***Official India in New Zealand***

[Nutter]

Why no third man in test cricket these days?

 

[TT Boy]

Sachin!

 

[jeevan]

What a ridiculous way to get out lol.

Fair play McCullum. Fair to say Dravid didn't expect that.

Any chance Dravid will call it a day after this test? He's had a very decent series and looks like there will be some sort of milestone for the team here. Considering the very uncharitable things said about him and the next test assignment being 6+ months away - probably thought would enter his mind.

 

[sammy2]

Why no third man in test cricket these days?

http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/1868613-post847.html

 

[SJS]

Frankly, if New Zealand do come up with a bowler friendly wicket and India cant cope with it, we need to at least ask some people to reassess this "greatest Indian side of al times" tag with some important qualifications.

Why should we, the Indian fans, be defensive about a seaming track, swerving conditions etc unless our "greatest batting line up" and "most balanced attack" is not what we make it out to be ?

Bring it on Kiwis. We are ready for business . . . er. . . well we think we are . . . is it not ?

Okay so we are - ready for business that is, as an Indian side. Where does that leave New Zealand ?

From 204 for 6, Dhoni, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Ishant and Munaf added 175 runs for the last four Indian wickets. On the other hand, from 21 for no loss, the entire Kiwi batting line up added 196 for all the ten of theirs. There has to be a lesson in this. No I stand corrected. There IS a lesson in this, New Zealand would do grave harm to themselves not to see it.

I dont care whether you are for more grass or less grass on this wicket, home advantage or not, the fact remains that the conditions are surely more alien to the Indians than to the Kiwis. When this board was discussing what kind of wicket should be prepared for this match, I did not want to get involved in the argument as I do not like to where raw emotions (sometimes that reads just nationalistic fervour) are on display. Hence the post above. But now we are close to writing the final chapter of this match and this series and we need to put in perspective the vast difference in the two sides. It can be undone by planning for the conditions to bail you out. We have been doing that in India for so long and trust me, we have suffered inspite of a much larger pool of cricketing talent than New Zealand.

For so long, India had been hiding its inadequacies of lack of pacers and thereby of attacks that could bowl teams out in conditions different than existed at home. For so long this lack of pacers resulted in collateral damage in the form of batsmen, particularly opening batsmen, who were only exposed to benign wickets and benevolent bowlers making them sitting ducks (in more ways than one) when playing away from home. For so long, the batting averages of our batsmen were so skewed by conditions at home that no failure abroad, howsoever pathetic, wasn't so bad that a series at home could not fix it and ensure selection and feting by a fawning public with short term memory loss.

India, inspite of having arguably, one of the greatest middle order that has been seen in the history of the game, an inexhaustible stream of spinners ranging from the very good to the great have still been constrained by complete failure to make any consistent mark outside the sub-continent and that has been our tragedy. If there is one single factor which can be pointed at as the one which has contributed the most to this sad state of Indian cricket, it has been our tendency to hide our inadequacies with the convenient ploy of deploying tracks that would help us look better than we are.

Hopefully, The Indian board will realise that we need not do so any more so that we can build on this gift of a more than decent pace attack and a good pair of opening batsmen with the solidity of a technically proficient and vastly experienced middle order which is almost as good as it was on younger legs.

Kiwis are in a much worse situation. They do not have the talent. The pace attack is pathetic. Zaheer is not an all time bowling great but he could be a bowling coach to this Kiwi side but then so could some much lesser names in Indian domestic cricket one could think of. An attack that cant stop itself from bowling far too short, that when it makes any effort to pitch up bowls mainly half volleys, that hasn't bowled yorkers in an entire series (if there were a couple I may have missed them and that hasn't exploited the short rising delivery (as was done with Sehwag yesterday, in conditions which are at least not as bad as pacers in India face must have a lot of thinking to do. And none of that needs to be about how to make more bowler friendly tracks.

Yes New Zealand cricket has a lot of problems but trust me the wickets in New Zealand are in no serious short list.

By the way, it is tragic to see the best Kiwi bowler in the series doing drinks duty. Jeetan Patel is not a great off spinner and his off break doesnt 'break' much but he was the most impressive of the home bowlers in this series and inspite of the differences in their records, I am afraid, I do not think Vettori is a better bowler than him on unhelpful conditions.

 

[SJS]

Why no third man in test cricket these days?

search me

 

[Jono]

Sachin gone. Dan gets him.

 

[TT Boy]

Sachin gone.

 

[OnDrive]

Sachin just out to a great delivery by Vettori. Laxman the next batsman in.

 

[Nutter]

http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/1868613-post847.html

Sigh. Bring back good bowlers!

 

[Flem274*]

Okay so we are - ready for business that is, as an Indian side. Where does that leave New Zealand ?

From 204 for 6, Dhoni, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Ishant and Munaf added 175 runs for the last four Indian wickets. On the other hand, from 21 for no loss, the entire Kiwi batting line up added 196 for all the ten of theirs. There has to be a lesson in this. No I stand corrected. There IS a lesson in this, New Zealand would do grave harm to themselves not to see it.

