Malcolm Conn: Indian team a "rabble with no redeeming features"

[Sachinism]

It was just hype. India had just lost 4-0 to England and all the losses were huge. I don't think any serious fans expected India to win in Australia. I expected India to lose 2-0 or 3-1' date=' 4-0 was still a surprise shock for me, as two 4-0 and so many innings defeats in a cascade has never happened for the past forty years. India has played badly even by their poor overseas standards of the 80s and 90s.[/quote'] You gotta remember Aus had just lost a test to NZ. Batting was looking extremely fragile and the bowling not all that. Gotta accept the bowling against us was quite brilliant.

[express bowling]

You gotta remember Aus had just lost a test to NZ. Batting was looking extremely fragile and the bowling not all that. Gotta accept the bowling against us was quite brilliant.

True. I have never seen such accurate bowling at high pace by almost all the pacers. The Aussie pacers were brilliant in this test series.

[Raghav_12]

True. I have never seen such accurate bowling at high pace by almost all the pacers. The Aussie pacers were brilliant in this test series.

True. Must appreciate that bowling performance. They were so relentless,unwavering and accuratein their search for wickets. Never allowed Indian bastmen to breathe easy, even when Indian batting was doing good and kept coming at them all the time. For example in Melbourne test, Sachin and Dravid had good partnership, but Siddle produced that great spell against run of the play and eventually got better of Sachin. One of the best bowling performances I have seen.

[Ultimate_Game]

^^^ Good as Aussies were with the ball, our batsmen made them look much better. True Aussies hardly gave Indians a hit me ball and never gave them easy runs unlike Indian bowlers but that's to be expected at intl level. None of the Indian batsmen tried to bat through the tough phase and see off a spell and tire the Aussie bowlers out. Most of the time we simply capitulated within 60-70 overs. Neither did our batsmen tried something different. Nobody tried to counter-attack and force Aussies to change their plans. The only time we did was when Sehwag was batting in 1st innings of 1st test, and guess what we reached a position of 214/2!!! We simply retreated in our shells most of the time and neither were good enough to bat out time nor score runs. The same bowling attack and the team drew with NZ 1-1 just a couple of weeks before the Indian test series, and Kiwis are hardly world beaters. In fact our batsmen were so poor that Ashwin looked better than most of them :omg: If this Aussie attack was formidable, I wonder what these folks would have done against WI in 80s

[amiret]

Think about it' date=' [b']this tour started off with talks of India actually winning in Australia for the first time. For that to come to this, boggles the mind really. In my memory, this is THE worst overseas tour of all-time for India.

It boggles my mind that some fans actually expected India to win this series especially after the 4-0 thrashing in England. How delusional can some people get ! A few of us expected the debacles in Eng & Aus. Our batsmen were woeful in SA also but we managed to draw the series thanks to some brilliant individual performances.

[Marut]

You gotta remember Aus had just lost a test to NZ. Batting was looking extremely fragile and the bowling not all that. Gotta accept the bowling against us was quite brilliant.

I would rate NZ as a one off victory, a superb performance by Bracewell. No Indian bowler usually bowls like that. If NZ were to play a 4 test series against Australia the Australia would have made it 3-1. You forgot too soon that even after capitulating for 47 ( ok ok 9/21) Austraia fought back to take the final test. How is that a fragile batting unit? Australia is always a fighter team even when it is down. Even in that totally one sided Ashes series, they took one match by a huge margin of 260 odd runs. India never came close to doing that during the last two tours. Australia's top order was vulnerable against India, but Indian bowlers could not even make a dent in Ponting and Clarke, and I did expect Clarke to dominate our mediocre bowlers after seeing his majestic 151 in SA ( not so much with Ponting though which is where India lost the plot completely). I did expect India to struggle against Aussie bowling but I expected India to fight and draw in at least one test match which they didn't. The Aussue bowlers are raw, but talented. Cummins and Pattinson will be future greats. They bowled far better and disciplined than our brightest prospect Umesh. India were lucky that Watson did not play, else the margins would have been even bigger. Our decline has started during the WI tour where they huffed and puffed to beat a weak WI team. Sending an "A team" to WI was another disaster in the making. That they were not aggressive was exposed when they refused to chase 90 odd in 15 overs at Dominica. The trend continued has continued to this day, with poor defensive field placings by Dhoni and wayward bowling. How can you win in Australia with this mindset, where drawing a match is your priority when the team is in a winning posiition?

[Marut]

It boggles my mind that some fans actually expected India to win this series especially after the 4-0 thrashing in England. How delusional can some people get ! A few of us expected the debacles in Eng & Aus. Our batsmen were woeful in SA also but we managed to draw the series thanks to some brilliant individual performances.

Quite true. We are told that we drew in SA. True, there was a masterpiece 146 by Sachin, but did we really avenge the defeat in the first test? Take a look at rhe score cards. India 136 and 459; South Africa 620/4decl India 205 and 228; South Africa 131 and 215 South Africa 362 and 341; India 364 and 166/3 The first test they lost by a massive margin of an innings and 25 runs. The second test was a low scoring game and India won by a moderate margin of 87 runs. The third test was drawn with honours even, but slightly tilted in favour of SA. Even though score line shows 1-1, SA could be said to have dominated India stats wise. All Indian batsmen, with the exception of Sachin Tendulkar struggled in SA against pace and they took it to England and Australia. Only the delusional would have expected India to win, a draw was the best India could have hoped for.