Batting depth of 2000s vs bowling depth of current squad

[Gollum]

Our Fab 4/5 gen is hailed a lot, great legacy, many used to rave about India being a batting powerhouse then, our batting culture was often talked about glowingly. They were the poster boys of Indian cricket.

 

But I can't seem to find viable backups for those batsmen: Gambo, Sehwag, Dravid, Sachin, VVS, Dada. If 1-2 got injured or ruled out we would be extremely vulnerable even at home (Aus 2004, Eng 2006, RSA 2008). Backups then were Yuvraj, Badrinath, Raina, Aakash Chopra type players, not international class in the longer format.

 

Look at the current bowling attack: first choice is Bumrah, Shami, Ishant, Ashwin, Jadeja. 2 of them ruled out of this series and we saw what the unit did today. In 2017 against Aus almost all of them were injured/missing (confirmed by their absence in IPL) and still a peaking Aus with Smith in God mode (vs Kohli's <10 avg) and after winning 3 tosses lost the series 1-2 barely surviving in Ranchi. Amazing depth. Our second choice bowling attack will be 5 among Bhuvi, Umesh, Siraj, Saini, Kuldeep, Nadeem, Jayant and tbh still a good bowling side (at least as good as our 2007-11 bowling unit), will definitely do well in India. We underestimate the bowling depth at our disposal, can you imagine Aus competing in India without Cummins, Lyon and losing the toss? Or 2012 RSA without Steyn, Morkel overseas? 

 

Hope our bowlers get their due recognition, if 2000s team was a batting powerhouse this team is a bowling powerhouse, these guys deserve to be poster boys of Indian cricket. 

Edited December 26, 2020 by Gollum

[Suhaan]

34 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Our Fab 4/5 gen is hailed a lot, great legacy, many used to rave about India being a batting powerhouse then, our batting culture was often talked about glowingly. They were the poster boys of Indian cricket.

 

But I can't seem to find viable backups for those batsmen: Gambo, Sehwag, Dravid, Sachin, VVS, Dada. If 1-2 got injured or ruled out we would be extremely vulnerable even at home (Aus 2004, Eng 2006, RSA 2008). Backups then were Yuvraj, Badrinath, Raina, Aakash Chopra type players, not international class in the longer format.

 

Look at the current bowling attack: first choice is Bumrah, Shami, Ishant, Ashwin, Jadeja. 2 of them ruled out of this series and we saw what the unit did today. In 2017 against Aus almost all of them were injured/missing (confirmed by their absence in IPL) and still a peaking Aus with Smith in God mode (vs Kohli's <10 avg) and after winning 3 tosses lost the series 1-2 barely surviving in Ranchi. Amazing depth. Our second choice bowling attack will be 5 among Bhuvi, Umesh, Siraj, Saini, Kuldeep, Nadeem, Jayant and tbh still a good bowling side (at least as good as our 2007-11 bowling unit), will definitely do well in India. We underestimate the bowling depth at our disposal, can you imagine Aus competing in India without Cummins, Lyon and losing the toss? Or 2012 RSA without Steyn, Morkel overseas? 

 

Hope our bowlers get their due recognition, if 2000s team was a batting powerhouse this team is a bowling powerhouse, these guys deserve to be poster boys of Indian cricket. 

Absolutely ,bowlers are deemed as mortal figures while if you look at Bumrah,Shami their batting equivalents like Rohit,Kohli are given Demigod status

But perhaps things have changed with advent of franchise cricket,x factor bowlers are getting recognition as most of the lot watches shorter format and are in know of bowling resources more eyeballs more the fire to perform or atleast a desire to get lucrative contracts

[Tyron]

2015 post 2015 is India's and also Asia's greatest pace attack ever.

 

No Asian team has ever had a more potent attack than these 5:

 

Bumrah

Shami

Ishant

Bhuvi

Ashwin

[Trichromatic]

Ashwin

Jadeja

Kuldeep - he took 5-fer last time and is out of the team.

