Caribbean island as the place with lowest batting avg in the last 3-4 years) were even more so favorable to the bowlers and alot of the top order batsmen with more experience under the belt struggled in.

I believe what the 2 series in australia showed was he can score runs in surfaces with a little bit of help for the quicks(not as pronounced as was in nz or windies) and that too against quality lineups. Given that he has played very few games in the subcontinent yet i think his overall avg is quite impressive.

He is still just 23 as well so given his age and talent and hopefully with more games under his belt i am sure even when home teams make surfaces where their own quality batsmen struggles in, he can come out with decent numbers.

I am not sure if anyone other than De Kock (who has been batting up the order since his captaincy),can claim to be a better no:6 candidate right now,which also shows it’s a problem every other team faces as well.

He is avg 43 so far with 2 centuries in Eng and Aus. Don’t think his batting ability in this format is ever in doubt given that he scores heaps of runs in the domestic circuit as well.
Outside of Jadeja who from 2017 onwards been avg 50 with the bat,(with 1 in 3 innings being a 50 plus score) there is no one around the team at least to challenge Pant for the no:6 spot.
His keeping to spin though is going to be the real issue,especially since whoever is going to replace jadeja(probably axar patel since he works with the same angles as jadeja and can bat a bit as well) isn’t going to create as many chances as Jadeja would have and dropping someone like root or stokes could be costly.

Virat came out and said pant will play tommarow. Every expert out there was pushing for Pant to be in the 11 so i am not surprised he made the cut. As much as i like Pant’s batting ,his keeping needs alot to be improved upon. He is still a passable keeper when standing to the quicks ,but against spin he has been appalling
Cricviz had his catching success rate against spin at 47%, which was the 2nd worst of any keeper who kept to spin since 2010(only prior was poorer) . He looked sloppy in the only series he kept in india and thankfully that was against the windies which wasn’t an issue given how they fold even if you don’t take all the chances they provide.
I really hope he improved since then and want him to do well in this series ,but with india’s best bowling combination for subcontinental condition (shami umesh jadeja ashwin) not being available to them, i wouldn’t have risked it by having Pant keep at least for the first test.

The upcoming series would be interesting in terms of how the bowlers go. India have only lost one test so far under Virat at home, largely cause the bowling combination of Shami,Umesh Jadeja and Ashwin is too good in the subcontinent.
Shami’s avg of 20.6 and st rate of 41 in asia is better than a fair number of all time great pacers in those conditions and i believe the best since 2000 for anyone who played 10 or more game in asia .Even Umesh isn’t far away from steyn’s or vaas’s avg and st rate in the subcontinent. With those 2 and Jadeja(who at times is better than ashwin in the subcontinent) missing the series, england can be a bit more confident in expecting a closely contested series.
The curator at chennai was going on about trying to make the pitch have an ‘English Look’ to it. If there is indeed going to be any moment off the pitch bumrah’s job becomes much easier. It would also assist ishant whose been more so consistent in away tours these days .
Though all of this could just as easily backfire and help anderson improve his numbers in india if they aren’t careful.
I would still back Virat and co to win this series, but the quicks and the 2nd spinner needs to be on point for India to continue dominating at home like they are used to.

I agree with most points except the one about saha being the better batsman. Though tbf this wicket didn’t deteriorate as much and remained mostly flat even on day 5. Ashwin had been out of form with the bat for a while, so if he could score runs and push a case for a win had Vihari not messed up his hamstring, then i imagine Saha would have enjoyed batting on this wicket as well.

It’s on wickets where the ball moves around where he looks lost,otherwise he is adept at sticking around and batting for a while, as seen with his 100 against this Australian attack in Ranchi.

Not really, in the same sense as i have no issue with no warning given for mankad. I do think maybe banning underarm bowling a bit earlier before the incident took place and having a system for 1 warning before a mankad would have been fairer.

But would i be bothered enough to rant about it repeatedly and say the other team cheated bring up a ‘played 12 players’ etc because the result didn’t go the way some expected it to? No.

