Damning scoreline hides India's competitiveness

[rkt.india]

 

Quote

 

India in England 2011: won 0, lost 4. India in England 2014: won 1, lost 3. India in England 2018: won 1, lost 4. Three tours, three resounding series defeats.

Or so it appears. Upon closer examination, it is clear that the three series played out quite differently. Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri have repeatedly said that the scoreline didn't reflect the competitiveness of the series, and while you could argue that results are what ultimately matter, there is undoubtedly some truth in what the captain and coach have been saying.

 

Let us leave aside the Lord's Test, in which India were hammered by an innings and 159 runs; in the other three losses, the margins were 31, 60 and 118 runs. That is a total margin of 209 runs, which is less than their margin of defeat in one game at Trent Bridge in 2011 (319 runs), and in Southampton in 2014 (266 runs). Apart from that Trent Bridge loss, India's other defeats in 2011 were by 196 runs, an innings and 242 runs, and an innings and 8 runs. In 2014, their two defeats other than at Southampton were both by an innings.

 

The key difference this time around was the bowling. In 2011, India averaged 11.75 wickets per Test and conceded almost 60 runs per wicket; in 2014, it was 12 and 44; this time, India nabbed 17 wickets per Test, and conceded only 31 runs per wicket. England were bowled out seven times in the series, with the only declarations coming at Lord's and in the second innings at The Oval.

 

The ratio between runs conceded and scored per wicket tells the story: in 2011, they conceded more than twice as many runs per wicket as they scored; three years later it was slightly better at 1.73; this time, the ratio was much better at 1.22. Unlike on the two previous tours, the pace attack was outstanding, averaging less than 29 as a group. Ishant Sharma had struggled in 2011, but he was much better three years later and superb this time around, while Mohammed Shami was desperately unlucky to not finish with a better bowling average than 38.87 in this series.

 

Conditions were tough for batting this time around, which meant India's top order struggled almost right through the series, but thanks largely to Kohli, the overall batting numbers were similar to those from the two previous tours.

 

Among the batsmen, Kohli was obviously the huge improvement over 2014, while Cheteshwar Pujara did much better as well. M Vijay missed out in the two Tests he played, while Shikhar Dhawan's consistent mediocrity in both series suggests India might have to look elsewhere when they tour Australia later this year.

 

The 4-1 scoreline was undoubtedly disappointing for India, but the series numbers, especially the bowling stats, indicate that there was little resemblance between this tour and the two previous drubbings in England.

 

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/24660969/damning-scoreline-hides-india-competitiveness

 

[Pollack]

Dil ko bahlana ke liye acha tha.

[mishra]

Expect more such paid articles from PR manager Bunty.

[The Realist]

Loser talk. Its all about results and instead of whining should be focusing on HOW NOT TO LOSE 1-4 IN THE FUTURE.

[rtmohanlal]

India was competetive with out a doubt this time when compared to 2011  & 2014, but yet the end result read worse than that of  2014, that is 1-4. This is why, what ever excuses the team management puts after the series cannot be justifications or remain as plain excuses.  To be more precise, it can happen that a team can lose all tosses and it exactly happend in India's case. Naturally, based on the  toss results  & there by  the decisions of opposition captain based on prevailing conditions , it can happen that a team would be forced to bat by chasing in  4rth inns in the  majority of the matches.And that also happend in India's case.Was India prepared to meet such a situation  for the series??? Definitely not... And that's where the whole blame lies on the management. They needed to play a set of batsmen who possessed the adequate temperament and technique reguired for such conditions and such match situations.

[Vilander]

Loosing by 30 60 runs even a 100 runs is down to team selection and temperment of batsmen. India failed there. Eng did well in bowling and batting depth.

[nevada]

The margins of defeat look smaller because England also sucked. But they upped their game in crucial moments while Kohli & co blinked without fail in those. The series score is totally fair, reflecting the losing team's failures very well.

 

 

[Tibarn]

Winning our fair share of tosses(at least 2-3 out of 5) or 1 other good batsman who would have averaged 40 in the series  and 1 of the "allrounders" each match showing application and there is a high probability we win the series in my eyes. 

 

I blame Ashwin the most of the allrounders because he has the longest pedigree of being a capable-enough batsman, and I blame Rahane of the batsmen as I expect most out of him from his prowess shown during the previous overseas tours even including the most recent SA series! 

[tweaker]

A loss is loss, Why are they making the stories about competitive series.

