India's Greatest Test XI [ selected by Cricket Australia ]

[sandeep]

Gavaskar (C)

Sehwag

Dravid

Tendulkar

VVS Laxman (beats out Vishy IMO)

Kapil Dev

Vinoo Mankad

MS Dhoni

Anil Kumble  (close call with Bedi)

Zaheer Khan

Srinath (Prasanna in his place if turning track)

12th Eknath Solkar

 

Reserve bats:  Vishwanath, Merchant, 

Reserve bowlers: Bedi, Prasanna,  

Reserve Keeper: Kirmani

 

Vinoo Mankad was a better version of Jadeja who was Ashwin-like with the bat.  India's best allrounder ever.  Ashwin by the end of his career will probably end up an ATG, but he isn't there yet.  

Gangu the batsman is nowhere near this squad, forget starting XI. 

 

Imagine watching Sehwag and Kapil in their respective pomp bat together? Would be amazing.  

[Trichromatic]

8 minutes ago, sandeep said:

Gavaskar (C)

Sehwag

Dravid

Tendulkar

VVS Laxman (beats out Vishy IMO)

Kapil Dev

Vinoo Mankad

MS Dhoni

Anil Kumble  (close call with Bedi)

Zaheer Khan

Srinath (Prasanna in his place if turning track)

12th Eknath Solkar

 

Reserve bats:  Vishwanath, Merchant, 

Reserve bowlers: Bedi, Prasanna,  

Reserve Keeper: Kirmani

 

Vinoo Mankad was a better version of Jadeja who was Ashwin-like with the bat.  India's best allrounder ever.  Ashwin by the end of his career will probably end up an ATG, but he isn't there yet.  

Gangu the batsman is nowhere near this squad, forget starting XI. 

 

Imagine watching Sehwag and Kapil in their respective pomp bat together? Would be amazing.  

3 batsmen averaging in 30s after no 5?

[sandeep]

3 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

3 batsmen averaging in 30s after no 5?

They make the team based on their non-batting skills.  Kapil is good enough as a bowler and so was Mankad.  You can see how effective Jadeja is in choking one end up.  Dhoni is a good enough glove-man to make it and with his batting, gives this team such a depth that even the Aussies of the late 90s didn't have.  

 

More I think about it, I'd probably swap out Kumble for Bedi.  Especially for his away performances.  

[Trichromatic]

31 minutes ago, sandeep said:

They make the team based on their non-batting skills.  Kapil is good enough as a bowler and so was Mankad.  You can see how effective Jadeja is in choking one end up.  Dhoni is a good enough glove-man to make it and with his batting, gives this team such a depth that even the Aussies of the late 90s didn't have.  

 

More I think about it, I'd probably swap out Kumble for Bedi.  Especially for his away performances.  

In that case batting would be bit weak with only 5 specialist batsmen.

[sandeep]

18 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

In that case batting would be bit weak with only 5 specialist batsmen.

I don't think a batting lineup with Kapil, Mankad and Dhoni at 6/7/8 is weak.  Quite the opposite.  

[Muloghonto]

10 hours ago, sandeep said:

Gavaskar (C)

Sehwag

Dravid

Tendulkar

VVS Laxman (beats out Vishy IMO)

Kapil Dev

Vinoo Mankad

MS Dhoni

Anil Kumble  (close call with Bedi)

Zaheer Khan

Srinath (Prasanna in his place if turning track)

12th Eknath Solkar

 

Reserve bats:  Vishwanath, Merchant, 

Reserve bowlers: Bedi, Prasanna,  

Reserve Keeper: Kirmani

 

Vinoo Mankad was a better version of Jadeja who was Ashwin-like with the bat.  India's best allrounder ever.  Ashwin by the end of his career will probably end up an ATG, but he isn't there yet.  

Gangu the batsman is nowhere near this squad, forget starting XI. 

 

Imagine watching Sehwag and Kapil in their respective pomp bat together? Would be amazing.  

The only problem i have with this lineup is that turning or seaming track, India simply does not have the fast bowling depth to ever-EVER field 3 fast bowlers. What Zaheer/Srinath can offer on all but the grassiest of pitches, pick one of Bedi, Prasanna, Doshi, Gupte, Chandra, Goel, etc. can do better.

Including Zaheer/Srinath and dropping those spinners is a bit like leaving Warne out and picking Gillespie or Lee because the tracks are 'seaming'. 

