Nasser Hussain - egg on the face

[asterix]

^ Exactly.. If BCCI gives even 10% support of what ECB gives to it's cricketer, our team could do wonders..

[punjabi_khota]

LOL@"England's problems are much easier to solve". ********* look at England's record in subcontinent, especially India in last 20 years and tell me how you intend to solve that problem Since 1992, they have won 1 out of 11 games in India, 1 out of 6 in Pak, 2 out of 10 in SL. Even now that their team is probably their strongest in recent years, they have sucked hard and lost 0-4 so far.

[VRV Singh]

I can see England improving their results just by virtue of their bowlers. They have won Tests in Asia before. The margins aren't that fine, but they are fine enough to suggest if their batsmen improve just a smidgeon, they will win Test matches, as the bowlers unit is very good. Even Jimmy Bhandarson is taking wickets. It's pretty funny given the assumptions that they would be unchallenged nambur one Tast side for centuries to come, yes. I would anticipate a strong challenge in November, however.

[ravishingravi]

You are missing the point. You are debating the point i never contested. I was not questioning India's rise to #1 status. The same rules that applied to other teams applied to us and we rightly rose to #1. But the fact that we stayed there for 18 months and England did not, means diddley squat. The length of our stay at #1 is just attributable to our schedule. As for our resurrection to #1, we can keep dreaming. We have several fundamental issues in our cricket. We need test quality batsmen, bowlers (pacers, spinners) and a captain. That's everything you need to build a test team. You cannot fix so many problems while investing full time in Tontee Tontee. England's issues, OTOH, are fixable. They already have a good bowling unit with variety and bench strength. They have test quality batsmen who have made runs in the subcontinent before. Our fans and board seem to be using England as a punching bag to vent out our frustrations resulting from a 0-8 mauling. That wont serve us well. Lets laugh at Engerland because we love to. But lets not delude ourselves thinking that they are as bad as us. They are not. They are much better than us.

Agree with self loathing poster.

[Adi_91]

I can see England improving their results just by virtue of their bowlers. They have won Tests in Asia before. The margins aren't that fine' date=' but they are fine enough to suggest if their batsmen improve just a smidgeon, they will win Test matches, as the bowlers unit is very good. Even Jimmy Bhandarson is taking wickets. It's pretty funny given the assumptions that they would be unchallenged nambur one Tast side for centuries to come, yes. [b']I would anticipate a strong challenge in November, however.

Against us many teams find new ways of winning, so I won't be surprised. :nervous:

[CSK Fan]

You are missing the point. You are debating the point i never contested. I was not questioning India's rise to #1 status. The same rules that applied to other teams applied to us and we rightly rose to #1. But the fact that we stayed there for 18 months and England did not, means diddley squat. The length of our stay at #1 is just attributable to our schedule. As for our resurrection to #1, we can keep dreaming. We have several fundamental issues in our cricket. We need test quality batsmen, bowlers (pacers, spinners) and a captain. That's everything you need to build a test team. You cannot fix so many problems while investing full time in Tontee Tontee. England's issues, OTOH, are fixable. They already have a good bowling unit with variety and bench strength. They have test quality batsmen who have made runs in the subcontinent before. Our fans and board seem to be using England as a punching bag to vent out our frustrations resulting from a 0-8 mauling. That wont serve us well. Lets laugh at Engerland because we love to. But lets not delude ourselves thinking that they are as bad as us. They are not. They are much better than us.

So how have England improved overall despite having a much younger and stabler test side than us? Apart from winning big at home and against a weak Aussie side? Not losing to SL by an innings is an achievement now? When was the last time Pakistan white-washed a team in tests who were not Bangladesh. They are much better than us in what way exactly?

[kabira]

> But the fact that we stayed there for 18 months and England did not, means diddley squat. The length of our stay at #1 is just attributable to our schedule. hows that?? we did play away games and still did not lose any series until last year..England were whitewashed by Pakistan..When did Pakistan whitewash anyone in recent past??

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[CG]

A huge part of the blame goes to our commies and ex-cricketers in general. I have never seen a single Indian commentator take on a English/Aussie/Saffie commentator and ask them a few pointed questions. Instead most of them - Ganguly included - sheepishly nod their heads to whatever the English commies say and start taking pot shots at Indian pitches with glee. The problem is compounded by gullible fans and we produce them by the gazillions. Why would anybody else in the world bother to take us seriously when our own people are reluctant ?

