Weren't you the one banned for making derogatory remark before?Didn't Root/Smith play against the same SL bowling? The racism I am talking about is undermining Kohli/India's records by saying that playing in/against SL is just like a home game for India.
Isn't that true of all nations - Aus has won a single match vs India and lost or drawn every away/neutral match in Asia outside Bangladesh, England have won 0, SA have won 1, NZ (of all teams) have won 2. Even against Bangladesh these teams could not win and drew their series (SA at least had rain interruptions although they conceded a lead, Aus/Eng lost matches). Not to mention the fact that they keep losing home matches/series to each other (and England to everyone).So here is the thing. I was talking more recently about a quirk of the scheduling giving the Indian ranking a boost.
There's nothing at all racist about saying that subcontinent wickets right now are all very similar. The strengths of all three teams that play at home in the subcontinent are similar and the characteristics of the pitches are similar.
Australia and South Africa have very similar conditions and England and New Zealand have similar conditions to each other. I would expect if there was a decent gap between the two sides then one side would have the upper hand in each of these match ups too. Australia and South Africa are pretty evenly matched though. And England haven't played in New Zealand in the last 4 years (4 years is a much better frame to look at than 5 since 5 takes us past the tour cycle).
And looking at India's record over the last 4 years they've won a single match vs England and lost or drawn every away/neutral match since outside Sri Lanka or the West Indies.
Saying that they have the best away record over the last 4 years is true but not by much at all. They are clearly the best team on low, slow pitches. In the last two years they have played virtually all of their cricket on such pitches, meaning that the rankings don't truly reflect where they're at (since the rankings strongly favour the last two years).
Combined with the fact that they don't play the second best subcontinent team (a team which was ranked #1 during this time) it's hard to tell where India truly are. This also means that their players haven't been thoroughly tested in foreign conditions. Hence the comments about the stats.
Kohli I rate very highly. The rest of the Indian batsmen have a lot to prove. Whether Root/Williamson are better than Kohli or not is up for debate since both are to shelf batsmen. Smith is way ahead of the other three in tests.
I daresay that India over the next two years have their golden opportunity to cement themselves as the best team in the world.
I agree, providing that arrangement works both ways!Can australia just stop inviting England to play in their country?
The lack of contest is just embarrassing.
At least we won two matches last time around.I agree, providing that arrangement works both ways!