England in India - Oct to Jan 2012/13

[Satan666]

Yesssssssss! The ultimate defeat India being thrashed at home by the English! Tell you what guys I am having a celebration party in hell and everyone is welcomed!


Its ironic how some of the more voiciferous Indian supporters have stopped posting on this thread in the last couple of days so I have some quotes from theM:

Well this will be a tough series for both the side. Since Ashwin has been good at home, he will be dangerous and without KP, Trott and Bell will have much to do.

My predictions

Cook - Best England Batsman
Anderson - Best England Bowler

Tendulkar - Best Indian Batsman
Zaheer - Best Indian bowler

and the series would be 2-0 India's favor

Yep Rahul Cook was the best batsman, Sachin the worst, Anderson was good and Zaheer was dropped, andddddd England won the sries 2-1!

Ashwin will be India's best bowler, positive.

Nope babyboy, worst bowler his bat was worth something his bowling nothing, now thats a negative.

Just like how England start doing the 'Gangnam' when they face the spinners in the subcontinent!

Tendulkar not being comfortable to the short ball? Stop injecting yourself with drugs...

True that, the only real spinner they faced was Ojha, the so called Indian spinners like Ashwin and co failed.

Apparently Sachin isnt comfortable against any type of bowling, averaged 18 for the series!


So guys this is certainly an early Christmas gift for me, was a good series hopefully the Indians learn from their mistakes and take the Aussies head-on in the upcoming series. All the best to the Indian and English teams and thanks to all the members who posted in this thread, looking on to the Aus tour of India now, cheers!

 

[War]

Test & series review

Well other than the pleasing sight of Trott & Bell scoring hundreds in these conditions after their initial struggles their is not much left to say really from an english perspective.

Going into this series i was always fairly confident for reasons mentioned in this thread http://www.planetcricket.org/forums/2397769-post118.html - & pretty much everything came to pass.

While this is certainly right up their with the 2010-11 ashes win in australia, to be fair england got india @ very vulnerable phase in their history. This is the weakest india team @ home in my lifetime of watching cricket @ home & it did not have the typical batting force of Dravid/Tendy/Laxman/Azharuddin/Ganguly & Kumble leading the spin attack.

So if we were to compare england win to lets say australia in 2004 & south africa 2000 - it would be ranked below them, since those teams beat india while having those factors. But saying this is not to downplay england's achievement @ all, especially given their historical struggles on the continent in the last 25 years & after the 1st test defeat.

An interesting positive obviously is that of joe root. I would admit when i saw he was playing & batting @ # 6, it seemed odd since i know he has made his name on the county circuit as a young opener. Thus to see him bat so assured in that position adds further depth to england middle-order options with Morgan, Bairstow, Taylor Hildreth, Patel around.

Ignoring the new zealand series home/away - all focus now to england turns towards the ashes double header. They just need to sort out the back-up two quicks for Anderson. Obviously once fit, Finn will be one. Broad & Bresnan had poor years & the selectors need to rethink their position.

I think Broad can come back to his old self, but Bresnan is probably finished as a test bowler sadly. All the gains as fast-bowler he made during tests in australia & @ home vs india 2011 is probably gone now since his elbow surgery. He could have even possibly been the all-rounder england were looking forward post-flintoff - but he now may just be a limited overs bowlers at best.

Plus of course Tremlett will always come into serious consideration once fit.

I am a big fan of Meaker. Finn/Meaker is too sharp bowlers who can hit 90 mph bowlers & is the real future of the England attack. While Panesar's solidity in this series means on pitches anywhere in the world (not just subcontinent) where england feel two spinners can be used - ENG can pick him to alongside Swann just like how Australia tended to do with MacGill alongside Warne.

Too bad England aren't playing South Africa again soon, since as things stand in world cricket right now they are the top two teams (s africa the clear # 1 of course) & would give a fascinating battle.

India

I could be surprised but i reckon India could be in for a long decline as a test team, unless the BCCI actually uses its influence & money gained from ipl to properly develop the first-class cricket structure in india.

One thing is obvious to be is that replacing the tendy batting era & kumble spin era - is going to be a similar headache to india like the windies had in replacing the 70s and 80s generation of fast bowlers.

