Test Cricket Prediction and Discussion Thread [self - mod]

[Sithara007]

I did not expect this turn around from India and you need to give all the credits to Ajinkya Rahane for taking a second string of players and motivating them and then able to extract the best performance from all the news players, in my opinion Ajinkya Rahane should be the captain as he proved his mettle as a captain but i am not expecting Kohli to hand over the captaincy but he will be under scrutiny in all of the upcoming series and if they under perform as a team he will be replaced.

Rahane was informed even before the 4th test that he would be the captain only on a temporary basis. I agree that his captaincy was exceptional, but then Virat Kohli would simply refuse to depart with his position as the captain of the squad. And it will be wrong to make Rahane the permanent captain after just one series, although I would favor giving him more chances.

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[ene1980]

Rahane was informed even before the 4th test that he would be the captain only on a temporary basis. I agree that his captaincy was exceptional, but then Virat Kohli would simply refuse to depart with his position as the captain of the squad. And it will be wrong to make Rahane the permanent captain after just one series, although I would favor giving him more chances.

To tell you the fact, i never considered Kohli as a tactical captain, he has the aggression but that alone will not win you matches, you need to be a tactical captain to win matches in difficult situation. MSD was a tactical captain in the shorter format but he applied the same in Test and so he was not that successful in the later part of his captaincy. Kohli is leading RCB and even if they have a strong team i have never seen the team performing to their strength.

This is the first time i am seeing Rahane captaining a side and to win a series in Australia with a completely young team says a lot about his captaining skills and that too after getting humiliated and getting bowled out for just 36 runs with Kohli as the captain in the first match and to recover and Rahane leading from the front and scoring that century and then winning the series is outstanding.

[mersal]

Rahane was informed even before the 4th test that he would be the captain only on a temporary basis. I agree that his captaincy was exceptional, but then Virat Kohli would simply refuse to depart with his position as the captain of the squad. And it will be wrong to make Rahane the permanent captain after just one series, although I would favor giving him more chances.

To tell you the fact, i never considered Kohli as a tactical captain, he has the aggression but that alone will not win you matches, you need to be a tactical captain to win matches in difficult situation. MSD was a tactical captain in the shorter format but he applied the same in Test and so he was not that successful in the later part of his captaincy. Kohli is leading RCB and even if they have a strong team i have never seen the team performing to their strength.

This is the first time i am seeing Rahane captaining a side and to win a series in Australia with a completely young team says a lot about his captaining skills and that too after getting humiliated and getting bowled out for just 36 runs with Kohli as the captain in the first match and to recover and Rahane leading from the front and scoring that century and then winning the series is outstanding.

In cricket, selectors give more priority to the player stats and individual performance as quality to captain a team but it is a completely different task in my opinion. One who can group every player into the same mindset in the dressing room and also in the ground should be the one to be considered.Anyway, none of the proposed things are going to happen, Rahane proved that he can so in the future if he got chances he may do it again.

[teosanru]

Rahane was informed even before the 4th test that he would be the captain only on a temporary basis. I agree that his captaincy was exceptional, but then Virat Kohli would simply refuse to depart with his position as the captain of the squad. And it will be wrong to make Rahane the permanent captain after just one series, although I would favor giving him more chances.

To tell you the fact, i never considered Kohli as a tactical captain, he has the aggression but that alone will not win you matches, you need to be a tactical captain to win matches in difficult situation. MSD was a tactical captain in the shorter format but he applied the same in Test and so he was not that successful in the later part of his captaincy. Kohli is leading RCB and even if they have a strong team i have never seen the team performing to their strength.

This is the first time i am seeing Rahane captaining a side and to win a series in Australia with a completely young team says a lot about his captaining skills and that too after getting humiliated and getting bowled out for just 36 runs with Kohli as the captain in the first match and to recover and Rahane leading from the front and scoring that century and then winning the series is outstanding.

You know what I think. Captaincy isn't always about delivering results. A person from outside like us might feel that this captains isn't good but it's like saying your friend that his boss is bad when you have never worked under his boss. Some captains don't focus on short term winnings they seek to develop long term assets for the team. Dhoni in his initial part of career developed some great assets for the team. So did Saurav Ganguly. We sitting outside really have just one metric of judging captaincy which is the win percentage which isn't always that accurate. Even the out of the box decisions made by Dhoni would have looked idiotic if India would have lost in those occassions. so I think there is no point discussing who should be captain until you are part of dressing room.

