Is the 90's Indian team underrated

[R!TTER]

In India? Most games played were on pitches like the Chennai first test, oppositions were better & our pace bowling was nowhere near as good - wk was below avg & we had no A/R, at least anywhere near the level of Ashwin/Jadeja or even Sundar.

[Rightarmfast]

They did not have the killer instinct. Talent was there, sufficient pool of players was there, but they did not know the art of winning. The art of winning was taught to Indian team by Saurav Ganguly. 

Underrated, cant say. That is because teams of the 90's were hugely talented. Even Zimbabwe had players like Heath Streak, Alistair Campbell, Andy Flower.. 

[Ankit_sharma03]

their attitude sucked.....nightmare era as a fan.

 

Ganguly, Sachin, Dravid, Azhar, kumble, Srinath , jadeja, robin singh

then sidhu, venky ,laxman, prabhakar......bhajji, agarkar, laxman towards 98

 

They shud have done a lot better

Edited February 17, 2021 by Ankit_sharma03

[maniac]

It was an average team but we speak of the 90’s Indian team  like we were a Bangla level or current WI level team.

 

By that account we are underrated but still an average team.

 

That 90’s team will smack the current day WI,SL,Bangla,SA,Pak  9/10 times.

[zen]

The team utilized likes of Sidhu, Azhar, Tendulkar, Kambli, Manjrekar, Kumble, Srinath, Dravid, Ganguly, etc., (who are all very good esp. in home conditions) ... It is just that many of the other teams were more powerful - SA and Pak at or near their peak, WI was declining but still good and Aus was moving up (mid 1990s saw the transition), SL was sensational for a few years, ... 

 

Unfortunately, Ind developed a culture of spinning tracks at home, losing out on the opportunity to sow the seeds for a better most conditions team. Since then the spinners have become the poster boys of what is wrong with Ind cricket

Edited February 17, 2021 by zen

[Number]

Unpopular opinion but I think 2000s team underachieved in the larger picture. They had a great line up

but still couldn't beat Pakistan in India, lost series to Aus, lost a test to England, mostly relied on Pattas to draw so many games and never took a risk to go ahead with turners even against SENA teams.

[Tibarn]

Check the table below, they did have a nice peak in 1995-1996. They were definitely underrated in that period. 

 

They were the number 1 team for 3 months, from Sept- Nov 1995. They were also the number 2 team for the first half of 1996. They were basically a top 3 team for 3+ years from the end of 1994 to the beginning of 1997.

 

By 1999 they fell off and were equivalent to the 8th ranked team.  

 

[Sandeep99]

Shiv sundar das, devang gandhi, abey kurvilla, msk prasad, vikram rathour etc etc 

 

Please don’t remind us of those dark dark times. The new fans are very lucky... they only saw the ascendency of India... 

[Ankit_sharma03]

13 hours ago, Number said:

Unpopular opinion but I think 2000s team underachieved in the larger picture. They had a great line up

but still couldn't beat Pakistan in India, lost series to Aus, lost a test to England, mostly relied on Pattas to draw so many games and never took a risk to go ahead with turners even against SENA teams.

 

Agreed

Even in ODI- WI beat us at home, Aus beat us at home, Pak Beat us at home, ENG drew, Zimb was 3-2 , Sa- 2-2 

[Clarke]

Underrated at home as per who actually ?

 

The common phrase from those times is "Tigers at home, lambs abroad". If Tiger is underrated, which apex predator could be used ?

 

T-Rex will imply extinction, Drogon fantasy & great white shark is just tedious to mention.

[littlemaster1982]

Tests we were definitely not up to the mark during 90s, won home series handsomely but piss poor performances abroad. In ODIs, I would say we punched above our weight. Used to win multinational tournaments often starting from Hero Cup 93. For all the famed winning mentality that was instilled in 2000, we won a grand total of 3 multinational tournaments, 2 of which are shared.

[zen]

2 hours ago, littlemaster1982 said:

For all the famed winning mentality that was instilled in 2000, we won a grand total of 3 multinational tournaments, 2 of which are shared.

The 2000s teams (not just Ind) had to deal with a powerful Aus

[littlemaster1982]

It's not like we lost the finals only to Aus. We lost against NZ, SL & WI too.

[zen]

8 minutes ago, littlemaster1982 said:

It's not like we lost the finals only to Aus. We lost against NZ, SL & WI too.

the youngsters of that time won the 2007 T20 WC (major event) ... other than that 2003 WC final (stopped by Aus), won a tri series in Aus iirc, 2002 Natwest (again youngsters) and so on ... NZ, SL, etc., are good teams too 

 

PS if the 2000s team had played more tri series (other than ICC events) in Ind and SL, along with Sharjah, like the 90s team, it may have won more 

Edited February 18, 2021 by zen

[littlemaster1982]

OK, I should have been more clear. I was talking about Ganguly's captaincy days especially. From 2000 to 2005, we had won only 3 finals (2 of them shared) and lost 9-10. I was comparing 90s team with that.

[Vijy]

second half of 90s was pretty strong with dravid and ganguly. laxman also scored the odd useful knock. actually, if puts together a list of players who either debuted in tests in the 1990s or were playing in this decade, the lineup is quite formidable:

 

sidhu, ramesh/laxman (remember laxman used to open), Dravid, SRT, Azhar,  Ganguly, Mongia --> pretty solid top 7. Even likes of Kambli and Manju were pretty good in SC. that team underachieved with the bat abroad, although it did well enough at home. even our spinners were HTBs in the late 80s and 90s - kumble, hirwani (briefly), and raju. kumble, of course, improved later on. however, our "pace" attack was atrocious. one genuine WC bowler in sri, 2 avg bowlers in prasad & kuruvilla, and that's about it.

[dilliboy]

Not underrated at all.. They were really pathetic in SENA countries and mind you England and New Zealand were much weaker than what they are right now. Also Pakistan and Lanka probably had their all time great ODI teams around that time which further showed how far we were from the rest. Azhar was actually my favourite player (before anyone had any idea about the fixing) but that indian team was meek af

[rollingstoned]

Odi cricket in general meant a lot more during those times but i felt our batting let us down more than our bowling in that period even though it became a lazy cliche to say Indian team doesn't have good bowlers. By the time the 2000s came around though, as good as we were a bunch of other teams could have all competed with us in any condition and that includes the likes of Zimbabwe and West indies, forget about SL and Pakistan who are almost minnow level currently. Only the England team seems clearly weaker compared to the contemporary period.

[addicted4444]

It was an excellent batting side with a non existent fast bowling attack. Even our spinners, outside of Kumble, were barely average.

 

And the batting attack never amounted to much because it was blunted by match fixing. 
 

For much of the second half of the 90s there was only one batsman in the team who was trying to win. The rest of them had been paid off to get out or to get others out. 
 

People on this board don’t even realize how incredible the burden Tendulkar, at a young age, carried for Indian and world cricket, where he would play matches knowing that nearly every other batsman he was playing with was not trying to do their best, and further, at any point may even deliberately try to run him out. 

[King6]

We won major tournaments in 80's - wc and world series.in 2000's - t20wc and ct (shared) and in 2010's - wc and ct. In 90s we are pathetic. Only good thing in 90's for us we defeated pak in 3 wc matches.

 

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by King6