[Ankit_sharma03]

Still standby by opinion that 2000s batting will have its work cut out against current bowling in SC unless sehwag has his day it wont be easy 

[dilliboy]

The pacers will have some joy but the 2000s line up will tear away into the spinners, all of them were ridiculously great players of spin. Perhaps only Lara in the history of cricket is on par with them on that. 

[Adamant]

One thing i always despise is that even though our batting FAB4 were individually great batsman(actually 5 ,include ganguly too) but it always looked like that the combined performance is less than sum of parts .
Quite a few times i saw them failing to chase 200+ scores away from home, one time even against zimbabwe FGS.
OTOH this bowling unit is clutch, they seize any opportunity you give them.
 

[neel roy]

2 hours ago, Gollum said:

t injured or ruled out we would be extremely vulnerable even at home (Aus 2004, Eng 2006, RSA 2008). Backups then were Yuvraj, Badrinath, Raina, Aakash Chopra type players

backups who actually played were Hemang Badani, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Jacob Martin, Devang Gandhi, Vijay Bharadwaj. 
 

the other players who played were yuvraj who had an ok ish career, wasim jaffer ( 5 centuries unlucky to be dropped), Shiv Sunder Dash and a list of wicketkeeper bingo ( ratra, saba karim,parthiv patel, sameer dighe, dinesh karthik,deep dasgupta and vijay dahiya).. amol mazmuder was unlucky to have never played.. badrinath was unlucky to play only few tests..

[neel roy]

Just now, neel roy said:

backups who actually played were Hemang Badani, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Jacob Martin, Devang Gandhi, Vijay Bharadwaj. 
 

the other players who played were yuvraj who had an ok ish career, wasim jaffer ( 5 centuries unlucky to be dropped), Shiv Sunder Dash and a list of wicketkeeper bingo ( ratra, saba karim,parthiv patel, sameer dighe, dinesh karthik,deep dasgupta and vijay dahiya.. lol the current musical chair between saha and pant is nothing when we see back at the pre dhoni wk era).. amol mazmuder was unlucky to have never played.. badrinath was unlucky to play only few tests..

 

[Tyron]

42 minutes ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

Still standby by opinion that 2000s batting will have its work cut out against current bowling in SC unless sehwag has his day it wont be easy 

Ye bumrah Shami and Ishant will wreak havoc I reckon.

[Trichromatic]

More comparable to Australian batting line up.

 

Their replacements - Clarke, Hussey, even Damien Martyn got late debut?

 

Someone like Martin Love didn't play much even though he did very well in shield cricket.

[Trichromatic]

37 minutes ago, Adamant said:

One thing i always despise is that even though our batting FAB4 were individually great batsman(actually 5 ,include ganguly too) but it always looked like that the combined performance is less than sum of parts .
Quite a few times i saw them failing to chase 200+ scores away from home, one time even against zimbabwe FGS.
OTOH this bowling unit is clutch, they seize any opportunity you give them.
 

 

One reason was they didn't peak together.

 

SRT - 1997-2002

Dravid - 2002-2007

SRT - 2008-2010

Sehwag - 2006-2010

 

Another reason - some of them missed out few countries altogether.

 

Dravid did well in series facing Brad William, Bracken, McGill, Lee, but was failure mostly in all other tours where difficulty was higher. Similarly he went missing in SA matches also. 2 most difficult countries.

 

Sehwag went missing in Eng, SA, NZ. 

 

Ganguly was decent batsman, not great.

 

[Trichromatic]

58 minutes ago, Adamant said:

One thing i always despise is that even though our batting FAB4 were individually great batsman(actually 5 ,include ganguly too) but it always looked like that the combined performance is less than sum of parts .
Quite a few times i saw them failing to chase 200+ scores away from home, one time even against zimbabwe FGS.
OTOH this bowling unit is clutch, they seize any opportunity you give them.
 

 

What FAB 4? It was weaker than current line up. Dravid had played for 2 years only. SRT and Azhar were only experienced batsmen who could perform outside India.

 

Lower order was completely dud. Top order had Mongia and Sidhu. 235 runs is difficult to chase target any day in test cricket.