[Sithara007]

OK.. most of us would have liked to see Ajinkya Rahane as the captain of the Indian squad for the series against England, but the BCCI have gone back to Virat Kohli. Their reasoning is perfectly understandable. At this point it will be too early to criticize this decision. Let's see how the series turns out for India. If Kohli's captaincy is not up to the mark, then I am sure that BCCI will reconsider their decision for the next series.

[pakhitheboss]

It was supposed to happen Rahane was only a replacement for Kohli for the Australian series. Now sice Kohli is free he can join back the squad. I do not think performance from the up coming series will affect kohli. After all he has a lot of support from the team and the management.

[onrise]

SL off to good start in second test against England and at the end of the day they are 229/4. Despite the bad start where they lost 2 wickets for just 7 wickets, they came back strongly with Matthews not out with century and Chandimal got out at 52. If they can manage to play majority day tomorrow, they would be 400+ which will be a good score and just to put some pressure on England in their innings if they can pick coupe of quick wickets.

[Indymoney]

SL off to good start in second test against England and at the end of the day they are 229/4. Despite the bad start where they lost 2 wickets for just 7 wickets, they came back strongly with Matthews not out with century and Chandimal got out at 52. If they can manage to play majority day tomorrow, they would be 400+ which will be a good score and just to put some pressure on England in their innings if they can pick coupe of quick wickets.

Its look like now time for Sri Lanka to do better then first test as this is good ground for them and they can built very good total with the help of Mathews and Dickwella if these both stays for some more time then surely they are going to be in front as Galle is never been good for England going under runs of 350+ is also very bad for them but still its just first day we have to watch for some more time how they play after winning first test very good.

[eaLiTy]

It was supposed to happen Rahane was only a replacement for Kohli for the Australian series. Now sice Kohli is free he can join back the squad. I do not think performance from the up coming series will affect kohli. After all he has a lot of support from the team and the management.

I have not seen a captain that stood out in a series when the main players are injured and the team had to include the net bowlers to be a part of the team for the final Test and to come out on top is incredible. If India was trashed it was not a surprise as everyone expected as none of the players are in the playing eleven. But to take a team that was all out for 36 runs and make the necessary bowling changes with the resources Rahane had was outstanding and then to score a century and lead from the front is what India needed at that time.

One thing is certain, every match the performance of Kohli as a captain will be scrutinized and that might put too much pressure and that might even affect his batting, the biggest advantage i see in Kohli is that he is performing at his best as a captain and he always scores runs leading from the front but when the team is under pressure when bowling there is a lack of tactical decisions and i believe if Kohli was the captain the entire series India would have lost because of his aggressive approach that will put too much pressure on the young players but a clam Rahane was able to extract the best performance from each and every player.

[Iranus]

It was supposed to happen Rahane was only a replacement for Kohli for the Australian series. Now sice Kohli is free he can join back the squad. I do not think performance from the up coming series will affect kohli. After all he has a lot of support from the team and the management.

If Kohli makes a mistake as captain in the next series or if they fail to win the next series then maybe Virat Kohli can lose his captaincy. Rahane has won the Test series against a team like Australia. He has proved his worth

[ene1980]

Its look like now time for Sri Lanka to do better then first test as this is good ground for them and they can built very good total with the help of Mathews and Dickwella if these both stays for some more time then surely they are going to be in front as Galle is never been good for England going under runs of 350+ is also very bad for them but still its just first day we have to watch for some more time how they play after winning first test very good.

Sri Lanka is playing in their turf and they need to perform better against the visiting team, Mathews is playing a long innings and if the rest of the team members are able to build a good partnership around him then they will be able to post a good total on the board. I am not familiar with the bowlers but if they are having quality spinners then they can trouble the England players as batting in the final day in Sri Lanka wont be easy.

[Sithara007]

Sri Lanka is playing in their turf and they need to perform better against the visiting team, Mathews is playing a long innings and if the rest of the team members are able to build a good partnership around him then they will be able to post a good total on the board. I am not familiar with the bowlers but if they are having quality spinners then they can trouble the England players as batting in the final day in Sri Lanka wont be easy.

This time England chose James Anderson in the playing XI and it turned out to be such a good decision. He picked up 3 wickets for 24 runs and now his test tally stands at 603 wickets. The other bowlers were disappointing. I would have liked Stuart Broad instead of Mark Wood, as I believe his style of bowling is more suitable to the conditions. Both the spinners failed to create any sort of impact (Jack Leach/Dom Bess).

