*Official* - Road to India in England 2011

[Howe_zat]

I didn't so much mean that Cook as a batsman is better in English conditions. As a general rule, very few are in the modern game. So many Test wickets are there for the bat now, and public school choirboy aside, Cook is very much a product of his time.

What I meant is that Cook's form has drawn the comparison very close indeed, and so you may look to the minor advantages to size up where you think these two can be compared. Here, I'd suggest that it's almost always an extra bit of pressure to be the touring player rather than being in your home country, no matter the technicalities. Additionally, Gambhir hasn't toured here before or played any county cricket.

I'm not going to try and write off Gambhir by any standards, partly because he's a cracking batsman, but I'm not going to make any prediction so outlandish because I think this series will be damn close.

 

[Teja.]

Yeah, Fairy Nuff.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I'd actually not be surprised to see Gambhir and Sehwag struggle if we get a typical English summer. Both very definitely have issues with movement.

Same's true for Cook, as it goes tho. No coincidence he was Bradmanesque on the truer, harder pitches in Oz. Averages considerably less in countries where there's more movement on offer (England, SA & NZ, principally).

If the weather stays as it is, however, we could see some roads by the Indian tests.

 

[Jacknife]

Tremlett has bowled really well in his Tests, but my issue with him is whether he can do it over a long time. I don't think people doubted that he could do what he did in Australia, but he has a history of going missing and losing interest, was playing 2nd XI at Hampshire in 2009. I rate what he's done at Test level highly, I am just not as convinced as others that it will definitely continue.

I think in 2009, Tremlett was suffering from the almost constant cycle of playing really well, then getting a call up from England, only to suffer a injury of some kind. I think that cycle by 2009, had taken a toll on him.
But the move to Surrey and a change in training and his fitness and a new environment, away from basically where he'd been all his life , has given him confidence to do, what we saw in the Ashes and the County season before hand.

 

[Cruxdude]

I would be disappointed if we lost this series. Think our bowlers will do enough to get 20 wickets. In swinging condition I expect our bowling to be more than a handful. Should be fun.

 

[Furball]

The extremeness of his call or the direction of it?

Would consider Gambhir better than Cook too myself though It'd be one '>' and not three.

Little bit of both.

I think Gambhir's a smashing player and I reckon he'll score plenty of runs and have at least one significant innings in the series. But he's still to experience English conditions, and could quite conceivably struggle - any time I caught him in the SA series he looked like a guy who'd never played before in his life (although the fact that he looked so ****ing awful at times yet churned out the runs he did speaks volumes for his mental toughness.)

 

[smash84]

Sree better than Tremlett? Funniest thing since you said you were competent in the English language. ****.

 

[Bun]

bun pulling out some classics here

sree better than tremlett? Funniest thing since you said you were competent in the english language. ****.

 

[Shri]

On second thought. I wouldn't mind a drawn series in Eng. As long as we don't lose the series, I will be happy.

 

[GotSpin]

On one level I want both teams to lose.

On a more deeper and meaningful level, i want India to lose

 

[Shri]

On one level I want both teams to lose.

On a more deeper and meaningful level, i want India to lose

You and meaningful? Doesn't compute.

 

[abmk]

India to win one game comfortably and another from an impossible situation with Laxman tonning up, in this series. 2-0 or 2-1 our way is my guess with both teams looking even at the end of the series.

England must be the only major team not to have been 'Laxmaned' so far ... all the other major teams - Aus ( duh ! ), SL, SA,NZ, Pak, WI have been at the receiving end of his crucial/special innings

 

[abmk]

Tremlett is a better bowler than Sree potentially, but he hasn't been that fit

 

[Borges]

On one level I want both teams to lose.

On a more deeper and meaningful level, i want India to lose

Ah! Someone in an enviable win-win situation; the only question remaining being how much can be won. As the historian Peter Gay has astutely pointed out, schadenfreude can be one of the great joys of life.



