Best Indian XI 1976-2006

[Krishna_j]

Best Indian XI 1976-2006 :

Sunil Gavaskar - Capt
Virendra Sehwag
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
Gundappa Vishvanath
Mohinder Amarnath
Kapil Dev
Syed Kirmani
Javagal Srinath
Anil Kumble
BS Bedi

Reserves : Ravi Shastri,Dilip Vengsarkar,Venkatesh Prasad,BS Chandrasekhar

[Turbinator]

I would put Ganguly in there

[silentstriker]

Originally Posted by Krishna_j

Best Indian XI 1976-2006 :

Sunil Gavaskar - Capt
Virendra Sehwag
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
Gundappa Vishvanath
Mohinder Amarnath
Kapil Dev
Syed Kirmani
Javagal Srinath
Anil Kumble
BS Bedi

Reserves : Ravi Shastri,Dilip Vengsarkar,Venkatesh Prasad,BS Chandrasekhar

Wow, thats a decidedly bad XI. I daresay that an XI of any other country from that time period would decimate us.

[Turbinator]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

Wow, thats a decidedly bad XI. I daresay that an XI of any other country from that time period would decimate us.

Holy smokes wuts with you and criticizing India........

[silentstriker]

Originally Posted by Turbinator

Holy smokes wuts with you and criticizing India........

I am not critisizing - I am lamenting the fact that our best XI (if that is indeed our best XI) of the last 30 years would be annihilated by the 30 year XI of any other nation (discounting BAN/SL/ZIM, since they werent test nations for 30 years).

[Krishna_j]

No need to be so defensive that this team will lose badly - on the contrary its a good line up which will hold its own against anyone - maybe we can throw in an extra bowler depending on conditions and it will win

[Matt79]

In conditions that favour seam bowling it would struggle a bit. Dev and Srinath are both fine bowlers, and Dev was notably durable and courageous. On a turner it would be different, and that's a pretty handy top order.

[C_C]

Methinks dropping one batsman is in order especially since Kapil is there and he's the allrounder.
Mind you, no other team of this period barring perhaps OZ can field three titans like Dravid-Tendy-Gavaskar. WI got Viv-Lara in their callibre, England-nobody, SL-nobody,Pak-Inzy and Miandad, NZ-nobody,RSA-nobody(kallis close i guess). So overall, this batting lineup is surprisingly good, especially when you throw in Sehwag and Amarnath for away, Azharuddin for home or Vishy.

My XI would be:

Gavaskar
Sehwag
Dravid
Tendulkar
Azhar(home)/Amarnath(away)
Kapil
Kirmani
Kumble
Sreeenath
Bedi
Chandra


This bowling attack is a bit weak but it can balance itself quite competently methinks.
Cant touch the WI/OZ/PAK bowling of this period-though India is playing an extra bowler compared to Aussies and Windies and its a close call with the rest.
This team i'd expect to be in top 4. Which is not too bad, considering that apart from Australia,Pakistan and West Indies,its a fair fight between this team and the rest<Saffies mostly-i'd rate SL,ENG and NZ teams of this period to be inferior and saffies essentially deeper batting/bowling but couple of spots distinctly weaker-2nd opener for eg.>.

[Goughy]

Originally Posted by C_C

WI got Viv-Lara in their callibre, England-nobody, SL-nobody,Pak-Inzy and Miandad, NZ-nobody,RSA-nobody(kallis close i guess).

Yes because Boycott was obviously rubbish (45 tests in the period) and how can Kallis's average of 55.74 only illicit a maybe?

[C_C]

Originally Posted by Goughy

Yes because Boycott was obviously rubbish (45 tests in the period) and how can Kallis's average of 55.74 only illicit a maybe?

Kallis-bigger minnow basher than any other batsman averaging 50 for a long period of time-not saying he isnt good-he is extremely good-but i'd bump him down to Lloyd-Kalli standard.
England-yes,Boycs is there-though i'd not put him in Tendy-Gavaskar category...Dravid category?maybe.
Anyways, lets not get caught up in semantics here- my point is that this Indian batting lineup is considerably strong especially with the Jimmy-Azhar combo going on and i think dropping a specialist bat for an extra bowler gives the team quite a decent bite- as i said, good enough to hold their own with everyone except for the big 3 teams.

[Goughy]

Originally Posted by C_C

Kallis-bigger minnow basher than any other batsman averaging 50 for a long period of time-not saying he isnt good-he is extremely good-but i'd bump him down to Lloyd-Kalli standard.
England-yes,Boycs is there-though i'd not put him in Tendy-Gavaskar category...Dravid category?maybe.
Anyways, lets not get caught up in semantics here- my point is that this Indian batting lineup is considerably strong especially with the Jimmy-Azhar combo going on and i think dropping a specialist bat for an extra bowler gives the team quite a decent bite- as i said, good enough to hold their own with everyone except for the big 3 teams.

Im certainly not arguing that the Indian batting isnt strong. Especially as Azhar isnt a shoe in, as he would be for most teams.

I would have issues with this team being able to take 20 wickets consistenty against the other best XIs but they certainly would not lose many with that batting line up.

[Gajanayake]

Originally Posted by Goughy

Im certainly not arguing that the Indian batting isnt strong. Especially as Azhar isnt a shoe in, as he would be for most teams.

I would have issues with this team being able to take 20 wickets consistenty against the other best XIs but they certainly would not lose many with that batting line up.

They wouldn't win many tests away what with a weak pace attack....but in India, a spin attack of Kumble, Bedi and Chandra would cause plenty of problems for opposition batting lineups.

[Turbinator]

I remember there was a time when our pace bowling was so bad, we made Mohinder amarnath bowl one/two overs, and he is a medium pacer, then we quickly had to bring on the spinners.

And I remember one day Navjot Sidhu stating there was a time when Indian's could not field for ******, they didn't even know how to dive for a ball, then one day his son had to teach him how to. And then he taught the rest of the Indian team.

[Anil]

Originally Posted by C_C

NZ-nobody

martin crowe

[Krishna_j]

I had selected Sehwag over Chauhan and Shastri as an opener on his ability (sic) to murder the bowling at a fast pace and setup time to win matches.

The success of Azza's team at home in the 90's was the ability of Tendulkar,Sidhu , Azza , Kambli and Kapil to score runs at a scorching pace and setup time to bowl the opposition out - India's strong batting line up of 80's barring Srikkanth distinctly failed to score quickly enough though they setup a mountain of runs invariably time ran out.

Why are people discounting the great Vishy - anyone who saw him smashing the Windies quartet of Roberts, Holding , Garner and Croft in the '79 world cup (only time this quartet played against India) and his magnificent 113 against Lillee and Pascoe in melboune in '81 can only marvel at his genius

I like C_C suggestion of playing Azza at home instead of Amarnath knowing his predilection to bouncy away patches - but I have excluded Azza and Prabhakar from the list due to their all-round abilities in fixing matches against their own country .