Ganguly = Legend.. Dont u reckon

[Sanz]

b/s, its fairly obvious to anyone that ganguly lacks in terms of intelligence on the field. have you even taken the time to look at some of ganguly's field placings instead of making such rubbish claims?
hussain has taken england from the dirt, they had no world class players at all, got them to beat pakistan and SL away from home, and put them back as one of the top test teams. ganguly has taken a bunch of world class players and got them to perform better away from home.

BS, When Ganguly took the team, India were plagued with the match fixing allegetions, its main players were under investigation, no one knew who was involved and who wasn't, Its coach was under investigation, we had lost our first home series in Years, Our ODI team was aging. Soon Azharuddin was banned and so was our mainstay in the ODI team Ajay Jadeja. Look what happened to SA after Cronje was gone, same could have happened to India, But under Ganguly Indian team got to newer heights (with our standards of course).

As for our so called world class players, We had only one world class player (Sachin Tendulkar) in the team and his confidence was also shattered because of the loss in Australia and then in India. Dravid wasn't world class by then, neither was laxman, Kumble was world class as long as we played in India. Sehwag, Yuvraj, Kaif, Harbhajan, Pathan, Parthiv, Zaheer, Nehra, Laxman, Dravid all succeed under him and because of him. Trust me Dravid was laughing stock as a ODI batsman, he was even kicked out of the team once or twice, but under Ganguly's leadership he flourished as a batsman, so did Laxman.

And if leading a team of superstars works against someone then, Even Clive Lloyd is not a legend, neither is Steve Waugh, Nor Imran Khan, Even Mr. Brearly had Ian Botham and Bob Willis at their best and that leaves us with Stephen Fleming and Marvan Attapattu.

PS :- Hussain did have players like Mike Artherton, Daren Gough, Alec Stewart, Graham Thorpe, Andrew flintoff, Trescothick and Caddick. Hussain had a better bowling attack than Sourav had. Ganguly had better batsmen than Hussain did. Kind of evens it out.

 

[Sanz]

and remind me what ganguly did in that series?

Lead, maybe ?? India were in a much better position in the second test and had it not rained there was a good chance(at least 50%) that we would have levelled the series.

Dravid failed to inspire his own cricketers so much that its young Wicket Keeper had to rush to the Video Clipping of his performances against Pakistan during the Lunch and Tea breaks. That Poor Parthiv Patel had to look to Adam Gilchrist for help. If it doesn't tell the sorry state of the Indian team what does ?

 

[Sanz]

neither of course did his 148 and 81 against an attack of pollock,donald,kulsener in his prime and macmillan in SA. nearly won them that game too.
or for that matter his 3 100s in england.....
or his 76 in the recent series against NZ in NZ, where the next best score in that inning was 19.

short term memory can be amazing cant it?

It's funny that you talk about his centuries in England as if he saved the match or won the match for India or something. Take a look at those matches and watch out the batting performances of Sachin & Ganguly as well. Any Indian who has watched the Headingley test match remembers it for the awesome fireworks by Sachin and Ganguly on Day 2 before Ganguly got out, ofcourse the foundation was led by Dravid and Bangar on the first day.

Okay 148 in SA against Donald and Co., I give you that one. One 100+ innings in the Pre-Ganguly era, ironically that was his only 100+ score in hist first 8or 9 series.

 

[tooextracool]

BS, When Ganguly took the team, India were plagued with the match fixing allegetions, its main players were under investigation, no one knew who was involved and who wasn't, Its coach was under investigation, we had lost our first home series in Years, Our ODI team was aging. Soon Azharuddin was banned and so was our mainstay in the ODI team Ajay Jadeja. Look what happened to SA after Cronje was gone, same could have happened to India, But under Ganguly Indian team got to newer heights (with our standards of course).

what happened to SA? they got worse around 03, when they lost cullinan,rhodes,donald and pollock lost his pace, interestingly that was after pollock lost his captaincy. they even went on to win the test championships after cronje left. know your facts before coming up with such ridiculous comments.
and yes india lost one home series, its not exactly insult when a very good team like SA defeats you at home, it certainly doesnt make you one of the worst teams in the world.