If the series was competitive the scoreline should suggest that.

 

This" Harke bhi Dil jeet liya "attitude is very disgusting.

 

The players don't feel any thing about loosing.Shikhar Dhawan has the worst attitude.He knows he would not be dropped as he is buddy of captain saheb.

 

The performance of Pant, Vihari, Jadeja has shown that we need hungry cricketers.

 

Mayank Agarwal should have played in place of Shikhar in Asia cup.

 

After this loss, non performers should be dropped before the windies series

[Rasgulla]

In this case losing..

[Suhaan]

Shastri hai jahaa loser talk hain waha

[NameGoesHere]

I wish I had thought of this excuse back when I was a kid. 

 

Pappaji, pappaji, I phailed in my exam once again, but if you look an my answer sheet did you see how close I came to getting the right answer so many times?

 

Saala, no matter,  he'd have thrashed me anyway 

[Rasgulla]

11 minutes ago, NameGoesHere said:

I wish I had thought of this excuse back when I was a kid. 

 

Pappaji, pappaji, I phailed in my exam once again, but if you look an my answer sheet did you see how close I came to getting the right answer so many times?

 

Saala, no matter,  he'd have thrashed me anyway 

But you should get attempt marks for getting that close. In other words you should have passed. 

[ravishingravi]

Kaleje ko thankdak mili

Edited September 16, 2018 by ravishingravi

[Brainfade]

Makes it worse, IMO. 

 

It means that they have the talent to match their opponent, but lack the resolve and toughness to finish things off.  The first 300 runs may be talent-based,  but those last 40 50 runs come down to things that can be learned with hard work and practice - staying focused when you're close or when you're tired to drag your team across the finish line. 

 

There is no shame in being outmatched. There is in being out-hustled.

[mani sha]

you guys are very cynical

i am proud of this team 

 

yes kohli is shitty and shastri us worse as coach 

 

as a team this is the most competitive team - they held catches, bowled well , good backup

 

they will win in aussie if-

 

bowling artack including bhuvi is fit

k yadav ashwin and jadejaare all taken and played in at least one match 

pant is keeper

rahul kohli and rahane bat well with pujara

 

dhawan is the only joker . but i remember him winning us against aussies at home . loves bounce . feel he might be the deciding factor given aussie attack of left arm mitchell 

 

[mani sha]

england at home had everything in their favor . on of the reasons they are doung well is cos their odi team doimg well

 

india has failed fo produce hard hitters and allrounders - krunal nit given chance , mavi not played and kumar injured . 

[mancalledsting]

lol at those idiots saying 3-1 loss in 2014 was better showing then 4-1 in 2018. Does anyone realised first match of 2014 was on a patta so flat that the ICC had to give a fine and a warning to the hosting ground. In 2014 we were comprehensively outclassed, in 2018 we just struggled to get over the line at crucial moments. No comparison. 

[Deleted_User_1]

A loss is a loss. There are no moral victories for fans. They sucked in 2011, 2014 and in 2018. Moral victories are to be taken internally by each player and the team management to assess how they have performed and what they could have done better. However, in the end the record books will say 1-4 thrashing in England ... AGAIN!

 

Phuck de India ... Jai Hind!

[mishra]

16 hours ago, mancalledsting said:

lol at those idiots saying 3-1 loss in 2014 was better showing then 4-1 in 2018. Does anyone realised first match of 2014 was on a patta so flat that the ICC had to give a fine and a warning to the hosting ground. In 2014 we were comprehensively outclassed, in 2018 we just struggled to get over the line at crucial moments. No comparison. 

Please, if you want to see it that way, then you must put some objectivity.

 The false sense of competetiveness is because of our bowler. Barring Lords, They got 78 wickets in 4 matches. Thats quiete a feat when you put it in context that coach can not understand weakness of a bat and do no planning or captaincy is clueless.

Now, one may put stats like this many runs and this many catches and so on, but real point is despite the backing of bowling, we lost. in previous series's there was no backing of bowlers.  so our batsmen started with pressure of scoring over 300+else game is as good as lost. 

There was no such pressure to our bats. Captaincy was clueless. Selection sucked. Preparation was nil.

So if there is any competetiveness, its because of our bowlers, else we sucked equally or worse in all other aspects. 4-1 is because we sucked.

The idea that we ( where there was a lineup of Tendulkar Dravid Ganguky sehwag laxman MSD) sucked at batting,  effin hurts even more

Edited September 17, 2018 by mishra