That's why the top heavy approach doesn't win titles

[vvvslaxman]

2 hours ago, AKane said:

I still think that some late night parties affected the 2003 final. Maybe not the previous night but certainly a couple of nights out.

 

Zaheer looked drunk in his first over but the real shocker was Srinath. A guy with 10 years experience bowled absolute filth.

 

Everything was swept under the carpet with - "Oh that Aus team is just too good". Here are the figures of Shane Bond vs that same team..... 10-2-23-6. Now compare Zaheer and esp Srinath.

TO be fair this wicket an absolute road offering nothing. India should have batted first. But because they were **** scared of facing Brett Lee again. India got rolled ove for 136 runs in the group stage encounter against Australia.

[Ultimate_Game]

6 hours ago, AKane said:

I still think that some late night parties affected the 2003 final. Maybe not the previous night but certainly a couple of nights out.

 

Zaheer looked drunk in his first over but the real shocker was Srinath. A guy with 10 years experience bowled absolute filth.

 

Everything was swept under the carpet with - "Oh that Aus team is just too good". Here are the figures of Shane Bond vs that same team..... 10-2-23-6. Now compare Zaheer and esp Srinath.

 

They froze at the big stage. That's the simple answer. Zaheer and Srinath were hardly party animals but they (especially Srinath) were mentally fragile. That first over from Zaheer which went for 16 runs set the tone and we were never really in the match.

 

But I blame the decision to bowl first on a batting paradise on a beautiful day. Aus had one of the best bowling attacks and India were known for struggling to chase. I can't figure out why we decided to bowl first when our best bet was to bat first, put up a score around 270-280 and then hope the scoreboard pressure and a couple of early wkts do their job.

[Gollum]

8 hours ago, AKane said:

I still think that some late night parties affected the 2003 final. Maybe not the previous night but certainly a couple of nights out.

 

Zaheer looked drunk in his first over but the real shocker was Srinath. A guy with 10 years experience bowled absolute filth.

 

Everything was swept under the carpet with - "Oh that Aus team is just too good". Here are the figures of Shane Bond vs that same team..... 10-2-23-6. Now compare Zaheer and esp Srinath.

Between 1998 Sharjah desert storm game (no McGrath) and 2007 dead rubber ODI in Mumbai (again no McGrath), India had zero wins against Australia whilst chasing. Zero. 

 

India flunked many sub 250 chases in that period, even when Aus had D grade bowling lineups led by Brad Williams and Ian Harvey. I still can't forget how we made a meal out of a simple 230 chase in 2003 TVS Cup final in Eden. Ball was soaking wet that night and still Harvey, Michael Clarke, Symonds cut through our famed fab 4 or 5 whatever. 

 

Psychological dominance of that Aussie unit  against us was absolute, in white ball cricket. 

 

We lost the 2003 final even before taking the field. 

Edited June 2 by Gollum

[Nikhil_cric]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

Between 1998 Sharjah desert storm game (no McGrath) and 2007 dead rubber ODI in Mumbai (again no McGrath), India had zero wins against Australia whilst chasing. Zero. 

 

India flunked many sub 250 chases in that period, even when Aus had D grade bowling lineups led by Brad Williams and Ian Harvey. I still can't forget how we made a meal out of a simple 230 chase in 2003 TVS Cup final in Eden. Ball was soaking wet that night and still Harvey, Michael Clarke, Symonds cut through our famed fab 4 or 5 whatever. 

 

Psychological dominance of that Aussie unit  against us was absolute, in white ball cricket. 

 

We lost the 2003 final even before taking the field. 

Because our numbers 5-7 were rubbish in that period.  Even Yuvraj hadn't found consistency and Dhoni, Raina were new

 

As long as India doesn't prioritise lower order depth and pace heavy lineups , we will never do well in ODI cricket. 

 

Looks like we haven't learnt our lessons in 50 years.

 

Even now, Cricket Australia are trying to convince Tim David to play ODI cricket as a specialist #7 whereas we are stuck on Jadeja and Washington 

 

And make no mistake, they are likely to pick 3 spinners/spin allrounders as is their wont instead of picking more pacers in a SENA World Cup. 

 

 

[diga]

1 hour ago, Nikhil_cric said:

Because our numbers 5-7 were rubbish in that period.  Even Yuvraj hadn't found consistency and Dhoni, Raina were new

 

As long as India doesn't prioritise lower order depth and pace heavy lineups , we will never do well in ODI cricket. 

 

Looks like we haven't learnt our lessons in 50 years.

 

Even now, Cricket Australia are trying to convince Tim David to play ODI cricket as a specialist #7 whereas we are stuck on Jadeja and Washington 

 

And make no mistake, they are likely to pick 3 spinners/spin allrounders as is their wont instead of picking more pacers in a SENA World Cup. 

