My Thoughts

Jadeja was the best bowler on view for the Indians in the first ODI against South Africa

Phew! What a game. South Africa almost pulled off a miracle yesterday against India in the first ODI between the two sides in this three match series. When SA was 182/7 requiring more than 7 an over, I thought to myself even our bowlers couldn’t mess this up, but how wrong I was. The Indian bowling as usual melted under pressure in the final overs and allowed No. 10 and 11 to get the visitors to within 1 run of securing a brilliant victory.

To be frank when you have Ravindra Jadeja (5th bowler) as your best bowler on the day then you have serious issues. The Indian selectors seem to be averse to doing any sort of experimentation with the squad at the moment. The bowling selections have been monotonous for the past year or so. It has been Nehra, Zaheer, Praveen, Ishant and Sreesanth doing merry-go-round for the bowling spots. Tyagi received one chance and there has been no other new bowler for the Indians.

Zaheer seems to be the only bowler who is remotely close to being a decent ODI bowler and the rest of them seem ordinary. I would give a few more chances to Praveen Kumar but Sreesanth, Ishant and Nehra need to stay away from the team for some time. The Indian selectors need to be bold with the selections and look ahead to the World Cup. With the current bowling line up India will get hammered in the World Cup which is supposed to take place on these batting paradises in the sub continent.

India needs to give a decent run to Tyagi, Mithun, Irfan and Sangwan etc. to see how they do in this format. I am sure they can’t do worse than the current crop. If not for few lucky decisions going India’s way and a fantastic over by Praveen under pressure India would have lost the match easily.

I hope the selectors are listening and I hope they experiment a little bit with the bowling combinations in the future series.