Thursday, July 11, 2002
Despite the great success of -- and all round plaudits for -- the move to turn Dravid into a wicket-keeper-batsman in the one-dayers, I must say it looks like a bad move to me. What's worse is that it's not a stop-gap arrangement, but one they are looking at for the World Cup.
The argument is that it adds balance to the side, gives us more depth in batting. What crap! We bat six deep without Dravid, and have the likes of Ganguly and Tendulkar in the line-up, if this doesn't give us depth for a 50-over game, perhaps our top order needs to be replaced. We can't paper over the cracks in our vaunted batting with such ad-hoc measures. Maybe the top order needs to just play better than they have been playing.
Wicket-keeping can be a gruelling affair, especially keeping to spinners. It is understandable that Dravid wants to keep wickets, because that cements his place in the side. But, in the long run, it will surely take a toll on his batting, in both forms of the game, and we surely need him like hell in the Test side.
My take is that we should play a specialist wicket-keeper and Dravid should be played purely as batsman, even in the one-dayers. And he should ideally come in at one-drop.
The sooner the team management realises the errors of its ways, the better for both Dravid and the Indian team.
If the experiment succeeds consistently, then I will be more than happy to take back my words.
The argument is that it adds balance to the side, gives us more depth in batting. What crap! We bat six deep without Dravid, and have the likes of Ganguly and Tendulkar in the line-up, if this doesn't give us depth for a 50-over game, perhaps our top order needs to be replaced. We can't paper over the cracks in our vaunted batting with such ad-hoc measures. Maybe the top order needs to just play better than they have been playing.
Wicket-keeping can be a gruelling affair, especially keeping to spinners. It is understandable that Dravid wants to keep wickets, because that cements his place in the side. But, in the long run, it will surely take a toll on his batting, in both forms of the game, and we surely need him like hell in the Test side.
My take is that we should play a specialist wicket-keeper and Dravid should be played purely as batsman, even in the one-dayers. And he should ideally come in at one-drop.
The sooner the team management realises the errors of its ways, the better for both Dravid and the Indian team.
If the experiment succeeds consistently, then I will be more than happy to take back my words.
# posted by Ashok @ 12:08 AM 
