Will we ever achieve the same winning mentality as Australia?

[dilliboy]

No matter what the format or tournament is, Australians historically have an insane winning mentality. Despite whatever form they are in throughout the tournament they always seem to bring their best during knockouts. Winning 6 out 13 world cups (5 of the last 7) is absolutely insane, and shows that the winning culture is embedded across generations.

 

Compare that with India where we now seem to dominate bilaterals and group games only to wilt in the biggest stage. It's still better than 90s and early 2000s but honestly those teams had a lack of quality compared to the best teams. Right now we definitely have the deepest talent pool in the world but still no ICC trophy in the last decade. What actually is holding is back in the biggest stages/moments?

[cricketfan28]

Cant take the last final seriously, the conditions screwed us.

[Nikola]

Just winning mentality won't make you great fielders right? We can start by picking best athlete who may not have 10/10 skills in batting or bowling. Pick those youngsters and work on their skills.

[dilliboy]

12 minutes ago, cricketfan28 said:

Cant take the last final seriously, the conditions screwed us.

You really think we couldn't have batted better despite the slow conditions?

[cricketfan28]

1 minute ago, dilliboy said:

You really think we couldn't have batted better despite the slow conditions?

Yes, most of our players are in good form so i blame conditions, had they tried to be aggressive they would have been 200 allout. Australia would have fared the same on slow track, they were 199 allout in Chennai and that head guy is not a great player, they almost lost to SA in semis, they are nothing special in this tournament , they got lucky.

 

[Nikhil_cric]

Nothing to do with mentality. India needs better players. 

 

Also, that pitch was not a pitch that should have been made for a final. 

 

Can't have such biased pitches. 

[Frustrated]

Our Batters can't bowl at all.  And Bowlers can't bat to save their lives.  Simply having ruthless mentality is not enough to win ICC trophy in any format.  Every Aus batter can bowl tidy overs and/or take wickets.  Look at Head, Maxwell and Marsh.  Now compare that to Rohit, Kohli,Iyer & Gill.  Look at Aus bowlers like Cummins,Starc & Hazlewood.  They all can hang around with the bat if needed.   Compare that to Siraj, Bumrah and Shami.   Shami's batting in particular has regressed terribly recently.   There is a clear skill gap between Ind and Aus.   World's worst fielders are all Indians.   Viz: Bumrah, Siraj and Shami.  

Edited December 9, 2023 by Frustrated

[Gollum]

Can't compare the world's greatest sporting nation to one of the worst sporting nations. 

 

22 Olympic medals per million population (in all of Olympic history) vs 0.03. Bring in living standards, nutrition, sporting culture, whatever, but can't compare a tiger with a mouse. 

 

We won't match their sporting prowess in the next 1000 years, cricket is just one example. Even in cricket if they stop playing, we won't come close to their legacy in the next 100 years. That is our aukaat. 

[Lord]

Need more Kohli like cricketers both in team and BCCI. 

[nevada]

2 hours ago, cricketfan28 said:

Cant take the last final seriously, the conditions screwed us.

I am not sure. We would have probably limped to a 15 run loss if we were chasing 240. Our players simply don't have the winning mentality nor the ability to live in the moment and put their best foot forward. My buddy who hardly watches any cricket once remarked that during interviews, while our players express gratitude to their coach, family, favorite deity and sundry others when they score a century or take wickets, Australian players seem to be nonchalant and to the point. They play it like a game, the way it's meant to be played. Our cricketers hype it up, put it on a pedestal, create the weight of history, sentiment and other syrupy ****. Unlike in 2011, we are clearly among the top 2-3 teams but still can't get the job done. 

[Lord]

2 hours ago, cricketfan28 said:

Cant take the last final seriously, the conditions screwed us.

 

Bullcrap. We played like scared kittens. Aussies were on mark right from ball one, fielding like tigers.

[goose]

When your opponent is prepared to stake it all, but you are not, your strategy turns to hope over ability. Any edge you think you have is gone

[BacktoCricaddict]

We did. Gabba 2021. With a bunch of back-ups who played fearlessly, a captain (whatever his batting faults) who nurtured them and a coach (whatever his faults) let them perform with no pressure.

