I'm glad you recognise your own lack of intelligence. I think you fail to remember that the India vs Aus series in 2017 went down to the last test and Australia's bowlers were able to take a lot of wickets in that series.
just because someone throws out bait doesn't mean you have to go fishing
The overall Melbourne pitch offered more to the bowlers than in 2014. That series was the worst series of flat decks I've ever seen.
not on day 1 it didn't
i think the argument is kind of the logical extreme of the whole "bowlers win test matches, batsmen save them" logic of cricketingview and the like, which basically says that test match wins are basically overwhelmingly down to the bowling only. which i find a indefensibly simplistic view of the game.
It wasn't as though Pujara and Kohli had been suspended prior to the series though.
Don't know about this. It was flat but I felt it wasn't anywhere near as flat as the thread made it out to be. And Day 2 onwards there was enough there .
it wasn't so much the movement as painfully, horribly slow. which meant it was really really hard to actively get anyone out, they basically had to get themselves out. 2014 wasn't that slow. it did quicken up later, granted.
True. But this is about whether the Indian bowlers could take enough wickets. Days 3-5 offered enough to take 20 wickets.
my pet theory on 2017 is the difference between the two sides was actually david warner, i.e. the fact that he basically went missing the whole series. if he had played one (one!) innings of genuine substance when it counted, then really australia would have likely won that series.
Yeah. 4 Tests is plenty of time to have an impact and he was supposed to be in form. If he can't average ~40 in a home series against India when he's supposedly in the form of his life I don't see much of a future in him.
I know that turnarounds in test matches are pretty rare overall (and I seem to remember that someone did some stats stuff and found that drubbings are more common than not), but you're sure right there haven't been many Australian matches I can remember at least where it wasn't quite clear by the end of day 2 who was going to win over the past few years. Even relatively balanced matches seem to be a rarity here.
My point is that it wouldn't have taken much for Australia to have won that series. Snag Pujara early a couple of times and it's have been 2-1 Australia.
The other interesting parallel is both sides having better bowling attacks than batting line ups. That said, Pujara has been immense in this series and good on him for working on his technique (and good on the coaching staff too who seem to get constant ridicule, mostly justified though) and ensuring he has enough scoring options to make his strength in occupying the crease, be the difference between the sides.
eh i think india would have won anyway tbh even if aus had gotten, say, 270 odd. you can't change one thing and assume everything afterwards happens as before.
In SA it is batsmen that win test matches.... a hundred in SA is pure gold, sometimes more important than taking a 5 for.
Yeah, he did fluke a 50 at Dharmasala despite being dropped first ball of the match. Just did not trust his defensive technique at all that tour.
yeah i think it's entirely based on an incredibly naive statistical analysis which shows that - shock - wins are correlated with 5fors. and yes, you have to take 20 wickets to win a game, but it completely ignores the much more complex and subtle web of interdependencies which makes test cricket such a rich game in the first place.