 

[sandeep]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

The only problem i have with this lineup is that turning or seaming track, India simply does not have the fast bowling depth to ever-EVER field 3 fast bowlers. What Zaheer/Srinath can offer on all but the grassiest of pitches, pick one of Bedi, Prasanna, Doshi, Gupte, Chandra, Goel, etc. can do better.

Including Zaheer/Srinath and dropping those spinners is a bit like leaving Warne out and picking Gillespie or Lee because the tracks are 'seaming'. 

 

Sorry, but that's utter cowdung.  Clearly you have not seen either of them bowling in their prime.  Zaheer and Srinath at their best were world class.  Go ask Graeme Smith and Sangakarra about Zaheer Khan.  And Check his stats after his county stint - I think he averaged around 27 runs per wicket for a few years.  And Srinath is also criminally under-rated because he played past his prime carrying injuries on Ganguly's request as the team needed him.  The tragedy for Indian fast bowlers is that they never had that 2nd or 3rd pace bowler who could play a decent supporting role and as a result, most teams were able to just play them out and make hay at the other end.   As a result their career stats always look bad, and their quality gets overlooked.  

 

This has changed recently - Ishant for all his flaws, is a very decent 3rd pacer.  And Shami has what it takes to be lead dog.  Throw in Bhuvi/Umesh into the mix and its a decent attack.  

[express bowling]

6 hours ago, sandeep said:

  The tragedy for Indian fast bowlers is that they never had that 2nd or 3rd pace bowler who could play a decent supporting role and as a result, most teams were able to just play them out and make hay at the other end.   As a result their career stats always look bad, and their quality gets overlooked.  

 

This has changed recently - Ishant for all his flaws, is a very decent 3rd pacer.  And Shami has what it takes to be lead dog.  Throw in Bhuvi/Umesh into the mix and its a decent attack.  

 

A very important point missed by many.  Without decent support and pressure creation from the other end, it is very difficult to pick wickets at a fast clip.  Something which Kapil. Srinath and Zaheer never had especially away from home.

 

Srinath averages 26.6 at home and one of the reasons for that is because he had Kumble creating tremendous pressure too.

 

Prasanna averages 30, Doshi  30,  Chandra 29 , Gupte  29 and Bedi 28...compared to Srinath 30....although those spinners bowled  with a lot of support from the other end.  What he is saying is preposterous.

Edited September 25, 2016 by express bowling

[New guy]

On 9/24/2016 at 2:19 AM, express bowling said:

India's  Worst  Test  XI 

 

( Players who have played in the last  35 years )

 

Preferably players who have played a lot of test matches and have performed poorly...cut-off of 15 test matches 

 

Srikanth  (  Average of  29.9  from  43 tests )

Arun Lal  (  Average of  26  from  16  tests )

Gaekwad  (  Average of  30   from  40 tests )

Raina    (  Average of  26.5  from  18  tests )

Rohit  ( Average of  32.6  from 18 tests ) 

Ajay  Jadeja    (  Average of  26.2  from  15  tests )

Nayan Mongia  -- forced choice as a WK is needed  (  2.4 dismissals per test and batting average of 24   )

Agarkar  (  bowling  average of 47 and  and  SR of 83   from 26   tests  with  only  58  wickets  )

Madan Lal  (  bowling average of 40.1  and  SR  of  84   from  39 tests with only 71 wickets  )

Rajesh Chauhan    (  bowling average of   39.5  and  SR  of  101   from  21   tests with only 47  wickets  )

Maninder Singh   (  bowling average of  37  and  SR  of  93  from  35  tests with only  88  wickets  )

 

Roger Binny....with  47 wickets from 27 tests @ only 1.74 wickets per test match, is another strong contender.  Could not even pick 2 wickets per  test match.

 

 

 

 

Why was Srikanth so hyped? Was it for his LOI exploits? I remember him batting along side when sachin debuted and he looked like a tailender

[New guy]

1 hour ago, express bowling said:

 

A very important point missed by many.  Without decent support and pressure creation from the other end, it is very difficult to pick wickets at a fast clip.  Something which Kapil. Srinath and Zaheer never had especially away from home.

 

Srinath averages 26.6 at home and one of the reasons for that is because he had Kumble creating tremendous pressure too.

