To all those who think India is number one and not SA

[graphic23]

Why will you have two series against Australia, one series against SA and one against England--all in the same year? Most of the teams have one weak team and another strong team in their home season. India doesn't even have a home season in which it'll play a fixed number of matches! And wonder how can you say that Australia rarely played a test last year. They played 3 against India at home, then 3 against WI away, then 4 against India away and then 2 against NZ and 2 against SA at home last year. That makes it 14 tests in a year.

I think he's talking about the year of ze 2007. From WC2007, they had a break until September, when they played in the T20WC and the home series against us. Then they went back and did something while we played Pakistan at home and then went to Australia to play there.

[The Outsider]

Why will you have two series against Australia, one series against SA and one against England--all in the same year? Most of the teams have one weak team and another strong team in their home season. India doesn't even have a home season in which it'll play a fixed number of matches! And wonder how can you say that Australia rarely played a test last year. They played 3 against India at home, then 3 against WI away, then 4 against India away and then 2 against NZ and 2 against SA at home last year. That makes it 14 tests in a year.

My bad....didn't realize the year had rolled over. In 2007, they did not play any test from the Ashes till SL toured them at the end of the year - a break of 10 months from tests. Why blame BCCI? Look at the current South Africa-Australia contests. They are playing back to back home and away and then won't play each other for 4 years. What has the BCCI got to do with it? No team besides England and Australia have a well defined "home season". BCCI cannot make such a dramatic change of having a well defined home season when we have never had one at all. Only England and Australia have a fixed number of matches that they will play at home and half of their problem is taken care of in the scheduling by the Ashes. India and Pakistan could have had something similar, but is it the BCCI's fault that their army takes over Kargil or terrorists come from their country to bomb ours?

[Chandan]

My bad....didn't realize the year had rolled over. In 2007, they did not play any test from the Ashes till SL toured them at the end of the year - a break of 10 months from tests. Why blame BCCI? Look at the current South Africa-Australia contests. They are playing back to back home and away and then won't play each other for 4 years. What has the BCCI got to do with it? No team besides England and Australia have a well defined "home season". BCCI cannot make such a dramatic change of having a well defined home season when we have never had one at all. Only England and Australia have a fixed number of matches that they will play at home and half of their problem is taken care of in the scheduling by the Ashes. India and Pakistan could have had something similar, but is it the BCCI's fault that their army takes over Kargil or terrorists come from their country to bomb ours?

Why can't India have a similar sort of series setting with Australia like England and Australia have for Ashes? Why don't we define our season that we'll play one test series and ODI series in Oct-Nov and another test series and ODI series in Feb-March? SA plays a fixed number of matches in its home season every year. Why can't we have it too? If you hadn't had it till now, any time to start is good but at least you have to start thinking in that direction. I doubt if BCCI even thinks in that direction. Playing almost 10-12 tests every year is important for a team to stake its claim for the top spot.

[The Outsider]

Why can't India have a similar sort of series setting with Australia like England and Australia have for Ashes?

We already do. We play them home and away every 4 years according to the agreement and there were even talks of making it a 5 test series. That the two series happen to fall in the same calendar year is not BCCI's fault - it's the ICC's. The same way South Africa and Australia play each other home and away in a space of few months and don't play again for another 4 years.

Why don't we define our season that we'll play one test series and ODI series in Oct-Nov and another test series and ODI series in Feb-March?

Let's see we played, two home test series this year - England and Australia. We played two home test series last year - Pakistan and South Africa. 2007 was disrupted because of the World Cup. We played two test series at home the year before that - Sri Lanka and England One the year before that - Pakistan. Would have been 2, but we played BD away instead. Two the year before that - Australia and SA Except for 2007 when the schedule of a lot of countries was affected by the WC, we have been consistently playing 2 home series each season.

SA plays a fixed number of matches in its home season every year. Why can't we have it too? If you hadn't had it till now, any time to start is good but at least you have to start thinking in that direction. I doubt if BCCI even thinks in that direction. Playing almost 10-12 tests every year is important for a team to stake its claim for the top spot.

We were supposed to play 10 tests this year. How can you blame the BCCI for the Bombay incidents?

[Fontaine]

These are the points you've listed which we need to acquire to be a formidable team in test for a sustained period.

Yes, thats the idea. I'm not interested in India being number 1 for a few months or even a year. Sustained excellence is what I want.