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How does Ashwin-Jadeja stack up against Kumble-Harbhajan?


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R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are more successful as a pair than Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh were - it's a fact. After all, India have now won 25 of the 33 Tests Ashwin and Jadeja have played together as compared to just 21 out of 54 for Kumble and Harbhajan.

So, are they are just better match-winners? Or are there other explanations for the fairly large statistical gap between the two pairs? Harbhajan has himself tweeted about how pitches in India offer more spin now than before. It's also true that Kumble and he played more Tests together overseas. Then there is a difference in the quality of India's support bowling cast. And, perhaps, opposition batsmen were better against spin then than they are now.

So how do the numbers compare when we try to take at least some of these factors into account?

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The home-and-away factor

First, we limit the comparison to home Tests. Kumble and Harbhajan played 20 Tests outside India, while Ashwin and Jadeja have played just four. With India finding a set of impressive pace bowlers over the past decade, there has not been a need to play two spinners in places such as South Africa, England and Australia. But, even in home Tests, Ashwin and Jadeja have a superior bowling average and strike rate than Kumble and Harbhajan. The team has also been more successful of late: India have won 22 and lost only one out of 29 Tests Ashwin and Jadeja have played together at home. In comparison, India won 14 out of 34 with Kumble and Harbhajan in the XI.

 

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Who got the friendlier pitches?

Have Indian pitches been more spin-friendly in the Ashwin-Jadeja era as Harbhajan feels?

It's hard to measure, but when you look at the records of other spinners - both for and against India - playing in the same games as Kumble and Harbhajan, they averaged 41.11 compared to the 42.82 that spinners playing alongside or against Ashwin-Jadeja have.

Before concluding that the pitches have been more or less the same, let's look at who we are talking about. When Kumble and Harbhajan were playing, Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Saqlain Mushtaq and Danish Kaneria all toured India. Of these, only Saqlain outbowled the Indians. During Ashwin and Jadeja's time, the quality of visiting spinners has not been nearly as good, but when Nathan Lyon came with Australia in 2017, Ashwin and Jadeja, as a duo, did better than he did. It's hard to say what Muralitharan and Warne may have done on the pitches India have prepared over the past few years - not to mention the difference in the quality of the Indian batsmen too. Equally, it's tough to measure whether batsmen of the past would have played Ashwin and Jadeja better

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The support cast

One significant difference between the time Kumble and Harbhajan bowled together - 1998 to 2008 - and now is that India's seam attack is much better. Ashwin and Jadeja have Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav taking key wickets even on dry tracks to take the burden off. Thanks, in part, to their own batting skills, Ashwin and Jadeja have also had the advantage of, at times, playing with a third spinner, and the Yadavs Jayant and Kuldeep have both been competent allies, the latter even outperforming his senior team-mates on occasions.

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During Kumble and Harbhajan's time, the rest of India's bowlers averaged 41.40 at home. So it was often down to the two of them to win games. That goes a long way in explaining the much lower win percentage India had then. When you compare Ashwin and Jadeja to their bowling colleagues, and Kumble and Harbhajan to theirs, it's the older duo who actually come out looking marginally better, averaging one-and-a-half times less than their team-mates and striking at a much better rate too. Ashwin and Jadeja's support bowlers actually strike at a decent rate of 62.6 balls, which tells you a lot about India's overall bowling improvement.

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Clearly, there are several factors that have worked in Ashwin and Jadeja's favour. But it might be incorrect to say that they have thrived only in tailor-made conditions, as evident from the averages of other spinners on the same tracks. But so many intangibles - they make forming a solid argument one way or the other difficult. That said, with a win percentage of 75.75, it's hard to argue against the impact Ashwin and Jadeja have had.

 

Link - https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/27790643/how-does-ashwin-jadeja-stack-kumble-harbhajan

 

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I feel generally the quality of batsmanship has fallen. Batsman have been aggresive in scoring quick runs. Techniques have been compromised.

 

A key stats to look for in the eras is the ratio of draws to results.