As for our so called world class players, We had only one world class player (Sachin Tendulkar) in the team and his confidence was also shattered because of the loss in Australia and then in India. Dravid wasn't world class by then,

dravid was not world class???? the man was averaging more than 50.

neither was laxman, Kumble was world class as long as we played in India. Sehwag, Yuvraj, Kaif, Harbhajan, Pathan, Parthiv, Zaheer, Nehra, Laxman, Dravid all succeed under him and because of him. Trust me Dravid was laughing stock as a ODI batsman, he was even kicked out of the team once or twice, but under Ganguly's leadership he flourished as a batsman, so did Laxman.

this is really the epitome of stupidity. apparently players dont deserve anything for improving their own game or being world class, ganguly does.

And if leading a team of superstars works against someone then, Even Clive Lloyd is not a legend, neither is Steve Waugh, Nor Imran Khan, Even Mr. Brearly had Ian Botham and Bob Willis at their best and that leaves us with Stephen Fleming and Marvan Attapattu.

you're kinda forgetting about something, those people actually produced brilliant results. ganguly has produced better results, certainly losing to WI in WI, being destroyed in SA and being incapable of winning in zimbabwe suggest that ganguly hasnt exactly been as brilliant as you make him out to be.

PS :- Hussain did have players like Mike Artherton, Daren Gough, Alec Stewart, Graham Thorpe, Andrew flintoff, Trescothick and Caddick. Hussain had a better bowling attack than Sourav had. Ganguly had better batsmen than Hussain did. Kind of evens it out.

this is amazing, for someone to suggest that dravid was not world class, and then to put players like trescothick and caddick ahead of him is frankly an insult to dravids abilities.
hussain took over in 99 i'll remind you. there was no trescothick(not like hes world class anyways), flintoff was his complete rubbish and was barely even in the squad for most of hussain's reign, and caddick was not by my definition world class either.
and as bad as india's bowling attack was they did have srinath, who IMO was just about as good if not better than gough. kumble and harbhajan are both at least world class at home, as opposed to some of englands bowlers(bar gough and to an extent caddick) who were picked at the time.

 

[tooextracool]

Lead, maybe ?? India were in a much better position in the second test and had it not rained there was a good chance(at least 50%) that we would have levelled the series.

and how many runs did he score? no player is worht his place in the squad if he cant score runs. so instead of blaming everything on dravid, how about looking at how brilliant tendulkar,laxman and ganguly were. or how brilliant zaheer,pathan,agarkar and the rest were.

Dravid failed to inspire his own cricketers so much that its young Wicket Keeper had to rush to the Video Clipping of his performances against Pakistan during the Lunch and Tea breaks. That Poor Parthiv Patel had to look to Adam Gilchrist for help. If it doesn't tell the sorry state of the Indian team what does ?

again have i said that dravid was a better leader? all im doing is refuting a rather stupid statement of yours that the loss should all be blamed on dravid.

 

[tooextracool]

It's funny that you talk about his centuries in England as if he saved the match or won the match for India or something. Take a look at those matches and watch out the batting performances of Sachin & Ganguly as well. Any Indian who has watched the Headingley test match remembers it for the awesome fireworks by Sachin and Ganguly on Day 2 before Ganguly got out, ofcourse the foundation was led by Dravid and Bangar on the first day.

the only time there was any movementon that headingly wicket was in the first session, and it was dravid and banagar who got them through it so that the the FTBs could come in later and tear the attack apart.
and did you by any chance watch the match at the oval?if it wasnt for dravids 217, india would have quite conceivably lost that game, given that the highest score after him was 54.

Okay 148 in SA against Donald and Co., I give you that one. One 100+ innings in the Pre-Ganguly era, ironically that was his only 100+ score in hist first 8or 9 series

oh yes so ganguly deserves credit for every dravid classy performance since he turned captain, brilliant that.
not surprising either that you ignored his performances in NZ either, of course ganguly deserves all the credit for that.

