Finally for the first time after 92 years India's Test..

[Kron]

6 hours ago, Vijy said:

that is correct. I have seen all SC pacers for 50+ years, and srinath was the fastest of them -- among those who played 10+ tests -- prior to shoaib. he was faster than two Ws, Imran, nawaz, ratnayake, kapil, etc. here, I am talking only about speed, and not about overall ability.

 

note the 10+ tests criterion I introduced above. this excludes mohd zahid who was possibly (but only slightly) faster than srinath. Including Zahid, this is the order in terms of speed prior to shoaib:

 

peak Zahid > peak Sri > peak Waqar

Anyone that wants to see how quick Sri was. Check out the series vs s.africa. both home and away. He was rapid. I mean like 140 to 148 rapid.

 

He was as fast as donald at his peak

[Gollum]

14 hours ago, putrevus said:

So in your opinion was Zimbabwe good side or Indian side was horrible once they left their shores.

 

 

Andy Flower was good but he was turned into Bradman against India.

People may not like to hear this but Fab 4/5 batsmen shat the bed too often in the 2000s. Entire 2002 tour to WI was a joke when it came to batting capitulation. And no excuse to collapse so often against that Zimbabwe attack, in 2001 Harare they had Heath Streak but other bowlers were Travis Friend, Brian Murphy, some guy called Watambwa who shared the new ball, collapsing in both innings despite batting first is unpardonable. 

[rollingstoned]

4 hours ago, Gollum said:

People may not like to hear this but Fab 4/5 batsmen shat the bed too often in the 2000s. Entire 2002 tour to WI was a joke when it came to batting capitulation. And no excuse to collapse so often against that Zimbabwe attack, in 2001 Harare they had Heath Streak but other bowlers were Travis Friend, Brian Murphy, some guy called Watambwa who shared the new ball, collapsing in both innings despite batting first is unpardonable. 

By 2001 Zim had already lost many of the players who were part of the team that beat India convincingly in 1998. Olonga was troubling Tendulkar in that series and also in the Sharjah tri series. 

[Vijy]

10 hours ago, Gollum said:

People may not like to hear this but Fab 4/5 batsmen shat the bed too often in the 2000s. Entire 2002 tour to WI was a joke when it came to batting capitulation. And no excuse to collapse so often against that Zimbabwe attack, in 2001 Harare they had Heath Streak but other bowlers were Travis Friend, Brian Murphy, some guy called Watambwa who shared the new ball, collapsing in both innings despite batting first is unpardonable. 

of course they did. they were all mentally weak and/or technically deficient. no one is saying that they were the equivalent of the mightiest batting lineup ever: WI of the 50s-60s. Three Ws, Kanhai, Sobers, Hunte, Nurse. GOAT batting lineup, and full of clutch players.

Edited March 12 by Vijy

[Real McCoy]

23 hours ago, Gollum said:

People may not like to hear this but Fab 4/5 batsmen shat the bed too often in the 2000s. Entire 2002 tour to WI was a joke when it came to batting capitulation. And no excuse to collapse so often against that Zimbabwe attack, in 2001 Harare they had Heath Streak but other bowlers were Travis Friend, Brian Murphy, some guy called Watambwa who shared the new ball, collapsing in both innings despite batting first is unpardonable. 

I did not upvote because some lalloo downvoted your post. I want to add that the best batsmen from India and THE BEST from his marathi heritage showed his class in the first innings

 

[Kron]

14 hours ago, Vijy said:

of course they did. they were all mentally weak and/or technically deficient. no one is saying that they were the equivalent of the mightiest batting lineup ever: WI of the 50s-60s. Three Ws, Kanhai, Sobers, Hunte, Nurse. GOAT batting lineup, and full of clutch players.

Clutch it's a great term. Clutch.

 

More than skill and technique and even speed for example with a bowler. First thing we need to always look at when it comes to selections is Clutch factor. How does he handle pressure. Can he bowl under pressure. Csn he bat under pressure. 

 

Can he dig deep when needed

Can he bowl when there is nothing in the pitch by carrying the team on his shoulders. 

 

4th innings performances. 

 

And then worry about speed and bounce for bowlers

Or 

Technique and power for batting 

[Gollum]

20 hours ago, rollingstoned said:

By 2001 Zim had already lost many of the players who were part of the team that beat India convincingly in 1998. Olonga was troubling Tendulkar in that series and also in the Sharjah tri series. 

Yes, that test loss in 2001 was a disgrace. Just before that the famous 2-1 win in BGT. 

[Vijy]

56 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Yes, that test loss in 2001 was a disgrace. Just before that the famous 2-1 win in BGT. 

also the way they succumbed to NZ in 2002 or so, even when bond was missing. yes, pitches were disgraceful, but NZ batting was weak too

[Gollum]

51 minutes ago, Vijy said:

also the way they succumbed to NZ in 2002 or so, even when bond was missing. yes, pitches were disgraceful, but NZ batting was weak too

NZ 2002 I don't even rate those as cricket pitches. 

 

2002 WI was a choke job for the ages. From leading 1-0 to losing that 5 test series 1-2, we are often too harsh on the current Indian team 

[Vijy]

7 minutes ago, Gollum said:

NZ 2002 I don't even rate those as cricket pitches. 

 

2002 WI was a choke job for the ages. From leading 1-0 to losing that 5 test series 1-2, we are often too harsh on the current Indian team 

I forgot WI 2002. that was a very bad performance.

 

I would still consider NZ 2002 sub-par as well

[rollingstoned]

4 hours ago, Gollum said:

NZ 2002 I don't even rate those as cricket pitches. 

 

2002 WI was a choke job for the ages. From leading 1-0 to losing that 5 test series 1-2, we are often too harsh on the current Indian team 

We made the likes of pedro Collins, Cameron Cuffy and Mervyn Dillon into heroes that series. Walsh and Ambrose had both retired by then. 