 

Yes, I live in the past. Yes, it's a different format. But the blueprint is right there. Plan. Attack. Play freely.  When 20-yr old noob Washington Sundar nonchalantly pulled Pat freakkin Cummins for a six, that's all one needed to know about the mental space in which the team was operating.

 

Fast forward 3 years. We get 66 (107). 9 (21). Veteran deer meet headlights.

Edited December 9, 2023 by BacktoCricaddict

[Suhaan]

3 hours ago, Frustrated said:

Our Batters can't bowl at all.  And Bowlers can't bat to save their lives.  Simply having ruthless mentality is not enough to win ICC trophy in any format.  Every Aus batter can bowl tidy overs and/or take wickets.  Look at Head, Maxwell and Marsh.  Now compare that to Rohit, Kohli,Iyer & Gill.  Look at Aus bowlers like Cummins,Starc & Hazlewood.  They all can hang around with the bat if needed.   Compare that to Siraj, Bumrah and Shami.   Shami's batting in particular has regressed terribly recently.   There is a clear skill gap between Ind and Aus.   World's worst fielders are all Indians.   Viz: Bumrah, Siraj and Shami.  

This loss was humiliation,this was perhaps weakest Aussie side competing against us that too on our turf

We messed it on each aspect from pitch preparation to on field strategies

There was no need to mess with the pitch,it had to be evenly balanced like the match previous

Infact why the f#@k they don't trust our performance on sporting pitches?

Infact we did exceedingly well for first 10 overs of our innings and theirs

 

[Frustrated]

23 minutes ago, Suhaan said:

This loss was humiliation,this was perhaps weakest Aussie side competing against us that too on our turf

We messed it on each aspect from pitch preparation to on field strategies

There was no need to mess with the pitch,it had to be evenly balanced like the match previous

Infact why the f#@k they don't trust our performance on sporting pitches?

Infact we did exceedingly well for first 10 overs of our innings and theirs

 

They probably had to mess up with the pitch coz the earlier game (SF vs NZ on a flat wankhede pitch) gave Team Ind and the TM a lot of scare.   NZ were well in the game till the 32nd over of the chase.  That Williamson-Mitchell partnership literally sent shivers down the spine of most Indian fans.  All our bowlers had literally given up (except Shami).  And secondly coz a full strength Aussie side usually looks invincible on flat pitches.  I think this scorecard was fresh in their minds.  https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/australia-in-india-2023-24-1389381/india-vs-australia-3rd-odi-1389390/match-report

Edited December 9, 2023 by Frustrated

[Gollum]

Indians in general don't have the ruthless streak. For instance in cricket, we win an Asia Cup once in 2 or 3 attempts and then arrogantly say that we shouldn't play AC, it is beneath us etc. We beat some XYZ side once and then arrogantly proclaim that winning is boring, we shouldn't play them. In hockey as well I see this attitude, we are beating sides like Spain, Argentina and South Korea easily these days and then proclaim that we should start a Hockey League and not play these sides, not forgetting that some of these same sides used to hammer us black and blue year after year for 20-30 years (so much arrogance over a bronze, Arg won gold in Rio Olympics)....and the difference in gap isn't big, in fact I'll say that India's youth sides are way behind the Spanish counterparts for last 5-6 years and that will show in coming decade. 

 

Aussies are relentless, they just want to keep winning, winning, winning, keep lifting trophies, humiliating opponents etc. They don't get bored or cocky after a few good years, like Evert once said as a teenager, her goal was to win everything once, then everything twice, thrice, four times, and never lose. 

 

I don't see this ruthless streak in Indians, in any sport for that matter...maybe Neeraj will change the trend. Even Pakistanis had a spell in the 70s, 80s where they won everything on offer in squash. In hockey they had a winning streak in the late 70s till mid 80s which forced top football sides to study their methods (Mario Kempes' Arg copied their tactics/formations, took tips, attended Pak training sessions in the 1978 hockey WC like apprentices). That Pak side was the hockey equivalent of cricket's WI, many still consider them the GOAT team. Look at their H2Hs even today against Neth, Aus, Ger etc......despite sucking for so long even today they are statistically as good or better than Aussies/Dutch I'd say. 