Tendy/Dravid/Laxman/Azharr/Ganguly represented the best era of indian batsman in its history who could note only dominate @ home - but score runs overseas (although azhar & ganguly had issues throughout their careers vs pace). It was a step up from the 70/80s trio of Gavasakr/Vengsarkar/Viswanath & 50s/60s brigade of Hazare/Umrigar/Borde.

As talented as Kohli/Pujara are along with some other young talents, i'm not sure that collectively they will be able to replace the tendy batting era.

On Tendy surely he has to go now if india are serious. No sense playing him vs australia. If the india selectors are smart they should use the australia home series to build a team that won't embarrass them when they tour south africa in 2013/14.

If Tendy doesn't retire - then somebody in the cricket fraternity has to make the move & retire him.

Finally as i've heard many notable indian commentators mention - india seem to have lost their ability to produce world-class spinners it seems. They probably took it for granted that they would keep producing bedi's, kumble's, chandra every day, but the art seems to have dried up.

Usually when the foreign teams have won in india since they became a force @ home windies 74/75 & 84, aus 2004, s africa 2000, england 76/77 & 84/85 -it was always lead by the fast-bowlers with the spinners supporting. Never during this period has a two foreign spinners been the catalyst to a series win in india & to see Swann/Panesar outbowl Ojha/Ashwin was one of the telling sights of this series.

India obvious decline also highlights why the upcoming Future Tours Programme is going to be an utter joke. India are set a play a lot of 4 & 5 test series home/away versus australia/england/s africa - which is totally wrong given at this rate they could be slaughtered. That FTP was clearly created around 2011 by BCCI power when india had the fake # 1 test ranking & won the world cup.

Teams like West Indies & Pakistan could be on the rise throughout 2013 & wont have any series to truly test themselves vs england/australia/south africa much in the next 5 years which is utterly farcical scheduling & needs urgent changing.

 

[Gaurav_7]

Congratulations England, well deserved. When a team defeats India in India, they surely deserve it. Cook is such an inspirational leader and hopefully he goes on and on. India have a lot of things to sort. I hope we do that soon. I liked what Nasser Hussain said after one of the tests. God like names of Indian Cricket need to pull themselves up and start performing or it is about time we looked beyond them.

----------

As talented as Kohli/Pujara are along with some other young talents, i'm not sure that collectively they will be able to replace the tendy batting era.

Well they can tbh. Bring in Rahane who deserves more than a chance now. Wish they brought Badrinath in way earlier but, he is now a forgotten story. There a lots and lots of talented batters out there. Mukund/Dhawan can easily form the opening pair. Pujara at 3, Kohli at 4, Rahane at 5. Yes, that's a lot of shuffle and we might get beaten comprehensively at the start but, these guys can only move upwards from there. If we are looking for rebuilding the team, we need to take these steps.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

most experts and commentators reckon india have more talented young batsmen than all the other test nations put together. ironically, the problem right now is they don't have a lead spinner which has always been a strength.

arguably even their fast bowling stocks are no worse than normal, provided they can keep them injury free.

but it's harbhajan's decline that's causing more problems than anything else, india should have an experienced spinner that can bowl out teams in harbhajan, he's played a long time and had great success, he should be peaking at his age. that he's completely went off the boil and is now playing second fiddle to guys that have never impressed or come through as ODI restrictive bowlers is a clear problem.

the batsmen will sort itself out provided it's managed right, pandey/rahane/chand/mukund/dhawan, there's so much talent there it must make some of the other nations in a rebuilding phase, like sri lanka and australia, sick with envy. anyone that thinks they'll slip behind the windies is surrendering to wishful thinking not logic.

 

[Owzat]

I predicted Bell would fail 1st innings, get a score 2nd innings and no doubt his hundred will cement his place until he retires!

Shame the last Test which was so crucial should be such a yawnfest, it was set up nicely for a thrilling climax to the series and we get THAT pitch. This should have been the England lions fed to the spin dustbowls of India. India never turned up, the pitches barely turned enough to trouble some of the world's worst players of spin, and the pussycats of England were made to look like lions.

I wondered earlier why there was no mention of ICC rankings, I see we're too far off South Africa that the media probably looked at them and decided not to say anything

 

[Gurjot95]

Congrats to England, thoroughly deserved win. I can see them winning Ashes comfortably under Cook's captaincy.

