India tour of Australia 17 Dec - 19 Jan: Tests

[meninblue]

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

If you remove best performances of a player then a lot of players can be made to look bad.

Runs scored in Asia carry equal value to runs scored outside Asia. Ricky Ponting averaged 26 in India, that does not mean he isnt a great because he performed below par in india. Similar with Sehwag.KP scred 150 something in Mumbai, it is highly rated and increased his pedigree or established the point that he is test great. One only has to read KP's view or ask him how much satisfactin that innings in Mumbai gave to him. Again the point is runs in Asian wickets are also as imprtant as runs anywhere else. SImilarly, runs against swing bowlers and pacers are as important as runs against spin bowlers. In my view there is no barometer that one type of wicket or one type of bowling is more important metric to be scored against. Runs against a spinner is as important as a pacer imo. Shane Warne failed against Indian batsmen, that does not means he isn't a great bowler. Many Indian however downplay Warne's greatness on that basis but i do not. Similarly Ponting is downplayed. Some Indian fans troll Aussie fans using those metrics when Aussie fans troll some Indian greats using some metrics.Sehwag, Rahul, Sachin and VVS are India's greats. The new Fab4 is not even near to formation. At the most we have Fab2 in this batting lineup.

Sehwag - 49.34
Rahul - 52.31
Sachin - 53.78
VVS - 45.97


Ganguly is not a part of Fab4. Sehwag, Rahul, Sachin and VVS were in a differnt level than Ganguly.

Sehwag is an Indian great and he makes the All time Test 11 for India as an opening batsman. Rahul and Sachin and VVS are also top class and statisticall as shown above they have acheived averages that only two current Test Indian players (Chet and Virat) have managed to do.


Kohli isnt a better test batsman than Sachin,yet. He has surpassed Sachin as an ODI batsman. But he has career left to prove that he is better than Sachin in test as well.


Coming to the point of how this team managed to beat Aussies on last tour. Well where Indian team has excelled in this dcade is that the bowling attack is very superior to Indian bowlers of past. In 2019, Indian pacershad the best ever strike rate of all time iirc. Also, Warner and Smith were not in the opposition which did help wind up matches early. Agarwal was giving decent starts then and seeing off new ball. Here Shaw is unable to middle the ball when he is playing away from body. Agarwal has not been able to convert his start. The opening partnership , even a samll one was missing. Pant too is not there. Saha is not as good a batsman as Pant is. Indian team will win without Sehwag, Sachin, Rahul and VVS but there are two things: (1) This Indian bowling attack is the best ever we have had which helps compensate lack of battign greats somewhat. (2) Though the Indian team has won series without the Fab4 and win in future as well, the Fab4 haven't been replaced. The bowling is getting stronger which helps compensate lack of batting greats as in past. At most its a Fab2 now as far as battign is concerned.

Inexperience is not the problem. The lack of patience, temperament, shot selection is an issue. They are playing T20 in test matches. Virat often talk about intent to score runs, so much that even Chet was forced to pay fast and he started failing. Even yesterday he gas talked similar crap. Yesterday he found a scapegoat in Agarwal. These guys do not understand the value of seeing off the new ball and tiring the bowlers (especially 4 man attack with 3 pacers) so that the set batsman and others can score big later. The strategy and approach is of T20i.

Lack of planning is another. Kohli drops players as per his mood and he is extremely moody and inconsitent with his thoughts and selections. What was the need to drop Pant who was second highest run scorer for India last year in Australia. There was a payer named Karun Nair if you remember. he scored 300 against England. As soon as there was slight drop of runs, he was dropped as if he had not performed. I dont say Karun would have been world beater, but in todays era anyone scoring 300 needs to be given a decent run. You cant drop someone who has scored a 300 after 3 or 4 innings. Player management and development is not Kohli'sstong point. He has not bene able to develop a battign unit. Where he has done good is that he has built a team of bowlers like Shami, Bumrah, Sharma / Yadav / Bhuv and Ashwin / Jadeja. The quality of pace bowling and number of quality bowlers in india have increased. India have easily managed to replace Zaheer with more number of better pacers. But thats not the case as far as batting is concerned.


Shastri needs to be sacked as coach. Reports are that he is the highest paid coach in sports. Where is perfromance. Where is player development or team morale to justify his duties. Look at how many players are saying Rohit Sharma is such a better captain than Kohli. There is lot of insecurity for players with Kohli is a captain. Kohli should be sacked as captain. But these things wont happen. BCCI has a brand to protect and they need a superstar batsman. Kohli thus ets away with free pass, with deciding who he wants as coach rather than management making decissions on who coach should be. He also gets away inspite of selection blunders because he is well protcted by the people at helm. He has too much powers, but thats also what Indian fans are responsible for in some ways apart from the players PR team. Indian public makes superstars and help superstar culture thrive becauseof emotional attachment. Players thrive and become pwoerful on this. Kohli is losing his greatness as compared to previous greats far too soon at an early age. Sachin in fact gave away captaincy on his own. Kohli will stick to it as he will not want his brand to hurt. Sachin, Dhoni and others were blamed to extend their career even when they were past but all that happened at age of 38, but Kohli is losing a lot of goodwill at the early age of 32 something.

