Best team since Waugh/ Ponting’s Australia?

[Slifer]

we put up a fight and even won once or twice against wi with just gavaskar and kapil supported by numpties

we can repeat that with rohit and bumrah supported by numpties

India won zero tests vs peak in the 80s. Where are you getting your facts from? India drew at home in 1988 in a series where WI only front line bowler was Courtney Walsh. And WI actually were well on their way to going 2-0 after two tests, were it not for the weather. If Rohit or whoever ever faced Marshall, Holding , Garner and any other 4th bowler at say Sabina Park without bouncer restrictions and no helmets, then they would die.

 

[sunilz]

India won zero tests vs peak in the 80s. Where are you getting your facts from? India drew at home in 1988 in a series where WI only front line bowler was Courtney Walsh. And WI actually were well on their way to going 2-0 after two tests, were it not for the weather. If Rohit or whoever ever faced Marshall, Holding , Garner and any other 4th bowler at say Sabina Park without bouncer restrictions and no helmets, then they would die.

You know you can ignore these posts . ?

 

[PaulLennon]

Comfortably smash? No. Probably edge by one test. Similar to what happened the last time Australia toured India. England lost 3-1 in India recently and neither of WI or Australia are remotely as poor as that team.

And they won't be competitive away. For goodness sake, it wasn't too long ago India got blanked in NZ. I voted for Kohli's India above but please don't get carried away.

England won that 1 test cause half the bowling attack was injured in Australia (Jadeja, Shami, Umesh who all average 20 in India). Even when Aus last time toured Ind, Ind was missing Shami who averages 21 in Ind and Axar hadn't even debuted.

I am assuming we are going to be having these hypothetical series with fully fit XIs. If you are comparing a hypothetical fully fit Australian/WI all time XI all in form then it has to be with a hypothetical Kohli XI all in form and fully fit.

India getting blanked in NZ has nothing to do with winning in India.

Rohit
Rahul/Vijay
Pujara
Kohli
Rahane
Pant
Ashwin (avg 20 in India)
Jadeja (avg 20 in India)
Axar (avg 10 in India)
Shami (avg 20 in India)
Umesh (avg 20 in India)

all fully fit all in form would smash any XI you make out of the great Aus/WI teams.

WI have collapsed to Hirwani and Aus have collapsed to Harbhajan with no supporting spinners or pacers. Against this spin troika with the pacers - good luck. As long as the batsmen make 250 (which far inferior Indian batting lineups have against the all time Aus/WI teams at home) Ind will win each match by a margin of 150 runs/8 wickets or more.

 

[PaulLennon]

India won zero tests vs peak in the 80s. Where are you getting your facts from? India drew at home in 1988 in a series where WI only front line bowler was Courtney Walsh. And WI actually were well on their way to going 2-0 after two tests, were it not for the weather. If Rohit or whoever ever faced Marshall, Holding , Garner and any other 4th bowler at say Sabina Park without bouncer restrictions and no helmets, then they would die.

If Viv or whoever faced Ashwin, Jadeja, Axar, Shami, Umesh at say Kanpur with DRS, they would average 3

 

[Slifer]

You know you can ignore these posts . ?

Good idea. Smh @ paullennon.

 

[PaulLennon]

Ganguly's India drew a series in Aus and Imran's Pak in WI and current India is better than both.

 

[sunilz]

This is why IND should continue to lose series from time to time . Because then posts like above won't be made. It is completely embarrassing.

 

[PaulLennon]

This is why IND should continue to lose series from time to time . Because then posts like above won't be made. It is completely embarrassing.

Naah. A fully fit and inform Ind at home would defeat any lineup that ever played cricket over a series at home.

 

[Xix2565]

Don't worry, a lot of posts here denigrating India for no reason have been embarrassing as well. Apparently facts and records don't matter when people don't like them and we have to go on feelings to make judgements.

 

[Kilowatt]

England won that 1 test cause half the bowling attack was injured in Australia (Jadeja, Shami, Umesh who all average 20 in India). Even when Aus last time toured Ind, Ind was missing Shami who averages 21 in Ind and Axar hadn't even debuted.

I am assuming we are going to be having these hypothetical series with fully fit XIs. If you are comparing a hypothetical fully fit Australian/WI all time XI all in form then it has to be with a hypothetical Kohli XI all in form and fully fit.

India getting blanked in NZ has nothing to do with winning in India.

Rohit
Rahul/Vijay
Pujara
Kohli
Rahane
Pant
Ashwin (avg 20 in India)
Jadeja (avg 20 in India)
Axar (avg 10 in India)
Shami (avg 20 in India)
Umesh (avg 20 in India)

all fully fit all in form would smash any XI you make out of the great Aus/WI teams.

WI have collapsed to Hirwani and Aus have collapsed to Harbhajan with no supporting spinners or pacers. Against this spin troika with the pacers - good luck. As long as the batsmen make 250 (which far inferior Indian batting lineups have against the all time Aus/WI teams at home) Ind will win each match by a margin of 150 runs/8 wickets or more.

India will comfortably smash the Aussies (lost to SS Das & co in '01 haha).

Peak WI will be competitive with those 4 fast bowlers, even with India at its peak. Helmets will probably reduce some of their competitiveness probably though. As will Umesh and Shami bringing the fire back in the WI innings.

 

[ma1978]

Yes this isn’t an insult to the early 2010s RSA team - they were fantastic

just an acknowledgment that we are watching something prettyhistoric with this Indian team. And I think picking apart pieces takes away from what the sum has achieved

 

[ma1978]

India will comfortably smash the Aussies (lost to SS Das & co in '01 haha).