As for India, Two decisions which I haven't understood in this match is why the hell would you bring Piyush Chawla when we have Awana, in-form talented pacer and how is Chawla a better bowler/batsman than Bhajji. They decided to drop Bhajji but picked Chawla. It's one step forward and two steps backward.

And someone please explain me the tactics of Dhoni on Day 4 when Ashwin and Ojha were batting. I decided to think of any alternate reason where his tactics could make a sense but failed to even think of one.

Fletcher has to go, we can't give him another chance. 2 whitewash and one home series loss should be enough to send him off. I am not sure whether to drop Dhoni after his fighting 99 but we need aggressive captain for Tests, maybe Kohli? Dhoni is fine captain for ODI's. About Sachin Tendulkar, the less said, the better.

 

[Fenil]

Well done England! They deserve the pat on their back to beat India in India, a feat that for long, was a dream for a touring captain. I predicted that Cook will have a good series because the Indian pitches suits his style of play but man, he has one brilliant tournament. I liked him as a skipper too. Leading from the front while batting and taking some mindful decisions doing nothing silly. Monty Panersar's performance should seal his place in the side as the second spinner. In fact, he was more effective than Swann here so might just give Swanny the thought that there is someone who is sniffing on his neck for the place. This, in turn, will only benefit England as Swanny will try even harder to perform better. Batting wise, mostly it was a Cook's dominance that set the tone of the series but I'm impressed with Nick. He was solid most of the times and showed no signs of this being his debut series. England will be pleased that Jono Trott, Jimmy Anderson and most importantly Ian Bell made their mark in the last match. All said and done, England will need to seriously think about Stuart Broad's chances in the test team now. On the other hand, India will be doing some introspection along with the great man, Sachin Tendulkar about their future. More than batters, I thought spinners, the one time strength of India, were the reason of the team's defeat here. Sadly, with BCCI's policy to swap a left arm spinner with a left spinner and extensively giving chances to Piyush Chawla, I don't see a drastic change in the spin department which obviously isn't a good sign. Ashwin, the bowler needs to understand how crucial his role is in the team given that he can bat good too. I hope he gets back into the form to the earliest and with Ojha, once again wreck havoc in the opposition camp. As far as pace department is concerned, its time that India should look beyond Zaheer Khan. There are a few potential pacers who can be tried in the team apart from Umesh Yadav like Ashok Dinda, Parvinder Awana, Abu Nechim and even Praveen Kumar and Irfan Pathan on pacey and bouncy tracks.

 

[War]

Well they can tbh. Bring in Rahane who deserves more than a chance now. Wish they brought Badrinath in way earlier but, he is now a forgotten story. There a lots and lots of talented batters out there. Mukund/Dhawan can easily form the opening pair. Pujara at 3, Kohli at 4, Rahane at 5. Yes, that's a lot of shuffle and we might get beaten comprehensively at the start but, these guys can only move upwards from there. If we are looking for rebuilding the team, we need to take these steps.

When i say replace them, i just don't mean replace them in numbers. As Ian Chappell always says on commentary - "you always are going to find you enough batsman to score you runs in the top 6 in test cricket - however finding bowlers to take 20 wickets in tests consistently is never easy".

Sure India have young batsmen that come in fill int the other four spots around pujara & kohli - but replacing the collective quality that the famous 5 batsmen had is different kettle of fish.

 

[Fenil]

When i say replace them, i just don't mean replace them in numbers. As Ian Chappell always says on commentary - "you always are going to find you enough batsman to score you runs in the top 6 in test cricket - however finding bowlers to take 20 wickets in tests consistently is never easy".

Sure India have young batsmen that come in fill int the other four spots around pujara & kohli - but replacing the collective quality that the famous 5 batsmen had is different kettle of fish.

I agree with Ian Chappell. Its hard to find quality bowlers, especially in a country like India where you don't have too many bowlers in domestic circuit who you can be confident about being the test material. As far as the replacing the 'collective quality' of famous 5 batsmen (Ganguly, Sachin, Rahul and VVS. Who is the 5th one, Sehwag?) is concerned , legends can't be replaced that easily but that doesn't mean that we can't find quality replacements for them. In my opinion the likes of Rahane, Badri (though I don't think he will be given anymore chances), Manoj Tiwary (pure waste of talent in ODIs and T20Is) are more than capable of representing India at the test level. Add to that Mukund and Dhawan and you can see a whole new but a solid batting line-up.

