Jarquis
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Look, you're entitled to whatever opinions you like and I'm entitled to call them bull****.Okay, let us start nit-picking. In this "sustained period" you speak of, Broad averages sixty-seven against India (over a grand total of one match). What do I make of it ? Anyway, since you asked me to pick a period I wanted, I chose three years; and guess what - Ishant's and Broad's averages are very similar.
As far as I am concerned - Zaheer > Anderson (only just), Broad and Finn/Tremlett >> Ishant/Sreesanth and Graeme Swann < Harbhajan Singh - I don't necessarily rate Harbhajan Singh higher, but I expect the Indian batsmen to annihilate Swann. Not sure about the English batsmen doing the same to Singh.
Whatever the case, the batting line-ups are at least comparable, which means that if the Indian bowlers can limit the South African line-up to modest totals on lively tracks, then there is a very good chance that they would do the same against England.
One match proves nothing, and although 3 years is a nice period from a statistical point of view for the point you're trying to make, there's no way on this Earth that Broad in 2008 is the same Broad now. As I said, his coming of age series was the WI Away in 2009 and since this period he's improved his performances, for doing so he deserves some credit and attention should be drawn to it. If you can say that Ishant now is a massively improved bowler from his debut.. then go about showing so.
Zaheer and Anderson is so close is basically negligible. I agree with our seamers being better than yours and I think the Swann vs Indian batsmen battle is overstated. You didn't exactly tear him apart on his debut series when he was a much inferior bowler to the one he is nowadays. I don't see how it's at all logical to assume he'd do worse now than he did then. I'd say the opposite for Harbhajan, our batting now is better than it was then and Bhaji certainly hasn't improved in that time period.
And yeah, whatever the case Australia's bowlers are probably better than yours. So if flat tracks turn up look forward to 517/1 and the likes of it.