What do you think is the right combination for Team India?

Should we go with three fast bowlers and one spinner?

Advantage:
1) 20 overs of Power Play and the death overs are crucial. With three fast bowlers we can avoid getting hit out of the park.

Disadvantage:
1) One turning tracks, three fast bowlers become a liability for the team

Should We go with two fast bowler and two spinners?

Advantage:
1) With most of the teams which are not from sub continent have difficulty playing quality spin bowling.

Disadvantage:
1) If one fast bowler has a bad day then team has to depend alot on the spinners
2) We have many part time spinners who can play the role of second spinner

The third crucial option is to go with Six batsman and 5 bowlers…
What is your say on it

Combination of 6 batsmen and 5 bowlers seems fine as the 7th batsmen is not coming into play in these flat wickets as seen from last two matches, hardly yusuf was used ( or virat as in the last match against England).

Team should be-
Sachin
Sehwag
Gautham
Virat
Yuvraj
Dhoni
Ashwin
Harbhajan
Zaheer
Nehra
Munaf

Also taking ashwin (instead of Piyush) in team gives some strength to the batting if a batting collpse happens as he can bat also (as seen from Practice match against Australia)

@Chandan:

Interesting perspective of adding Ashwin

Pathan is given the spot assuming he, yuvraj, raina can togethr do th 5th bowler job. but thats not working. so from ystrday’s match i feel drop Pathan for Arshwin ... batting top six is strong enuf + bhajji , zaheer, arshwin can play cameos. it balances the team better. we do loose a explosive finisher in Pathan but i guess Arshwin’s bowling variations helping get a big wicket or 2 wud much better serve… we was brilliant with CSK in IPL.

Completely agree with suggestion that Pathan to be dropped to accomodate Ashwin and Piyush to be dropped to rope in Nehra.

If we bowl first then we will have the right balance.  With the current team, if we bowl first against stronger teams then we might end up chasing 300 plus scores which is not easy against good bowling sides like South Africa or even West Indies.

By the way, one thing to ponder Dhoni knew that he would have this challenge, then why didn’t he experiment with Virat bowling some medium pace in South Africa.  This would have given him some confidence. 

If we remember in 1987 , Mohd Azharuddin bowled medium pace and was also fairly successful.  I feel Dhoni has missed a trick here.

Yeah Virat’s Medium pacer can be handy. He also bowled in the U-19 WC in Malaysia which India won.

I dont think dropping pathan will do imagine if there is a batting collapse in a must win game them it becomes difficult i think once nehra returns our problems will be solved and also playing two off spinners doesn’t sound a great idea have we forgotten that even sehwag can bowl off spin

I think this is best team
1.sachin
2.sehwag
3.gambhir
4.uv
5.virat
6.dhoni
7.pathan
8.zaheer
9.A.nehra
10.Munaf
11.Aswin

Bujji not getting any wickets and 7 batsmens are their all of them are in form so bujji is not required

Playing with A.Nehra is compulsary becuse i had xperince of world cup and he is so economical in death overs

Play with 5 bowlers as our batting is too stronG!

everything will be fine with just one change: Just bring ashiwin for chawla and you can use him both in dead overs and also in powerplay too

I don’t understand why Chawla is given again and again more chance rather than Ashwin who is sitting in bench. I accept if Chawla’s performance is good and they are retaining him but answer everyone knows.

Just because selection committee picked him as a surprise package they shouldn’t try to shadow their mistake by keep on giving him chances.

I feel that 2 spinners and 2 fast bowlers combination is the only good option for team India. they should bring in Ashwin instead of Chawla and Nehra should remain in playing 11 throughout unless his form his bad for Patel or Sree…

7 and 4 looks good. Everyone is talking about who plays in bowling department, ashwin or chawla. Here are some things we need to answer in next 2 matches,

a. Munaf should play, he has been in good wicket taking form, i dont see nehra playing ahead of him
b. If we can go with 3 seamers, obvious choice is Bhajji, but he should start taking more wickers
c. 3 - fast - 1 spin combo is right, coz we have Yusuf and Yuvraj who are more than handy and should atleast bowl 15 overs between them if not more.

Everyone is talking about our bowling, even though we didnt play on great pitches in last 2 matches our batting was under fair bit of scanner, so out batting would be the one which will under the pump in tomm match against Proteas

Biggest problem India is facing at the moment is their bowling. India only dependable on their batting but not bowling. India needs to find right combinations of spinners, fast or medium bowlers. Maybe they should do this with batting too. It will make lot of difference.

Batting’s been right…...so no worries about the 7!

bowling’s gotta be right. after Anil bhai India’s spin attack looks ordinary
my choice
Zak
Munaf
Sreesanth
Harbhajan
Ashwin

i still feel Vinay Kumar should’ve got a chance..

it obviusly would be 2 spinners and 2 seamers….2nd spinner should be r.ashwin…....i still hope we had praveen kumar