Which was a more difficult sub-continent tour?. India or Sri Lanka?

[Sedition]

Ok so when AUS conquered the sub-continent in 2004, by winning in Sri Lanka & India. Which tour did you find tougher challenge?.

I still have to go with India. I always regarded both sides as equally dangerous with bat, but the spin combination of Kumble and Harbhajan always had me worried we'd be bungled out for <300 while India puts on 400+.. and the idea of batting day 4 or 5 on those pitches with two world class spinners operating was frightful.

Since neither team is far apart in terms of ability, it's mostly external factors that give the edge to India as being tougher.
As I touched on about the crowds, they seemed almost hostile towards the Australian team at times, though there were never any real incidents, it still made you nervous watching from back here.
The media in India is another major external factor, fueling the flames and exaggerating incidents as much as possible, which then comes out on the field between the players and makes for some good tv between balls.
The biased nature of the Indian media, propagating stories to the fans and adding to the tension between players always made me feel we had to fight harder mentally for victories in India.

I looked back over the scorecards of those series meanwhile and see we cleansweeped Sri Lanka 3-0, whilst beating India 2-1 and a no result due to rain with India in a strong position. Brought back a lot of memories of M. Clarke's 150 on debut vs. India in India.

 

[War]

K, let's look that up.

Sri Lanka at home from 1997 to 2008:

12 Wins, 11 Losses against IND, AUS, SA, ENG, PAK

20 Wins, 1 Loss against NZ, WI, BAN, ZIM



India at home from 1997 to 2008:

17 Wins, 11 Losses against SL, AUS, SA, PAK, and ENG

6 Wins, 0 Losses against WI, NZ, ZIM

We're taking their BEST period of test cricket and they're still not as good as India..

Well of course i didnt expect it to be a big margin either way. All i said in my opening post was as an England & AUS supporter in my lifetime of watching cricket. All the tours from those two countries i found the series in SRI difficult - especially facing Murali.

FOR AUS:

- When AUS toured IND in 1998 that was difficult given AUS batsmen couldn't yet play spin properly. But when AUS went to SRI in AUG 99/00 i thought the AUS batsmen where even more lost.

- Same thing applies to 2004. AUS conquered IND in 2004 & the headlines where all over the series win. But AUS win in SRI 6 months before that tour was MUCHHHHH harder, given that AUS came from behind in every test to win & didn't have McGrath. AUS in general in that 2004 series, where generally always on top of IND.


FOR ENG:

- Although ENG won in SRI 2001, quite famously (some may say luckily). I found that 2001, 2003/04, 07/08 tours to SRI facing Murali for ENGs batsmen far more difficult than that 2001/02 & 2005/06 & 08/09 tours to IND.

I look at that 2001/02 tour to IND just after the September 11th bombing when nobody wanted to tour Asia & main ENG players like Gough, Caddick, Stewart, Thorpe skippeed that series & ENG with second string team sort of managed to challenge IND and just lost 1-0. I dont think ENG could have carried an experimental team to SR facing Murali & have come back with anything less than a 3-0 thrashing. So slightly somehow SRI where more difficult.

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I still have to go with India. I always regarded both sides as equally dangerous with bat, but the spin combination of Kumble and Harbhajan always had me worried we'd be bungled out for <300 while India puts on 400+.. and the idea of batting day 4 or 5 on those pitches with two world class spinners operating was frightful.

Since neither team is far apart in terms of ability, it's mostly external factors that give the edge to India as being tougher.
As I touched on about the crowds, they seemed almost hostile towards the Australian team at times, though there were never any real incidents, it still made you nervous watching from back here.
The media in India is another major external factor, fueling the flames and exaggerating incidents as much as possible, which then comes out on the field between the players and makes for some good tv between balls.
The biased nature of the Indian media, propagating stories to the fans and adding to the tension between players always made me feel we had to fight harder mentally for victories in India.

I looked back over the scorecards of those series meanwhile and see we cleansweeped Sri Lanka 3-0, whilst beating India 2-1 and a no result due to rain with India in a strong position. Brought back a lot of memories of M. Clarke's 150 on debut vs. India in India.

Well yes the crowd factor in IND is wayyyyy bigger than in SRI. I dotn recall ever seeing a full house in a test in SRI - just for ODIs.

But look at the scores for those respective 2004 tours good in case you didnt watch those series live. AUS came back from HUGE deficits in SRI 04 to win those those with Vaas/Murali at their ultimate peaks. In IND 04, in general AUS in general always where on top of IND.

