Enduring memories as an Team India fan from 96-2001, when India was utterly mediocre and apparently talentless

[rangeelaraja]

 

I hated Jayasuriya to the hilt. I felt angry and frustrated as to how a sub-30 averaging (which he did at that time) could literally treat all our bowlers as pedestrians. I hated him because I knew that he was FTB par excellence who would just bully on flat tracks in Asia and Sharjah and did not last against bowlers of then alpha teams like Aus, RSA. He was the most punchable face for me in cricket then for how he would smash Prasad and Srinath.

 

I used to get excited at the sight of any Indian bowler who could bowl 130+, had high hopes from Mohanty given how bare the cupboards were back then.

 

Then someone called Tinu Yohannan came to the scene, built and tall, the media likened him to our own West Indian kind of bowler. I was super excited and thought we are now going to give it back to Pak. But boy, did he turn out to be a big bodied trundler.

 

 

Just a few of the memories...

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by rangeelaraja

[Old guy]

i started watching around 2003 and even then the fielding was abysmal. Bowling mediocre so i cannot imagine how bad things were before lol.

 

also yeah i hated jayasuriya..he got injured once and came back to play at 7 and still won them the game lmao 

[ThirtyD.]

So true about the excitement around 130+ bowlers. In 1996, against Australia David Johnson was handed a debut. He certainly looked fast with very little control. Unfortunately his career only lasted 2 test matches. We were absolutely pathetic against big boys during the 1996-2001 period.

[MechEng]

10 hours ago, rangeelaraja said:

 

I hated Jayasuriya to the hilt. I felt angry and frustrated as to how a sub-30 averaging (which he did at that time) could literally treat all our bowlers as pedestrians. I hated him because I knew that he was FTB par excellence who would just bully on flat tracks in Asia and Sharjah and did not last against bowlers of then alpha teams like Aus, RSA. He was the most punchable face for me in cricket then for how he would smash Prasad and Srinath.

 

I used to get excited at the sight of any Indian bowler who could bowl 130+, had high hopes from Mohanty given how bare the cupboards were back then.

 

Then someone called Tinu Yohannan came to the scene, built and tall, the media likened him to our own West Indian kind of bowler. I was super excited and thought we are now going to give it back to Pak. But boy, did he turn out to be a big bodied trundler.

 

 

Just a few of the memories...

 

 

What? Did you miss out Srinath's 154 kph hand grenades?

[Trichromatic]

I remember Amay Khurasiya, Doda Ganesh, Ritinder Singh Sodhi, Gagan Khodda. 

[Trichromatic]

Amay Khurasiya was worst batsman to ever play for india

[rangeelaraja]

4 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

Amay Khurasiya was worst batsman to ever play for india

I remember how he wore a bandana and acted all macho and stuff.  Was brought in because of his aggressive batting in the Sehwag mould. He flopped in a couple of matches against Pak and SL and did not play for India again 

[rangeelaraja]

7 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

I remember Amay Khurasiya, Doda Ganesh, Ritinder Singh Sodhi, Gagan Khodda. 

I was super excited about Sodhi, I thought he would be our answer to Azhar Mahmoud,

razzaq etc... those very some terrible days to be an Indian fan.. 

[Trichromatic]

17 minutes ago, rangeelaraja said:

I remember how he wore a bandana and acted all macho and stuff.  Was brought in because of his aggressive batting in the Sehwag mould. He flopped in a couple of matches against Pak and SL and did not play for India again 

 

I didn't understand cricket much back then. But his batting was ugly. He was first hack I saw.

[zen]

Guys like Sehwag, Yuvi, and Dhoni changed Ind cricket with their approach 

[Rightarmfast]

13 hours ago, rangeelaraja said:

 

I hated Jayasuriya to the hilt. I felt angry and frustrated as to how a sub-30 averaging (which he did at that time) could literally treat all our bowlers as pedestrians. I hated him because I knew that he was FTB par excellence who would just bully on flat tracks in Asia and Sharjah and did not last against bowlers of then alpha teams like Aus, RSA. He was the most punchable face for me in cricket then for how he would smash Prasad and Srinath.

 

I used to get excited at the sight of any Indian bowler who could bowl 130+, had high hopes from Mohanty given how bare the cupboards were back then.

 

Then someone called Tinu Yohannan came to the scene, built and tall, the media likened him to our own West Indian kind of bowler. I was super excited and thought we are now going to give it back to Pak. But boy, did he turn out to be a big bodied trundler.

 

 

Just a few of the memories...

 

And then there Thiru Kumaran who was introduced as fast. He could barely bowl 130. There was a pathetic bowler by the name of Siddiqui who played 1 test. Indian bowling was that poor that time. Agarkar was a breath of fresh air. He used to run in, bowl consistently above 140 and he was one bowler who was fast and game changer in ODI's. 

Also, not to forget Robin Singh. He used to give the opponents a run for their money, with whatever limited talent he had. 

[deepdynamo]

All hail the electrifying talent of the 90's...have a glance...living and following cricket in the 90's was a torture for most of us.