 

[SJS]

You would be surprised

"That is the sort of memory that anyone would want to leave: of a man who dug his country out of a hole." CMJ then even compared Hussain to past world leaders, due to his fighting qualities. "In his finest hours, if it is not to imbue him with too much glory, there could be something Churchillian about Hussain's defiance. He certainly played better when he felt he was engaged more in a war than a game of cricket. He guarded his wicket as if with a tiger's snarl and placed his scoring shots shrewdly."

"From dancing in the dark under the Ramadan moonlight in Karachi to the winning cover-drive against New Zealand at Lord's on Monday, Hussain lifted English cricket by its bootstraps and regained a nation's pride."

There are many who do consider Nasser as a legend, but I respect your opinion.

If anyone who has had an article or more written in his praise is a legend, I we can definitely call Nasser a legend along with about 1500 others

 

[Sanz]

TEC, before we discuss any furthur IMO, Here are a few things you should check :-

1.No. of World Class players played for Mike Brearly, Clive Lloyd and Steve Waugh

2.Year of Retirement from Test Cricket for Donald, Cullinan & Rhodes

3. Performance of SA team under Cronje and Pollock.

4. Average of Rahul Dravid Pre and Post Ganguly era as Captain

5. Quality Batsmen Played under Nasser Hussain

6. Caddick/Gough vs any Indian bowling pair (in non-subcontinet pitches, India obviously were better at home and therefore unbeaten for almost 15 years)

7. Ganguly's record vs. other Indian Legends such as Gavaskar, Kapil etc both as a captain and as a Player.

8. Indian Team's away and home records under Ganguly vs. other Indian captains

9. No. of Tests Trescothick, Flintoff played under Vaughan.

10. For Away series or bowlers suited for non-Subcontinet pitches, Pick one of Gough-Caddick-White-Cork-Mullally-Flintoff-Harmission-Giles OR Srinath-Prasad-Zaheer-Nehra-Pathan-Balaji-Agarkar-Kumble-Harbhajan

 

[Sanz]

If anyone who has had an article or more written in his praise is a legend, I we can definitely call Nasser a legend along with about 1500 others

SJS, Let me tell you this (at the risk of sounding Politically incorrect), Had Nasser been an all English Boy born and raised in England, He would have gotten much more respect and would definately have gotten much more respect and IMO he does deserve more respect.

I will give you some examples:- Here in USA, People say that it will take years before an African American becomes the president, no matter how good he/she is.

PS :- I posted that link because steds claimed that no one thinks of Hussain as a Legend. Well Apart from the few articles, all he needs to pay a visit to the local Asian community and check with them. I just got up watching 'Bend it Like Beckham' and was surprised when 'Jess' mentions 'Nasser Hussain's name to her dad while trying to convince him.

 

[tooextracool]

TEC, before we discuss any furthur IMO, Here are a few things you should check :-

1.No. of World Class players played for Mike Brearly, Clive Lloyd and Steve Waugh

yes i know, i wasnt the one who brought them into the argument, it was you who did so. under ganguly, indias performances were better in what 2 test series, 1 of which was against an under strength aussie side, in which once again they couldnt provide the killer blow and win the series. look at the rest of their performances, extremely poor in NZ,extremely poor in WI, decent in england, poor in SL.
does that suggest to you that hes been brilliant?
and i dont rate waugh highly as a captain, he was decent and lucky enough to have quality players.

2.Year of Retirement from Test Cricket for Donald, Cullinan & Rhodes
3. Performance of SA team under Cronje and Pollock.

so we're talking solely about test cricket then? whenever its convenient you switch from either side. apparently the match-fixing scandal only affected the test side
and instead of telling me to check things up, look at SA's test performances after pollock took over. other than those 2 series against australia they couldnt have been too much better.
they won a test and drew the series in SL, no lean achievemet whatsoever, given that australia performed worse than them in SL a year before. then they beat the WI in the WI,hammered SL,NZ and india at home. and then the next year they beat both pakistan and SL at home. where exactly is this decline you talk about?