 

India will never produce a GOAT in any discipline. Even someone like Viswanathan Anand was content with his world titles and invitations to top events, never pushed himself to become a mean machine like Kasparov or Carlsen despite having the same ability, this was observed by 14th world champion Kramnik as well....Kramnik is one of the greatest, also the last product of the fearsome Soviet School of Chess before USSR broke up....he trained under Botvinnik and Kasparov, was second of Kasparov in the 1995 Kasparov-Anand world championship match in New York. 

Quote

In an interview in 2011, Kramnik said about Anand: "I always considered him to be a colossal talent, one of the greatest in the whole history of chess"; and "I think that in terms of play Anand is in no way weaker than Kasparov but he's simply a little lazy, relaxed and only focuses on matches. In the last 5–6 years he's made a qualitative leap that's made it possible to consider him one of the great chess players." In an interview in 2020, Kramnik, while talking about his World Chess Championship match against Anand in 2008, mentioned: "Vishy is such a great player and he was in a fantastic form. He was such a powerful force that I do not know who could have stopped him then. Even Kasparov could not have managed it."

 

Dunno if by nature we are like this.....lazy, complacent, rarely pushing ourselves beyond comfort zone. Or an inherent weakness in Dharmics as opposed to the more ambitious Abrahamics. Even look at our great rulers/kings in ancient/medieval times who rarely tried to expand, contrast to some Mongol/Muslim small time rulers/thugs/bandits from Central Asia and Persia who pushed to conquer our lands. Funny thing is once the Muslim rulers settled in India they also became content, less ambitious to expand. 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Gollum

[harpicP]

4 hours ago, Gollum said:

Can't compare the world's greatest sporting nation to one of the worst sporting nations. 

 

22 Olympic medals per million population (in all of Olympic history) vs 0.03. Bring in living standards, nutrition, sporting culture, whatever, but can't compare a tiger with a mouse. 

 

We won't match their sporting prowess in the next 1000 years, cricket is just one example. Even in cricket if they stop playing, we won't come close to their legacy in the next 100 years. That is our aukaat. 

We just don't have the sporting culture. It's just not organically developed through schools. 

[harpicP]

5 hours ago, Frustrated said:

Our Batters can't bowl at all.  And Bowlers can't bat to save their lives.  Simply having ruthless mentality is not enough to win ICC trophy in any format.  Every Aus batter can bowl tidy overs and/or take wickets.  Look at Head, Maxwell and Marsh.  Now compare that to Rohit, Kohli,Iyer & Gill.  Look at Aus bowlers like Cummins,Starc & Hazlewood.  They all can hang around with the bat if needed.   Compare that to Siraj, Bumrah and Shami.   Shami's batting in particular has regressed terribly recently.   There is a clear skill gap between Ind and Aus.   World's worst fielders are all Indians.   Viz: Bumrah, Siraj and Shami.  

This^^^^

 

Zero excuses for few of the bats to not be able to bowl. Sachin did it. Sehwag did it. Yuvi did it. All won a world cup. What is the current gen players excuse? 

 

As for bowlers, how do can you be such duds with the bat. No matter how good you bowl, you still need to have some hitting ability to score 15 to 20 runs. 

 

If Aussie players are doing it then there should be no excuses for Indian players too.

 

Also I am not even going to touch on fielding which itself will open a new debate.

 

Bumrah shami siraj. 2 of them need to be able to bat and atleast score 15 to 20 runs

 

Sometimes having weak tail plays in the minds of our main batsmen who are poor themselves in swing or spin friendly conditions. They play conservative because they know our tail can't last 2 overs. Ridiculous. 

[Gollum]

4 minutes ago, harpicP said:

We just don't have the sporting culture. It's just not organically developed through schools. 

True, no matter how much we improve, how much we invest we won't overtake a country like Aus in sports......as you said, sporting culture. 

 

Watch them win 50 medals in Paris next year while we struggle to touch double digits. If we meet in hockey, they'll thrash us mercilessly (7-0, 8-0 margin) like they always do, can't single out just cricket. 

[Gollum]

Beating Aussies in KOs is the toughest challenge in cricket. You can count such examples with one hand....Lloyd's WI in 1975, Aravinda masterclass, Poms in 2019 WC SF etc.

 

Yuvi owned them more than once....2007 SF and 2011 QF. Then the KO in 2000 mini WC in Nairobi. What a champ that guy !!!!!