***Official*** India in West Indies

[aussie]

yet no subcontinent team has been able to beat WI in WI in last 5-6 years.

ahh very good point..

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Well, I have to agree with Anil here. India doesn't start as favorites here and I have a feeling that WI batsmen will find their form against Indian bowlers. Last time when we toured we had a smoking batting line up with Sachin, Sehwag, Laxman, Dravid in cracking form and Ganguly,Dasgupta, Bangar, Das doing decent supporting role. We still ended up losing the test series against the likes of Dillon, Collins, Colleymore, Sanford.

Dillon was bowling as well as he ever has back then. Collins was finding himself at Test level. Corey Collymore didn't play that series. IIRC, he only played his second Test match against Sri Lanka in 2003, having debuted against Australia in 1999.

Regarding Sanford, India should be ashamed of themselves for ever losing wickets to him.

I dont think the current WI attack is any worse/better than the last one

I don't see how you can say that. Edwards is bowling better than he has since his first two Tests (though that doesn't say much), Collymore is in the Test team now, Collins is a better bowler now, Dwayne Bravo is in, and Sanford and Dillon are out.

The West Indian bowling attack now is better than it was when India last toured.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

yet no subcontinent team has been able to beat WI in WI in last 5-6 years.

I think India have a better chance than Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in recent years though. That's because they have 4 Tests to do it. Pakistan only had 3 and then 2, Sri Lanka only had 2, and Bangladesh only had 2.

That said, I think India had 5 Tests last time, and lost 2-1.

 

[Sanz]

Dillon was bowling as well as he ever has back then. Collins was finding himself at Test level. Corey Collymore didn't play that series. IIRC, he only played his second Test match against Sri Lanka in 2003, having debuted against Australia in 1999.

Regarding Sanford, India should be ashamed of themselves for ever losing wickets to him.

I don't see how you can say that. Edwards is bowling better than he has since his first two Tests (though that doesn't say much), Collymore is in the Test team now, Collins is a better bowler now, Dwayne Bravo is in, and Sanford and Dillon are out.

The West Indian bowling attack now is better than it was when India last toured.

Well I didn't check the test squad before posting, now I see Colleymore played only in ODIs. Anyways I dont see where is the problem, India had a better batting line up against a poorer bowling, still we ended up losing the series. Now you say that WI bowling is better than last time and it's no secret that our batting is struggling in tests. Even our bowling was better in 2001/02 with Srinath, Nehra and Zaheer bowling pretty well with Bhajji at his best.

This time we have a struggling Bhajji with Santh, Pathan, Munaf and AA. Anil is definately there but I dont know how much successfule he will be against the likes of Lara, Chanders in WI. WI batting is definately weaker with Hooper gone.

 

[adharcric]

Sanz, I wouldn't say our bowling attack at the moment is poor. The way we bowled, we should've beaten England. We just chose to drop half the catches and gift plenty of wickets as well. Sreesanth and Munaf will need to repeat here for us to do well. Pathan is still unproven in tests. I think Bhajji has struck form and confidence again from the end of the test series and the good one-dayers. Kumble needs to step up and bowl like the leader of the attack.

 

[Anil]

Sanz, I wouldn't say our bowling attack at the moment is poor. The way we bowled, we should've beaten England. We just chose to drop half the catches and gift plenty of wickets as well. Sreesanth and Munaf will need to repeat here for us to do well. Pathan is still unproven in tests. I think Bhajji has struck form and confidence again from the end of the test series and the good one-dayers. Kumble needs to step up and bowl like the leader of the attack.

sreesanth and munaf are still plenty raw....pathan has yet to prove a match winner outside of minnow matches, bhajji and kumble will not find helpful conditions in the windies....so do we have a tried-and-tested proven attack that we can rely on in those conditions? the answer at the start of this series is a no

 

[IqbalJaved]

bhajji and kumble will not find helpful conditions in the windies.... no

I'm not so sure about that.....when India A toured the WEst Indies in 2003, several of the players said a few of the pitches assisted the spinners.
Bhajji himself did reasonably out there in 2002.

