India Xi vs Pakistan Xi (from 1970s)

[centurymaker]

Let's not forget about their fielding as well which alone makes up for any imaginary gap. And despite India not playing any test series against Pakistan in the last 17 years, head to head record is fairly equal.

Pakistan has won 4 test series vs India
India too has won 4 test series vs Pakistan

Pak won in India in 1987. India won in Pak in 2004.

Test matches won:
Pakistan 12 - 9 India

So Pakistan leads in number of test wins by 3, everything else is equal. That is despite there being no tests between Ind and Pak between 1961-1978 and 2008-2024. India was arguably the better side during both those phases. The famous spin quartet of the mid 60s and 70s. And now Ashwin, Jadeja, Bumrah.

 

[centurymaker]

India had a close H2H record vs Pakistan despite Pakistan having a "superior" ATG team till 2007. Now add Ashwin, Jadeja, Bumrah, Kohli, Pant to the mix and India's ATG team is on equal footing if not better. So you can now bet on India winning more often than not. (Not to mention India's fabulous record vs Pak in world cups).

 

[Coronis]

India had a close H2H record vs Pakistan despite Pakistan having a "superior" ATG team till 2007. Now add Ashwin, Jadeja, Bumrah, Kohli, Pant to the mix and India's ATG team is on equal footing if not better. So you can now bet on India winning more often than not. (Not to mention India's fabulous record vs Pak in world cups).

Doesn’t really have much to do with an ATG context..

 

[centurymaker]

Pakistan had a superior team on paper most of the time yet record was close. So it tells you that Pakistan appear stronger than they actually were. There is a tendency to overrate Pakistan because of what they "could" do sometimes.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

I think Pakistan wins this for now but India will probably win this eventually. Pakistan don’t seem to produce great players anymore for some reason.

 

[capt_Luffy]

You'd back this Indian attack on a neutral ground knowing 2/5 of the bowling would be no factor? Fwiw, i doubt either team would blow away the other.

That's disingenuous to act like Ashwin and Jadeja would be non factors outside SC. Jadeja has a great record in his limited appearances in both Australia and South Africa, and Ashwin genuinely has major contributions in everywhere he played bar SA.

 

[subshakerz]

It is India clearly.

A full strength Pakistan team is better than a full strength Indian team marginally due to the bowling advantage. However, Pakistan bowlers won't be put to park that often. Imran, for instance played only a little over 60% of the matches between his debut and retirement. Wasim and Waqar less than 80%. If these 2 teams play each other in a 5 test series in each of the 8 established test countries, it will be 40 matches. Imran would probably play around 25(it will be even less if you exclude the matches he played as a pure bat). Wasim and Waqar around 30. The top Indian players like Tendulkar, Gavaskar, Dravid and Kapil would be playing around 37-38 matches. India would be expected to win those additional matches when it's top players are playing and Pakistan's aren't.

Really? This is honestly really stretching it. Imran wasnt constantly injured and out of the team like Shoaib. He had a major shin injury midcareer and came back. Before that he debuted very early and struggled to make the side. He also had a premature retirement for a year or so. But he was generally fit.

Imagine India losing injury prone Bumrah for one series outside India, that pretty much is game over for them. Whereas Pakistan can replace their injured pacers with Shoaib or Fazal without losing much potency.

 

[subshakerz]

Doesn’t really have much to do with an ATG context..

Yeah especially when almost all the players in the ATG lineup featured mostly at the time before India gained a H2H advantage

 

[h_hurricane]

Really? This is honestly really stretching it. Imran wasnt constantly injured and out of the team like Shoaib. He had a major shin injury midcareer and came back. Before that he debuted very early and struggled to make the side. He also had a premature retirement for a year or so. But he was generally fit.

Imagine India losing injury prone Bumrah for one series outside India, that pretty much is game over for them. Whereas Pakistan can replace their injured pacers with Shoaib or Fazal without losing much potency.

Imran 'only' played 88 tests. Wasim 104 and Waqar 87. On the other hand Tendulkar played 200, Gavaskar 125, Dravid 164 and Kapil 131. Fast bowlers and fast bowling allrounders quite simply play less tests than batsmen and spinners due to obvious reasons. Kapil is a glorious exception. Fazal was before 70s, hence he is out of equation. Shoaib is injured and mostly unavailable by your own admission. Who else is there ? Asif, who had a very short career and not that proven on flat pitches. Yes, Bumrah will be lost to injuries too often too. When the key bowlers are missed from both teams, it is a direct shoot out between batsmen and spin bowlers, with other quicks roughly of the same quality. India clearly the better team then.

So Pakistan with a marginal advantage when everyone is fit and firing, lets say in 60-70% matches. India runaway favorites in the rest.

 

[Slifer]

No way man. Pakistan were no higher than 4th best, if not 5th best. You are forgetting about West Indies who were the No.1 team in the world till 94/95, which is almost half of the decade.

