Rate the Indian Squads for the World Cups you've watched.

[Number]

I started watching Cricket in 97-98.

So 1999 world cup was my first one

 

1999 - Good batsmen in top 3-4 but heavily dependent on Sachin for scoring at decent runrate. Bowling was just about Zimbabwe level of those times. Overall a very average team in the times when almost every team was very competitive and standard of the game was at its near best.

 

2003 - Arguably the best team after the mighty Australians in the tournament. Zak, Nehra and Srinath were at their peak and 2 very potent spinners in Kumble and Harbhajan. Sehwag at the top and Yuvraj in the middle could strike at decent rate. Dravid was one of the best ODI batsmen in those times. Fielding wise too with Kaif, Yuvraj we were not far behind SENA teams. Could have had a decent shot at the cup if we didn't run into the peak Australians.

 

2007 - Again personnel-wise a very very good squad. Addition of MSD was a very good plus. Bowling too was quite good. But it was very unsettled squad with no one knowing what his role was. Nobody seemed to be happy with the coach and captain and it resulted in a disaster.

 

2011 - Hands down the strongest batting line up in the tournament with 6 single handed match winners in top 6. It had major issues in fast bowling department with Zaheer being the only good pacer. It did get exposed in the group stages where we could not defend large totals against SA and Eng. Luckily things fell in place in knockouts. 

 

2015 - Meh team. Joke bowling attack in those conditions. Batting was top 3 or bust. Was thrashed everywhere in bilaterals around the world in 2014-15. Did well to reach Semis. 

 

2019 - Probably the best bowling attack we ever had. Experienced Shami, potent Bumrah with very effective BK in those conditons. Kuldeep and Chahal formed a very good partnership. However middle order batting became a major issue with declining MS. Once Shikhar got injured whole balance of the batting order went for a toss and it choked out.

 

 

I would rate them strength wise in this order.

 

2011 > 2003 > 2019 >  2007 > 1999 > 2015.

[Gollum]

You are severely underrating 2015 side. Good batting unit and that bowling attack was stronger than sum of its parts, it is commendable how we swept the group stage. It took a peaking Aussie team to send us home in the SF. 

 

2011>2003>2015>2019>2007=1999

 

2007 team had the big names but almost everybody was out of form, and it just wasn't a team!!!!!

Edited August 16, 2023 by Gollum

[Gollum]

2015 bowling attack is underrated, 2019 one is overrated.

 

By the time of 2019 WC, Kuldeep had lost all his confidence and less we talk about Chahal the better, clown lost us the SF and Jaddu was so good with the ball there.

2015 WC had peak Ashwin and Jaddu also was better than his post-2017 self. 

 

Umesh in 2015 was breathing fire and his jodi with Shami wasn't any less than Bumrah-Shami of 2019. Mohit did very well in 2015 and Bhuvi was meh in 2019. 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Gollum

[Mesky99]

1999 team was very solid, bowling to was good, srinath, prasad, Kumble, in form mohanty and agarkar, should have won against zim, even against SA we were on top, kaliss played a fine innings

[Nikhil_cric]

1999 

- The Cricketing Nightmare on Elm Street squad . Who the F was Amay Khurasiya? Chopra played 1 game.  

SRT back injury  , Ramesh with his lazy footwork,  Azhar and Jaddu fixing, past it Robin Singh ,  a tired old team that had played too much cricket for 3 years waiting to get thrashed

 

2003 

 

Good relatively young team . But Mongia, Kumble, Kaif were in terrible form , Bangar was a useless pick and Patel was a bit inexperienced . Did not have depth to rotate players and got smashed by the GOAT ODI side after 10 tiring matches. 

 

2007

 

Bowling was fine but Ganguly was absolutely finished in ODIs. Also, we started the trend of picking 2 wicketkeepers when there was already an extra back up keeper in Uthappa wasting a spot.  

Did badly thanks to poor strategy. 

 

2011

 

Best squad we ever had. Proper aggressive batting line up with Sehwag at his peak, Sachin 2nd wind , GG peak, young Kohli , Yuvi as a legit. 5th bowling option,  Terrific finishing from Raina and MSD.  Yusuf Pathan and bowlers were all selected on merit. 

 

Only questionable selection was probably Chawla.   

 

But this was a strong squad of 15.  Only time we picked a near perfect squad. 

 

 

2015

 

Rayudu, Binny ? Axar didn't play a single match .

 

Only 4 fast bowlers selected for a World Cup in Australia and Bhuv was used only in 1 match? 

 

3 spinners for an Australian World Cup?

