Dude, once you start to make predictions about what would've happened if XYZ were available you start to lose respect. Some of the things you've said above are laughable.
Except im not making predictions based on my imaginition. As i showed above the evidence backs me up.
In the 2006 Mumbai test on a unsually pace bowler friendly Mumbai deck. Hoggard/Flintoff owned India's top 7, similarly to what Steyn/Morkel did in the 1st test recently.
So i've always been fairly confident that if they had played in the 2007 series where bowler friendly conditions was present. They would have caused similar havoc & India would have never won that series.
A team is as good as the players available, if the players are injured then the team just isn't good enough ! Shane Bond wasn't a great bowler because he kept getting injured. I wouldn't say he was a great bowler BUT he got injured, that's not how it works. If half your team was injured as you claim, then you need to and investigate why the team was so bloody unfit. Not that they were, imo, but that's besides the point. India beat England in 2007 fair and square. Arguing otherwise is childish.
Firslty of course IND beat ENG fair & square in 2007, thats not my point. I'm saying they didn't beat the best ENG team, so their win their cannot be hailed as if they conquered ENG.
This situation now is very very similar to IND win in ENG 1971 due to similar lucky circumstance (the weather in 71) enabling them to win 1-0, just like in 2007.
But when they toured ENG again in 1974, they where hammered 3-0, which basically proved that 1971 victory was lucky. Thats why i say if IND lose in ENG 2011, just like back in 1971, it will prove that 2007 victory was lucky.
Secondly i dont know how closely you where following the England test team during 2007. But after the 2005 Ashes win, between 2005-2009 Ashes NO TEAM in world cricket had the amount of unfortunate/weird injuries to key players that ENG had during those 4 years.
- Trescothick who was heading into the peak of his career suddenly developed his homesickness/brain problems. How many cricketers ever has injuries like that??.
- Vaughan knee's suddenly gave out after 2005, which crippled his batting (later in his career when he game back it caused him to develop a technical fault which caused him to get bowled alot). That messed him & ENG up
- Giles aka mr.dependable. Suddenly after his whole test & FC career developed some weird finger or knee injury (cant remember) & he was gone within a year. ALthough with the emergence of Panesar & Swann he probably would have lost his place to injury.
- As i mentioned above also Hoggard & Harmo during the 2007 for the 1st &
ONLY times in their test careers both got injured for that series. If you wish you can check out their careers & you will see that was the only time that they ever missed a test for ENG due to injury, other times it was because they where dropped.
- We all know the situations with Jones & Flintoff. Dont need to explain that.
Those injuries is comparable to IND losing Dhoni, Sehwag, Khan, Tendulkar for extended periods. You would never recover.
So as you can see no investigation would have been neded. Since it was just a sudden influx of weird injuries that gripped the ENG side during that period, to a group of players who up to that time had gone through their entire careers never missing much if any games through injury.
If one were to use the same argument the Ashes win in 2005 doesn't count since McGrath got injured playing football. However, no one denies England their dues for that victory. One can say we don't know what would've happened if XYZ were there, but to claim that the team would definitely have been beaten...well, you're talking rubbish.
AkshayS said:
ENG weren't facing McGrath in Ashes 2005, if he would have been there, Australia would have won 5-0.
That's how your theory works.
This may surprise you, but I personally dont or have never had the opinion that if McGrath was fully fit for all 5 tests that AUS would have won the Ashes 05 actually.
I have always felt ENG may still have won or a drawn series. Just like IND 2001 where AUS batsmen where exposed technically to spin with AUS full-strenght attack playing. The same say ENGs batsmen exposed AUS batsmen to quality swing bowling in Ashes 05.
So thus even if McGrath was full fit throughout to support Warne, which would have made the series scores low scoring. The lack of consistent enough support from the rest of the attack may have on key occassion enabled ENG to score extra key runs, where as ENG quicks basically had no weak links & gave AUS bats nothing. That may have swung the series ENGs way still.
AkshayS said:
That was obsviously ENG's best pace attack available at that time, because the others were injured and were not in the team and you just can't them. Zaheer had come after a long time in the team, Sree and RP were very new to INT. cricket particularly ENG's condition and test cricket. So that wasn't actually our best attack.
Haha what?.
How could it have been ENG best attack at the time when its entire 1st choice attack was out injured.??
So what if Zaheer had just come back in 2007 & Sree & RP Singh where new to ENG conditions. That was your best available pace attack for that series based on performances prior to the series in S Africa 06/07. Nobody was out injured like the case was with ENG.
So this is a terrible comparison.
) revolved around India playing very weak teams and/or bullying on flat tracks for the last few years. The argument of people moan about spinning tracks is redundant as I can't even remember the last time a home game for India was on a spinning track. And then people come on here and act as if they have a chance against South Africa and all hail the supposed number 1!!!! 