 

Naturally if there are more results then bowling units are getting 20 wickets more regularly. This ratio needs to be controlled fpr by removing weaker teams. Look at aus india sa and england when playing each other. 

 

My hunch tells me ash n jaddu are better than kumble and bhajji with bat and ball

 

 

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Anyone who watched test matches esp from 2003-04 to around 2011-12 would know that not many pitches in India turned from day 1, which was the case In most Tests at home these days. We had an occasional bunsen burner like at Mumbai vs Aus in 2004 or vs SA at Kanpur in 2008 but largely the pitches were very good.
 

Almost every series had one, sometimes even two dead pitches which went to sleep on day 4 and 5. 2003 and 2010 NZ series, 2005 and 2007 Pak series, 2008 Aus series, 2008 test series at Chepauk - there were so many boring batting sloggathons. I watched a few of them at Delhi and Bangalore. No wonder the proportion of results in Tests was lower (was a general trend everywhere largely due to safety first approach of home teams). The 0-8 thrashing in Eng and Aus perhaps jolted the BCCI so strongly, they decided to use home advantage to the hilt. 

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46 minutes ago, ShoonyaSifar said:

Anyone who watched test matches esp from 2003-04 to around 2011-12 would know that not many pitches in India turned from day 1, which was the case In most Tests at home these days. We had an occasional bunsen burner like at Mumbai vs Aus in 2004 or vs SA at Kanpur in 2008 but largely the pitches were very good.
 

Almost every series had one, sometimes even two dead pitches which went to sleep on day 4 and 5. 2003 and 2010 NZ series, 2005 and 2007 Pak series, 2008 Aus series, 2008 test series at Chepauk - there were so many boring batting sloggathons. I watched a few of them at Delhi and Bangalore. No wonder the proportion of results in Tests was lower (was a general trend everywhere largely due to safety first approach of home teams). The 0-8 thrashing in Eng and Aus perhaps jolted the BCCI so strongly, they decided to use home advantage to the hilt. 

1202819_1400x1750.png&w=570&format=jpg

No Warne/Murali but Lyon, Herath, Maharaj not exactly mugs, plus bowling to far inferior batsmen.

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Ash/Jaddu comfortably better. Ash has 7 MOS, Kumble+Bhajji 8, 66 tests vs 235 (132+103) tests LINK. Jaddu was MOS against Aus in 2017, so there's that....no comparison at all. The current spin duo is the deadliest spin jodi in the history of test cricket on Asian pitches (+ similar conditions). In SENA both pairs not quite there, even if the Kumble/Bhajji duo has an edge it is paltry. Besides Bhajji was a blatant chucker during his productive years, he shouldn't even be in the picture. We all saw what he did sans doosra, nostalgia does wonderful things, people forgetting his second half career that easily? Leg side darts repeated ad nauseam.  

 

Fans taking current players for granted, when these 2 are out and inferior replacements come in we'll see just how difficult it is to go on a 24-1 home run, 33-2  (2015 Galle buffoonery and no DRS :facepalm:) run in Asia+WI.....mazaak nahi hai. 

Edited by Gollum
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I am of the opine that Ashwin and Jaddu would be a piece of cake for the likes of Jayasurya, Waugh brothers, Afridis and the likes. We are heavily undermining the spin playing capabilities of 90's batsmen.They would murder these 2 bowlers. 

Kumble was a fox. I would always, anyday, anytime put my money on Kumble than these spinners.

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Ashwin/Jadeja are clearly better. I think cream of test batting has gotten better than before, while medial probably has fallen. But since they are different eras we will never know who was better spinner, we need to see matches where they bowled together to get some pointers, that too can be a little iffy as Ash/Jadeja could be green horns and Kumble/Bhaji might have regressed by then. No clear way but Ash/Jadeja better on stats for sure.

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3 minutes ago, rtmohanlal said:

head to head bowling averages

vs - Each pairs bowling average

vs - Each pairs Bowling strike rate

vs - Each pairs other spinners average/strike rate deviation 

 

Ash/Jaddu look GOAT levels. If they do this for few more seasons they will elevate to that legend spinners of earlier era status. 