 

[STLIndian]

Well of course i didnt expect it to be a big margin either way. All i said in my opening post was as an England & AUS supporter in my lifetime of watching cricket. All the tours from those two countries i found the series in SRI difficult - especially facing Murali.

FOR AUS:

- When AUS toured IND in 1998 that was difficult given AUS batsmen couldn't yet play spin properly. But when AUS went to SRI in AUG 99/00 i thought the AUS batsmen where even more lost.

- Same thing applies to 2004. AUS conquered IND in 2004 & the headlines where all over the series win. But AUS win in SRI 6 months before that tour was MUCHHHHH harder, given that AUS came from behind in every test to win & didn't have McGrath. AUS in general in that 2004 series, where generally always on top of IND.


FOR ENG:

- Although ENG won in SRI 2001, quite famously (some may say luckily). I found that 2001, 2003/04, 07/08 tours to SRI facing Murali for ENGs batsmen far more difficult than that 2001/02 & 2005/06 & 08/09 tours to IND.

I look at that 2001/02 tour to IND just after the September 11th bombing when nobody wanted to tour Asia & main ENG players like Gough, Caddick, Stewart, Thorpe skippeed that series & ENG with second string team sort of managed to challenge IND and just lost 1-0. I dont think ENG could have carried an experimental team to SR facing Murali & have come back with anything less than a 3-0 thrashing. So slightly somehow SRI where more difficult.

.

First of all, you're an England AND Australia fan?

And there's really nothing for me to say. I've given you the facts (India is wayy better at home), if you don't want to pay attention to them there's nothing left for me to do.

 

[War]

First of all, you're an England AND Australia fan?

And there's really nothing for me to say. I've given you the facts (India is wayy better at home), if you don't want to pay attention to them there's nothing left for me to do.

You are not listening to what i said. I'm not questioning whether IND have a better record at home technically, that was not the intention of my opening post.

All im saying is that comparing the tours that AUS & ENG (i support both teams) have made to SRI & IND in the last 15 years or so that i've seen. I have found tours to SRI to be more difficult encounters for reasons i have already stated in the above post.

Other posters (AUS fans) in this thread have also stated a slight edge to SRI as well as their POV. So if your intention in this thread is display elitist arrogance, rather than having a nice calm cricket discussion - then your style of posting is not welcome.

 

[Papa_Smurf]

So if your intention in this thread is display elitist arrogance, rather than having a nice calm cricket discussion - then your style of posting is not welcome.

Frankly, their has been too much elitist posts going around recently in the WC threads.

 

[STLIndian]

You are not listening to what i said. I'm not questioning whether IND have a better record at home technically, that was not the intention of my opening post.

All im saying is that comparing the tours that AUS & ENG (i support both teams) have made to SRI & IND in the last 15 years or so that i've seen. I have found tours to SRI to be more difficult encounters for reasons i have already stated in the above post.

Other posters (AUS fans) in this thread have also stated a slight edge to SRI as well as their POV. So if your intention in this thread is display elitist arrogance, rather than having a nice calm cricket discussion - then your style of posting is not welcome.

You said:

Which was more difficult for non sub-continental touring teams IYO?.

I looked it up and stated that India was clearly better. I didn't address anyone directly.

Then you responded (without me prompting for you to do so) by saying.

TBF Sri Lanka hasn't exactly been a difficult place to tour for 20 years exactly. The Murali/Vaas combo began to click as world-class unit in the late 1990s & lasted probably up until 2008

I simply responded by posting more stats proving that India is better no matter how you slice it.

You the responded with this (a whole bunch of opinion):

Well of course i didnt expect it to be a big margin either way. All i said in my opening post was as an England & AUS supporter in my lifetime of watching cricket. All the tours from those two countries i found the series in SRI difficult - especially facing Murali.

FOR AUS:

- When AUS toured IND in 1998 that was difficult given AUS batsmen couldn't yet play spin properly. But when AUS went to SRI in AUG 99/00 i thought the AUS batsmen where even more lost.

- Same thing applies to 2004. AUS conquered IND in 2004 & the headlines where all over the series win. But AUS win in SRI 6 months before that tour was MUCHHHHH harder, given that AUS came from behind in every test to win & didn't have McGrath. AUS in general in that 2004 series, where generally always on top of IND.


FOR ENG:

- Although ENG won in SRI 2001, quite famously (some may say luckily). I found that 2001, 2003/04, 07/08 tours to SRI facing Murali for ENGs batsmen far more difficult than that 2001/02 & 2005/06 & 08/09 tours to IND.