 

[Sanz]

the only time there was any movementon that headingly wicket was in the first session, and it was dravid and banagar who got them through it so that the the FTBs could come in later and tear the attack apart.
and did you by any chance watch the match at the oval?if it wasnt for dravids 217, india would have quite conceivably lost that game, given that the highest score after him was 54.

You are one funny man, because that headingly test you are talking about it was Bangar(faced 39 overs) who blunted the attack more than Dravid(faced
33 overs when Bangar got out), Since then Sachin came and faced 8 overs on the first day and then played out the whole 2nd day and then also played on the 3rd day. If the pitch became flat then how come the English batsmen couldn't last 2 and 1/2 days ?

As for Oval test, Yes, I did watch Oval test gave up watching after 3rd day knowing the result already. I mean what do you expect when the 2 inning goes on until tea on the 4th day. It was the most boring test match I watched since 1980s.

oh yes so ganguly deserves credit for every dravid classy performance since he turned captain, brilliant that.
not surprising either that you ignored his performances in NZ either, of course ganguly deserves all the credit for that.

If Ganguly gets the blame for everything, then he should get the credit for everything as well.

 

[Sanz]

yes i know, i wasnt the one who brought them into the argument, it was you who did so. under ganguly, indias performances were better in what 2 test series, 1 of which was against an under strength aussie side, in which once again they couldnt provide the killer blow and win the series. look at the rest of their performances, extremely poor in NZ,extremely poor in WI, decent in england, poor in SL.
does that suggest to you that hes been brilliant?
and i dont rate waugh highly as a captain, he was decent and lucky enough to have quality players.

Oh so now you dont rate Waugh highly as captain ?? Once again you are comparing with the Lloyd/Brearlystandards. Tell me how many Indian captains in the past have won a series in Pakista, How many Indian captains have won Tests overseas, how many of them have taken their teams to ICC trophy finals, World Cup Finals, and other 10 finals (true he lost most of the finals but most of the losses were to a freak team called Australia), How many Indiancaptains have the credit of beating the Top team of their time (in Gangs case Australia), Drawing a series in Australia. I am not telling that Ganguly is a legend for the cricket fans all over the world, What I am saying is compared to so called Indian legens like Sunny Gavaskar, Kapildev etc, Gangs achievement as a captain are much better and there is a very valid reason to put him in the same category, if not above. Her personal performance isn't bad either. IMO, he would have been much more successful in Tests had we not made him the captain.

As for SA, I am talking over all, Tests and ODIs, Cullinan stoppped playing Odis in 2001, Donald and Rhodes hung around until 2003 World Cup. The simple reason Pollock was successful that the team he got was built by Hansie, the moment those players started retiring, his real talent as captain showed up. Look where they are right now.

Sourav's case is opposite, he has built this team with some young talent and some experience, he has given the youngsters enough confidence and told them not to worry about their positiion in the team due to some failures, plus he has been able to recognize the right talent who have the potential to succeed at the world level. He has also managed to handle the Kumble/Harbhajan issue pretty well.

 

[SJS]

SJS, Let me tell you this (at the risk of sounding Politically incorrect), Had Nasser been an all English Boy born and raised in England, He would have gotten much more respect and would definately have gotten much more respect and IMO he does deserve more respect.

I will give you some examples:- Here in USA, People say that it will take years before an African American becomes the president, no matter how good he/she is.

I am afraid Sanz. I very strongly disagree.

I think Nasser got great respect in England and to suggest he got less than he deserved is not just politically incorrect, its much worse. But its something I prefer not to go into beyond what I have just said. This is not just raking upa sensitive mater, it is doing so when no trace of one is present and I dont want to be a part of this.

As far as Nasser's merits as a cricketer are concerned. These are my views.
As a batsman :
- He was not a naturally gifted player and his peformances as a batsman are not earth shattering by any stretch of imagination. In a strong england batting side (and if he wasnt captain) he may have stuggled to get in.
- His main strength as a batsman was his temprament and even more so his tremendous fighting spirit. (Not an inherited Indian trait wouldnt you agree, kidding). This allowed him to rise above his limitations as a batsman and produce quite a few memorable performances which stand out in an overall (career average and other stats wise) very moderate achievements.