 

Asish Kapoor, Sunil Joshi, Paras Mahambrey, Vikram Rathore, David Johnson, Dodda Ganesh, Abhey Kuruvilla, Nilesh Kulkarni,  Harvinder Singh, D Gandhi, MSK Prasad, Kanitkar, Nikhil Chopra, SS DAS, Sarandeep Singh, Rahul Sanghvi, Bahutule, Dighe, Hemang Badani, Iqbal Siddiquie, Tinu Yohanan.

 

No wonder we used to get hammered left, right and center overseas in the 90's.

Edited March 31, 2021 by deepdynamo

[zen]

19 minutes ago, deepdynamo said:

All hail the electrifying talent of the 90's...have a glance...living and following cricket in the 90's was a torture for most of us.

 

Asish Kapoor, Sunil Joshi, Paras Mahambrey, Vikram Rathore, David Johnson, Dodda Ganesh, Abhey Kuruvilla, Nilesh Kulkarni,  Harvinder Singh, D Gandhi, MSK Prasad, Kanitkar, Nikhil Chopra, SS DAS, Sarandeep Singh, Rahul Sanghvi, Bahutule, Dighe, Hemang Badani, Iqbal Siddiquie, Tinu Yohanan.

 

No wonder we used to get hammered left, right and center overseas in the 90's.

 

Those guys would usually compete for 1 or 2 slots in general ... Ind had a competitive core in the 90s (some played in the first half, some in the 2nd half) - Sidhu, Azhar, Tendulkar, Manjrekar, Kambli, Ganguly, Dravid, VVS, Srinath, Kumble, Mongia, Ajay Jadeja, RP Singh, Agarkar (fastest to 50 wkts for Ind in ODIs iirc), etc. Kapil played for most of the first half. Prabhakar was competitive too in the first half until he ran into SL in 96

Edited March 31, 2021 by zen

[kirkutfan]

On top of it all, we had match fixing. If it wasn’t for that 2001 series turnaround with VVS and Dravid, fans like me might have stopped following cricket. These 2, Tendulkar and Ganguly made me believe again. I knew that this team would make a credible effort. We would win more often, and if we lost, it would not be for lack of effort.

[Clarke]

I have mentioned this before, the enduring memory I have is the tour of WI. Our "pace" bowling attack was Prasad, Kuruvilla & Dodda Ganesh with Srinath injured. Prasad was generally known for leg cutters but was our fastest bowler on that tour. Kuruvilla had the height of Holding but his primary skill was slower ball. Whatever ability Dodda had was not worth remembering. Who was the best at yorkers ? Kumble!

 

Then there's the Malcolm Holding Rose phenomenon. As kids we used to come up with weird ideas like the angle he bowls to justify his success against us.

 

We also did crazy $hit like opening with Ajay Jadeja in tests. 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Clarke

[rollingstoned]

1 hour ago, deepdynamo said:

All hail the electrifying talent of the 90's...have a glance...living and following cricket in the 90's was a torture for most of us.

 

Asish Kapoor, Sunil Joshi, Paras Mahambrey, Vikram Rathore, David Johnson, Dodda Ganesh, Abhey Kuruvilla, Nilesh Kulkarni,  Harvinder Singh, D Gandhi, MSK Prasad, Kanitkar, Nikhil Chopra, SS DAS, Sarandeep Singh, Rahul Sanghvi, Bahutule, Dighe, Hemang Badani, Iqbal Siddiquie, Tinu Yohanan.

 

No wonder we used to get hammered left, right and center overseas in the 90's.

it wasn't that bad c'mon, we actually punched above our weight and had some good batsmen by the turn of the millennium which was when Yuvraj, Harbhajan, Zak and Nehra also all made their debuts. Plus we were quite dominant at home, infact i wouldn't bet on our current team beating that one in the subcontinent.

[Mosher]

1 hour ago, deepdynamo said:

All hail the electrifying talent of the 90's...have a glance...living and following cricket in the 90's was a torture for most of us.

 

Asish Kapoor, Sunil Joshi, Paras Mahambrey, Vikram Rathore, David Johnson, Dodda Ganesh, Abhey Kuruvilla, Nilesh Kulkarni,  Harvinder Singh, D Gandhi, MSK Prasad, Kanitkar, Nikhil Chopra, SS DAS, Sarandeep Singh, Rahul Sanghvi, Bahutule, Dighe, Hemang Badani, Iqbal Siddiquie, Tinu Yohanan.

 

No wonder we used to get hammered left, right and center overseas in the 90's.

Some more legends that I remember Indian McGrath Aavishkar Salvi, Noel David, Amit Bhandari.

[saik]

Remember the test  SriLanka scored 900 against us. That was traumatic

[AuxiliA]

Recently found out that from 1986 to 2001 we had won just 1 oversees test (that too in SriLanka). I mean damn! 

 

Nowadays even after beating Australia twice in a row at their home and bullying teams like WI & SL at theirs, current fans say our oversees performance in underwhelming. Good for them that they didn't have to endure the 90s.

[nevada]

Talent was there even in that era. Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly,  Srinath , Kumble, old but still good Azhar - that's plenty of talent. The results sucked and that's a different story.I left out Laxman because his breakout happened with Kolkata 2001, which is kinda out of or on the very border of the era being discussed in this topic.