 

[War]

most experts and commentators reckon india have more talented young batsmen than all the other test nations put together. ironically, the problem right now is they don't have a lead spinner which has always been a strength.

arguably even their fast bowling stocks are no worse than normal, provided they can keep them injury free.

but it's harbhajan's decline that's causing more problems than anything else, india should have an experienced spinner that can bowl out teams in harbhajan, he's played a long time and had great success, he should be peaking at his age. that he's completely went off the boil and is now playing second fiddle to guys that have never impressed or come through as ODI restrictive bowlers is a clear problem.

the batsmen will sort itself out provided it's managed right, pandey/rahane/chand/mukund/dhawan, there's so much talent there it must make some of the other nations in a rebuilding phase, like sri lanka and australia, sick with envy. anyone that thinks they'll slip behind the windies is surrendering to wishful thinking not logic.

While its an acceptable premise that India have the best batting talent in the world that the majority of teams would like - i'm pretty happy with England's batting depth currently. James Taylor, Bairstow, Root, Morgan, Hildreth doesn't make me too envy towards what india have.

Overall also this is mistake i think people make when assessing india's batting & also under-rate the potential impact the post tendy era crew will have.

For 20 odd years Tendy/Dravid/Laxman/Azhar/Ganguly played all the test up until the last two series vs new zealand & england.

So any talented batsmen in India domestically really couldn't break into this circle in two decades. But they few that got chances especially after Azhar & ganguly left for the majority were not impressive.

Their was Pravin Amre just before dravid/ganguly came on the scene; we all know the story of vinod kambli, i recall when india toured australia in 99 H Kanitkar came with great hype and struggled; hemang badani & kaif got chances and struggled; yuvraj singh had all the hype in the world based on his odi exploits but has never been good enough in tests, raina has come had failed, rohit sharma always looks good but is even struggling to nail down an odi place; ajay jadeja got his chance in tests & struggled & before sehwag/gambhir forged a good opening partnership guys like devang gandi, jaffer, ramesh, shiv sunder das, murali vijay all struggled to replicate first-class form on the test stage.

All these batsman showed traditional indian/asian batsmen weaknesses vs quick bowling & overseas that was the problem before the famous 5 came & why before the famous 5 only Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, viswanth, umrigar, hazare were the only notable top-class indian batsmen in their history. ( shouts out to borde, mankad, amarnath). This is why the big 5 era was so unique to india cricket & why i saw their overall impact will be hard to replace like the windies have found in replacing their 70s & 80s quick bowling group.

Essentially Kohli is only indian batsman outside the famous 5 who has impressed me in years as man who could do it across all formats. Pujara looks solid too - but tests lie ahead & i always rated Badrinath highly but the selectors foolishly after ganguly left kept trying raina & yuvraj @ # 6.

So i'm not going to give tiwary/rahane/pandey/mukund/chand a free pass just because they look talented in a couple one-day games & a youth world cup, they got to come and prove themselves in tests. Mukund didn't look to flash in england last year & ever since that one ipl centruy i dont know what manish pandey has done.

Finally i don't see why they can't slip behind west indies that is improving, lets not forget for a large portion of cricket history, the windies were miles ahead of them. India has just had the last 10 years of being better.

Those same talented young indian bats in a group played a a-team series in vs windies (a) a few months ago & lost - Results | Global | ESPN Cricinfo. In the right conditions a kemar roach lead windies pace attack can certainly cause india's batsmen much problems.

 

[Gaurav_7]

Sure India have young batsmen that come in fill int the other four spots around pujara & kohli - but replacing the collective quality that the famous 5 batsmen had is different kettle of fish.