I dont care whether you are for more grass or less grass on this wicket, home advantage or not, the fact remains that the conditions are surely more alien to the Indians than to the Kiwis. When this board was discussing what kind of wicket should be prepared for this match, I did not want to get involved in the argument as I do not like to where raw emotions (sometimes that reads just nationalistic fervour) are on display. Hence the post above. But now we are close to writing the final chapter of this match and this series and we need to put in perspective the vast difference in the two sides. It can be undone by planning for the conditions to bail you out. We have been doing that in India for so long and trust me, we have suffered inspite of a much larger pool of cricketing talent than New Zealand.

For so long, India had been hiding its inadequacies of lack of pacers and thereby of attacks that could bowl teams out in conditions different than existed at home. For so long this lack of pacers resulted in collateral damage in the form of batsmen, particularly opening batsmen, who were only exposed to benign wickets and benevolent bowlers making them sitting ducks (in more ways than one) when playing away from home. For so long, the batting averages of our batsmen were so skewed by conditions at home that no failure abroad, howsoever pathetic, wasn't so bad that a series at home could not fix it and ensure selection and feting by a fawning public with short term memory loss.

India, inspite of having arguably, one of the greatest middle order that has been seen in the history of the game, an inexhaustible stream of spinners ranging from the very good to the great have still been constrained by complete failure to make any consistent mark outside the sub-continent and that has been our tragedy. If there is one single factor which can be pointed at as the one which has contributed the most to this sad state of Indian cricket, it has been our tendency to hide our inadequacies with the convenient ploy of deploying tracks that would help us look better than we are.

Hopefully, The Indian board will realise that we need not do so any more so that we can build on this gift of a more than decent pace attack and a good pair of opening batsmen with the solidity of a technically proficient and vastly experienced middle order which is almost as good as it was on younger legs.

Kiwis are in a much worse situation. They do not have the talent. The pace attack is pathetic. Zaheer is not an all time bowling great but he could be a bowling coach to this Kiwi side but then so could some much lesser names in Indian domestic cricket one could think of. An attack that cant stop itself from bowling far too short, that when it makes any effort to pitch up bowls mainly half volleys, that hasn't bowled yorkers in an entire series (if there were a couple I may have missed them and that hasn't exploited the short rising delivery (as was done with Sehwag yesterday, in conditions which are at least not as bad as pacers in India face must have a lot of thinking to do. And none of that needs to be about how to make more bowler friendly tracks.

Yes New Zealand cricket has a lot of problems but trust me the wickets in New Zealand are in no serious short list.

By the way, it is tragic to see the best Kiwi bowler in the series doing drinks duty. Jeetan Patel is not a great off spinner and his off break doesnt 'break' much but he was the most impressive of the home bowlers in this series and inspite of the differences in their records, I am afraid, I do not think Vettori is a better bowler than him on unhelpful conditions.

As much I as agree with a lot of what you have said, you do realise O'Briens record last year and Franklins pre-comeback were very good? And they didn't spend their lives on greentops either.

EDIT:There's also one reason (only one) why we haven't slipped below the top 8 in tests in the last 12 moths: our bowlers have generally always dragged us back into the game after they collapse pathetically. No offence SJS, but you sound like Mark Richardson "*giggle giggle* we need mor farst bowlaz, pick McClennaghan *giggle* i like him, he's raw! not a rank diddbly dobbly like this bunch"

EDIT2: Minus the giggles and left arm piechucker love, you're not that wrong. ;p

 

[SJS]

As much I as agree with a lot of what you have said, you do realise O'Briens record last year and Franklins pre-comeback were very good? And they didn't spend their lives on greentops either.

Oh I was very impressed with his bowling in the second Test but in the context of the entire NZL attack over the entire series, its not much is it? I mean, even Martin has had his spells in this series.

See this is Test cricket. It requires high standards to be maintained over long periods of time, particularly when things are not going well. When things are going well, the bowling can look very good and that can be a very deceptive thing. The last series that India played in NZland is a case in point.

But yes, One hadn't heard of O'Brien and he looked good from the beginning.

 

[Flem274*]

Oh I was very impressed with his bowling in the second Test but in the context of the entire NZL attack over the entire series, its not much is it? I mean, even Martin has had his spells in this series.

See this is Test cricket. It requires high standards to be maintained over long periods of time, particularly when things are not going well. When things are going well, the bowling can look very good and that can be a very deceptive thing. The last series that India played in NZland is a case in point.

But yes, One hadn't heard of O'Brien and he looked good from the beginning.

Over the last 12 months the pattern has been bowlers restrict other team to between 150-300 (there have been scores either side of that of course) and then we bat and collapse. Now this series the batting has had one good show and lots of.....screw ups (to be polite). The bowling has run smack bang into flat pitch land and apart from the first innings of this test has had very very little assistance. Flat pitch+Indian batting=big scores, against anyone.

EDIT: Pre last 12 months we didn't play tests, but 2006 and before we had Martin and Franklin when they were actualy good, occassionally Bond and thats it. Wasn't much depth there (go back a few more years to the early 00s and there was plenty, they did break a lot though).