If Wade was the designated keeper for this game and got hurt and Paine had to keep,i would have felt it be just as fair,
Jadeja while not a keeper himself is also quite impactful on the field in terms of saving runs(saved the most amount of runs in the wc ),catching and creating opportunities for getting key batsmen out as seen with Smith’s dismissal,but i imagine not many had any issue with him not taking the field and being padded up to bat as well.

I don’t get why this is getting overblown tbh,even from a keeping perspective Pant while not extraordinary by any means, isn’t a part time keeper either. It’s his keeping to spinners where he is terrible at, which is why Saha plays ahead of him in the subcontinent.Against pace he is still sort of passable. On the previous tour,in Adelaide ,on a surface which had more help for the quicks than this one,he tied the record for most dismissals by a keeper in a single game. With Jadeja not bowling and ashwin’s dismissals being lbw any advantage india got from saha keeping in that innings was minimal at best.

Cause he was taken for scans soon after he got out? I imagine both him and management were worried he broke something initially and wanted to get it checked early on and only when it was confirmed it wasn’t as bad as they initially thought he came into bat the next day.
Even on day 5 Pant wasn’t exactly going berserk early on which is uncharacteristic of him,especially on a wicket which didn’t offer anything much to the bowlers. It took a while before he just decided to go out swinging.
India didn’t field Jadeja as well ,who despite not being a keeper, has shown in this test as well how impactful he is on the field and was still padded up waiting to come in next despite being ruled out for a month ,but no one had any issues with him not taking the field(not directed you Paul, but for those who bring up the whole ‘india played 12 men’ nonsense).

Nope,he will likely only return by the time for the 3rd test against england.
Ashwin isn’t a certainty either for the next game,with many reporting floating around on who will replace him, though nothing official yet.

Pant was reported to have been send for scans pretty soon after he was got out. He wasn’t seen sitting with the team in the balcony at any point afterwards when India fielded which i believe at least partially collaborates the story. Plus even when batting early on day 5 he looked visibly uncomfortable early on. Him and Vihari were both under some form of pain and had taken a fair amount of pain killers to play through the innings.
https://cricket.yahoo.net/news/rishabh-pant-hanuma-vihari-took-130825270
Pretty sure there would be a lot less controversy over this matter if Pant was the one who came into keep for Saha . Though if Pant later on batted for saha on the like for like substitute idea someone suggested then that would have raised some other issue depending on how much Pant scored.
Only thing i feel should have happened was maybe entertaining the idea of returning keeper batsman being made to wait and being able to only bat at 7 or 8 so, which sounds pretty reasonable.Though if coming in batting 4 or 5 like he did is allowed in the rules of the game then i don’t have too many issues with it either.

Ashwin as well is kinda close to being ruled out. Not sure what’s the status on Mayank either after being send to take a scan.
Many different reports floating about regarding the bowling combination for the next test ,but if the one which states Washinton Sundar could potentially leapfrog Kuldeep and make his debut turns out to be true then Siraj could be end up being the most experienced bowler in the 11 which is far from ideal.

Both Bumrah and Ashwin have some form of injury or the other right now and are being monitored,though most sources believe neither of them are going to make the playing 11.Even Mayank who wasn’t part of the last test,was send for scans after a misshap in a training session.
If both of these bowlers are ruled out ,then Kuldeep with 6 tests under his belt would be the most experienced bowler in the playing 11 which I feels makes the result of the next match fairly obvious , unless there are alot of overs lost due to bad weather.

India have very little chance going into Brisbane,even before considering the enviable record Australia have there. Bumrah is said to be, likely to miss the game. Both Pant(who was send for scans immediately after he was out in the first innings) and Ashwin were on heavy doses of pain meds durring the 4th innings play ,with the latter especially being a concern for the next match. Vihari and Jadeja have both been officially ruled out for a month atleast. Even Mayank was send for scans after a training mishap yesterday. It’s looking more and more likely india will just pick the 10 uninjured players remaining and add pant to it and hope they can eek out a draw. If Ashwin doesn’t make the 11 ,kuldeep who played 6 tests so far will be the most experienced bowler in their 11 ,which doesn’t exactly inspire any confidence in the attacks ability to take 20 wickets.