I get that. But, that can never happen in any scenario, isn't it? I mean there cannot be another Tendulkar or say Ponting for Australia. What India needs now is to back their youngsters and give them some time to build as a unit. Thing is here we are impatient. The fans, the media, the ex cricketers all start moaning when the team doesn't do well for a series. We call for the heads of coaches, captain, etc. I see people are suggesting Fletcher needs to go. I am sure if we even bring in Kirsten (under whom we won the WC), there won't be much change as the team is in a mess. Some say Dhoni needs to be sacked. I don't get why. The other 10 or 9 players don't perform then what can the captain do? Sehwag and Gambhir have failed, Tendulkar needs to go, Chawla should never have been there, Ashwin has been disappointing but, I think he needs to be persisted with for some time, Ishant Sharma has only impressed in this match, Jadeja deserves his chance but not at the expense of say Rahane, so it only leaves Ashwin, Ojha, Pujara, Kohli and Dhoni whom I will keep in the XI.

For the future, I think I would like this team -

Mukund
Dhawan
Pujara
Kohli
Rahane
Tiwary
Dhoni
Ashwin
Ojha
Yadav
P Kumar

Aaron/Awana

The other 3 guys could be a backup wicketkeeper like Ojha, Saha, etc. a batter like Rohit Sharma, and a backup spinner in Iqbal Abdulla, Rahul Sharma, etc.

 

[Aalay]

I feel this is even worse then 2007 WC. Losing at home is like a nightmare for an Indian fan. However, England played brilliantly and as I said at the start of the series that this is their best chance to win a series in India and they grabbed it with both hands. I liked how India did show some fight in the last match but it was too late. I think India was expecting too much from Ashwin and he failed miserably. Ojha was very good and I thought many Indian fans were not expecting him to do as well as he did. If we are looking for future,

Rahane
Mukund
Pujara
Kohli
Rohit
Tiwary
Dhoni
Ashwin
Ojha
Yadav
Ishant

Reserve Openers: Shikhar Dhawan
Reserve middle order: Mandeep Singh, Ambati Raydu
Reserve WK: Saha
Reserve Spinners: Chawla, Harmeet Singh, Harbhajan
Reserve fast bowlers: Aaron(If he ever gets fit again), Awana, Dinda, RP Singh?, PK, Irfan Pathn

I do not understand that why is everyone criticizing India? This was supposed to happen. None of the Indian batsman were in form. Yes, some of them did get some runs in Ranji trophy but we all know the bowling standard is of our domestic cricket. This is the time a team needs the most support because they are going through one of the worst phase and everyone(ex players, media) are criticizing them.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

the west indies weren't even particularly convincing against bangladesh. they were up against it for most of the test series and lost the ODI series. I don't know how you can think they're potentially going to become one of the stronger test sides.

they're only good at twenty20, ironically the format that most people claim is destroying india's team. even this rubbish, declining, falling apart, indian team was able to punctuate it's whitewashes with a comfortable gubbing of them.

 

[War]

the west indies weren't even particularly convincing against bangladesh. they were up against it for most of the test series and lost the ODI series. I don't know how you can think they're potentially going to become one of the stronger test sides.

they're only good at twenty20, ironically the format that most people claim is destroying india's team. even this rubbish, declining, falling apart, indian team was able to punctuate it's whitewashes with a comfortable gubbing of them.

Bangladesh challenged for periods of the 1st test, while the windies totally dominated the second test. So to say they were up against it for most of the test series their isn't accurate.

They did in the odi's. However I put that down to a bit of windies complacency & the fact that bangladesh in odi's @ home are certainly looking a bit dangerous - since they almost won the asia cup earlier this year on home soil too.

Windies to me just need sarwan back in the test team to bring back solidity to their batting & their test team will be fine. Since their pace bowling talent is very good. Kemar Roach is as good as Steve Finn, Pattison, Cummins, de lange, yadav as the best young quicks in the game. While Rampaul, edwards, best have been doing well - which gives them a pace attack capable of challenging s africa, england & australia in tests.

But as i said, the FTP programme will not allow them to test themselves vs those big 3 teams anything soon for reasons already stated.

Plus i wasn't only taking about the windies, i also mentioned pakistan as another team i see moving up above/closing the gap significantly on india & sri lanka as they decline due to pending retirements to ageing players/rebuilding phase.

 

[macintosh]

A wonderful performance by the English side, they have surprised everyone,
Compton is the most impressive youngster of the series for me, he was a bit too defensive at times, but atleast its better than giving up in away conditions, he is a really good find, was more useful than what his stats suggest.
Monty's role in the series was crucial, in the first match itself it looked like England desperately needed a 2nd spinner, and he clicked just at the right time.