*Official* New Zealand tour of India 2024

[the big bambino]

What I was trying to get at was that sometimes a team's decline can set in really quickly and that was the case with that England team and now with this Indian team. You can lose a load of players quite quickly.

I suppose you can but I think older teams are becoming more common now. I'm not sure if India's loss is down to age. They never recovered from their first innings 46 and NZ kept them off balance all series. Most, if not all, of the Indian team this series are coming down under and Aus seems to be there favourite away venue. I think they'll have time to regroup and do well out here. The only players that might be vulnerable due to age are Kohli, Rohit and probably Ashwin (though I think even he could play a few more years).

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Aus are so close to this too with Smith, Khawaja, Hazlewood, Starc, Lyon. The BGT is going to end some careers one way or another and it will be interesting to see the line ups England have to face over the next 12 months.

And NZ. I'm thrilled about the win in India, but concerned that we won't move old players on fast enough.

 

[centurymaker]

"However, there is no evidence of the toss becoming less crucial on rank turners. Hawk-Eye data shows that the Mumbai pitch took three hours before offering big turn to India's spinners. Those three hours are worth 100 runs in relatively easy conditions.

For a long time, India had batters to overcome this disadvantage if they lost the toss; now they don't seem to do so."



Article backs up what we have known. Rank turners don't take away toss advantage, just like a pitch that breaks up on day 2 or day 3 onwards. So only a normal flat deck that stays true for at least 3 days is fair on both sides.

Why rank turners actually reduce India's home advantage

Pitches on which batting is a lottery bring the opposition's less-skilled spinners into the game

www.espncricinfo.com

 

[straw man]

That reminds me.

Look I don't want to rub it in or anything, but I've done some #stats on New Zealand test tours of India in the last ten years and the numbers on the toss make for some pretty interesting reading.

Win rate after winning the toss:
India = 67%
NZ = 100%

Guys I think we may actually be better in India than India are. I know this will make for some uncomfortable reading, but what can I say, the stats don't lie ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Still 100%

 

[centurymaker]

"India lost 60 wickets in 410 false shots in this series or one dismissal every 6.8 false shots. New Zealand survived 543 false shots for their 52 wickets or one dismissal every 10.5 false shots.

If only the respective top 7 batsmen are considered, then New Zealand’s survived 12.3 false shots per dismissal, while India’s survived 7.7 false shots per dismissal. Far too many Indian bats fell to early false shots compared to New Zealand.


Its not difficult to see where the toss helps on pitches like Pune and Mumbai. It is in the early runs in the first two or three hours of the Test match. New Zealand reached 197/3 in Pune batting first, and 159/3 batting first in Mumbai. Their last 17 wickets for 317 runs in Pune, and 250 runs in Mumbai. But those first 150 runs made before the pitches began to take sharp turn were too much for India to overcome batting second and fourth."

Interesting

 

[centurymaker]

I would argue that some Indian batters played reckless shots time and again, leading to quicker dismissals, so the false shots rate per dismissal is much lower for India's top 7 than it would be otherwise. It's 7.7 vs 12.3. There was reckless batting by Rohit, Sarfraz, Kohli & co plus the run outs every match. The false rate thus would've been closer to 9 or 10, if they had batted normally.

More than anything, its the Southee and Rachin partnership in the 1st test which took NZ from 234/7 to 402 that made India (indian captain and coach) panic and resort to extreme pitches, where India batted 2nd and panicked even more.

 

[Bahnz]

"India lost 60 wickets in 410 false shots in this series or one dismissal every 6.8 false shots. New Zealand survived 543 false shots for their 52 wickets or one dismissal every 10.5 false shots.

If only the respective top 7 batsmen are considered, then New Zealand’s survived 12.3 false shots per dismissal, while India’s survived 7.7 false shots per dismissal. Far too many Indian bats fell to early false shots compared to New Zealand.


Its not difficult to see where the toss helps on pitches like Pune and Mumbai. It is in the early runs in the first two or three hours of the Test match. New Zealand reached 197/3 in Pune batting first, and 159/3 batting first in Mumbai. Their last 17 wickets for 317 runs in Pune, and 250 runs in Mumbai. But those first 150 runs made before the pitches began to take sharp turn were too much for India to overcome batting second and fourth."

Interesting

I don't think anyone denies that NZ got a massive advantage with the toss in all 3 tests. Still that's true for most teams that win the toss in India, NZ was the first team were the gap between the two sides was small enough that it actually mattered.

 

[Zinzan]

I don't think anyone denies that NZ got a massive advantage with the toss in all 3 tests.