 

Prasanna averages 30, Doshi  30,  Chandra 29 , Gupte  29 and Bedi 28...compared to Srinath 30....although those spinners bowled  with a lot of support from the other end.  What he is saying is preposterous.

I remember when Zaheer had RP and others bowling well with him in England and we easily won that test series. 

[express bowling]

7 minutes ago, New guy said:

Why was Srikanth so hyped? Was it for his LOI exploits? I remember him batting along side when sachin debuted and he looked like a tailender

His ODI exploits were not that frequent too....and he was very inconsistent in that format as well, averaging 29.

 

I think his popularity was because he tried to play a lot of strokes as long as he lasted ( mostly not that long ),  in an era when most other batters played in a conservative manner.    On the infrequent occasions when he did manage to score 50+....the viewers enjoyed it.

[express bowling]

22 minutes ago, New guy said:

I remember when Zaheer had RP and others bowling well with him in England and we easily won that test series. 

Yes...with some consistent support from the other end, especially overseas.....Kapil, Srinath and Zaheer would have ended their careers with much better stats and reputations.

[Trichromatic]

32 minutes ago, New guy said:

Why was Srikanth so hyped? Was it for his LOI exploits? I remember him batting along side when sachin debuted and he looked like a tailender

Most probably for his test batting. His 40+ innings had overall SR of 80+ which means he was quite attacking whenever he people saw him at crease for a session or two.

 

[sandeep]

5 hours ago, express bowling said:

 

A very important point missed by many.  Without decent support and pressure creation from the other end, it is very difficult to pick wickets at a fast clip.  Something which Kapil. Srinath and Zaheer never had especially away from home.

 

Srinath averages 26.6 at home and one of the reasons for that is because he had Kumble creating tremendous pressure too.

 

Prasanna averages 30, Doshi  30,  Chandra 29 , Gupte  29 and Bedi 28...compared to Srinath 30....although those spinners bowled  with a lot of support from the other end.  What he is saying is preposterous.

He's saying such preposterous stuff because probably the local Chittagong cable wire-wallah did not show all the India test matches back then. Bangles like to bash India pacers, so they can claim to be "2nd best in Asia" or some such random fictional crap.  

[Muloghonto]

17 hours ago, sandeep said:

Sorry, but that's utter cowdung.  Clearly you have not seen either of them bowling in their prime.  Zaheer and Srinath at their best were world class.  Go ask Graeme Smith and Sangakarra about Zaheer Khan.  And Check his stats after his county stint - I think he averaged around 27 runs per wicket for a few years.  And Srinath is also criminally under-rated because he played past his prime carrying injuries on Ganguly's request as the team needed him.  The tragedy for Indian fast bowlers is that they never had that 2nd or 3rd pace bowler who could play a decent supporting role and as a result, most teams were able to just play them out and make hay at the other end.   As a result their career stats always look bad, and their quality gets overlooked.  

 

This has changed recently - Ishant for all his flaws, is a very decent 3rd pacer.  And Shami has what it takes to be lead dog.  Throw in Bhuvi/Umesh into the mix and its a decent attack.  

I've been watching cricket since the early 80s. You are correct- Zaheer and Srinath at their pomp were world class. Trouble is, the spinners i listed, at their pomp, were GREATS of the game. Ie, they were far better spinners than Zaheer or Srinath were pacers. As i said, you don't leave out Warne to accommodate Gillespie. So you don't leave out some ATG spinners to accommodate 3 pacers, one who was a great, the other two who were 'good but not great'.

 

[express bowling]

6 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

I've been watching cricket since the early 80s. You are correct- Zaheer and Srinath at their pomp were world class. Trouble is, the spinners i listed, at their pomp, were GREATS of the game. Ie, they were far better spinners than Zaheer or Srinath were pacers. As i said, you don't leave out Warne to accommodate Gillespie. So you don't leave out some ATG spinners to accommodate 3 pacers, one who was a great, the other two who were 'good but not great'.

 

Since you have been watching cricket from the early '80s, you have not seen any of these reputed spinners in their heydays apart from Dilip Doshi.  So...you are going by reputation, stats and description by others who have watched them.

 

Bowlers who average 28  to 30  ( as all these spinners did )  are generally not considered greats especially in those days.  Srinath, averaging 30 and bowling with no good pace partner, is impossible to ignore on a green-top,

 

Thankfully, no intelligent captain plays only 2 pacers on green-tops.  