Back to the topic at hand. Over the years, in any England-India series, one would expect England to win in England and India to win in India. India is a better team now than when they last played in England; but during that period England has improved even more. Add to it that Indian team would be knackered by the time they arrive in England, and I can't see anything other than a fairly comfortable win for England.



Also think that expectations from Sreesanth are way too unrealistic. Essentially, he has produced three good spells in 24 test matches; other than that he has been dire most of the time. Actually, Sreesanth has overachieved in test cricket. It is remarkable that his test record is about as good as his FC record (almost all of it in the quite weak Ranji Plate League, which is akin to the English County Championship Division Two).

Tests: 24 matches, 79 wickets @35.16, SR 60.1, 3 5-fors
FC other than tests: 40 matches, 112 wickets @33.21 SR 59.02, 3 5-fors

To expect even more from him would be unrealistic, IMHO. Just as most people don't expect Pankaj Singh to make waves in test cricket. Even with a FC record ( 50 matches, 191 wickets @25.42, SR 50.4, 12 5-fors, 4 10-fors) much better than Sree's, because he too plays mostly in the Plate League.

As it stands, Indian can just pick Zaheer and PK, and then put the names of some fifteen or so pace bowlers into a hat, and pull out two or three of them at random; it wouldn't make much of a difference any way.

Maybe we also have to take into account the ball that will be used there.. I think England use the Duke ball, Australia have the Kookaburra and India use the SG ball with a more pronounced seam right? Need to see how the Indian bowlers adapt to that change.

AFAIK, the SG is just a more durable version of the Duke; both have almost identical seams. Left to Right: Duke, SG, Kookaburra:

 

[abmk]

This should be the XIs, ideally

India:

Sehwag
Gambhir
Dravid
Sachin
Laxman
Pujara
Dhoni
Harbhajan
Praveen
Zaheer
Sree

England:

Strauss
Cook
Trott
KP
Bell
Morgan
Prior
Broad
Swann
Tremlett
Anderson

 

[Spark]

Do the English posters here agree that Morgan is one of the best six English (...) batsmen at the moment? Seemed a bit iffy in the Pakistan series.

 

[Borges]

Do the English posters here agree that Morgan is one of the best six English (...) batsmen at the moment? Seemed a bit iffy in the Pakistan series.

Indian poster here, but from what little I know, he isn't. Don't think Morgan had done anything near enough to deserve a test cap in the first place.

 

[Bun]

Indian poster here, but from what little I know, he isn't. Don't think Morgan had done anything near enough to deserve a test cap in the first place.

Yeah someone like Yuvi who has occupied the spot through ODI exploits imho too. Don't know whether there is stiff compeition for that spot.

 

[tooextracool]

A bit hard to predict this series because it depends a lot on selection. My personal opinion is that our batting is very ordinary (we bat down to 3) with Pietersen and Morgan being liabilities and Prior and Bell yet unproven against the moving ball. Theres absolutely no chance that we compare with Sehwag, Gambhir,Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman etc.

As far as bowling is concerned, a lot depends on selection, I pray to God that Bresnan isnt picked but if we have our best bowling attack on the park at any given time, we have a far better bowling outfit in England than our rivals. At the end of the day its too close to call, I expect that in home conditions we will be favorites, but I think it could boil down to selections from both teams.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Do the English posters here agree that Morgan is one of the best six English (...) batsmen at the moment? Seemed a bit iffy in the Pakistan series.

Probably not, in all honesty. His technique isn't, for me at least, tight enough to properly make a go of tests. He does have a great temperament and is a lovely manipulator of the ball, very wristy for an English (yeah, yeah...) player. He's earned the right to fail.

I've little doubt he'll play the SL tests (short of injury) and will probably do sufficiently well to be retained as he is a great player of mediocre bowling, as he's demonstrated in his ODI/T20i career so far.

Zaheer will be entirely diff proposition.