"We will judge ourselves on whether or not we're a great cricket team if we beat India in India" : Justin Langer

[Lannister]

Quote

The Indian Test tour in about three of four years' time, to me that's the ultimate because we will judge ourselves on whether or not we're a great cricket team if we beat India in India. I look back on my career and the Mt Everest moment was 2004 when we finally beat India in India.

https://www.cricket.com.au/news/top-10-quotes-justin-langer-first-press-conference-australia-coach-hippy-nightclub-brothers/2018-05-03

 

Thought this one needs a separate mention. Just look at their attitude and compare that to how we had been carrying under Dhoni's regime and the pathetic attitude towards Test cricket. Kohli is the best thing to happen for Indian Test Cricket and Indian Test fans. I don't know if he's going to win World tournaments, but I am damn sure he is going to be end up as the greatest Test captain ever from Subcontinent. 

[Gollum]

Feeling super proud about it, we were the final frontier for that legendary Aussie team and managed to hold fort for a long time.

 

Also winning Ashes in England must be a priority for Aus team because they haven't won there since 2001 when Mcgrath-Warne were at their absolute peak. 

 

Smith almost singlehandedly defeated us last year, hope he is back ASAP. World cricket needs its Achilles ...pretenders just gonna pretend. Smith may have lost his final chance to nail India but he can still own England on their turf. 

[putrevus]

Indian batting never took burden off the bowling even when they had  fab4 and unfortunately that trend is still continuing.

 

Until Indian batsmen show spine and score some runs to support bowlers India as test team is not going anywhere.

[sourab10forever]

From England in England to India in India

 

[Gollum]

How great were Fab 4 against the mighty Aussies though always brought their best game against the best. Had they shown even 80% of that potential against other teams, we would have stomped over the likes of England, NZ, SA, Lanka and Pak in the 1995-2008 period even with our light bowling...alas that wasn't meant to be. 

Edited May 3, 2018 by Gollum

[putrevus]

8 minutes ago, MultiB48 said:

fab 4 raised their game outside india post 2000 ,i am sure the likes of mark waugh, shane warne, ponting etc sledge the sh!t out of them during the 99 tour .that tour changed indian cricket for the better. 

Where exactly they raised their game outside India, 2003-04 Aussies series  is only series I can think of ff but Aussies were without Mcgrath and Warne. 

[Gollum]

20 minutes ago, putrevus said:

Where exactly they raised their game outside India, 2003-04 Aussies series  is only series I can think of ff but Aussies were without Mcgrath and Warne. 

2002, 2007 Eng

2003/04, 2007/08 Aus

2010-11 SA (2006 they messed up badly in the final 2 tests so not counting that)

2009 NZ

2004 Pak (1st test series win for us there)

2007 WI (1st series win there in over 35 years)

 

Not all of them fired together in these tours but collectively they did very well. 

Our record from 2002-2010 reads: 

1-2 in NZ

2-1 in Eng

2-3 in Aus

2-3 in SA

Combined 7-9 in NZ, Eng, Aus, SA and we toured each of those countries twice in this period.

2-2 in Pak

2-4 in Lanka...probably the only dark spot and I admit fab 4 did very badly there

[Gollum]

22 minutes ago, MultiB48 said:

They used to struggle even to beat sl ,nz,zim  .Tours to pak ,wi eng  were massive improvements by ind standards,i think between 85 -2002 ind had won only 2 or 3  test outside ind ,1 was agianst ban on their debut even there their ass was saved by joshi's batting.

1985-2000 we won 2 tests outside home, one each in Colombo and Dhaka LOL. In 2001 we won a test each in Zimbabwe and WI...2002 tour of Eng under the leadership of DADA we turned a corner and started regularly competing overseas.

 

We won a test in Eng (2002) after 27 years

We won a test in Aus (2003) after 32 years

We won a test in SA for the 1st time ever in 2006

We won a test in WI (2001) after 26 years but still lost that series

We won a test in NZ (2009) after 34 years

We won a test in Pak in 2004 1st time ever

We won a test in Zimbabwe (2001) after getting humiliated there every time in 90s

[Number]

3 hours ago, MultiB48 said:

most ind captains were like dhoni .this is why ind cricket hasn't dominated the world.

Dhoni took over from Ganguly-Dravid-Kumble.

These 3 always gave importance to overseas tests.

Instead of taking their legacy forward, Dhoni dragged our cricket back to 90s. 