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On 10/7/2019 at 11:57 AM, Ankit_sharma03 said:

And, perhaps, opposition batsmen were better against spin then than they are now.

this is not a clear cut case, there are counter points to this. 

 

Kumble and Bhaji bowled a lot of their career  before the IPL revolution and unlimited access to India that current gen batsmen from around the globe enjoy. Some able spin batsmen were likes of Hayden, Clarke,Cook i can remember.. but there are few currently as well.

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9 hours ago, Khota said:

They are better as result of biased pitches. There is no rocket science here. Ashwin can be replaced by a better spinner tomorrow moring and no one will miss him except ICF.

what biased pitches....find me more 3 games in SA 2015 series , 1-2 here n there as if Kumble bhajji didnt

also its shown in article with numbers of how they havent got as many turners as ppl think

Edited by Ankit_sharma03
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2 hours ago, Rightarmfast said:

I am of the opine that Ashwin and Jaddu would be a piece of cake for the likes of Jayasurya, Waugh brothers, Afridis and the likes. We are heavily undermining the spin playing capabilities of 90's batsmen.They would murder these 2 bowlers. 

Kumble was a fox. I would always, anyday, anytime put my money on Kumble than these spinners.

Ashwin troubled sanga big time...who was a damn good player of spin.....ashwin troubles lefties a lot so who knws 

jaddu has troubled clarke who made runs against these 2.....

jaddu has troubled abdv , cook.....

 

jaddu on indian wkts wud trouble anyone 

Edited by Ankit_sharma03
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40 minutes ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

Ashwin troubled sanga big time...who was a damn good player of spin.....ashwin troubles lefties a lot so who knws 

jaddu has troubled clarke who made runs against these 2.....

jaddu has troubled abdv , cook.....

 

jaddu on indian wkts wud trouble anyone 

Among overlapping batsmen

 

Ashwin: Sanga, Cook, Amla, Williamson (2010, 2012 Harbhajan)

Jadeja: Clarke, AB

Edited by Gollum
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50 minutes ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

what biased pitches....find me more 3 games in SA 2015 series , 1-2 here n there as if Kumble bhajji didnt

also its shown in article with numbers of how they havent got as many turners as ppl think

2 against SA 2015

1 against NZ 2016

1 against Aus 2017

 

According to some:

Karun Nair scored 300 on biased pitch, Kohli and Pujara averaged 70+ on biased pitches, double 100 by one of our batters in every series on biased pitches.

 

700+ score and multiple 600/500 scores on biased pitches.

 

By that logic every single Indian batsman of this decade is better than Don. 

Edited by Gollum
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10 hours ago, Khota said:

They are better as result of biased pitches. There is no rocket science here. Ashwin can be replaced by a better spinner tomorrow moring and no one will miss him except ICF.

Ashwin international avg in India- 22

 

Other spinners avg in domestic played in India

Nadeem - 28

Rahul chahar- 28

Kuldeep- 24 (his test avg in India )

K gowtham - 25 

Chahal - 33

jayant - 33

gopal - 26

 

Who are these better spinners??? the guys on radar - ashwin international avg is better then their Fc avg......

better spinners- yea right 

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2 hours ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

what biased pitches....find me more 3 games in SA 2015 series , 1-2 here n there as if Kumble bhajji didnt

also its shown in article with numbers of how they havent got as many turners as ppl think

Show me their numbers in Australia.

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1 hour ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

Ashwin international avg in India- 22

 

Other spinners avg in domestic played in India

Nadeem - 28

Rahul chahar- 28

Kuldeep- 24 (his test avg in India )

K gowtham - 25 

Chahal - 33

jayant - 33

gopal - 26

 

Who are these better spinners??? the guys on radar - ashwin international avg is better then their Fc avg......

better spinners- yea right 

Once again you are clueless. Cricket averages the way you present are meaningless.

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