As a captain :
- His main contribution to a tottering England side that he inherited and which everyone had got used to kicking around, was to provide a leadership that 'ignored'(stopped delving on) the weaknesses of the team and stopped behaving in a 'come-kick-us-some-more' manner. He brought a strong sense of pride which was clearly missing before him and this is his major contribution to English cricket. The value of this can not be underplayed.
- In this respect he is similar to Ganguly since Ganguly too brought a positive attitude to the Indian team. However, I rate Nasser's achievements more significant because Ganguly had a much more talented side while Nasser did not have that much of talent at his disposal. This difference between the talents of the two teams' individual members also accounts for the overall achiements of the teams under them but this can not devalue Nasser's contribution. What he gave to English cricket should not be measured in terms of matches won alone.
- On the on-field-tactics front, however, Nasser was no where near being a great captain (I feel the same about Ganguly). His handling of Giles and reducing him to a negative bowler in the face of a Tendulkar is just one example of his lack of creative ideas. In fact, his penchant for very frequent field changes, at times three time in an over, did not show him as a captain who had a clue as to what he wanted to do. He just seemed to believe in keeping on doing something and give the impression of being always thinking and calculating. (not conciously I am sure). Thus any comparison with Brearley is absolutely ridiculous. Just as comparing Ganguly with the likes of Pataudi or even Jaisimha and Ashok Mankad (who I know never led India) is laughable.

Building team spirit, positive attitude etc is an important part of captaincy and both Ganguly and Nasser have done their bits in this regard. But in a settled team finally what is ALSO required of a captain is on the field tactical acumen and here both Ganguly and Nasser are very ordinary indeed.

I dont think, therefore, that Nasser, on the basis of his achievements, either as an England batsman or as an England captain can be put in a legends category and history is not going to offer him that status. If a few cricket fans want to do that, its fine. After all everyone is entitled to their opinions, aren't they ?

 

[tooextracool]

4. Average of Rahul Dravid Pre and Post Ganguly era as Captain

and that has nothing to do with the fact that dravid hit his prime does it?

5. Quality Batsmen Played under Nasser Hussain

theres a clear difference between players who are quality and players who average over 50 i can assure you. thorpe,stewart and atherton are the only players who were world class and all 3 of them just about got past the 40 average.
tendulkar,dravid had averaged about 10-15 runs more than them.
add that to laxman,ganguly and later sehwag, certainly adds up to a pretty good batting lineup. as opposed to hick,ramprakash,white,crawley,butcher etc.

6. Caddick/Gough vs any Indian bowling pair (in non-subcontinet pitches, India obviously were better at home and therefore unbeaten for almost 15 years)

caddick as we've all known has struggled just about as much as kumble has on non turning wickets on non seaming wickets, so id say hes the equivalent of kumble away, and kumble at home is definetly far better than caddick at any point of his career.
id say that gough and srinath are equivalent home or away as well.
and i dont think there is too much difference between giles,hoggard and zaheer khan,harbhajan singh etc.
of course at least singh was better than giles in sub continental conditions and bowled far more often in those conditions.

7. Ganguly's record vs. other Indian Legends such as Gavaskar, Kapil etc both as a captain and as a Player.

im not gonna look around and waste my time on those captaincy records, i think the fact that ganguly has been incapable of winning in zimbabwe,SL and WI says that hes not been too much better.

8. Indian Team's away and home records under Ganguly vs. other Indian captains

and ive argued this when?
ive stated time and time again that ganguly is the best that you've got, hes done a good job. if you look carefully ive even gone on to defend ganguly against those that state that ganguly should be dropped as captain. for you to come here and call ganguly a legend for his brilliant captaincy record and the like is plain ridiculous especially after being incapable to lead a clearly superior side to victory in zimbabwe and the WI.