Peak WI will be competitive with those 4 fast bowlers, even with India at its peak. Helmets will probably reduce some of their competitiveness probably though. As will Umesh and Shami bringing the fire back in the WI innings.

it also took the greatest test comeback of all time tobeat the Aussies.

 

[PaulLennon]

it also took the greatest test comeback of all time tobeat the Aussies.

But it did happen.

And in 04 they failed to chase 107 and got saved by rain in Chennai. And again that team was way weaker than the current team.

 

[Teja.]

Well I agree. The reason I am emphasizing looking at the actual teams rather than just W/L ratios is that you can compare their weaknesses and strengths as a side before making a judgment on who is better. Posters here are clearly just trying to narrow down on the stats criteria that suits India, which is home record, to prove that it is a better team. In fact, superior home record is the only argument they have.

I'll preface this by saying that SA is probably the correct answer to this thread even though I think it was a highly underwhelming team compared to true ATG sides and did not achieve any degree of dominance in order to be called an ATG side. It was just a consistently good unit and on the same level of the other teams mentioned here.

Having said the above, the point though is that on paper, that SA side was filled with ATGs and world class players from top to bottom and were extremely well rounded yet they they routinely drew against teams nowhere close to that quality on paper and dropped series at home to teams which again on paper were worse. One of the worst Indian bowling line ups of modern history (thanks to Zaheer's injury) matched them comfortably in SA in 10/11.

You are trying to assess the quality of a side based on the quality of a players. That makes sense when you are trying to predict a future event. However, when analysing the quality of sides of the past, quality of individual players matters very little and the actual data/results is what we should go by.

You are basically doing equity analysis when you should be doing data analysis.

 

[PaulLennon]

Even when WI won in Ind in 84, they won 3 and drew 3 and in the three drawn matches India had huge leads. It's just that the bowling attack was Dev with primary spinners Maninder Singh and Ravi Shastri lol.

I expect the pace quartet to do well but Ind will scrape their way to 250ish and then WI will be bundled for low scores.

 

[ma1978]

I'll preface this by saying that SA is probably the correct answer to this thread even though I think it was a highly underwhelming team compared to true ATG sides and did not achieve any degree of dominance in order to be called an ATG side. It was just a consistently good unit and on the same level of the other teams mentioned here.

Having said the above, the point though is that on paper, that SA side was filled with ATGs and world class players from top to bottom and were extremely well rounded yet they they routinely drew against teams nowhere close to that quality on paper and dropped series at home to teams which again on paper were worse. One of the worst Indian bowling line ups of modern history (thanks to Zaheer's injury) matched them comfortably in SA in 10/11.

You are trying to assess the quality of a side based on the quality of a players. That makes sense when you are trying to predict a future event. However, when analysing the quality of sides of the past, quality of individual players matters very little and the actual data/results we have is what we should go by.

You are basically doing equity analysis when you should be doing data analysis.

The challenge here is that the data we have to evaluate players and teams in cricket is weak at best.

I don’t disagree that on paper that RSA team feels a lot better than the present Indian team but the present Indian team hasmaterially better results

so the question is whether this is luck and will adjust itself or whether there’s something that can be missing. That something could be intangible but assuming it’s tangible

- it could be because this Indian team has no real bowling weakness and there fourth and fifthbowlers are better and 1-3 are comparable

- it could be Jadeja (no joke) who is statistically an ATG all rounder

- it could be that having a world class spinner is more valuable than we think.

 

[trundler]

It will all be balanced when Pakistan crush India in the 2023 WTC final at Ahmedabad.

 

[PaulLennon]

I'll preface this by saying that SA is probably the correct answer to this thread even though I think it was a highly underwhelming team compared to true ATG sides and did not achieve any degree of dominance in order to be called an ATG side. It was just a consistently good unit and on the same level of the other teams mentioned here.

Having said the above, the point though is that on paper, that SA side was filled with ATGs and world class players from top to bottom and were extremely well rounded yet they they routinely drew against teams nowhere close to that quality on paper and dropped series at home to teams which again on paper were worse. One of the worst Indian bowling line ups of modern history (thanks to Zaheer's injury) matched them comfortably in SA in 10/11.

You are trying to assess the quality of a side based on the quality of a players. That makes sense when you are trying to predict a future event. However, when analysing the quality of sides of the past, quality of individual players matters very little and the actual data/results we have is what we should go by.

You are basically doing equity analysis when you should be doing data analysis.

Like I have mentioned, cricket isn't between best XIs but best squads. And current Ind's top 30 players are way way better than that SA side's.

Amla, ABDV, Kallis, Faf, Smith, Steyn, Morkel, Philander were great but they also had Alviro Petersen, Tsotsobe, Robin Petersen, Tahir etc. I don't think there has been anyone who has played 5+ matches for India since 2015 has been "bad" per se.

 

[PaulLennon]

It will all be balanced when Pakistan crush India in the 2023 WTC final at Ahmedabad.

Naah. Pakistan might even lose to NZ and Aus at home (if they send first XIs).

 

[Kilowatt]

Comfortably smash? No. Probably edge by one test. Similar to what happened the last time Australia toured India. England lost 3-1 in India recently and neither of WI or Australia are remotely as poor as that team.

And they won't be competitive away. For goodness sake, it wasn't too long ago India got blanked in NZ. I voted for Kohli's India above but please don't get carried away.

Wow, conveniently ignore the number of injuries India was carrying in the Eng series (missing 4 first choice bowlers in the 1st test) and then complain about WI missing players in the very next post. India lost to NZ once (the ATG NZ side, much better than the one 80's WI lost and drew with) and that wipes out all of their other away performances. What is wrong with you.