 

 

[Muloghonto]

10 minutes ago, express bowling said:

Since you have been watching cricket from the early '80s, you have not seen any of these reputed spinners in their heydays apart from Dilip Doshi.  So...you are going by reputation, stats and description by others who have watched them.

 

Bowlers who average 28  to 30  ( as all these spinners did )  are generally not considered greats especially in those days.  Srinath, averaging 30 and bowling with no good pace partner, is impossible to ignore on a green-top,

 

Thankfully, no intelligent captain plays only 2 pacers on green-tops.  

 

 

If you did watch Doordarshan cricket back then, you would know that during every rain delay, every interruption, they would play previous series footages. Particularly popular, were Indian series victory in England and West Indies in the 70s. 

So no, i am not just going by reputation, i am going by what i have seen.

 

As per averages, before Warne and Murali came along, 27-30 average for their entire careers was seen as ATG zone for spinners. 

Thankfully, only a fool would advocate using a good but not great pacer for the third bowler slot over a great spinner due to 'pitch conditions'. 

 

[express bowling]

13 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

If you did watch Doordarshan cricket back then, you would know that during every rain delay, every interruption, they would play previous series footages. Particularly popular, were Indian series victory in England and West Indies in the 70s. 

So no, i am not just going by reputation, i am going by what i have seen.

 

As per averages, before Warne and Murali came along, 27-30 average for their entire careers was seen as ATG zone for spinners. 

Thankfully, only a fool would advocate using a good but not great pacer for the third bowler slot over a great spinner due to 'pitch conditions'. 

 

I did watch Doordarshan back then. I also know it that previous series footages do not give a proper idea about how a bowler has performed day in and day out. 

 

Comparing a pacer, with no other quality  pacer to support him from the other end .... with spinners who had 2  others to be generate pressure along with him....is so fundamentally flawed that there is not much to say here.

 

As I said....I have rarely , if ever, seen a team play with only 2 seamers on a green track. Only a fool would do such a thing  if a quality 3rd pacer is available for selection. 

[Muloghonto]

20 minutes ago, express bowling said:

I did watch Doordarshan back then. I also know it that previous series footages do not give a proper idea about how a bowler has performed day in and day out. 

 

Comparing a pacer, with no other quality  pacer to support him from the other end .... with spinners who had 2  others to be generate pressure along with him....is so fundamentally flawed that there is not much to say here.

 

As I said....I have rarely , if ever, seen a team play with only 2 seamers on a green track. Only a fool would do such a thing  if a quality 3rd pacer is available for selection. 

I hope you realize that 3 ATG spinners bowling in England/Australia/West Indies in the 70s is similar to giving the Aussie pitches to Indian medium pacers today- at best they were mildly threatening bowlers in those conditions, at worst, just containment bowlers. 

 

Teams play with 3 seamers because most of the time, you do not have 1 all-rounder and 3 quality spinners at hand. In an alltime-list, when your choices are ATG spinners or a mediocre pacer for the fifth bowler's spot, it is a no-contest really. 

 

As i said, if the 5th bowler option was between Saqlain Mustaq and Junaid Khan, it is no contest and no offense to Srinath/Zaheer fans, but comparing Gupte/Chandrasekhar/Prasanna to Srinath/Zaheer is a bit like comparing Saqlain to Junaid.

 

[express bowling]

6 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

I hope you realize that 3 ATG spinners bowling in England/Australia/West Indies in the 70s is similar to giving the Aussie pitches to Indian medium pacers today- at best they were mildly threatening bowlers in those conditions, at worst, just containment bowlers. 

 

Teams play with 3 seamers because most of the time, you do not have 1 all-rounder and 3 quality spinners at hand. In an alltime-list, when your choices are ATG spinners or a mediocre pacer for the fifth bowler's spot, it is a no-contest really. 

 

As i said, if the 5th bowler option was between Saqlain Mustaq and Junaid Khan, it is no contest and no offense to Srinath/Zaheer fans, but comparing Gupte/Chandrasekhar/Prasanna to Srinath/Zaheer is a bit like comparing Saqlain to Junaid.

 

 

I  do not agree with the mediocre pacer bit....that is the main point.  Without support  from the other end, the potential of a pacer is not even remotely realized because he can bowl only a few overs in a spell and the opposition batsmen just see his spell through.  

 

A good example is Srinath in India...with support from Kumble there, he averaged 26 at home.  That is anything but mediocre.