1985 tour and 2003 tour to Down uNder

[kabira]

I jsut glanced scorecards of three test series. The series we should have probably won under Kapil Dev. Similarly we should have won 2003 series as well under Ganguly. In 2003, our batting clicked big time and same was the case with 1985/86 series. There was Sehwag in 2003 and then there was Srikanth in 1985. Quite a resemblance. Big tradegy or irony for us is that we are yet to win a series there. We have been tagged as push over in bouncy tracks But truth is we had great series in 1981 (drew 1-1, remmebered for Kapil's Melbourne spell bowling unchanged with injury) 1985 (drawn series, had upperhand in two test matches), 1992 (rememebered for 4-0 loss, but in reality, we should have won in Sydney, rain did not help, in Adelaide, what a chase led by Azhar, terrible umpiring made sure we lost hte game. That series is known for biased umpiring, I remember Gavaskar in commentary box saying Australia playing with 13 v/s 11 indians) 1996 was forgetful, again remembered for terrible umpiring, the first test match we were on our way to good partnership between sachin and ganguly and Ganguly gets rough decision and from there on it was downhill. 2001 we all know our heroiics there. Last time around we nailed htem at Perth. If Sydney was fair game who knows we would have atleast drawn the series So if someone ever argues with you that India has sucked in Australi, jsut show them all the scorecard of above series.

[vvvslaxman]

India earned notoriety in the 90s losing 7 out of 8 Tests. Ofcourse bad umpiring cost us. But perth test was horrible. We lost wickets to Whitney of all the people. In 1999 we had useless gits like Debang Gandhi.

[Guest Gunner]

You guys should look at the 1978 series, we should really have won that one. Close loses ended up losing 3-2. Fantastic knocks from Gavaskar.

[kabira]

^cool. I will check out the scorecards.

[vvvslaxman]

In the 86 series , Australia saved their asses mainly due to brilliant batting by Border alongwith GIlbert. We were frustrated listening to commentary. India should have won the match even after that partnership. But rain played spoil sport. In hindsight we thought India should have played more aggressively. Another memory was dramatic collapse of Australia in the first test. Kapil picked 8 for 106. Those days fast bowlers would run through sides atleast once in any series. Nowadays it is a rare sight.

[kabira]

^kapil was at his peak I guess, he used to run thru many sides.

[Sooda]

Kabira, thats 99 not 1996 when ganguly etc were there. I was looking up cricinfo for India touring Aus in 96, thinking I dont remember that at all ! Remember 99 though, that was pi$$ poor series for us. As VVSL said guys like gandhi in the team, that was probably one of the worst India touring squads- Gandhi, Kanitkar, Agarkar, Bharadwaj. Ramesh was a decent opener but found out against Lee, McG etc. I think MSK Prasad played too. Dravid had a torrid time. Only bright spark was Laxmans 167- what a knock. And Tendulkar, as so often those days, ploughing a lone furrow.

[kabira]

^actually Agarkar outbowled Srinath and Prasad. Our bowling attack was decent, we used to get first 3-4 wickets easily

[coffee_rules]

1986 had the mother of all biased umpiring.

[davidcooper]

I jsut glanced scorecards of three test series. The series we should have probably won under Kapil Dev. Similarly we should have won 2003 series as well under Ganguly. In 2003, our batting clicked big time and same was the case with 1985/86 series. There was Sehwag in 2003 and then there was Srikanth in 1985. Quite a resemblance. Big tradegy or irony for us is that we are yet to win a series there. We have been tagged as push over in bouncy tracks But truth is we had great series in 1981 (drew 1-1, remmebered for Kapil's Melbourne spell bowling unchanged with injury) 1985 (drawn series, had upperhand in two test matches), 1992 (rememebered for 4-0 loss, but in reality, we should have won in Sydney, rain did not help, in Adelaide, what a chase led by Azhar, terrible umpiring made sure we lost hte game. That series is known for biased umpiring, I remember Gavaskar in commentary box saying Australia playing with 13 v/s 11 indians) 1996 was forgetful, again remembered for terrible umpiring, the first test match we were on our way to good partnership between sachin and ganguly and Ganguly gets rough decision and from there on it was downhill. 2001 we all know our heroiics there. Last time around we nailed htem at Perth. If Sydney was fair game who knows we would have atleast drawn the series So if someone ever argues with you that India has sucked in Australi, jsut show them all the scorecard of above series.

you do need to realise the HUGE difference between the 1985 and 2003 tours even if the scorecards look similar the 1986 aussie side was a good team, but the 2003 aussie team were the undisputed world champions who had thrashed teams all over the world the sensational 2003 performance of the indian team under ganguly against this team was one of the best and most entertaining performance by the indian team away from home. aussie writers were full of praise for the amazing batting by sehwag, dravid, sachin, vvs and ganguly in that series