 

 

Our best ODI record ( 17 consecutive wins in chases) was when we had 7 batsmen

[Ultimate_Game]

6 hours ago, Gollum said:

Between 1998 Sharjah desert storm game (no McGrath) and 2007 dead rubber ODI in Mumbai (again no McGrath), India had zero wins against Australia whilst chasing. Zero. 

 

India flunked many sub 250 chases in that period, even when Aus had D grade bowling lineups led by Brad Williams and Ian Harvey. I still can't forget how we made a meal out of a simple 230 chase in 2003 TVS Cup final in Eden. Ball was soaking wet that night and still Harvey, Michael Clarke, Symonds cut through our famed fab 4 or 5 whatever. 

 

Psychological dominance of that Aussie unit  against us was absolute, in white ball cricket. 

 

We lost the 2003 final even before taking the field. 

 

5 hours ago, Nikhil_cric said:

Because our numbers 5-7 were rubbish in that period.  Even Yuvraj hadn't found consistency and Dhoni, Raina were new

 

As long as India doesn't prioritise lower order depth and pace heavy lineups , we will never do well in ODI cricket. 

 

Looks like we haven't learnt our lessons in 50 years.

 

Even now, Cricket Australia are trying to convince Tim David to play ODI cricket as a specialist #7 whereas we are stuck on Jadeja and Washington 

 

And make no mistake, they are likely to pick 3 spinners/spin allrounders as is their wont instead of picking more pacers in a SENA World Cup. 

 

 

 

And that's why it was so shocking we chose to field first against a rampant Aussie team knowing fully well that batting first and putting up a decent total was our best bet. As for chasing, things changed when Dhoni arrived on the scene. Before that we had wks like Mongia, Dahiya, Dighe etc. who barely averaged 15-20 and were glorified tailenders and our tail started at 5. Once we were 4 wkts down, the match was done. Things were so bad that we had to make Dravid a makeshift wk and he himself wasn't an ideal ODI batter.

 

I can't state it enough what a breath of fresh air Dhoni was and how our fortunes changed with his arrival. People may look at current Dhoni and make fun of him but the Dhoni of late 00s and early to mid 2010s was a beast. The reason India became good at chasing and so hard to beat in LOIs was Dhoni averaging 50 lower down the order. Addition of Yuvraj and Raina was great too but even Yuvraj blossomed when Dhoni was there to bat in the lower middle order. He set the benchmark for wks in India and since then we haven't had a wk who couldn't bat.

[Nikhil_cric]

1 hour ago, Ultimate_Game said:

 

 

And that's why it was so shocking we chose to field first against a rampant Aussie team knowing fully well that batting first and putting up a decent total was our best bet. As for chasing, things changed when Dhoni arrived on the scene. Before that we had wks like Mongia, Dahiya, Dighe etc. who barely averaged 15-20 and were glorified tailenders and our tail started at 5. Once we were 4 wkts down, the match was done. Things were so bad that we had to make Dravid a makeshift wk and he himself wasn't an ideal ODI batter.

 

I can't state it enough what a breath of fresh air Dhoni was and how our fortunes changed with his arrival. People may look at current Dhoni and make fun of him but the Dhoni of late 00s and early to mid 2010s was a beast. The reason India became good at chasing and so hard to beat in LOIs was Dhoni averaging 50 lower down the order. Addition of Yuvraj and Raina was great too but even Yuvraj blossomed when Dhoni was there to bat in the lower middle order. He set the benchmark for wks in India and since then we haven't had a wk who couldn't bat.

Dhoni was a beast until 2013/14 , no doubt.

[Ultimate_Game]

21 minutes ago, Nikhil_cric said:

Dhoni was a beast until 2013/14 , no doubt.

 

2015 should have been his last hurrah or latest by 2017. In 2019 Pant or Dinesh Karthik should've been the main wk.

[Gollum]

3 hours ago, Ultimate_Game said:

 

 

And that's why it was so shocking we chose to field first against a rampant Aussie team knowing fully well that batting first and putting up a decent total was our best bet. As for chasing, things changed when Dhoni arrived on the scene. Before that we had wks like Mongia, Dahiya, Dighe etc. who barely averaged 15-20 and were glorified tailenders and our tail started at 5. Once we were 4 wkts down, the match was done. Things were so bad that we had to make Dravid a makeshift wk and he himself wasn't an ideal ODI batter.

 

I can't state it enough what a breath of fresh air Dhoni was and how our fortunes changed with his arrival. People may look at current Dhoni and make fun of him but the Dhoni of late 00s and early to mid 2010s was a beast. The reason India became good at chasing and so hard to beat in LOIs was Dhoni averaging 50 lower down the order. Addition of Yuvraj and Raina was great too but even Yuvraj blossomed when Dhoni was there to bat in the lower middle order. He set the benchmark for wks in India and since then we haven't had a wk who couldn't bat.

