When was the last time this Indian team surprised (in a good way) or exceeded expectations?

[sandeep]

23 minutes ago, putrevus said:

^^ that is complete myth 2003-04 Australin team had just two bowlers , Lee and Gillespie with Lee still finding his way.Lee was never a great test bowler .Still our best team contrived to lose one test against that weak bowling attack .

 

They are calling this Australian team weak but this bowling attack is zillion times better than that one.

Did I claim that the Aus bowling attack was ATG?  No.  Regardless of that, before the tour began, everyone, and I mean everyone expected us to get smashed.   No myth there. 

[SrinjayDutta]

Sorry thats why I have no love for fab five, they folded like cheap tents under pressure even though they had so much talent.Heck you can make a case that they had one of the most talented batting groups in history of cricket and yet they never stood up and faced adversity like other great batting groups.

What about the test match just before? Or Durban 2010? This is got to be a joke.

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[putrevus]

8 minutes ago, SrinjayDutta said:

What about the test match just before? Or Durban 2010? This is got to be a joke.

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When you have so much talent like they had, they needed to do more than win odd test here and there.

[SrinjayDutta]

When you have so much talent like they had, they needed to do more than win odd test here and there.

I partially agree, but we never had 4 great bowlers bowling together. They did the best they could, drew a lot of matches.

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[putrevus]

11 minutes ago, sandeep said:

Did I claim that the Aus bowling attack was ATG?  No.  Regardless of that, before the tour began, everyone, and I mean everyone expected us to get smashed.   No myth there. 

I never said you claimed it was atg attack, but you claimed it was a strong Australian team. no team can be strong with just one good bowler and it proved over the series when they just could not get Indian team out cheaply even once thru out the series.

 

The same media now is claiming this is weakest Australian team.No team with their bowling attack can be weak.

[putrevus]

5 minutes ago, SrinjayDutta said:

I partially agree, but we never had 4 great bowlers bowling together. They did the best they could, drew a lot of matches.

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While I agree to some extent on bowling attack, our batsmen never really stood up to help weak bowling attack especially away from home.Current Indian batsmen are proving you don't need Sachin and co to be a force at home.

[SrinjayDutta]

With all due respect to Anil kumble, the greatest test match winner for india, the two Ravis are unplayable in india. They paper a lot of Indian batting hiccups along with pujara kohli.

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[neel roy]

1 hour ago, sandeep said:

2003 Aus tour.  Everyone expected us to continue the pattern of being absolutely destroyed and dominated by that Strong Aus team.  

 

If we had DRS, and even just a little bit of luck, we would have won that "Steve Waugh Farewell" series.  As it is, we still retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on Australian soil, since we had won the preceding series in India.  

 

After that, we've always gone on test tours with a puncher's chance, at a minimum.  So I wouldn't say other subsequent tours really exceeded expectations much.  

Not lucky. If Parthiv was a bit careful and kept better. 

[SrinjayDutta]

Not lucky. If Parthiv was a bit careful and kept better. 

Also should have drawn melbourne at least.

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[neel roy]

Best one to me is the South Africa series in 2010. Drew It after being hammered in first test and if not for late order runs may have won the third one. Plus the odi series we lost 3-2 after a great fight. I think that was Tendulkar s last hurrah in test series. Cape Town. 51st fifty if I am not wrong?

[Trichromatic]

1 hour ago, putrevus said:

^^ that is complete myth 2003-04 Australin team had just two bowlers , Lee and Gillespie with Lee still finding his way.Lee was never a great test bowler .Still our best team contrived to lose one test against that weak bowling attack .

 

They are calling this Australian team weak but this bowling attack is zillion times better than that one.

It had one of the best batting line up in history of the game and they saved the game even after conceding 700 at Sydney.

 

 

[SrinjayDutta]

Best one to me is the South Africa series in 2010. Drew It after being hammered in first test and if not for late order runs may have won the third one. Plus the odi series we lost 3-2 after a great fight. I think that was Tendulkar s last hurrah in test series. Cape Town. 51st fifty if I am not wrong?