Shastri did in eng,But stepped back when confronted .

[Bumper]

So how have England improved overall despite having a much younger and stabler test side than us? Apart from winning big at home and against a weak Aussie side? Not losing to SL by an innings is an achievement now? When was the last time Pakistan white-washed a team in tests who were not Bangladesh. They are much better than us in what way exactly?

I'll respond to this post as well as some of the others, as i dont have the time to respond to each one. Yeah, lets continue to bury our heads in the sand... England is as cr@p as us. So why do we need to worry about our status quo ? England has an ageing middle order, no bowlers, no captain, their selectors are brain dead and they are investing big time in T20 and hence their test cricket would be doomed too. So we can all put our feet up and rejoice this great moment!! Honestly, am not sure what you guys are on about here! I can understand laughing and making fun of the English coz they did this to us last summer when we were losing. But i dont understand the delusion on this board and the tendency to label anyone who is not delusional a "self-loather". Whatever! Before i start off, England's 20 year history in the subcontinent is irrelevant. They have been a decent team only recently. Its like looking at India's record in England the past 25 years. You can hardly come up with two wins since that 80s tour. Speaking of England's decline from #1, did you guys follow the games England lost recently ? They were "in it" most of the time. In some instances, they had a genuine opportunity to win the test (if not for their batting collapse they would have win a test or two). Compare that with our 0-8 mauling. We were out of the game from the get-go and were defeated by huge margins (by an innings and in other cases, by some 200+ runs). I dont know how anyone can think our problems are similar to England's. England as a test team is better because their bowlers are keeping them in the game all the time (in all conditions). They have young and good fast bowlers, good spinners and most importantly great bench strength. Many of their batsmen (Cook, Bell, KP, Strauss et al and their keeper too) are test quality and will serve them for a long time. These guys are capable of making runs everywhere. What do we have instead ? One promising bowler in Umesh (he too has a lot to prove) and then a cupboard that looks bare. We have trundlers like Irfan Pathan looking to make a come back to the test side (and i wont be shocked if he does make the test squad shortly) - that's how pathetic we are. In terms of batting, Dravid is retired, Laxman is out of form & about to retire, SRT is on his way out and to complement the problems, we have not had a stable #6. We have not even found a replacement for Ganguly yet, good luck replacing the rest of the middle order. Kohli is not a cure for our batting problems. He has big shoes to fill and a lot to prove in test cricket. Even if he comes good, you still need 2-3 other supporting batsmen to put a decent total on the board. So if you simply go by the results, yeah, England lost all its games in the subcontinent and we lost all our games outside, so we are both cr@p. But England has a young, stable and a balanced side that will only improve from here. They are losing, but they are still competitive while losing, but we are getting thrashed more than Bangladesh. Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan all managed to put up a better show in England than us. You have no idea how bad we are as a test side at the moment. Just living in the past does not help, in fact that's symptomatic of how bad we really are!

[jairamesh]

^^^ For fµcksakes no-one is delusional. Have you not been following the threads (blaming buddhas, selections, BCCI, trundlers, 100 100s, etc.) that have been opened going thru all the issues ailing the Indian Test cricket! There has been lots of praise in the manner England reached it's number 1 ranking, but regardless, to loose 4 straight matches especially in Asian conditions (considering the amount of prep work they put in) is rather pathetic. PS: This thread was about Nasser Hussien, and there hasn't been a single thread opened saying current Indian Test side is even moderately good since the Australia debacle. We were all self-loathing just like you:hehe:, but now we have the IPL

[kabira]

>Speaking of England's decline from #1, did you guys follow the games England lost recently ? They were "in it" most of the time. In some instances, they had a genuine opportunity to win the test (if not for their batting collapse they would have win a test or two). Compare that with our 0-8 mauling. We were out of the game from the get-go and were defeated by huge margins (by an innings and in other cases, by some 200+ runs). I dont know how anyone can think our problems are similar to England's. when you lose by innings, its either you have been outplayed, your team is out of form..etc..but when you have opportunity to win 4 tests, not 1,not 2 but 4, and you succumb at crucial juncture, you are definately mentally weak team. Other things you said are irrelevant, our team has problems and no one is denying it, But England with all their infrastructure, support group, helpful selector, great captain, lost the games that they should have won.

[Old guy]

we lost in 2.5 days in perth right ?