Correction - NZ won the tosses 2-1. India won the toss in the 1st Test in Bengaluru, just happened they made the wrong decision although Latham said at the time NZ would have batted had they won, making it one of the all time great tosses to lose.

 

[hendrix]

"However, there is no evidence of the toss becoming less crucial on rank turners. Hawk-Eye data shows that the Mumbai pitch took three hours before offering big turn to India's spinners. Those three hours are worth 100 runs in relatively easy conditions.

For a long time, India had batters to overcome this disadvantage if they lost the toss; now they don't seem to do so."



Article backs up what we have known. Rank turners don't take away toss advantage, just like a pitch that breaks up on day 2 or day 3 onwards. So only a normal flat deck that stays true for at least 3 days is fair on both sides.

Why rank turners actually reduce India's home advantage

Pitches on which batting is a lottery bring the opposition's less-skilled spinners into the game

www.espncricinfo.com

Am I crazy to suggest that - at least what I watched of the pitches - they didn't appear to be complete minefields to me?

Like yes it was turning but not to the point where you just had to stick the ball somewhere and it would stay low or hiss and it would be utterly unplayable. People were still scoring runs with good cricket shots.

 

[Daemon]

Am I crazy to suggest that - at least what I watched of the pitches - they didn't appear to be complete minefields to me?

Like yes it was turning but not to the point where you just had to stick the ball somewhere and it would stay low or hiss and it would be utterly unplayable. People were still scoring runs with good cricket shots.

Mumbai was very very difficult. It wasn’t one of those pisstakes like in the series against SA for example but I think if we don’t call that a minefield we’re setting the bar too high.

 

[Burgey]

Can a mod archive this please? Old news now, time to move on to the Southern hemisphere summer.

 

[centurymaker]

Am I crazy to suggest that - at least what I watched of the pitches - they didn't appear to be complete minefields to me?

Like yes it was turning but not to the point where you just had to stick the ball somewhere and it would stay low or hiss and it would be utterly unplayable. People were still scoring runs with good cricket shots.

If Sundar is taking a 7-fer with 5 epic clean bowleds in the first innings itself you know anyone who can land the ball consistently will get a bag of wickets, unless luck deserts them. And in the second game, Jadeja was turning it a mile every over, so much so that batters couldn't even get close to the turn. Play and miss by a km. Nobody had a chance of edging anything. Jadeja doesn't typically turn much, so that tells you the state of the conditions.

 

[Burgey]

Why did they prep them that way? I'd be surprised if they thought NZ would best them on flatter, slower turning decks

 

[centurymaker]

Mumbai was very very difficult. It wasn’t one of those pisstakes like in the series against SA for example but I think if we don’t call that a minefield we’re setting the bar too high.

Axar would've been the most effective bowler in Mumbai as he bowls straight darts and some of those darts would have turned less off the pitch, compared to a Jadeja and hence more chance of success, like vs England in 2021 when Axar was picking most of the wickets.

 

[ataraxia]

Can a mod archive this please? Old news now, time to move on to the Southern hemisphere summer.

Nah it's funny.

 

[Daemon]

Why did they prep them that way? I'd be surprised if they thought NZ would best them on flatter, slower turning decks

The Mumbai wicket was allegedly requested by Gambhir according to some dubious sources. It wasn’t typical of a Mumbai pitch at all.

The other two seemed nothing out of the ordinary for India. Obviously the rain changed things a bit at Bangalore.

 

[centurymaker]

Why did they prep them that way? I'd be surprised if they thought NZ would best them on flatter, slower turning decks

Lost the 1st test in partly seaming conditions and panicked and went for the other extreme, rather than sticking with balanced pitches or flat normal pitches, like originally planned.

Before the series they wanted conditions that would be normal but have some pace and carry in preparation for Australia and it was a complete U-turn after one defeat. Even pulled in Sundar from Ranji and played him right away, with him bowling before Ashwin or Jadeja.

 

[Burgey]

Interesting. I'm tipping they'll get a fair bit of pace and carry at Optus Stdium.

 

[Bahnz]

Correction - NZ won the tosses 2-1. India won the toss in the 1st Test in Bengaluru, just happened they made the wrong decision although Latham said at the time NZ would have batted had they won, making it one of the all time great tosses to lose.

I meant that that was the exception of a great toss to lose in India.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

This series has genuinely piqued the interest of the cricket layman. There's been plenty of discussions at work about it - and not just with the cricket aficionados (though I've also discovered a couple of fellow travellers who I had no idea were cricket fans!).