9. No. of Tests Trescothick, Flintoff played under Vaughan.

err your point is? i dont rate tresco irrespective.
flintoff certainly has certainly not done too much until the last 1.5 years.

10. For Away series or bowlers suited for non-Subcontinet pitches, Pick one of Gough-Caddick-White-Cork-Mullally-Flintoff-Harmission-Giles OR Srinath-Prasad-Zaheer-Nehra-Pathan-Balaji-Agarkar-Kumble-Harbhajan

lets leave harmison and flintoff out of this for this argument, given that neither of them were anywhere near as good when hussain played as they are now.
id pick srinath,gough,kumble and white/caddick as my bowlers.
2 indian bowlers and 2 english bowlers, certainly seems about even to me.

 

[tooextracool]

You are one funny man, because that headingly test you are talking about it was Bangar(faced 39 overs) who blunted the attack more than Dravid(faced
33 overs when Bangar got out),

your point is? so if bangar batted 6 overs more than dravid clearly dravid doesnt deserve any credit for his innings while bangar does, despite dravid not getting out and batting through the entire day......

Since then Sachin came and faced 8 overs on the first day and then played out the whole 2nd day and then also played on the 3rd day. If the pitch became flat then how come the English batsmen couldn't last 2 and 1/2 days ?

heard of something called poor batting? add that to the fact that there was a bit of turn in the wicket, that allowed harbhajan and kumble to pick up more than 10 wickets in the match.

As for Oval test, Yes, I did watch Oval test gave up watching after 3rd day knowing the result already. I mean what do you expect when the 2 inning goes on until tea on the 4th day. It was the most boring test match I watched since 1980s.

and you can thank the heartless dravid for that, because if it wasnt for dravid you could probably have expected india to have scored 200 runs less, missed out on 450+ balls, followed on , and quite possibly have lost the match and the series.

If Ganguly gets the blame for everything, then he should get the credit for everything as well.

and ive blamed him for what?
you have gone on to make him a god of indian cricket, hes done the job expected off him, hes not exactly been brilliant at doing his job though.

 

[Sanz]

SJS, Well I strongly disagree with your posts and stick to what I said earlier. I think when History will be re-written (fairly that is) Hussain will find his due recognition.

As for your specific example of Nasser using 'Giles' in a negative manner. All I can say is there wasn't any other way he was going to save the test match. This way at least he was able to restrict the best Indian batsman also got him out by putting enough pressure on him to score.

This move may have been criticized but IMO it was a clever at the same time desperate move. Mr. Brearly was fortunate enough to have talented players around him and I am not sure how successful he would have been with the team Nasser had.

 

[Sanz]

your point is? so if bangar batted 6 overs more than dravid clearly dravid doesnt deserve any credit for his innings while bangar does, despite dravid not getting out and batting through the entire day......

Dravid deserves the credit so does Bangar and Tendulkar whom you called a FTB (Flat Track Bully) who just took advantage of Dravid's innings. Dravid Scored only 148, SRT scored 190+.

heard of something called poor batting? add that to the fact that there was a bit of turn in the wicket, that allowed harbhajan and kumble to pick up more than 10 wickets in the match.

Yeah right, When Dravid was batting, Pitch had seam movment, but there was no movement for others, and when England batted it was simple poor batting.

As for Dravid's innings at Oval, i have said all I had to. It was a dead test. England took two days to make 500 runs, India took another 2 days make another 500 runs and that's it. Whether Dravid made 200 or 500 alone, doesn't really matter. It's like Tendulkar's innings in Sydeny, he made 250 something which was painfully slow and I have no respect for such a useless knock.

 

[Sanz]

and that has nothing to do with the fact that dravid hit his prime does it?

If that was his prime, then I am afraid it didn't last long.

And I didn't give you the choice to mix-n-match and pick. You either pick the english bowlers or the Indian bowlers. If I have an option, I would pick the English bowlers any day for the non-subcontinet matches.

India has only one world class player who is consistent and that is SRT, Dravid is world class when the attack is mediocre. Laxman is too inconsistent to be called world class, Ganguly is good but Captaincy has got him.