 

Same 3 fast bowlers played almost all matches . Utterly stupid selection.

 

This is why MSD era sucked 

 

 

2019

 

3 spinners for a World Cup in England once again. 

 

But MSD went one step further and played 3(instead of 4 quicks like in 2015) quicks + Hardik Pandya

 

And went ahead and picked 2 more  keepers. 

 

Disastrous selections 

[Number]

2 hours ago, Mesky99 said:

1999 team was very solid, bowling to was good, srinath, prasad, Kumble, in form mohanty and agarkar, should have won against zim, even against SA we were on top, kaliss played a fine innings

 

Lets be honest Prasad and Mohanty were bang average cricketers. Srinath was good and Kumble in those conditions at that time wasn't good enough. We managed to beat Pak which was more of them choking hard in a chase. The only half decent side we managed to beat in that tournament.

[Number]

3 hours ago, Gollum said:

2015 bowling attack is underrated, 2019 one is overrated.

 

By the time of 2019 WC, Kuldeep had lost all his confidence and less we talk about Chahal the better, clown lost us the SF and Jaddu was so good with the ball there.

2015 WC had peak Ashwin and Jaddu also was better than his post-2017 self. 

 

Umesh in 2015 was breathing fire and his jodi with Shami wasn't any less than Bumrah-Shami of 2019. Mohit did very well in 2015 and Bhuvi was meh in 2019. 

 

 

 

Kuldeep didn't do that well in WC 2019 but he was very good in NZ and did well in the ODI series against Aussies at home prior to WC.

Overall his economy was very good in all the matches except Eng and Aus. Both him and Chahal at that time were hands down better than Ashwin and Jaddu in 2015. 

Also take into count in 2015 we played IRE, UAE, ZIM, WI, joke of a Pakistan team and then Bangladesh. These guys made merry against minnows and got exposed against Australia. Moreover the way we were losing to NZ in NZ, SA in SA, even in BD in 2014-15 we were just not good enough. Prior to WC we played a tri series in Australia with England couldn't win a single match of all 6 that we played. That shows how poor the team actually was. 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Number

[zen]

Teams that won: 

 

2011 

 

Team that did better than expected: 

 

2003 

Team that preformed more or less as per expectations: 

 

1987, 1996, 2015, & 2019

 

Teams that disappointed: 

 

1992, 1999, & 2007

[putrevus]

2003 squad was the best balanced squad.They had everything except mental fortitude to compete against an overrated Australian team.

 

They simply did not have guts to bat first on a flat wicket against a very very overrated Australian bowling attack.Mcgrath and Lee were only threats.Mcgrath was good but he was not going to run thru batting on that wicket.

 

They had Brad hogg as spinner.

 

Ganguly can act all tough in speeches but he was a fricking coward which was again proven in Nagpur test.

Edited August 16, 2023 by putrevus

[Bigg Brother]

2019 was so random and rubbish. Dhongi,Jadhav and Vijay Shankar in batting order 

 

Even Pant was drafted last minute otherwise pathetic batting. We rightly got thrashed by NZ. 

[putrevus]

7 minutes ago, Bigg Brother said:

2019 was so random and rubbish. Dhongi,Jadhav and Vijay Shankar in batting order 

 

Even Pant was drafted last minute otherwise pathetic batting. We rightly got thrashed by NZ. 

Dhawan got injured, then Vijay Shankar got injured, what were they supposed to do?

[Number]

13 minutes ago, Bigg Brother said:

2019 was so random and rubbish. Dhongi,Jadhav and Vijay Shankar in batting order 

 

Even Pant was drafted last minute otherwise pathetic batting. We rightly got thrashed by NZ. 

 

Kohli Shastri got the batting order totally wrong.

Took Vijay Shankar to ENG to bat at no.4 whose highest score was 40 something.

Then niggled the all rounder Shankar out to select an opener Mayank Agarwal in his place.

Then Dhawan the opener got injured so they selected a WK Rishabh Pant in his place.

Complete randomness.  

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Number

[Bigg Brother]

5 hours ago, Number said:

 

Kohli Shastri got the batting order totally wrong.

Took Vijay Shankar to ENG to bat at no.4 whose highest score was 40 something.

Then niggled the all rounder Shankar out to select an opener Mayank Agarwal in his place.

Then Dhawan the opener got injured so they selected a WK Rishabh Pant in his place.

Complete randomness.  

 

I don't know even Mayank was selected. See, how random it was !! Also DK in squad after nidahas heroics which was T20 format..

Edited August 16, 2023 by Bigg Brother