India tour of Australia 17 Dec - 19 Jan: Tests

[GarlicJam]

Will there be a pitch complaint?

I don't think that India dare.

I reckon they are copping so much crap at home for this, that to put in a (frivolous, imo) complaint will make them look so much worse.

[meninblue]

To me Indian cricket team has never recovered from loss of Fab4. The succession planning has drastically flopped.

[meninblue]

Australia deserves this comprehensive win, but in no ways a test batting team of a major cricketing nation wherein cricket is the number 1 national game should get out for 36 runs. 36 runs by Indian test batting lineup is unacceptable. The standard of Sehwag, Rahul, Sachin and VVS was too good. This isnt anywhere near.

[Arthur Crabtree]

To me Indian cricket team has never recovered from loss of Fab4. The succession planning has drastically flopped.

Aren't India the top ranked side by a mile?

[Arthur Crabtree]

Unusual times. Normal sporting life has been parked. Strange things will happen. Don't think generalisations mean that much right now.

[GarlicJam]

To me Indian cricket team has never recovered from loss of Fab4. The succession planning has drastically flopped.

Aren't India the top ranked side by a mile?

No, both Aus and NZ (!?) are on 116, India 114, with England on 106. Daylight 5th.

This was from a couple of weeks ago. Today would have changed that, I assume.

[yuppie]

Somedays these things just happen. Awesome bowling that just kept finding the edges. Can bowl that well and get nothing, always beating the edge.

Just all fell into place for the Aussie quicks.

[Arthur Crabtree]

To me Indian cricket team has never recovered from loss of Fab4. The succession planning has drastically flopped.

Aren't India the top ranked side by a mile?

No, both Aus and NZ (!?) are on 116, India 114, with England on 106. Daylight 5th.

This was from a couple of weeks ago. Today would have changed that, I assume.

Fair enough, they have a few away defeats on their record. Win every game at home though.

[sussexpob]

I don't think so. I didn't see anything wrong with the pitch, or any balls radically misbehaving.

I saw some excellent bowling though - from both sides.

If this is a pitch that is worthy of complaint, then the game of test cricket is totally dead. For a 2020 Aussie wicket there looks to be a bit of bygone era bounce and carry in it, but aside from the bouncer Shami copped in the first innings that to me seemed to rise on him sharply (hes a number 11 batting to a top quality quick who had it on the money, so sometimes batsman can make those balls look deadlier through their lack of skill) the Indians cannot blame the pitch for this one. Looked a pretty good wicket to me actually, if Australia produce wickets like this again and again then Id be far happier than the lifeless rubbish they usually serve up in recent years.

Imo this was just absolutely top quality length control. The Indians were trapped wanting to play the bounce hanging a lot more on the back foot, the Aussies pitched it slightly fuller. Just perfect, top quality operation from the Aussie quicks. The Indians had no answer.

Only really Kohli of the top batsman got out to something that wasnt a traditional defence of the offstump, and that was rubbish. Ball was well too wide to be playing (although at that stage it was 6-15 or something ridiculous so I doubt he was going to hang around with Indias terrible late order). Not that it probably changed much, India were in a full rout and had probably lost the game already.


Although Kohli for me had some grounds to complain; I only got one replay of that catch from one angle on the highlights I watched, I was far from convinced it was a catch. Maybe the live footage had conclusive angles, but certainly on the evidence I seen Id be furious if I was given out on that.

[GarlicJam]

it was certainly out Sussex. Green bounced the ball up off his wrist onto his chest and rattled it between chest and forearms a couple of times as he fell to the ground. Never went close to touching the ground - even with five minutes of replays, they couldn't see a suggestion of a dropped ball.

as the original decision was out, I was pretty peeved at just how many replays the had, and how long they took. Seemingly TRYING to find a reason to give it not out. I reckon I heard the 3rdie say "I see no reason to overturn the on-field decision" about 6 times.

I was wondering at the time if it was some other batter, would we have seen so many replays.

[sussexpob]

it was certainly out Sussex. Green bounced the ball up off his wrist onto his chest and rattled it between chest and forearms a couple of times as he fell to the ground. Never went close to touching the ground - even with five minutes of replays, they couldn't see a suggestion of a dropped ball

Take your word for it. Cricinfo's take seemed to suggest at the worst, there wasnt enough to overturn the onfield decision so he had to go. Just on the one angle I seen he seems to lose the ball instantly, he falls forward with it tucked into his body, hits the floor and then it ends in his hands. Its hard to see how he does that without the ball hitting the ground.

Different point, but for these sorts of catches I am not sure soft signals are really that sensible. An lbw scrapping a stump being given out is fine, but catches following umpires initial decisions that cant be proven surely have to be not out. Well thats my opinion anyway, not that its relevant here if you say other angles are clear.

[meninblue]

To me Indian cricket team has never recovered from loss of Fab4. The succession planning has drastically flopped.

Aren't India the top ranked side by a mile?

Arthur, I meant replacement batsmen for 4 i.e Sehwag, Rahul, Sachin and VVS are just 2 now Virat and Chet. There is decline in number of batting greats our team had in past.

Ranking of India may improve if other teams quality drop and also because now our pace bowling attack is better. But batting quality is no more comparable to past.

[yuppie]

Both these teams have great bowling attacks and a batting line up carried by 2 players. pretty evenly matched:)

[sussexpob]

Arthur, I meant replacement batsmen for 4 i.e Sehwag, Rahul, Sachin and VVS are just 2 now Virat and Chet. There is decline in number of batting greats our team had in past

If the ball moves and there is bounce in the wicket, would you really back someone like Sehwag to score much? His average outside Asia in competitive series (ie removing the worst teams with no realistic chances of winning) was a train wreck. Averaged under 30 in a lot of places like South Africa, NZ and England. If the pitch wasnt dead as a dodo, he was doing nothing. And he would have did nothing last night against that barrage. Laxman was another. Over 20 tests in South Africa and England, no hundreds. Toughest statistical places to bat, neither justify their position in the team. Ganguly was crap outside Asia too, apart from England; but he played county cricket for 3 teams over his career, so he'd have probably played a similar amount of games in England to some of his younger opponents.

Even Dravid averaged under 40 vs Australia. Kohli is a decimal place better than Sachin v OZ Aussies. These are in days where pitches produced more runs than ever, while nowadays scoring seems to be far lower across the board.

Give the team a chance. A lot of inexperienced players. It wasnt long ago this modern rubbish team beat Australia in their own backyard for the first time. How did they manage that without the legends

[GarlicJam]

Both these teams have great bowling attacks and a batting line up carried by 2 players. pretty evenly matched:)

This sums things up pretty well, imo.

Absolute top-notch bowling attacks.

A couple of days ago - even before Aus was controlled so well by India's bowling - the ABC radio's stat man came up with the statement that the four India bowlers are owners of the top four strike rates in Indian Test Cricket history.

That is an amazing stat. Their four most efficient bowlers, all bowling at once. I agree, it is not necessarily saying they are India's best bowlers of all time, but the most efficient at taking wickets.

The one proviso to this was allowing Bumrah into the mix, considering the low number of tests he has played. The stat man had to lower his minimum number of tests/overs/wickets that he was using (I didn't hear what that was very clearly).