Atm I'd back O'Brien and Franklin to be good, not sure on Martin because he is 34, Mills needs his rythym back,I do see where you're coming from (they're all either underdeveloped like Southee or not bowling properly like Jimmy) but they're not pathetic. Reserve that word for our top three.

 

[JimmyGS]

Did anyone else notice that in Tendulkar's dismissal, Ross Taylor still had his hands on his knees? Such poor slipping technique, I have no idea how he caught it.

 

[Athlai]

Over the last 12 months the pattern has been bowlers restrict other team to between 150-300 (there have been scores either side of that of course) and then we bat and collapse. Now this series the batting has had one good show and lots of.....screw ups (to be polite). The bowling has run smack bang into flat pitch land and apart from the first innings of this test has had very very little assistance. Flat pitch+Indian batting=big scores, against anyone.

EDIT: Pre last 12 months we didn't play tests, but 2006 and before we had Martin and Franklin when they were actualy good, occassionally Bond and thats it. Wasn't much depth there (go back a few more years to the early 00s and there was plenty, they did break a lot though).

Atm I'd back O'Brien and Franklin to be good, not sure on Martin because he is 34, Mills needs his rythym back,I do see where you're coming from (they're all either underdeveloped like Southee or not bowling properly like Jimmy) but they're not pathetic. Reserve that word for our top three.

Nothing wrong with Flynn or Guptill, hardly enough chances to really criticize them now.

I wish Jeets was playing. Southee has been tripe.

 

[Polo23]

Did anyone else notice that in Tendulkar's dismissal, Ross Taylor still had his hands on his knees? Such poor slipping technique, I have no idea how he caught it.

Freakishly good hand eye co-ordination can get you away with poor technique.

 

[masterblaster]

Gambhir on 151!

What a star player he is. Awesome to see him in such great form.

 

[neutralguy]

Well played gambhir.Thanks for clinching india the series.

 

[SJS]

EDIT:There's also one reason (only one) why we haven't slipped below the top 8 in tests in the last 12 moths: our bowlers have generally always dragged us back into the game after they collapse pathetically.

I am not sure staying in the top 8 (with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh at 9 and 10) you are setting much of a bar height are you?

I think New Zealand have been a good fighting unit for a number of reasons. First and foremost they are close to being the best fielding side in the world for a very long time and that makes a lot of difference.

Two, I think the spirit in the Kiwi sides has been something we have always admired. They have always been fighters and have made the most of their limited resources. In the last decade, Fleming has to get a lot of credit for making this side a difficult one to beat.

Three they had built up, from the mid/late nineties onwards, a good side which had a settled look about it so that around the turn of the century they had a phalanx of cricketers which could be built upon and the future looked rosy.

What happened ? Have a look.

I looked at the Kiwi stats from Jan 1997 till date to look at the leading batsmen and bowlers. I set a simple criteria for a good experienced Test cricketer. For the batsmen, I set 2000 runs in Test cricket and a batting average above 35 (Not a big deal in modern times)

Guess how many people qualified? Five. The last of them, Fleming retired last year. The others retired much earlier.

• Richardson (2004)
• Cairns (2004)
• MacMillan (2005)
• Astle (2006)

So other than Fleming New Zealand lost their top notchers between three and five years ago.

Try reducing that 2000 run limit to 1500 and you manage to squeexe Oram and Styris into the list. Dont know if they do much to fill the gap left by the more illustrious five we listed above.

Its not much better with the bowlers.

I took a criteria of 100 Test wickets and an average of under 30 and you get only Cairns. You need to bring that average limit to 34 to be able to squeeze Vettori and Martin in the list. One can say that Zaheer gets his wickets at just under 34 and Harbhajan his at under 32 but then their batsmen average in the fifties, almost all of them that gives their bowlers much more leeway than the Kiwi scores do.

The overall strength of the Kiwi side has greatly diminished. Besides the five batsmen I mentioned you have lost Cairns a great all rounder and in Bond one of the finest fast bowlers to come from that country. The cupboard looks bare at least as far as experienced test cricketers are concerned and I can not recall a Test side that has really stayed close to the top without some solidity of experience.

So whats my point? It is this, that this Kiwi side is young, inexperienced and has some major gaps in the skill sets. These are not going to get filed in a great hurry. Its no one's fault. It happens all the time and NZL is more vulnerable since the pool is so small in a country with low population and so many sports vying for the young person's attention.

Its not even close to being an equal of this Indian side which is blessed with an experienced batting side, a couple os now maturing youngsters, a couple of experienced bowlers (Zaheer and Harbhajan) and a pool of young bowlers in addition. India are in a lucky phase of their cricketing cycle while New Zealand are not. Its not a time for either despair or to look at the wickets or another captain to improve things overnight although Vettori may be relieved to have the pressure off.

The gap between the two sides is HUGE and it wont be bridged soon but it can be in the years to come.

 

[Days of Grace]

Yuvrag to once again plunder a quick ass-saving 50, when all the hard work has already been done for him.