I look at that 2001/02 tour to IND just after the September 11th bombing when nobody wanted to tour Asia & main ENG players like Gough, Caddick, Stewart, Thorpe skippeed that series & ENG with second string team sort of managed to challenge IND and just lost 1-0. I dont think ENG could have carried an experimental team to SR facing Murali & have come back with anything less than a 3-0 thrashing. So slightly somehow SRI where more difficult.

In response to this, I said I have nothing else to say since you are arguing off of opinion. It's not like I can change your opinion, so I stopped.

Now sir, I'd like to know how I was being elitist. Was it the fact that I said India was far superior to SL at home? I'm sorry, but that's just the truth. It's not like I'm just pulling that out of my ass, it's backed up with facts.

I don't know what I've done other than have a nice calm cricket discussion. All I've done is post stats. It doesn't get more mellow than that.

 

[AngryPixel]

Given the quality of bowling attack, i have to say Sri Lanka should be more difficult of the two. But for some strange reason, teams have failed miserably in India. Maybe its the Batting that counterbalances the weak bowling attack.

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I think STL has posted his views very clearly and given facts supporting them. Whereas WAR has just said that "This tour was blah blah but still i think SRI is harder".
Infact you were the one who was not participating in the discussion and was just ignoring cold hard facts. You could have given facts supporting your stance but you just chose to divert the discussion and put the blame on him. No so cool dude.

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I know almost 99% of batsman would prefer playing Zaheer/Bhajji/Munaf/Nehra at home rather than Malinga/Mendis/Murali/Herath at home. But in reality, they have worse record in India.
This is just like comparing Wasim and Mc'grath. Most batsman would admit Wasim to be a bigger challenge because of his guile with ball. He can literally get the ball to talk . But yet Mc'grath is the one more effective of the two.

 

[War]

Given the quality of bowling attack, i have to say Sri Lanka should be more difficult of the two. But for some strange reason, teams have failed miserably in India. Maybe its the Batting that counterbalances the weak bowling attack.

I think STL has posted his views very clearly and given facts supporting them. Whereas WAR has just said that "This tour was blah blah but still i think SRI is harder".
Infact you were the one who was not participating in the discussion and was just ignoring cold hard facts. You could have given facts supporting your stance but you just chose to divert the discussion and put the blame on him. No so cool dude.

I was always aware of the fact that IND had a technically better record statistically at home. I could have done stats just like poster STL in my opening posts as well - but those are obvious stats any serious cricket fan i would think should know. However that wasn't why i made this thread.

Your point when you said...Given the quality of bowling attack, i have to say Sri Lanka should be more difficult of the two. But for some strange reason, teams have failed miserably in India. Maybe its the Batting that counterbalances the weak bowling attack

I sort of why the reason why i made this thread & my post (which you managed to described as blah blah). Since i just recalled back nostalgically while i was looking back at highlights of AUS 2004 series win in IND the other day on tape, although that was great. I recall all AUS series in SRI (and ENG as well) being tougher than tours to IND that i saw - regardless of INDs obvious invincible record at home.

So the idea of the thread was to look beyond the stats a bit, to query why this was the case.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

Your point when you said...Given the quality of bowling attack, i have to say Sri Lanka should be more difficult of the two. But for some strange reason, teams have failed miserably in India. Maybe its the Batting that counterbalances the weak bowling attack

in an all-time assessment, yeah, obviously just having murali makes sri lanka's attack better than india's over the time period. the thing is, india have such a wealth of cricketers they've usually been able to find at least two bowlers in good enough form to trouble teams.

sri lanka have vaas and murali, a double act way ahead of khan and kumble. but sri lanka could never support them with anyone. despite their overall career crapness, india have managed to also get good series out of irfan, sreesanth, agrakar, munaf, sharma etc etc purely because they'd pick them on form.

 

[harishankar]

Who uses words like Final frontier?

India is clearly the toughest challenge for any touring captain. The sheer size of the country and the travelling involved, the bewilderingly varying nature of wickets in different parts (from spinning dustbowls to bouncy, fast-paced tracks), the varying weather, the crowd noise everything add to the challenge.

I think Sri Lanka is a tough place to tour for most teams, but the conditions are not so varying as in India, so I think that is what makes the difference.

In India, playing a D/n ODI at Mohali is clearly a world away from playing a Test match at Chepauk. And that's where the challenge lies.

 

[chiranjitpathak]

Sri lanka seems to be tougher place for me (especially in the recent past) because of the climatic conditions and pitches. Some might argue that Indian climate is also tough for the touring side, but not as tough as Sri lanka . Also the pitches here are much flatter than low and slow and turning square pitches in Sri lanka.