[vvvslaxman]

We all expected India to slide sooner than later thanks to our weakness in bowling, fielding not to mention aging stars. Ofcourse we didn't expect this kind of low. But England was supposed to win everything everywhere for the next few years. England since Indian tour 160, 192, 72, 327, 252, 141, 264, 193 This is really a very very poor batting by a top ranked side against rebuilding sides.

[Adi_91]

Eng may be improving as evident from the way the 2nd test is going. Next SA for them, and I expect Eng to just win by a small margin, so if they win this test, they may hold on to the no 1 for some time at least.

[The Outsider]

Certainly we won against one of the greatest teams in the history of test cricket in 2001 and that is why it is talked about. But which team did England and Australia dismantled? An average team, no, whose number one ranking had just been a myth, a house of cards, as many mentioned here along with English and Oz media, copied by Indian media back home? So why were those victories at their home so special, so much talked about? It was the same as we defeated NZ, SL, WI, Aus (in 2008, 2010), England etc at our home, no? Defeating an average team? I don't think we witnessed so much euphoria after those average victories!

I think you are confused. If you want to discuss media perceptions and/or hyperbole with me, then you've got the wrong person - I am not justifying, forget about justifying I don't care about what XYZ media says about ABC. The media is there to make money in the best possible way it can. If you want to discuss India's cricketing performance or lack thereof, please do respond. I have no intentions of defending XYZ in a "he said so, she didn't"

[The Outsider]

Getting to #1 spot is easier than staying there.

Nothing profound about that - it's encapsulated in the ranking system, even a drawn series or a 1-0 win in a 3 match series leads to losing points if you are playing someone down the order in the rankings.

I was just responding to some of the posts pooh-poohing England such as "Hey, look at you, you could not last at the top spot for even 7 months, we stayed there for a year and a half" etc etc.

I am not in agreement with those posts and have not made any on those lines, because I think despite their poor performance England has a chance to right the wrongs unlike India.

England's meeting Pak, SL & India (three of its biggest challenges) away right after it became #1. This is the equivalent of India having to meet Eng, Aus & SAF right after it became #1. Had that happened we would not have stayed #1 for 18 months.

This is where we disagree - I suggest you look up on how these rankings are calculated. They take into account test series played over the last 3-4 years. India, when it got to number one, had all of Australia, South Africa, and England tours factored in the rankings. On the other hand, England did not have any tours away from home against Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the rankings and only had a 2 test series against India. Hopefully, that's clearer?

England's problems are likely fixable. Even when they are losing they are in the game most of the time (and could have won some of the games they lost). Our issues are more deep rooted, we may never reach the #1 spot again in the forseeable future - that's all am saying.

I agree on that - England has a brighter future in cricket than India does. I've seen India become the number one test side once in my lifetime for 20 months - I would go as far as saying, I will not see it again for such a sustained period.

[Bumper]

Nothing profound about that - it's encapsulated in the ranking system, even a drawn series or a 1-0 win in a 3 match series leads to losing points if you are playing someone down the order in the rankings. I am not in agreement with those posts and have not made any on those lines, because I think despite their poor performance England has a chance to right the wrongs unlike India. This is where we disagree - I suggest you look up on how these rankings are calculated. They take into account test series played over the last 3-4 years. India, when it got to number one, had all of Australia, South Africa, and England tours factored in the rankings. On the other hand, England did not have any tours away from home against Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the rankings and only had a 2 test series against India. Hopefully, that's clearer?

I think you have misunderstood my post. I did not question how we rose to #1. Yes, we did beat England (but that was back in 2007 when they weren't quite as good) and won a test in Australia few years ago (did not win a series). My point is that we would not have stayed at no. 1 for 18 months, had we played England and Aussies away shortly after we became #1 (similar to England visiting the subcontinent shortly after they became #1) The context was that some here were implying "England was only able to stay at the #1 spot for 6 months which we managed to do for 18 months and therefore we were better", which i thought was nonsense.

I agree on that - England has a brighter future in cricket than India does. I've seen India become the number one test side once in my lifetime for 20 months - I would go as far as saying, I will not see it again for such a sustained period.

This is the key point i was making. We are a rubbish test side at the moment and we are going to get a lot worse. Whereas the English side is already very good and is only going to get better. Some here were laughing when i said their batting problems were fixable. As we speak, England is only proving my point. They have posted a sizable lead in the first innings and have a great chance to ram home a victory and come out of SL with a series draw, which is incidentally what our no. 1 side managed in Lanka (that is supposed to be friendly conditions for our team).

[Ramzz]

bump