[JSRAW]

Teams for first 2 tests
-Kohli leading the team and Hardik is making comeback.
-Jadeja/Shami are injured.
-Axar Patel selection is bit confusing but Gill, Shardul, Siraj, Denzel Washington Sundar are reaping the rewards.
-Dan Lawrence is exciting name in the English squad, watch out for this young cricketer.

[JohnBitCo]

I am shocked by the way in which India counter attacked, i thought they will look to draw the match, now they just need 24 runs to win the match and 6 more overs minimum to go and this Test series just established why 5 day match is necessary rather than reducing the days. It is one of the most nerve racking series in a very long time as both team battled it out and a huge respect to all the Indian players as they fought till the end.

That was one of the most remarkable win by India. No one was expecting india to win this match but they really played aggressively for the win. Also this is the first win by the India in the Brisbane. Really loved to see the fearless india team crushing Australians and getting hold of the series.

[Indymoney]

Teams for first 2 tests
-Kohli leading the team and Hardik is making comeback.
-Jadeja/Shami are injured.
-Axar Patel selection is bit confusing but Gill, Shardul, Siraj, Denzel Washington Sundar are reaping the rewards.
-Dan Lawrence is exciting name in the English squad, watch out for this young cricketer.

Kohli and Sharma back so look like they are going with full force and this is good for match but not good for selectors because now they have tough time many youngsters after very good tour of Australia now want to do good at home against England but 3 players back which bring some good number of changes Dan Lawrence is done good in first test hopefully he will also do some good in India as already understanding pitches in this part of world.

[pakhitheboss]

Teams for first 2 tests
-Kohli leading the team and Hardik is making comeback.
-Jadeja/Shami are injured.
-Axar Patel selection is bit confusing but Gill, Shardul, Siraj, Denzel Washington Sundar are reaping the rewards.
-Dan Lawrence is exciting name in the English squad, watch out for this young cricketer.

Kohli and Sharma back so look like they are going with full force and this is good for match but not good for selectors because now they have tough time many youngsters after very good tour of Australia now want to do good at home against England but 3 players back which bring some good number of changes Dan Lawrence is done good in first test hopefully he will also do some good in India as already understanding pitches in this part of world.

Rohit Sharma was already part of the squad that played with Australia. Virat had taken a leave and was supposed to join back the team before the series starts. The good news is that many youngsters have been given a chance in this squad. I think this team should dominate the upcoming series.

[UmerIdrees]

South Africa tour of Pakistan will begin from 26 Jan, where they will play 2 test matches and 3 T20. It will be a  great moment for the Pakistani for any quality team visiting Pakistan to play the series. Since South Africa and the home team are not in such good form, we may see tight matches between the two teams.

[onrise]

SL off to good start in second test against England and at the end of the day they are 229/4. Despite the bad start where they lost 2 wickets for just 7 wickets, they came back strongly with Matthews not out with century and Chandimal got out at 52. If they can manage to play majority day tomorrow, they would be 400+ which will be a good score and just to put some pressure on England in their innings if they can pick coupe of quick wickets.

Its look like now time for Sri Lanka to do better then first test as this is good ground for them and they can built very good total with the help of Mathews and Dickwella if these both stays for some more time then surely they are going to be in front as Galle is never been good for England going under runs of 350+ is also very bad for them but still its just first day we have to watch for some more time how they play after winning first test very good.

SL did well to reach close to 400 but Dickwella missed his century by 8 runs. Good support from Perera too of 67 runs helped them to reach this score. SL bowlers did the fabulous start by picking both openers for just score of 5 on scorecard. Bairstow and Root partnership has helped England to reach 98/2 at end of day and if this partnership survives first hour of tomorrow play then would become difficult for SL to take a big lead from first innings.

[UmerIdrees]

[SaShiRaJaVu]

South Africa tour of Pakistan will begin from 26 Jan, where they will play 2 test matches and 3 T20. It will be a  great moment for the Pakistani for any quality team visiting Pakistan to play the series. Since South Africa and the home team are not in such good form, we may see tight matches between the two teams.

The men's team is touring Pakistan? i heard the women's team is touring, i thought the next series for South Africa was against Australia as all the reports were about the Australian tour of South Africa where they need to win the series to get a place in the Test championship final.

It will be interesting to see how Pakistan will perform in their home turf against a team like South Africa who always perform poorly against quality spin and i wonder what are the spin options for Pakistan in this series.