Pakistan's record at Home -

1995 Lost to SL 2-1
1997 Lost to SA 1-0
1998 Lost to Aus 1-0
1998 Lost to Zim 1-0
1999 Lost to SL 2-1
2000 Lost to Eng 1-0

They lost 6 Test series at home in five years. And they won just 6 Test series at home in the whole decade from 1990 to 2000. In contrast, India lost just one home series in the whole decade, that was in 2000 to SA.

On paper Pakistan "appears" strong but in reality they were often a middling side, based on performances.

Pakistan had the 3rd best win/loss records for the 90s. Look it up.

 

[subshakerz]

Imran 'only' played 88 tests. Wasim 104 and Waqar 87. On the other hand Tendulkar played 200, Gavaskar 125, Dravid 164 and Kapil 131. Fast bowlers and fast bowling allrounders quite simply play less tests than batsmen and spinners due to obvious reasons.

First off, I missed where the criteria between the two ATG teams was the 40 tests over multiple years they have to play between each other. That's pretty much your own self selected criteria to find a way to bring parity for India. Pretty sure most of us just care which team generally is best across conditions or in specific countries based on one-off series projections, not some fantasy WTC.

Second, if you insist on this criteria, neither team will have one set of XI players for 40 games over multiple years, it would be impossible. We will have to talk an entire playing squad then which sort of defeats the purpose of an ATG XI.

Kapil is a glorious exception. Fazal was before 70s, hence he is out of equation. Shoaib is injured and mostly unavailable by your own admission. Who else is there ? Asif, who had a very short career and not that proven on flat pitches. Yes, Bumrah will be lost to injuries too often too. When the key bowlers are missed from both teams, it is a direct shoot out between batsmen and spin bowlers, with other quicks roughly of the same quality. India clearly the better team then.

Yeah you are missing an obvious point. Pakistan has three worldclass pace bowlers, with two worldclass backups in Shoaib and Asif. India have one, Bumrah, who doesn't even have a full career, with no worldclass backup.

Pakistan can afford to have an injury to one or even two of Imran, Wasim and Waqar, and Shoaib and Asif just have to fill in for a short time. Asif was the best new ball bowler the SC has ever seen. Shoaib with less load as third seamer and constant rotation during a series will be even more deadly. He won't be expected to be fit over an entire playing series, just one off tests. It's the ideal scenario for him.

So Pakistan with a marginal advantage when everyone is fit and firing, lets say in 60-70% matches. India runaway favorites in the rest.

No. Pakistan hold the bowling advantage in virtually all games outside India regardless of if any of their top three pacers aren't fit, and almost guaranteed victors outside SC given how much pressure Bumrah will be under in long series to stay fit. Pakistan have the bowlers to rotate for a 5 test match series, Bumrah can't last that long.

 

[Slifer]

Imran 'only' played 88 tests. Wasim 104 and Waqar 87. On the other hand Tendulkar played 200, Gavaskar 125, Dravid 164 and Kapil 131. Fast bowlers and fast bowling allrounders quite simply play less tests than batsmen and spinners due to obvious reasons. Kapil is a glorious exception. Fazal was before 70s, hence he is out of equation. Shoaib is injured and mostly unavailable by your own admission. Who else is there ? Asif, who had a very short career and not that proven on flat pitches. Yes, Bumrah will be lost to injuries too often too. When the key bowlers are missed from both teams, it is a direct shoot out between batsmen and spin bowlers, with other quicks roughly of the same quality. India clearly the better team then.

So Pakistan with a marginal advantage when everyone is fit and firing, lets say in 60-70% matches. India runaway favorites in the rest.

With all due respect i have more faith in Imran, Wasim and Waqar lasting a five test series than Bumrah. That's not even up for debate and if India lose Bumrah they have absolutely no shot.

Anyway, I think in these hypotheticals we all assume players are 100% fit or close to it, so any arguments about fitness is moot.

 

[h_hurricane]

With all due respect i have more faith in Imran, Wasim and Waqar lasting a five test series than Bumrah. That's not even up for debate and if India lose Bumrah they have absolutely no shot.

Anyway, I think in these hypotheticals we all assume players are 100% fit or close to it, so any arguments about fitness is moot.

That is where I respectfully disagree. When you do a hypothetical XI like this, you need to factor in what percentage of matches a player actually missed out in the real career that had. Else how would you know what the team composition of the teams is going to look like, keeping in mind their fitness over a good sample size, that is required to establish which team is better over a variety of conditions.

I do agree that Bumrah is going to miss more matches than the Pakistani trio which is why I brought the supporting players into discussion. And all this is because you brought up the good point of how these teams will perform in a neutral setup (and I thought they need to be given a decent sample size of 5 tests in every established country).

Also, interestingly, India and Pakistan have neck to neck overseas record(excluding BD and Zim) from 1970s onwards which means India has performed as good as Pakistan abroad regardless of lesser bowling firepower. India also has a way better overall record than Pakistan in the same period which means overall team strength is a far better indicator than bowling prowess.

