England v SA- The Lesson That Was Lost On India

[The Outsider]

Remind me again of the results at Sydney and Perth' date=' Fineleg, and what sort of bowlers these two tracks favour, respectively?[/quote'] Sydney was a farce if ever there has been one and the Sydney wicket was not the typical Sydney track either. On a turning track I would back Kumble and Harbhajan/whoever to win us more than lose. I am a big fan of our fast bowling stocks as well, but the fact is that India just does not have either the weather or groundsmen competent enough to produce a fast, sporting pitch like Perth. At best we can produce a sham like Ahmedabad or Rawalpindi/Lahore '04 which will zip around for a session or two making batting impossible and as the sun dries up the grass become batting paradises.

[Dhondy]

Sydney was a farce if ever there has been one and the Sydney wicket was not the typical Sydney track either. On a turning track I would back Kumble and Harbhajan/whoever to win us more than lose. I am a big fan of our fast bowling stocks as well' date=' but the fact is that India just does not have either the weather or groundsmen competent enough to produce a fast, sporting pitch like Perth. At best we can produce a sham like Ahmedabad or Rawalpindi/Lahore '04 which will zip around for a session or two making batting impossible and as the sun dries up the grass become batting paradises.[/quote'] Do Indian groundsmen know the art of producing turning tracks, as opposed to crumblers like Kanpur, any more? With the exception of Kotla, the answer is No. Remember, Chennai was supposed to turn. It never did. Unseasonal rains were blamed. I don't think India can get away much longer with preparing Mumbai, Kanpur type of tracks. The ICC has been close to demanding an enquiry on both occasions. Maybe try that ploy for one Test every series, but you have to go for sporting tracks in the other two Tests and trust your seamers.

[Dhondy]

Sydney was a farce if ever there has been one and the Sydney wicket was not the typical Sydney track either.

Twenty of the 27 wickets to fall at Sydney were to spinners. Not typical?

[The Outsider]

Do Indian groundsmen know the art of producing turning tracks, as opposed to crumblers like Kanpur, any more? With the exception of Kotla, the answer is No. Remember, Chennai was supposed to turn. It never did. Unseasonal rains were blamed. I don't think India can get away much longer with preparing Mumbai, Kanpur type of tracks. The ICC has been close to demanding an enquiry on both occasions. Maybe try that ploy for one Test every series, but you have to go for sporting tracks in the other two Tests and trust your seamers.

You are right - we have produced crumblers for turning tracks lately though I don't think Kanpur was bad. It had variable bounce for the fast bowlers and Ishant did very well on it and good, attacking batting like Ganguly's was rewarded as well. South Africa just completely lost the plot in the second innings. Yeah, produce sporting tracks like the ones we had for the '01 series against Australia - something for everyone with just a bit of extra turn than you would get outside India. You have to give a good stage for the performers to bring out their best. Sadly, the kind of dead pitches/crumblers/green tops we have seen over the past few years lead me to think we just can't produce good wickets anymore. After the remodeling and relaying of W.ankhede and Kotla, I think we'll lose the last two standing examples of good Indian wickets. Even though we lost the match against England in '06, I thought it was a perfect test wicket at W.ankhede and so has always been the case at Kotla.

[The Outsider]

PS : The abuse controller is over the top I think even W.ankhede is getting blacked out.:D

[The Outsider]

Twenty of the 27 wickets to fall at Sydney were to spinners. Not typical?

20 out of 37 fell to spinners but most were tailenders. Top order wickets were prised out by pacers throughout the test. RP Singh's bowling on the first day and Clark's on the final day were the best bowling spells of the match.

[fineleg]

i was just gonna respond to doc, but shwetabh has already echoed what i wanted to say: Sydney was a farce, what can we deduce from such a farce match?

[observer1]

Dhondy: Couple of things: let us watch SA bat in the second innings before heaping a lot of praise on the English tactics. My impression is that the Enlgish team got lucky. Smith was wrong in putting in Eng to bat - he expected, with all the rain, a juicy ptich and it turned out to be a dud. England had 600 to bowl with, which makes a huge impact. Secondly, I am not sure whether the Indian team can be criticised that they dont know their tactics. The collective strength amongst the thinkers there is about 50 years (Ku15, Ten18,Seh7, Gan10, exclude Dravid as he was a bit miffed with it all) and I would bet my bottom euro that these guys can plan a dismissal better than Moores, Vaughan and Sidebottom. OK, you could talk about planning vs. execution, and in that respect, we have to give our pacers some more time to mature. The preparation of the pitches is a different story, and I am in agreement with you there. The groundsmen need to visit Sri Lanka for training on how to produce spin-friendly, but not crumbly pitches.

[observer1]

bump for the benefit of the good doctor dhondy

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Bumper]

Great OP Dhondy. Indian board is so retarded, it never plans to maximise our fortunes in a series. We hardly had any first class games when we toured Australia. And when the Aussies visit us, more often than not, we play the first test at Bangalore, which is one of our worst test venues, interms of W/L ratio To an extent, our curators are also to blame. Most of these guys, succumb to media pressure & prepare extreme pitches (krumblers or pattas)

[Chaos]

this pitch has become one of the flattest roads u can ever imagine of.

[Gambit]

England, despite doing their homework, are going to draw this game. RSA 312/1 at Lunch on Day 5. And I bet should they draw this game today, RSA will go on and win the series.

[Kumar]

Hopefully steyn and co can rip up the batting line up espeically the cocky kevin pietersen.:angry_smile: I am confident though that south africa will win the odi series, as Nel could be key as the english will not face him during the tests, and amla and mckenzie will probably not play in the odis.

[Fontaine]

It's pretty interesting how this pitch has "changed" in the eyes of the English the last few days. It hasn't. There's still bits of swing available. The problem for the English is that South Africa aren't giving away their wickets like they did in the first innings and James Anderson effectively nullified the new ball as quickly as possible by continiously bowling bouncers at Amla who didn't look bothered by them. That extra bounce, hitting the deck hard pretty much rendered the new ball useless and made it old very quick. Sidebottom looks ordinary without swing, just a medium pacer and Broad is probably the most over hyped player after Flintoff. All in all an oridinary half decent bowling attack when the conditions are suitable or against piss poor test teams like New Zealand. Otherwise they have feasted on easy Kiwi batting. But ofcourse, Ryan Sidebottom is one of the best bowlers in the wolrd according to the English media.

[Dhondy]

Yes, these threads have a tendency of going belly-up, unfortunately.:haha:

[observer1]

yeah, post 28 suddenly sounds prophetic, doesnt it (jumping up and down as I have finally managed to get one over Dhondy)

[Guest BossBhai]

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[MundaPakistani]

As Waqar Younis would say "What a beautiful game this cricket is" You aren't the only one Doc, we have all spent thousands of hours watching this game yet we are light years away from fully understanding it. I really pity those unfortunate souls who can't appreciate the fabrics of this great sport.

[Ram]

Hope Saffies win this!