[sussexpob]

Runs scored in Asia carry equal value to runs scored outside Asia.

The point you make about relevant skills being equal is true, but that does not mean a player with exceptional overall career performance can be expected to be equally as useful in all situations. The truth is, regardless of Sehwag's obvious ability in certain situations, when the ball moved in the air he was no where near a world class bat. His career performance provides all the evidence you need of that. So if we are putting this into the context of India performing and winning matches in all situations, then you cant simply say India were a better team because x,y,z averaged more then. The fact is in most situations outside Asia, vastly inferior players who were slightly better at the swinging ball might have done far better than Laxman and Sehwag. And even Tendulkar once England's horror joke side of the 90s ended averaged mid 30s in England when we had half a good side (although his 100 at Headingley in 2002 remains one of the best innings I have ever seen, and the best complete batting performance by a side with Ganguly and Dravid scoring too).

The facts are quite compelling. Just compare away wins between eras.

Tendulkar played 106 tests away and won 20
Kohli has played 48 test away and won 17

Worth noting Tendulkar's wins include 8 vs Zimbabwe and BD. Kohli never had the luxury of playing these teams apart from one drawn BD test in 2015, when India annihilated BD only for rain to save BD after being asked to follow on.

Its easy to forget how bad India were at times in the 2000s with this unbeatable line up.

Draws with Zimbabwe 1-1 in 2001
Losing twice to Sri Lanka away in the early 2000s
Losing to the Windies in 2002 even when Lara averaged 28 in 5 tests. Against the fearsome attack of Merv Dillan, Sandford, Pedro Collins and Cameron Cuffy.
Losing in NZ in 03 then failing to beat them at home
Drawing then losing to Pakistan away in the mid 2000s

I could go on

Even the year India ranked 1st in the world they lost to Sri Lanka, drew with South Africa and lost to Australia.

This was never a great team, especially away from home. Every time they did well vs Australia, they followed it up with terror results. Like winning in 2001, then losing a test in Zimbabwe.

Post Fab 4

Won every single series at home in 7 years - Perfect
Won every test series in Asia - Perfect
Beat Australia away - Indias greatest cricketing achievement in tests

Know which I prefer

Inexperience is not the problem

Half the Indian batting line up has less than 15 tests. Fab 4 averages at 15 tests

Sehwag - 39
Dravid and Tendulkar -35
Laxman - 25

Look at the best teams ever. The Windies in the Richards days, and Steve Waughs Australia. Listen to how Michael Holding, Viv and Clive Lloyd talk about taking a lot of inexperienced players to OZ in 1976 and getting annihilated. They became some of the greatest cricketers ever, but all of them were nowhere near prepared for a fierce away series against established quality players. Pretty much every single batter in Steve Waughs great side was dropped in their career and had to wait a long time to come back.... Steve himself averaged in the 20s for 30 tests.

Even the best need experience. You cannot judge young players in tough tours with so little investment in them.

Coming to the point of how this team managed to beat Aussies on last tour. Well where Indian team has excelled in this dcade is that the bowling attack is very superior to Indian bowlers of past.

Compare the victorious side to that of the 2007 failed mission to OZ

Ishant was in both squads.

Shami and Zaheer Khan averaged pretty similar in OZ (33 v 35), exactly the same average in away tests over their career; but certainly Zaheer's 2003 and 2007 tours were not against teams where a hopelessly out of form and soon to be dropped Usman Khajawa was the oppositions top player. So Zaheers2 run higher average coming against Ponting, Langer, Hayden, Gilchrist, Waugh, Martyn, etc is superior.

Ashwin averages 5 runs more than Kumble in Australia. Ashwin is generally a better player away (30 to 35 average), but finger spinners have historically never done well in Australia. So Kumble is better.

Jadeja averages 10 per wicket more than Irfan Pathan away from home. Pathan gets pipped on his Aussie record, but Jadeja only played one game in OZ and has a very bad record in all away venues he has played more than one or two games in. Pathan was only 18 on his first tour to OZ too, he averaged 28 in 07/08, a very good return.

Then there is Bumrah...... who is obviously brilliant against anyone in Indian history.