I doubt it’s even going to be competitive at the Gabba, especially with incomming reports that bumrah might miss the test. Vihari is already confirmed to be out for this game as well as the eng series while Jadeja might be out for a month. Ashwin and pant were both on heavy doses of pain meds while they played and Ashwin in particular is going to be monitored closely. Even Mayank sitting outside the team was send for scans after some issue in the training session. If Ashwin doesn’t play then Kuldeep Yadav who played 6 tests so far will be the most experienced bowler of the Indian attack.

India are down not just Shami and Yadav. they are down Virat Shami Ishant and their 4th pacer in Yadav.
Only other quick India have given a decent run to in the last 4 years is Bhuvneshwar Kumar,who since his improvement in pace(from his early 120kmph speed) has been doing well in tests in games he played and he too is out injured.

Even though Siraj impressed in his first outing(the best quick in the domestics for a while) the pace unit as a whole right now is far from it’s best and whoever ends up being the 3rd quick isn’t even the best option after Siraj. Best case scenario India can hope for is, Saini getting the nod and atleast managing to clean up the tail with his pace.

I feel Australia should maybe try and roll out a flat deck.Worst case scenario with that ploy is a draw heading into Brisbane,where the home team has an enviable record.It would also help Smith regain some form and Warner to make some contribution,provided he doesn’t fall early to Ashwin(Got him out 4 times in 5 innings on Australian soil with a bowling st rate of 20).

Correction, he has never opened outside india in test cricket. He only starting opening last year and played 5 games so far as an opener,all of them in india.

I would think a lot depends on the type of wicket at Sydney. If it’s similar to the one india last played on ,then it’s probably going to be his best shot to succeed as an opener,outside the subcontinent.
If he still fails i wont put it past the team management trying to use vihari again, as a makeshift opener in the last test .

Rohit is the captain of the Mumbai indians ,which is one of the most successful t20 team out there and has collected more silverware in the IPL than even dhoni (in lesser number of years) . He has captained the indian ODI and T20i teams occasionally, with good numbers to show for it, in that limited sample size. So a test vice captaincy,even temporarily seems to be the next step for him.
He likes to open,he has hinted that various times( Even going as far as to immaturely liking a post on social media 2 years ago, which took a dig at Rahul’s form as a test opener),even though in interviews he states he is willing to take any spot given to him.
Plus the management and the other members around the team likes Vihari. He is someone who is willing to bat anywhere(opened last time india toured australia),has shown decent temperament, in his willingness to bat out tough period even if runs doesn’t come,and can also bowl part time off spin if the need ever arose.
Meanwhile agarwal is avg 7 this tour so far with his ability to even see off the new ball being questionable at this moment. So i would think getting rohit in for agarwal is what they are planning to do.

Rohit has been appointed as the vice capt as soon as he was match fit. So one of the openers is going to make way. Agarwal is probably the one going to be dropped, though they have the option to drop Vihari as well and then shift Gill down the order.

Gill wont be playing over Pujara anytime soon. Pujara’s been having a lean patch since his last test in Sydney,but his record at home in that period is still decent(42 avg in 5 games) . So no one is going to challenge him for his spot anytime soon i reckon.
Agarwal has got himself into a mess with his high backlift and not being able to bring his bat down in time. If he doesn’t sort it out in this series(provided rohit isn’t going to replace him) and gill does end up impressing ,that’s the spot Gill is likely to take, if he becomes a regular in the 11.
I am not sure whether Bumrah will play the tests against England or will they just play him selectively in away series(as he plays almost every whiteball series for india). If bumrah does make the 11, it’s likely at the expense of Ishant as Shami and Umesh are india’s go to quicks at home . With their bowling avg of 21 and 24 in India, they been as important as the spin duo in making india close to unbeatable at home, since virat took over(think india lost only 1 test at home in the last 6 years).

Now hearing reports that Shardul Thakur, might be in line to play the next test,which i feel might be the worst option to go with from a bowling perspective(though he can bat a bit better than the others). Think they are using the same principle of incumbency which saw Shaw play ahead of Gill here as well, if these rumors turn out to be true, as Thakur technically already made his debut against the Windies (bowled 10 deliveries, conceded 9 runs and then limped off ).