[Gollum]

3 minutes ago, Green Monster said:

low chance off that, dustbowls will be prep'd !!!

Best chance for them is dustbowls where difference between the quality of their spinners and ours will be reduced to minimum. Moreover all batsmen struggle on such pitches, even the great ones. We lost to them in Pune on a dustbowl, we lost both tests to Eng (2012) on rank turners.

[putrevus]

3 hours ago, Gollum said:

2002, 2007 Eng

2003/04, 2007/08 Aus

2010-11 SA (2006 they messed up badly in the final 2 tests so not counting that)

2009 NZ

2004 Pak (1st test series win for us there)

2007 WI (1st series win there in over 35 years)

 

Not all of them fired together in these tours but collectively they did very well. 

Our record from 2002-2010 reads: 

1-2 in NZ

2-1 in Eng

2-3 in Aus

2-3 in SA

Combined 7-9 in NZ, Eng, Aus, SA and we toured each of those countries twice in this period.

2-2 in Pak

2-4 in Lanka...probably the only dark spot and I admit fab 4 did very badly there

England was a very bad team till 2005 , even then beating them was due umpire Bucknor's grace in 2007.I don't quantify that a great win where the batting stars did great.

 

2007/08 Australia they were awful except in Perth test.Sydney 2008 is infamous but fact remains is our so called Fab4  could not  handle the pressure and collapsed on last day.

 

2009 NZ team is also awful team even there they struggled to win more than 1 test and had their usual collapse in second test.

 

Fab4 have stats matching with best batting lineups in history but they were mentally weak and rarely clicked as other great lineups away from home.Fab4 get lot of publicity as if they were some great batting lineups which did well everywhere.

 

At home India was always strong except for brief period in 1980s.I really hoped this young line up after 2013 SA would stand tough away from home but that has not been the case so far.

 

India needs batsmen who will thrive when chips are down and handle pressure well away from home.Bowling is doing its bit batsman cannot be walking wickets on any surface.Our batting was a disgrace in SA.You cannot have test average 45 plus and look like tailenders when pitches have something for bowlers.

[Gollum]

54 minutes ago, putrevus said:

England was a very bad team till 2005 , even then beating them was due umpire Bucknor's grace in 2007.I don't quantify that a great win where the batting stars did great. <Aussie team (2001-2009 they were ATG, borderline GOAT) never won in Eng after 2001, does that make them a worse team? Besides when were guys like Hoggard, Harmison, Flintoff, Anderson etc easy to handle in their conditions? We were well on course to win the Oval test, had the series been tied 1-1 we would have pushed harder in test 3 I'm sure. >

 

2007/08 Australia they were awful except in Perth test.Sydney 2008 is infamous but fact remains is our so called Fab4  could not  handle the pressure and collapsed on last day. <So you mention that 1 decision of Bucknor in Eng 2007 but overlook 8 howlers in Sydney??? We would have won that series if not for Benson/Bucknor and SRT, Dravid, Sehwag, Laxman played many good-great knocks. Who can handle pressure when all a bowler needs to get you out is to appeal never mind if the ball is 10 feet away from the edge?>

 

2009 NZ team is also awful team even there they struggled to win more than 1 test and had their usual collapse in second test. <So what if they were an awful team? Even we were awful in 2012 when Eng beat us at home, should we discount that as well? Or for that matter in 80s when we were a dreadful test team...yet you never tire of hearing Eng and Pak fans bringing up their wins here. Botham's heroics in Mumbai came against an awful team, so? We didn't struggle to win > 1 test in NZ. We would have won 2 if only Dhoni had bigger balls. We had them on the ropes in the final test but MSD gave them a target of 620 runs in 95 overs and we were 2 wickets away from a win. Is it Fab 4 fault if the captain effs up a simple declaration decision?>

Fab4 have stats matching with best batting lineups in history but they were mentally weak and rarely clicked as other great lineups away from home.Fab4 get lot of publicity as if they were some great batting lineups which did well everywhere. <Our famed batting order was mentally weak till 2001 and useless from 2011-13. But in the 2002-2010 period they were as good as any of the best batting line ups in history. We won 9 matches (and lost only 11) in Eng/Aus/NZ/SA/Pak in an 8 year period when our best bowlers were Zak, Kumble, Bhajji etc, all good but none of them truly elite. The best batting line ups you are talking about had some truly scary bowlers don't you think? I will admit that we had a few horror tours like NZ 2002, SA 2006, Lanka 2008 where batting was the main culprit but 3 bad overseas tours is ok when you have 6-7 decent/good ones.>