Edited March 13 by rollingstoned

[Laaloo]

8 hours ago, Real McCoy said:

I did not upvote because some lalloo downvoted your post. I want to add that the best batsmen from India and THE BEST from his marathi heritage showed his class in the first innings

 

Well what do you know. Tamasha league coming up bringing back tamasha posters.

[kohli]

6 hours ago, Vijy said:

also the way they succumbed to NZ in 2002 or so, even when bond was missing. yes, pitches were disgraceful, but NZ batting was weak too

Bond played in that series 

[AuxiliA]

8 hours ago, Vijy said:

also the way they succumbed to NZ in 2002 or so, even when bond was missing. yes, pitches were disgraceful, but NZ batting was weak too

 

7 hours ago, Gollum said:

NZ 2002 I don't even rate those as cricket pitches. 

 

2002 WI was a choke job for the ages. From leading 1-0 to losing that 5 test series 1-2, we are often too harsh on the current Indian team 

 

 

The Fab 5 had their share of lollapses and bad forms but they still are far better than the Kohli era top 5 in tests, especially in SENA. They learned from their failures and improved on subsequent tours which today's batters haven't. Their part time bowling was a plus too.

 

What we earlier lacked (which we have now) were the wicket taking bowlers. Test matches are won by strike bowlers. Bumrah, Ashwin, Jadeja, Shami & co have been our real MVPs in tests not the batsmen. 

 

If you combine the Fab 5 with our current bowlers+ Pant, you would get an ATG team.

[Vijy]

5 hours ago, AuxiliA said:

 

 

 

The Fab 5 had their share of lollapses and bad forms but they still are far better than the Kohli era top 5 in tests, especially in SENA. They learned from their failures and improved on subsequent tours which today's batters haven't. Their part time bowling was a plus too.

 

What we earlier lacked (which we have now) were the wicket taking bowlers. Test matches are won by strike bowlers. Bumrah, Ashwin, Jadeja, Shami & co have been our real MVPs in tests not the batsmen. 

 

If you combine the Fab 5 with our current bowlers+ Pant, you would get an ATG team.

no, I am not sure that you would. this current batch of batters are not as good as fab 5, but the latter were mostly mentally weak and/or insufficiently ruthless outside SC; most were technically good though

Edited March 14 by Vijy

[Vijy]

3 hours ago, kohli said:

Bond played in that series 

I must have gotten mixed up with ODIs, where he didn't play some games. barring bond, rest of NZ attack was quite ordinary. more importantly, NZ batting lineup was weak, but our bowlers couldn't make inroads enough

[Real McCoy]

2 hours ago, Vijy said:

I must have gotten mixed up with ODIs, where he didn't play some games. barring bond, rest of NZ attack was quite ordinary. more importantly, NZ batting lineup was weak, but our bowlers couldn't make inroads enough

He played in the test series and missed most of the ODI series. Still got your point that we weren't able to defeat the ordinary side. What's worse is Stephen Fleming who was captain at the time wanted to keep Indian team under their feet (maintain their edge over us) getting into the 2003 wc which my friend got upset with That was a bad series affected mentally by it. The first few matches on the world cup were affected majorly by it. Collapsing to 200 against Ned . The next is 120 all out against Aus on the same pitch where we chased down 270 against Pak. Our batting lineup was capable of a 2003 WC performance but look at the results.

Zim match was the turning point even though we collapsed from a 80+ start in the first 15 to end up with 250+. Do you remember Dinesh Mongia from that world cup He pressed on the brake pedal all the time in that WC. I don't know why he was picked. The rumour was that he was a quota pick from the selectors. Where is Jimmy Amarnath now with his "fight" against corruption and nepotism? He was missing when the nepotism from the North but he carried on with the South even though it was Dhoni (from Jharkhand) he was against.

[Real McCoy]

12 hours ago, Gollum said:

NZ 2002 I don't even rate those as cricket pitches. 

 

2002 WI was a choke job for the ages. From leading 1-0 to losing that 5 test series 1-2, we are often too harsh on the current Indian team 

Yeah our batting was bowled out for 100 in the bridgetown test against Cuffy and Pedro Collins. So much for fab 4 batting. After that everything went south for us. The last test in Jamaica was a decent pitch yet our bowlers couldnt out the openers who scored heavily and took them to a match winning score. After that we were behind the 8 ball even though we bowled them out cheaply in the secnd innings

 

Edit - I remembered Gavaskar was pretty drought after the final test was over. We all were.

Edited March 14 by Real McCoy

[Kron]

14 hours ago, Vijy said:

I forgot WI 2002. that was a very bad performance.

 

I would still consider NZ 2002 sub-par as well

Was that when doully killed us?

[rollingstoned]

19 minutes ago, Kron said:

Was that when doully killed us?

Nah. Daryl tuffey, Oram, Bond, Styris and even Nathan effing Astle. Lol. 

tuffey might have been the first Maori player in their history, not sure. 

 

1 hour ago, Real McCoy said:

Yeah our batting was bowled out for 100 in the bridgetown test against Cuffy and Pedro Collins. So much for fab 4 batting. After that everything went south for us. The last test in Jamaica was a decent pitch yet our bowlers couldnt out the openers who scored heavily and took them to a match winning score. After that we were behind the 8 ball even though we bowled them out cheaply in the secnd innings

 

Edit - I remembered Gavaskar was pretty drought after the final test was over. We all were.

Probably the last time we toured WI for such a long series and when they still had a decent team on paper back to front though nothing close to what it was even a decade ago. 

Gayle has had a very long career when you think about it, he was opening the batting in tests for a good while before IPL.