 

[tooextracool]

Oh so now you dont rate Waugh highly as captain ??

no not now, ive never rated waugh highly as a captain, go back and look at some of my older posts, ive mentioned it clearly. waugh has done a decent job, hes just lived off the success off taylor and border,who actually did all the hard work in putting australia on top of everyone else. ive watched some of waugh's field placings, and sometimes i wonder if he even knows what hes trying to do on the field. the series against india in australia was one of the worst case of not being prepared whatsoever, i was amazed how they had absolutely no plan for any of the bowlers. look at the preparation for this series and compare it to the last series,and you really wonder how high they were on over confidence.

Once again you are comparing with the Lloyd/Brearlystandards. Tell me how many Indian captains in the past have won a series in Pakista, How many Indian captains have won Tests overseas, how many of them have taken their teams to ICC trophy finals, World Cup Finals, and other 10 finals (true he lost most of the finals but most of the losses were to a freak team called Australia), How many Indiancaptains have the credit of beating the Top team of their time (in Gangs case Australia), Drawing a series in Australia. I am not telling that Ganguly is a legend for the cricket fans all over the world, What I am saying is compared to so called Indian legens like Sunny Gavaskar, Kapildev etc, Gangs achievement as a captain are much better and there is a very valid reason to put him in the same category, if not above. Her personal performance isn't bad either. IMO, he would have been much more successful in Tests had we not made him the captain.

i certainly dont know who said that gavaskar and kapil dev were brilliant captains, i certainly never did. and ive already said that ganguly has been extremely successful compared to other indian captains, again that doesnt make someone a legend.

As for SA, I am talking over all, Tests and ODIs, Cullinan stoppped playing Odis in 2001, Donald and Rhodes hung around until 2003 World Cup. The simple reason Pollock was successful that the team he got was built by Hansie, the moment those players started retiring, his real talent as captain showed up. Look where they are right now.

yes finally you've got it! you said that SA were on the decline after the match fixing scandal and as ive just proved to you, they clearly werent. they were on the decline as they lost more and more players, and the ones that replaced them have been relatively poor.
its obvious that pollock has gotten worse as a bowler, kallis has gotten dreadful as a bowler, cullinan retired,donald retired,rhodes retired and kirsten retired.
and ive never doubted that hansie cronje was an excellent captain, i rate him far higher than someone like waugh. but its just a blatant lie for someone to say that south africa went on the decline after 2000 in either form of the game.

Sourav's case is opposite, he has built this team with some young talent and some experience, he has given the youngsters enough confidence and told them not to worry about their positiion in the team due to some failures, plus he has been able to recognize the right talent who have the potential to succeed at the world level. He has also managed to handle the Kumble/Harbhajan issue pretty well.

what youngsters? as far as im concerned he shattered chopras confidence by dropping him, then made yuvraj open for no apparent reason and shattered his confidence too. hes then continued to show faith in bowlers like nehra who really shouldnt be coming anywhere close to the side.

 

[tooextracool]

If that was his prime, then I am afraid it didn't last long.

based on what, 1 bad series?

And I didn't give you the choice to mix-n-match and pick. You either pick the english bowlers or the Indian bowlers. If I have an option, I would pick the English bowlers any day for the non-subcontinet matches.

and as ive shown its fairly even, srinath is as good as gough, kumble as good as caddick. the other bowlers are more or less even.

India has only one world class player who is consistent and that is SRT, Dravid is world class when the attack is mediocre.

so it was all magic when he scored that 76 in NZ when no one else could manage more than 19, or when he scored all those runs in england, when he averaged 47 odd in SL, when he scored that 180 at eden gardens against australia and the 81 in the next test, when he averaged 72 in the WI in 97, and when he averaged 56 in SA in 97.

Laxman is too inconsistent to be called world class,

he is? as far as im concerned hes been performing away from home and against the quality sides.in the last 4 years, hes averaged 54,51,85 and 35. seems consistent enough for me.