Bring on Pakistan

[Predator_05]

Nice one Dhondy. Ticker tape parade for drawing a test series 1-1...honestly, that was the lowest they could have gone.

wasn't the 06 series 4-2?

No, it finished 1-4. They were gifted the first ODI, and India took the other 4. 5 match series. The '05 series was the 6 match series.

[theguyinallblue]

Lets maintain the 20-20 Khata separately... so far its 2-0 in 20-20...

[Gambit]

There is no doubt in my mind that the tests and ODIs in the upcoming Ind-Pak series will be very closely contested. Pak and Ind have always raised their respective standards against each other, so don't let the lack of quality in the squads lead to any overconfidence.

[MundaPakistani]

It isn't. Since the '04 tour; Pakistan have won 12 matches - 2 in the '04 series, 1 in the Asia Cup, 1 in the Videocon, 1 in the ICCT, 1 in Platinum Jubilee, 4 in the '05 series, 1 in the '06 series, 1 in Abu Dhabi. India have also won 12 matches - 3 in the '04 series, 2 in the '05 series, 4 in the '06 series, 1 in Abu Dhabi and 2 at the Twenty20 World Cup. Dead even.

No mate you have your facts wrong The series ended on March 24th 2004 and here is the record for PAK from March 25th 2004.

 
                       [B]P   W   L  T  NR    %  HS  LS  MC  LC BatAv BowAv R/6b C/6b[/B]
filtered              17  10   7  0   0  59% 319 161 356 127  33.3  34.3 5.54 5.45
 

Dhondy, The test team has gone downhill because of the poor fitness standards, it is almost as if they have undone all the good work of beating ENG, IND and SL by losing the 2 away series and now the home series vs SA. The attitude of the board and the players has been a problem for a long time now, i feel that due to limited education the players struggle to handle fame the board works on a ad-hoc system with little or no set of written principals to follow.

[Bumper]

MP you guys had a brief, yet successful run in Tests because of two reasons: 1) A fit and firing Akhtar (except against India) and the emergence of Asif 2) Your middle order trio (Younis, Yousuf & Inzi) hitting their purple patch. This also fired up all your fringe players (such as Akmal, Afridi, Rana, Sami etc to play beyond their potential at times) Now all of a sudden, you have Akhtar deserting the team, the big man retiring, the other two descending from their respective peaks. You are bound to struggle! Dhondy has summed it up best. Your fans and the board, always react dramatically to failures. I guess the Indian board is not too far behind, but atleast our players handle themselves a lot better.

[MundaPakistani]

MP you guys had a brief, yet successful run in Tests because of two reasons: 1) A fit and firing Akhtar (except against India) and the emergence of Asif 2) Your middle order trio (Younis, Yousuf & Inzi) hitting their purple patch. This also fired up all your fringe players (such as Akmal, Afridi, Rana, Sami etc to play beyond their potential at times) Now all of a sudden, you have Akhtar deserting the team, the big man retiring, the other two descending from their respective peaks. You are bound to struggle! Dhondy has summed it up best. Your fans and the board, always react dramatically to failures. I guess the Indian board is not too far behind, but atleast our players handle themselves a lot better.

well if the success(3 series wins) is considered brief then shouldn't the slump(3 series defeats) should also be considered brief? having said that there should be no denying that PAK are currently a poor test team. .

[Ram]

The Indian batting in tests has the best it has been for a long time. The Pak batting in tests has been the worst it has been a long time. As long as Pak keeps relying on Butt-Hameed-Nazir trio for tests , they will keep experiencing failures.

[Bumper]

well if the success(3 series wins) is considered brief then shouldn't the slump(3 series defeats) should also be considered brief? having said that there should be no denying that PAK are currently a poor test team. .

3 series defeats can be considered brief only after that streak ends. Besides Pak has not won a test series overseas (non subcontinental) for as long as i can remember (Is that NZ series the last one you guys won ?). Now your team has started losing at home too, against a team known to be weak in the subcontinent.