***Official*** England in India

[silentstriker]

Great ODI batmsman are Tend/Richards.


Ganguly is in the 2nd class after that (and that is nothing shameful, considering the company he is with).


As for Bevan...only 6 centuries in 200+ ODI's hurts his case when comparing with Tend/Richards...but he is definatly at the top of the second class.

 

[Jono]

As for Bevan...only 6 centuries in 200+ ODI's hurts his case when comparing with Tend/Richards...but he is definatly at the top of the second class.

Its not about how many centuries you got (That only matters for players batting 1-4 IMO), its about how many matches you won for your team. Bevan did that a ridiculous amount of times. He's up there with Viv and Sachin, no doubt about it.

He often pulled of the impossible, and there became the phrase "If Bevan's there, they can still do it". And he often did.

 

[kvemuri]

He often pulled of the impossible, and there became the phrase "If Bevan's there, they can still do it". And he often did.

To state the obvious, hence he got the name "Finisher".

 

[Sanz]

Come on now Sanz, you know I was referring to international runs, because when one discusses how much someone has given to their nation in cricket, ODIs is taken into account.

I am sure you know that there weren't many ODIs being played in 70s. And I hope you know that when Bedi took 262 wickets, it was a huge no. for his time. Just like when Hadlee took 400 in early 90s, it was a huge no., 300 used to be huge in the 80s.

Had Bedi played 130 tests and 350 ODIs, trust me his figures would have been much bigger.

 

[Sanz]

Great ODI batmsman are Tend/Richards.


Ganguly is in the 2nd class after that (and that is nothing shameful, considering the company he is with).


As for Bevan...only 6 centuries in 200+ ODI's hurts his case when comparing with Tend/Richards...but he is definatly at the top of the second class.

 

[Sanz]

and what do you have against technique anyway? especially when it translates into exceptional performances on the cricket field...?

Nothing but it doesn't matter really, what matters is the no. Runs you put up on the board and Ganguly did that a lot until he became captain.

As for Tendulkar's exceptional Technique, care to explain why he has been so miserable for last two years ?
Sanjay Manjrekar supposedly had one of the best techniques and he was a failure, a test average worse than Sourav Ganguly. So much for 'Technique translating into exceptional performance....'

 

[honestbharani]

Lara had a 5 year slump where he scored in one mammoth series vs OZ and f-all otherwise. Barely averaged 40 that entire period and without that monster solitary series, he averages below 40.

yeah, but Windies had absolutely zilch in terms of replacements who could do decently better than what he was doing. It is NOT the case with India at the moment. We will never know how good or bad Kaif, Raina, Rao are without testing them. They are scoring tons of runs in domestic cricket match after match after match.... Don't tell me that the situation with Lara is the same as the situation with Sachin because it is NOT.

 

[honestbharani]

Unrivaled Popularity. Cricket = SRT.

Not really. At the moment, Dhoni gets more cheers than SAchin and that quite easily. Earlier we used to see whenever the second wicket went down (usually Sidhu) there was a HUGE cheer from the crowd because Sachin was coming in. But recently, there has been a HUGE cheer from the crowd when Sachin got out as the 4th or 5th wicket, because Dhoni was coming in. Does that mean Dhoni should never be dropped?

 

[honestbharani]

Perhaps without Kapil Dev, we would never have had Ajit Agarkar. So that alone makes Kapil Dev a bad thing for Indian cricket.

And without Sachin Tendulkar, we would never have had Sujith Somasundar....

 

[honestbharani]

i have watched plenty of them and tendulkar was so comprehensively better that a comparison between them is ridiculous.....he was superb on the offside but an extremely limited onside player and a very poor player against bounce...tendulkar was so much more complete....

It is funny that a guy with that bad a technique managed a few ODI hundreds in Australia and Sachin didn't...

 

[adharcric]

I disagree that Tendulkar should be given a free pass forever simply because he has done so much for Indian cricket and been our highest run-getter. It's about "what can you do for me now?" rather than "what have you done for me so far?". The reason I'd like to see him continue for a few more series is because from watching him bat lately, I think he still has it in him but has had a few lapses and been unable to convert the starts. Some others may not see that potential in him right now, that's fine. His case is also helped by the fact that he's a positive influence in the dressing room and a good mentor for the youngsters. He does need to perform though, and I feel the Mumbai test will be HUGE for him.

 

[adharcric]

what about laxman?

We're all talking about Tendulkar here, but what about VVS Laxman? His test career seems in danger now as he's not even among the top 3 options in the middle-order and possibly not even among the top 4 if Kaif further proves his mettle. Your thoughts on Laxman's future?