Anyways, I am done with the debate. @subshakerz pulled me into the debate even though my first post was a stand alone one.

 

[ma1978]

First off, I missed where the criteria between the two ATG teams was the 40 tests over multiple years they have to play between each other. That's pretty much your own self selected criteria to find a way to bring parity for India. Pretty sure most of us just care which team generally is best across conditions or in specific countries based on one-off series projections, not some fantasy WTC.

Second, if you insist on this criteria, neither team will have one set of XI players for 40 games over multiple years, it would be impossible. We will have to talk an entire playing squad then which sort of defeats the purpose of an ATG XI.


Yeah you are missing an obvious point. Pakistan has three worldclass pace bowlers, with two worldclass backups in Shoaib and Asif. India have one, Bumrah, who doesn't even have a full career, with no worldclass backup.

Pakistan can afford to have an injury to one or even two of Imran, Wasim and Waqar, and Shoaib and Asif just have to fill in for a short time. Asif was the best new ball bowler the SC has ever seen. Shoaib with less load as third seamer and constant rotation during a series will be even more deadly. He won't be expected to be fit over an entire playing series, just one off tests. It's the ideal scenario for him.


No. Pakistan hold the bowling advantage in virtually all games outside India regardless of if any of their top three pacers aren't fit, and almost guaranteed victors outside SC given how much pressure Bumrah will be under in long series to stay fit. Pakistan have the bowlers to rotate for a 5 test match series, Bumrah can't last that long.

if their bowling is so good why were their results so bad

 

[ma1978]

That is where I respectfully disagree. When you do a hypothetical XI like this, you need to factor in what percentage of matches a player actually missed out in the real career that had. Else how would you know what the team composition of the teams is going to look like, keeping in mind their fitness over a good sample size, that is required to establish which team is better over a variety of conditions.

I do agree that Bumrah is going to miss more matches than the Pakistani trio which is why I brought the supporting players into discussion. And all this is because you brought up the good point of how these teams will perform in a neutral setup (and I thought they need to be given a decent sample size of 5 tests in every established country).

Also, interestingly, India and Pakistan have neck to neck overseas record(excluding BD and Zim) from 1970s onwards which means India has performed as good as Pakistan abroad regardless of lesser bowling firepower. India also has a way better overall record than Pakistan in the same period which means overall team strength is a far better indicator than bowling prowess.

Anyways, I am done with the debate. @subshakerz pulled me into the debate even though my first post was a stand alone one.

the numbers are the same but India has done consistently better in Aus which is the gold standard for world cricket. Pakistan beats up on lesser teams like England

 

[subshakerz]

if their bowling is so good why were their results so bad

They aren't in the period when these greats played. It has become bad the last 20 years when the great pacers retired.

the numbers are the same but India has done consistently better in Aus which is the gold standard for world cricket. Pakistan beats up on lesser teams like England

From the mid-70s to the mid-90s Pakistan when they had fast bowling resources were reasonably competitive in Australia.

But the gold standard was the WI of that time and Pakistan were the best against them.

 

[subshakerz]

I do agree that Bumrah is going to miss more matches than the Pakistani trio which is why I brought the supporting players into discussion. And all this is because you brought up the good point of how these teams will perform in a neutral setup (and I thought they need to be given a decent sample size of 5 tests in every established country).

If that's true then it's game, set, match, Pakistan. India without Bumrah isn't going to be competitive in a series outside India.

Also, interestingly, India and Pakistan have neck to neck overseas record(excluding BD and Zim) from 1970s onwards which means India has performed as good as Pakistan abroad regardless of lesser bowling firepower. India also has a way better overall record than Pakistan in the same period which means overall team strength is a far better indicator than bowling prowess.

They have neck neck record but different periods of dominance depending on when they had better resources. Pakistan dominated in the 80s and 90s, India the last 20 years.

Anyway, I think in these hypotheticals we all assume players are 100% fit or close to it, so any arguments about fitness is moot.

I don't mind bringing fitness up. Like we can't assume Shoaib can last a five test series if he never did in his career. But the Pakistanis simply have more pace options to bank on if I juries do happen.

 

[Patience and Accuracy+Gut]

Depends how long a peak we’re talking about. And how important you consider a spinner to be.

I’m thinking like a 40-50 innings ish peak.
Australia ofc has O’Reilly and Warne but even then I don’t think it’s gonna match Pakistan. Waqar, Imran, Wasim and then you have Akhtar. Imagine facing all 4 at their peak.

 

[subshakerz]

I’m thinking like a 40-50 innings ish peak.
Australia ofc has O’Reilly and Warne but even then I don’t think it’s gonna match Pakistan. Waqar, Imran, Wasim and then you have Akhtar. Imagine facing all 4 at their peak.

Captain Imran using Akthar for short sharp spells would be devastating.

 

[Johan]

Marshall, Ambrose, Holding, Garner

clears.