retirement of the greats of Indian cricket
By rexelixir
@rexelixir (4)
India
November 16, 2009 6:31am CST
Saurav Ganguly and Anil Kumble have already retired. Once Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman retire don't you think it will be an end of a great era?
Even Australia is finding it difficult to get players who fill in shoes of Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden,Glen McGrath and Shane Warne.
Dhoni, Gambhir and Yuvraj, among batsmen, are good but Ravindra Jadeja / Dinesh Karthik / Virat Kohli, etc. don't instil the same confidence in us.
Piyush Chawla, Amit Mishra and Ojha are good spinner but none is persisted with for more than a couple of tests.
Do you think we have enough bench strength? What do you think?
3 responses
@goldenstars (13)
• India
16 Nov 09
Hey buddy! You cant compare players with 15 to 20 years of experience with players who are just finding their way in to the team. They are young, unexperiesnced but no short of talent. In fact I think India never had such a strong pool of backup players till date. The quality of domestic cricket is increasing day by day and many players are getting exposed to highest level at very early stage of their career.
I know you can not find a player like Sachin but its not about replacing your old players, its about finding bunch of players who will take indian cricket to the next level and I have no doubts Indian cricket is moving in right direction.
@rexelixir (4)
• India
16 Nov 09
I agree with you. As mentioned above Dhoni and Yuvraj are good Raina is also coming off well. and as you pointed out I also feel that they would do well for Indian cricket and for themselves if they don't try and copy these greats. They can be a force to be reckoned with in their own right and on their own talent.
I feel that M Vijay who had opened against Australia at Nagpur in 2008, is a much better batsman in Dravid mould with solid technique and strokes. He had 2 partnerships of 98 and 116 with Sehwag in the only Test he played. He faced the pace attack of Lee, Johnson & Watson comfortably. He should be given chance instead of Karthik and Jadeja. Even these shouldn't be written off but if they good runs in domestic cricket they can always be recalled.
@goldenstars (13)
• India
17 Nov 09
About M Vijay case - this has not happened for the first time. Arun Lal (who is now a commentator) was once asked to replace great Gavaskar just before the match against Pakistan. He scored 52 and 70 in both innings (he was highest scorer in second inning) but droped for the next match when Gavaskar returned.
Coming back to retirement problem I think indian batting is and will remain strong in coming years. But they have to improve their Bowling department. It looks a lot Zaheer oriented (if he is around it looks good, if he is not there then...).
Fielding is not up to the mark but it has improved a lot in last couple of years, again thanx to the young blood and better grounds.
@amitavroy (4819)
• India
17 Nov 09
There is no doubt that we are still in need of these greats. And if they retire which they will and that also at almost the same time, India will have to fill a huge gap. We saw in the yesterday's inns how much Dravid is still important to the team in the middle order. If this was without Dravid in the middle order, I am sure it would have been very difficult for the Indian team to recover from where they were.