 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/india-tour-of-zimbabwe-1998-99-62306/zimbabwe-vs-india-only-test-63813/full-scorecard

 

Some of other failures - Losing to Pakistan at Chennai, 250+ against that attack, lower order couldn't do anything.

 

Scored 232 against Pakistan - allowed Anwar to score 188 on that kind of track to get target of 279 on 5th day Asian track. Kumble and Harbhajan had figures of 147-1 on day 4.

 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/asian-test-championship-1998-99-60671/india-vs-pakistan-1st-match-63830/full-scorecard

 

Except these all were 300+ targets.

 

 

 

 

[Adamant]

19 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

 

What FAB 4? It was weaker than current line up. Dravid had played for 2 years only. SRT and Azhar were only experienced batsmen who could perform outside India.

 

Lower order was completely dud. Top order had Mongia and Sidhu. 235 runs is difficult to chase target any day in test cricket.

 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/india-tour-of-zimbabwe-1998-99-62306/zimbabwe-vs-india-only-test-63813/full-scorecard

 

Some of other failures - Losing to Pakistan at Chennai, 250+ against that attack, lower order couldn't do anything.

 

Scored 232 against Pakistan - allowed Anwar to score 188 on that kind of track to get target of 279 on 5th day Asian track. Kumble and Harbhajan had figures of 147-1 on day 4.

 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/asian-test-championship-1998-99-60671/india-vs-pakistan-1st-match-63830/full-scorecard

 

Except these all were 300+ targets.

 

 

 

 

I was giving a one off example bro. 

A lineup of Sachin dravid, ganguly, azhar should have chased that target. 

[Trichromatic]

1 minute ago, Adamant said:

I was giving a one off example bro. 

A lineup of Sachin dravid, ganguly, azhar should have chased that target. 

 

Yeah, that is one failure.

 

But other than that they always had 300+ targets in 4th inning. I mentioned 2 examples against Pakistan and they did well, but asking even those targets were steep in 4th inning.

[Gollum]

2 hours ago, dilliboy said:

The pacers will have some joy but the 2000s line up will tear away into the spinners, all of them were ridiculously great players of spin. Perhaps only Lara in the history of cricket is on par with them on that. 

2000s guys succumbed against far inferior spinners even at home like Arshad, Afridi, Kaneria in 2005, Udal in 2006. In Lanka Mendis series as well if you recall. 

 

 

[Gollum]

2 hours ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

Still standby by opinion that 2000s batting will have its work cut out against current bowling in SC unless sehwag has his day it wont be easy 

Exactly, judging by how we fared against Aus in 2004 or RSA in the second half of the decade. This pace attack will be relentless, and that team no matter how good against spin never faced 2 great spinners bowling in tandem like Ash/Jaddu. 

[dilliboy]

34 minutes ago, Gollum said:

2000s guys succumbed against far inferior spinners even at home like Arshad, Afridi, Kaneria in 2005, Udal in 2006. In Lanka Mendis series as well if you recall. 

 

 

One can have off days in test matches but by and large they were great.. Are you telling me the current pace attack hasn't had games where it has been taken to the cleaners? 

 

Alll I am saying is that it would be a balanced match up with the current pace battery having some joy while the batters will have the upper hand against spinners. 

[dilliboy]

1 hour ago, Adamant said:

I was giving a one off example bro. 

A lineup of Sachin dravid, ganguly, azhar should have chased that target. 

Peak line up was when Sehwag entered his peak.. Think 2003-04 Australia tour.. Sachin, Dravid, Sehwag, Laxman and Ganguly all getting 100s in that series. 

[Gollum]

2 minutes ago, dilliboy said:

One can have off days in test matches but by and large they were great.. Are you telling me the current pace attack hasn't had games where it has been taken to the cleaners? 

 

Alll I am saying is that it would be a balanced match up with the current pace battery having some joy while the batters will have the upper hand against spinners. 

Fair enough, I just think 'tear away into spinners' was an extreme opinion