I'd be surprised if some of the wickets didn't assist spin this time as well.

 

[adharcric]

This is an unrpoven attack for sure, but I'm still backing them to succeed and win it for India.

 

[Sanz]

Sanz, I wouldn't say our bowling attack at the moment is poor. The way we bowled, we should've beaten England. We just chose to drop half the catches and gift plenty of wickets as well. Sreesanth and Munaf will need to repeat here for us to do well. Pathan is still unproven in tests. I think Bhajji has struck form and confidence again from the end of the test series and the good one-dayers. Kumble needs to step up and bowl like the leader of the attack.

I wish I could say that about our bowling attack. Our bowling attack of 2001-2002 was much better than the present one, remember we are not talking about the post WC 2003 Zaheer and Nehra, in 2001-2002, Zaheer and Nehra were the upcoming pacers, who looked much more promising than the munafs and sreesanths. And then we had Srinath, I didn't like his bowling in ODIs, but in tests I considered him one of the best, at least our best.

That said, I hope you are right about our bowling attack.

 

[sideshowtim]

i'm predicting india's first series victory outside the subcontinent in a long long time on this tour. india really should be winning this, west indies are about as useful as bangladesh at the moment.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

i'm predicting india's first series victory outside the subcontinent in a long long time on this tour. india really should be winning this, west indies are about as useful as bangladesh at the moment.

... who almost beat Australia a week ago. It's more than South Africa managed to do.

Forza West Indies!

 

[sideshowtim]

the west indies currently have their worst side in the last 20 years. lara is getting on and needs to leave the game now before he leaves the game with bad memories of him in peoples minds. bravo is a positive for the windies but if anyone thinks they are a decent team they are kidding themselves.

 

[Nishant]

India should win this one easily. I think that WI are surely one of the worst test teams around-sepecially after all these disputes-its almost unreasonable to expect them to do well with a reserve reserve team. Plus, india need as much confidence as possible b4 the WC.

With dat in mind, Bangladesh are giving the aussies a real hard time....so anything is possible, i guess.

 

[silentstriker]

the west indies currently have their worst side in the last 20 years. lara is getting on and needs to leave the game now before he leaves the game with bad memories of him in peoples minds. bravo is a positive for the windies but if anyone thinks they are a decent team they are kidding themselves.

Their worst side in last twenty years? That would imply that twenty years ago, they had a side that was this bad? You are probably the first person in history to consider the 1986 West Indies side bad.

 

[adharcric]

Their worst side in last twenty years? That would imply that twenty years ago, they had a side that was this bad? You are probably the first person in history to consider the 1986 West Indies side bad.

Actually, I don't see how it implies that. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but he's simply suggesting that the Windies side right now is worse than any other side that's been fielded over the last twenty years. That includes the 1986 side as well. Yes, "twenty" is a rather arbitrary choice perhaps, but he probably didn't have the guts to say 'all-time' as he might not know about the history of WI cricket.

EDIT: I see what you're saying actually. Anyways ..

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

the west indies currently have their worst side in the last 20 years. lara is getting on and needs to leave the game now before he leaves the game with bad memories of him in peoples minds. bravo is a positive for the windies but if anyone thinks they are a decent team they are kidding themselves.

I disagree. We had a worst side of the last 20 years when we were thrashed in Australia in 2000. Back then we lacked Bravo, Collymore, Collins and Gayle.

It's stupid to suggest that those players don't make the team better.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

India should win this one easily. I think that WI are surely one of the worst test teams around-sepecially after all these disputes-its almost unreasonable to expect them to do well with a reserve reserve team.

What are you on? The West Indies have only been forced to field a "reserve" team for 3 Tests since the disputes began.

 

[roseboy64]

IF the West Indies perform to their potential they could easily sneak by India with a series win. That's a big if though.

 

[adharcric]

Good article here on Cricinfo.
If some of the rather foolish Indian fans internalized this, we'd be much better off as a cricketing nation.

 

[Sanz]

Good article here on Cricinfo.
If some of the rather foolish Indian fans internalized this, we'd be much better off as a cricketing nation.

Why you calling yourself foolish ?