Here we lead to an interesting conclusion. Bumrah plus a load of batting rejects surrounded by pretty similar bowlers in Aussie conditions, is better than no Bumrah and India's greatest 4 batsman in the same team

Aussie Bowling Averages for 2018

You can say that there was no Warner and Smith to bowl to, but Australia had their full bowlers.

Pat Cummins

Career Average 21
Average in OZ - 20
Average in series - 28

Josh Hazlewood
Career Average -25
Average in OZ - 24
Average series - 33

Mitchell Starc
Career - 26
OZ - 27
Series - 35

Lyon
31
32
31

The Indian batsman turned what was a fearsome home attack into an underperforming one. The seamers all return under par to normal. Lyon is around his career average, but worth noting the lead up to this test is by far the purple patch of his career. He took 60 wicket at a low 20s average in the calendar year before, so his career average was not reflective of his improving returns.

India as a batting unit did a shift. They are a reason the series was a success.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Excellent/interesting analysis there.

[bigfluffylemon]

Yes, very interesting. Gotta say, I agree with SP. Sehwag played some incredible innings, and in all fairness would probably open the Indian all-time XI along with Gavaskar, but that's largely because of a lack of competition - what other Indian openers have been even decent? Gambhir maybe. But I never rated Sehwag as an all-time great. Strong in home conditions, no doubt, but the world's greatest openers succeed in England, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia as well as the subcontinent.

Sachin and Dravid were legitimately great players, but the team they played in was inconsistent at best - still hard to beat at home with Kumble and Singh, but dreadful tourists. Part of that was the weak seam attack - Bumrah, Yadav and Shami certainly represent the best seam attack collectively that India has ever had; seamers in the late 90s/early 2000s for India didn't come close (even Zaheer had an average of 33, and who else was there? Sreesanth, I Pathan, RP Singh, Prasad - not a patch).

[GarlicJam]

India as a batting unit did a shift. They are a reason the series was a success.

Wear the bowlers down, wear the bowlers down, wear the bowlers down.
That's what they did, until they could take advantage of their tiredness and lesser control.

That advantage may not be so easy to get for the rest of this series.

[meninblue]

Runs scored in Asia carry equal value to runs scored outside Asia.

The point you make about relevant skills being equal is true, but that does not mean a player with exceptional overall career performance can be expected to be equally as useful in all situations. The truth is, regardless of Sehwag's obvious ability in certain situations, when the ball moved in the air he was no where near a world class bat. His career performance provides all the evidence you need of that. So if we are putting this into the context of India performing and winning matches in all situations, then you cant simply say India were a better team because x,y,z averaged more then. The fact is in most situations outside Asia, vastly inferior players who were slightly better at the swinging ball might have done far better than Laxman and Sehwag. And even Tendulkar once England's horror joke side of the 90s ended averaged mid 30s in England when we had half a good side (although his 100 at Headingley in 2002 remains one of the best innings I have ever seen, and the best complete batting performance by a side with Ganguly and Dravid scoring too).

The facts are quite compelling. Just compare away wins between eras.

Tendulkar played 106 tests away and won 20
Kohli has played 48 test away and won 17

Worth noting Tendulkar's wins include 8 vs Zimbabwe and BD. Kohli never had the luxury of playing these teams apart from one drawn BD test in 2015, when India annihilated BD only for rain to save BD after being asked to follow on.

Its easy to forget how bad India were at times in the 2000s with this unbeatable line up.

Draws with Zimbabwe 1-1 in 2001
Losing twice to Sri Lanka away in the early 2000s
Losing to the Windies in 2002 even when Lara averaged 28 in 5 tests. Against the fearsome attack of Merv Dillan, Sandford, Pedro Collins and Cameron Cuffy.
Losing in NZ in 03 then failing to beat them at home
Drawing then losing to Pakistan away in the mid 2000s

I could go on

Even the year India ranked 1st in the world they lost to Sri Lanka, drew with South Africa and lost to Australia.

This was never a great team, especially away from home. Every time they did well vs Australia, they followed it up with terror results. Like winning in 2001, then losing a test in Zimbabwe.

Post Fab 4

Won every single series at home in 7 years - Perfect
Won every test series in Asia - Perfect
Beat Australia away - Indias greatest cricketing achievement in tests

Know which I prefer

Inexperience is not the problem

Half the Indian batting line up has less than 15 tests. Fab 4 averages at 15 tests

Sehwag - 39
Dravid and Tendulkar -35
Laxman - 25

Look at the best teams ever. The Windies in the Richards days, and Steve Waughs Australia. Listen to how Michael Holding, Viv and Clive Lloyd talk about taking a lot of inexperienced players to OZ in 1976 and getting annihilated. They became some of the greatest cricketers ever, but all of them were nowhere near prepared for a fierce away series against established quality players. Pretty much every single batter in Steve Waughs great side was dropped in their career and had to wait a long time to come back.... Steve himself averaged in the 20s for 30 tests.