 

[Sanz]

I disagree that Tendulkar should be given a free pass forever simply because he has done so much for Indian cricket and been our highest run-getter. It's about "what can you do for me now?" rather than "what have you done for me so far?". The reason I'd like to see him continue for a few more series is because from watching him bat lately, I think he still has it in him but has had a few lapses and been unable to convert the starts. Some others may not see that potential in him right now, that's fine. His case is also helped by the fact that he's a positive influence in the dressing room and a good mentor for the youngsters. He does need to perform though, and I feel the Mumbai test will be HUGE for him.

And that is a perfectly acceptable point of view and good enough reasoning to have him in the team. The problem starts when people start coming up with ridiculous arguments like 'He should be selected because his name is Sachin Tendulkar' or 'He should never be dropped' etc etc. and if you disagree with that, you are basically carrying an agenda against Sachin Tendulkar.

 

[C_C]

yeah, but Windies had absolutely zilch in terms of replacements who could do decently better than what he was doing. It is NOT the case with India at the moment. We will never know how good or bad Kaif, Raina, Rao are without testing them. They are scoring tons of runs in domestic cricket match after match after match.... Don't tell me that the situation with Lara is the same as the situation with Sachin because it is NOT.

Dude it is one thing blooding kids who deserve a chance and another thing constructing a B-team akin to the WI in packer years(ie, the team representing the WI while their stars were away playing packer cricket).... Currently Laxman's position is not secure, and Ganguly has been axed. India isnt gonna go in with 5 bowlers all matches and Dhoni isnt gonna bat at six most tests.... You already have two bona-fide middle order and one opening spot up for grabs....axing tendy for non performance for a few matches ( and lets face it- it isnt a 2 year slump due to bad batting alone - ala Lara in 96-2000 period, the guy has been injured most of the time through it ) or axing Kumble/Harbhajan would be like having Dravid, Sehwag, Pathan and 8 other newbies in the squad.........

Tendulkar needs to be given an extended stretch to recover from his bad form ( and lets face it, he hasnt gotten much opportunity to bat in tests over the last 2 years either - he had a bad patch after the world cup due to injury shortly before the NZ tour to IND.... he hit groove in OZ belately and did well in Pakistan before getting injured again...he came back injured for the AUS-RSA-BD tour and promptly got injured again and missed a whole chunk of cricket.... now he's been back just before the SL series and batted on some pretty hard wickets in the SL series, hardly got a chance to bat in Pakistan and this English tour has had him batting for just two completed innings.
Give him a 10 match period of uniterrupted play and then judge him.

And FYI, I've been following WI cricket for a long time and in the late 90s the 'Lara has lost his direction' chants were at their zenith and people were actively pushing players like Philo Wallace, Stuart Williams, Floyd Reifer, etc. in the team..... Lara was held on to and so should Tendulkar, until one atleast one of Laxman-Yuvraj-Kaif-Raina secures their place in the middle order.
Else yer gonna have Sehwag-Dravid-4 newbies batting lineup.

 

[chris.hinton]

Ganguly is an over rated vile cricketer India are better off with out him

 

[Gloucefan]

Personally I think Tendulkar will recover from this, he may get dropped at some point who is to say? But I think at 32-33 he is far from past it, in 6 months he'll be the guy who could walk into any test team again. I think when a 'great' has a couple of bad years, especially him, it's a kind of fall from grace in which it seems like he has lost a divinity he can't regain. He is only human, I think if anyone is entitled to the benefit of the doubt he is.

 

[Nishant]

i think that tendulkar needs to be dropped. i feel that the only reason he trys his best at times to to make his own record shine even more. he got his 35th test century didn't he? he broke the record here and is now back to his old ways. sigle fingure scores, not gettin past 25-30 runs. if u drop ganguly, u gotta drop tendulkar!

 

[silentstriker]

he got his 35th test century didn't he? he broke the record here and is now back to his old ways.

Wow, I bow down to your logic. You are saying Sachin is getting single digit scores on purpose because he has 35 centuries?

if u drop ganguly, u gotta drop tendulkar!

Haha

 

[DanielFullard]

BBC are reporting that it looks very likely that Udal will be in the team for the last test. His record in the three tests he has played so far is not bad at all and I for one would welcome him replacing Plunkett in the side

 

[Barney Rubble]

BBC are reporting that it looks very likely that Udal will be in the team for the last test. His record in the three tests he has played so far is not bad at all and I for one would welcome him replacing Plunkett in the side

I'll be blunt - since when has 92.33 been an acceptable Test bowling average?