51st hundred [emoji16]

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[CSK Fan]

9 hours ago, Vijy said:

(barring the final as always).

What do you mean by as always? He is one of the finest performers in finals India every had. He only played 2 WC finals and we were chasing 360+ in one

[Trichromatic]

1 hour ago, putrevus said:

When you have so much talent like they had, they needed to do more than win odd test here and there.

Batting strength was reflected in drawn tests and win here and there.

[sandeep]

21 minutes ago, neel roy said:

Not lucky. If Parthiv was a bit careful and kept better. 

You're not wrong.  But harsh to blame a teenager who was thrust onto the big scene before he was ready.  And he did bat well in that series.  Besides, I still remember at least 4 different occasions where Langer, Ponting, and Hayden were legbefor, very early in their innings, and would have been given with DRS, but weren't.  I don't blame umpires for that - the Michael Jordan effect is real.  

Edited November 30, 2018 by sandeep

[MechEng]

Perth 2008. 

 

Australia 16 test wins in a row, anti Indian cricket press from local media, 2nd innings Australia chasing 370 odd, Ponting who was still the best batsman in the world at that time was very well set in the crease, then an Indian fast bowler bowls 9 overs straight to this great batsman, unsettles him with sharp seam movement and gets his wicket.

 

Such contests are very rare in any sport, let alone cricket.

[putrevus]

4 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

Batting strength was reflected in drawn tests and win here and there.

I don't think batting was the reason why they were winning here and there.You can't blame bowlers if you as battting unit cannot provide 300 plus runs .That batting unit had no business of folding so many times , compare overall batting collpases of that Australian unit vs our unit .Man to man they were very compabale.

Edited November 30, 2018 by putrevus

[Adi BB]

2 hours ago, putrevus said:

^^ that is complete myth 2003-04 Australin team had just two bowlers , Lee and Gillespie with Lee still finding his way.Lee was never a great test bowler .Still our best team contrived to lose one test against that weak bowling attack .

 

They are calling this Australian team weak but this bowling attack is zillion times better than that one.

That was not a weak bowling line up at all ,even though McGrath and Warner weren't there,still it was better than most of the intl team attacks .except saf (even that is dicey) tell me one bowling line up better than lee,gillespie,mcgill during that time in tests.

i can guarantee you no team at that time would have drawn that 4 match series time in Australia even against that weak attack as you state .

 

Second point ,the fab 5 didn't falter in that series ,in fact it was the best series ever for the fab 5 ,every batsmen in our team scored heavily .it were the bowlers who weren't good and also the pitches were flat .

[Adi BB]

1 hour ago, neel roy said:

Best one to me is the South Africa series in 2010. Drew It after being hammered in first test and if not for late order runs may have won the third one. Plus the odi series we lost 3-2 after a great fight. I think that was Tendulkar s last hurrah in test series. Cape Town. 51st fifty if I am not wrong?

Nice pick ,the saf tour in 2010 .

After the centurion debacle I was really scared for the Durban test and rest of the series especially after getting bundled 0ut by 205,that was an epic comeback against a very strong saf side 

[putrevus]

7 minutes ago, Adi BB said:

That was not a weak bowling line up at all ,even though McGrath and Warner weren't there,still it was better than most of the intl team attacks .except saf (even that is dicey) tell me one bowling line up better than lee,gillespie,mcgill during that time in tests.

i can guarantee you no team at that time would have drawn that 4 match series time in Australia even against that weak attack as you state .

 

Second point ,the fab 5 didn't falter in that series ,in fact it was the best series ever for the fab 5 ,every batsmen in our team scored heavily .it were the bowlers who weren't good and also the pitches were flat .

When you have hit me for four every over Mcagill and two debutants along with a journeyman. Lee and Gillespie while good were never great bowlers.So I don't know how you can call it even good forget great bowling attack.I don't remember Mcgrath and Warne missingseries against SA during that time.Lee only played two tests.

They did falter in once in Melbourne after getting great start by Viru and maybe there is a reason why that was their best batting performance becuase they were rarely under pressure from Aussie bowlers on those flat pitches.