Dhoni also helped us gain a psychological edge over Lankans and Pooks. Embarrassing to admit, but we used to struggle against those 2 even till the mid-2000s, and then Dhoni flipped the script. Long hair Dhoni those days was my favorite player. 

[Nikhil_cric]

30 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Dhoni also helped us gain a psychological edge over Lankans and Pooks. Embarrassing to admit, but we used to struggle against those 2 even till the mid-2000s, and then Dhoni flipped the script. Long hair Dhoni those days was my favorite player. 

Forget them. We didn't even have an edge over West Indies until '07.

 

Only team we could beat somewhat consistently before that was England. 

[Ultimate_Game]

54 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Dhoni also helped us gain a psychological edge over Lankans and Pooks. Embarrassing to admit, but we used to struggle against those 2 even till the mid-2000s, and then Dhoni flipped the script. Long hair Dhoni those days was my favorite player. 

 

He used to take apart Pak bowlers and surprisingly was very effective against Malinga and Murali. Kohli and Raina joined him as they also used to hammer SL & Pak bowlers for fun.

[BacktoCricaddict]

T20 success is predicated on form and balance. Very few teams can afford full balance, given the salary cap. 

 

And form? Ask MI. On paper, the most balanced team, but all out of form. 

[Suhaan]

50 minutes ago, Nikhil_cric said:

Forget them. We didn't even have an edge over West Indies until '07.

 

Only team we could beat somewhat consistently before that was England. 

Naa,Windies still had decent players back then

They used to be competitive back then and then fell apart

Reached two consecutive CT finals in 2004,06 winning one of them

Good young core was developing for them,Bravo,Gayle,Jerome Taylor,Rampaul competitive cricketers like even Best 

Their entire machinery shifted its focus to T20,remained an immovable force there till 2016

[Suhaan]

17 hours ago, vvvslaxman said:

TO be fair this wicket an absolute road offering nothing. India should have batted first. But because they were **** scared of facing Brett Lee again. India got rolled ove for 136 runs in the group stage encounter against Australia.

Yes,it was a strategic blunder,they definitely should have batted first.That said,a prevailing sentiment everywhere was that India possessed a formidable pace attack that was at par with, if not just behind,Australia's.

Gangulys intent was to capitalize on the early freshness of the strip to restrict Australia to a total his youthful batting lineup could chase down,however,they played right into the hands of that legendary Aus side

[BacktoCricaddict]

20 minutes ago, Suhaan said:

Yes,it was a strategic blunder,they definitely should have batted first.That said,a prevailing sentiment everywhere was that India possessed a formidable pace attack that was at par with, if not just behind,Australia's.

Gangulys intent was to capitalize on the early freshness of the strip to restrict Australia to a total his youthful batting lineup could chase down,however,they played right into the hands of that legendary Aus side

Seems like throughout history we have been bad pitch readers. Or maybe those are the ones that stick in my memory. 

[vvvslaxman]

52 minutes ago, Suhaan said:

Yes,it was a strategic blunder,they definitely should have batted first.That said,a prevailing sentiment everywhere was that India possessed a formidable pace attack that was at par with, if not just behind,Australia's.

Gangulys intent was to capitalize on the early freshness of the strip to restrict Australia to a total his youthful batting lineup could chase down,however,they played right into the hands of that legendary Aus side

if you look at the parts of the team, the bowling attack relied   a lot on two bowlers. 

[zen]

On 6/2/2026 at 12:43 PM, BacktoCricaddict said:

T20 success is predicated on form and balance. Very few teams can afford full balance, given the salary cap. 

 

And form? Ask MI. On paper, the most balanced team, but all out of form. 

Exactly, most people necessarily don’t understand the salary limitations and auction dynamics to act as if IPL teams are like BCCI having access to all the players to pick and chose they want to make a team. 

Another batch of stupid bunch is the armchair selectors who watch IPL to select players as if they are BCCI, promote their favorite players, and write against those they think will take the place of their favorite players

 

At the end of the day, they don’t follow IPL as it should be and are not satisfied with international cricket as the team will not have all the players they prefer. 
 

And most of the teams and formulas they follow to judge and follow them are usually out of the tournament, adding to their comedy and even misery where applicable.

 

Edited June 3 by zen

[BacktoCricaddict]

46 minutes ago, zen said:

Another batch of stupid bunch is the armchair selectors who watch IPL to select players as if they are BCCI

 

Am more than guilty of this stupidity!! It's part of the fun of watching and analyzing IPL - to identify and root for young emerging players who might soon represent India.  Especially fast bowlers. 

[BacktoCricaddict]

Me thinks IPL should allow trades after 50 or so league matches. Teams can upgrade to increase their chances of winning now, or gain value-picks that they can use in the future.

 

Not a novel idea - NFL, NBA, NHL all do it.