 

[upriser7]

I remember Sachin being injured in that 2003-04 series which Aussies won...he even missed few tests in that series. Also, we should have won that Chennai test but iirc rain played spoilsport

[putrevus]

15 minutes ago, Gollum said:

 

They have never won more than one test except in Pakistan away from home , that should say it all about the quality of performances of Fab4.To me they are very overrated .Were they good yeah but one of them is considered as the greatest ever and second one is in top three all time run scorer. They have vastly underachieved as a batting unit.

[Gollum]

4 minutes ago, putrevus said:

They have never won more than one test except in Pakistan away from home , that should say it all about the quality of performances of Fab4.To me they are very overrated .Were they good yeah but one of them is considered as the greatest ever and second one is in top three all time run scorer. They have vastly underachieved as a batting unit.

Bowlers win you test matches. You can score 1000 runs and yet only get a draw if you don't pick 20 wickets.Pak team with inferior batsmen did well overseas in the 80s and 90s because they could bowl the opposition out twice more frequently. 

[putrevus]

23 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Bowlers win you test matches. You can score 1000 runs and yet only get a draw if you don't pick 20 wickets.Pak team with inferior batsmen did well overseas in the 80s and 90s because they could bowl the opposition out twice more frequently. 

Bowlers win matches but batsmen have to make sure they give enough support to bowlers. There was not one overseas series where Fab did not collapse, even in 2003-04 Australia series, After Sehwag gave them that great launching pad they collapsed and ended up losing match and there by lost a golden chance to win a series in Australia who had Mcagill and Brad Williams as bowlers.

 

Same thing with Pakistani bowlers they are somehow regarded as these great bowlers but they never won  a test in Australia if I am not wrong and won one test in SA.All they did was beat up NZ and England when they were as good as minnows.Their batting was weak but bowling never raised its level to help weaker side.

 

Indian batting was stronger than bowling but they never raised their bar up in difficult situations and help out bowlers. 2003 NZ is classic example bowlers did their jobs but batting was horrible.

 

You cannot blame Indian bowlers for recent SA test series loss because Indian batting unit rarely gave them anything to work. Same thing was during Fab 4 era.I really hope with renewed focus on away series batting comes good at least in England.

 

We want batsman who thrive in adversity and will put a price of their wicket and not look like tailenders .

Edited May 3, 2018 by putrevus

[mancalledsting]

7 hours ago, Gollum said:

Feeling super proud about it, we were the final frontier for that legendary Aussie team and managed to hold fort for a long time.

 

Also winning Ashes in England must be a priority for Aus team because they haven't won there since 2001 when Mcgrath-Warne were at their absolute peak. 

 

Smith almost singlehandedly defeated us last year, hope he is back ASAP. World cricket needs its Achilles ...pretenders just gonna pretend. Smith may have lost his final chance to nail India but he can still own England on their turf. 

Given current Australia's proven tendency to ball tamper, doesn't that somewhat discredit Steve Smith's batting achievements. e.g. if he makes a huge score on a road and opposition batsmen get rolled over cheaply because of 'reverse swing'

[Gollum]

3 minutes ago, mancalledsting said:

Given current Australia's proven tendency to ball tamper, doesn't that somewhat discredit Steve Smith's batting achievements. e.g. if he makes a huge score on a road and opposition batsmen get rolled over cheaply because of 'reverse swing'

Everyone tampers, fools get caught in the act. 

[mancalledsting]

2 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Everyone tampers, fools get caught in the act. 

but Australia seemed to be getting major reverse compared to other nations no? Agree everyone tampers e.g. spit/dirt/nails but not sure about foreign objects. I think that's a new level of low. 

[Gollum]

1 hour ago, mancalledsting said:

but Australia seemed to be getting major reverse compared to other nations no? Agree everyone tampers e.g. spit/dirt/nails but not sure about foreign objects. I think that's a new level of low. 

My be, may not be. Eng, SA, Pak and even India in home matches have gotten exaggerated reverse swing. They probably play safe overseas unlike Aussies because home broadcasters are more forgiving. Smith got caught and has been punished for a year..will miss 14 odd test matches and a whole lot of momentum, nothing more to say really .