Given how well Siraj has went in his first test, i would have personally picked a couple other quick like him,who were going well in domestic and been part of the india A side recently ,over Thakur or the relatively inexperienced Natarajan. It seems like the recent ipl performances played a role in selecting the net bowlers/reverses,as i would imagine the Selectors, never thought they would need backups for the test team, given that they had 3-4 quality quick and a promising one in siraj waiting in line.

As much as Smith’s performance against Ashwin will be crucial ,i feel how Warner does against him would be even more significant, in deciding which team ends up on top, as Ashwin has the most dismissals against lefties in test cricket(192 of his 375 test wickets being lefties, compared to the 191 off the 800 by murali and 186 out of 600 by anderson).

Given the relative inexperience of the likely pace attack(no matter who the 3rd quick end up being) i am expecting Australia to bounce back and get the win. Though i wont completely rule out India’s chances either,especially if Bumrah and Ashwin keep on performing well and Rohit manages to get a big score, if he makes the 11.

In my opinion ,Australia have a pretty good chance of beating india in the next game . With both Ishant and Shami already ruled out and now the usual 4th option in Umesh also reportedly returning to india,either Saini or Natarajan is set to make their debut in the next game.

While both have decent numbers in domestics,neither of them i would think are among the next best 2-3 quicks for india in this format,and are more so in the squad based on their recent ipl exploits and other factors(saini’s pace, the angles Natarajan provides as a leftie).

How Australia plays out ashwin is going to decide this test. If the batsmen manages to put him under pressure, bumrah wont have much support from anywhere else, especially if the Sydney wicket is on the flatter side, like the one India played on in 2018.
A possible change in the opening combination might be the only good news for india,as Agarwal is struggling as much as shaw did, while rohit might do better ,as he usually thrives on flatter decks a bit like warner does.

https://twitter.com/collinsadam/status/1343444262982098946

Ashwin’s numbers abroad have been impressive since 2016,which could be due to a number of factors going hand in hand, than any single reason.
Him playing county cricket every so often ,getting better with experience and most importantly India’s Pace attack in that period having the best away from home bowling avg(even combining home plus away bowling avg of the pace attack their avg of 24.02 is still the best in that period) all would play a factor in his rise.
India’s pace attack being what it was in the past, wouldn’t have made things easy for him or most other spinners in a similar position ,when playing in foreign conditions.Now that they can actually contain the runrate and also chip in with wickets, would probably help him get into his rhythm more easily .
Even though Siraj and Umesh are a definite step down in the quality compared to ishant and shami,they have still done a decent job supporting bumrah and ashwin and haven’t been as loose in their lines and lengths compared to past attacks.

India’s 11 for the first test is pretty weak in the batting department. The bowlers have been consistent across conditions for the last 3- 4 years , but the batting has under performed too often outside the subcontinent, barring performances by Virat and at times pujara or rahane.

Jadeja missing out with his concussion,Saha being picked over Pant and Shaw (who was struggling against quicks even in white ball cricket) opening the batting over Gill doesn’t inspire much confidence. Unless Bumrah or Shami gets Smith and Marnus out cheaply, i don’t believe India have the batting depth required to set or chase a decent total, in this game.

Pretty sure natajaran appealed for it and umpires have given their verdict for such appeals in the past. When only him and the keeper (partially), were shown on screen, not sure how anyone can be certain, no one else appealed .

Only major issue i had with, was correcting the fact virat timer ran out ,which it didn’t and if a drs appeal got rejected while the fielding team was deliberating ,i would consider them to be unlucky.
Pretty sure most fans here would felt hard done if such a decision went against them.
Better team won at the end of the day and the match itself was inconsequential to begin with, so nothing to whinge about.Though felt it might be something the umpires might need to look into in the future and that’s about it.

As for the whole tangent you felt compelled to go into regarding ‘ch-eating’ and “sai-nt people”, i am sure there are plenty of other fans ,(of whichever nationality you prefer) who enjoy such banter, so go at it with them,and kindly refrain from trying to engage me in such conversations, as i tend to avoid such people and their posts afterwards.