Even the best need experience. You cannot judge young players in tough tours with so little investment in them.

Coming to the point of how this team managed to beat Aussies on last tour. Well where Indian team has excelled in this dcade is that the bowling attack is very superior to Indian bowlers of past.

Compare the victorious side to that of the 2007 failed mission to OZ

Ishant was in both squads.

Shami and Zaheer Khan averaged pretty similar in OZ (33 v 35), exactly the same average in away tests over their career; but certainly Zaheer's 2003 and 2007 tours were not against teams where a hopelessly out of form and soon to be dropped Usman Khajawa was the oppositions top player. So Zaheers2 run higher average coming against Ponting, Langer, Hayden, Gilchrist, Waugh, Martyn, etc is superior.

Ashwin averages 5 runs more than Kumble in Australia. Ashwin is generally a better player away (30 to 35 average), but finger spinners have historically never done well in Australia. So Kumble is better.

Jadeja averages 10 per wicket more than Irfan Pathan away from home. Pathan gets pipped on his Aussie record, but Jadeja only played one game in OZ and has a very bad record in all away venues he has played more than one or two games in. Pathan was only 18 on his first tour to OZ too, he averaged 28 in 07/08, a very good return.

Then there is Bumrah...... who is obviously brilliant against anyone in Indian history.

Here we lead to an interesting conclusion. Bumrah plus a load of batting rejects surrounded by pretty similar bowlers in Aussie conditions, is better than no Bumrah and India's greatest 4 batsman in the same team

Aussie Bowling Averages for 2018

You can say that there was no Warner and Smith to bowl to, but Australia had their full bowlers.

Pat Cummins

Career Average 21
Average in OZ - 20
Average in series - 28

Josh Hazlewood
Career Average -25
Average in OZ - 24
Average series - 33

Mitchell Starc
Career - 26
OZ - 27
Series - 35

Lyon
31
32
31

The Indian batsman turned what was a fearsome home attack into an underperforming one. The seamers all return under par to normal. Lyon is around his career average, but worth noting the lead up to this test is by far the purple patch of his career. He took 60 wicket at a low 20s average in the calendar year before, so his career average was not reflective of his improving returns.

India as a batting unit did a shift. They are a reason the series was a success.

I don't agree that Sehwag, Sachin, Rahul and VVS have been replaced. Virat and Pujara are two but can you name other two. There is nobody yet imo.

In future we may get two more replacements but 4 of them don't exist together in same batting line-up as of now.

[meninblue]

The failure to develop batting unit and decline of batting quality like we had in past is also partly because of Virat's poor handling of batsmen and lack of strategy.

In few years Pujara will also lose it due to ageing factor. Virat is also 32. The scenario will be, in past we had 4 batting greats, now it is reduced to 2 and in few years when Pujara and Virat won't be same, there will be probably none. There is a clear decline In number of quality batsman imo.

Producing better bowlers will not solve batting issues although it will manage the wins and losses.

[bigfluffylemon]

Australia win the toss and bat.

India not quite finding the right length early.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Couple of changes. Pant and Jadeja join the series.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Bumrah not going for many runs, and gets Burns too. Usually wickets around early in the game at the MCG.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Couple of changes. Pant and Jadeja join the series.

And Siraj. Don't know him.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Two for Ashwin. Smith starting the series badly.

[alfie]

Aussies really struggled before lunch...could easily have lost a couple more in that session. With Smith failing and Labuschagne again surviving more by good luck than good play their batting has a fragile look to it ...though Marnus and Head seem to have settled somewhat since the interval 90/3 off 35 .
Labuschagne just copped a healthy clout on the helmet from Yadav as Indus have now reverted to pace from both ends.You feel if one of these goes the innings could yet end up seriously under par...but if they can hang around a bit longer and see pitch and ball past their early promise the bowling team will have a job on its hands later in the day. Outfield is good and fast unlike the Adelaide surface so full value for anything well hit.

[bigfluffylemon]

Aus really struggling by tea. Smith's out of nick and Ashwin's doing remarkably well.

Paine lucky to survive a run out call. I'd have given it, but it wasn't conclusive.

[alfie]

Paine probably did get away with one on the run out...and in fact he enjoyed a fair bit of luck but has gone now anyway for just 13 And his team are really struggling at 155/7

Starc and Cummins , both on nought , needing to get themselves a few more runs to bowl to , you'd think. India will be hoping to clean this up quickly now and need to go for the kill , surely ? Bumrah should be well rested...