After me bullying EWS relentlessly for months, I am very thankful for him in this thread. It's probably because he has the neutral perspective but I've agreed with nearly everything he's said here.
Now I don't know why everyone needs to get so uppity about something Darren Gough said. If it was Jimmy Anderson who'd said it (for example), then, yeah, fair enough. But also, it's clearly just hyperbole from Goughy; he thinks we can win the series in the summer, and guess what? So do I.
Now onto a selection of comments that I took issue with. Sorry for this, but I don't feel much like biting my tongue today.
The bolded statement is such nonsense. Your basically shortening the batting line-up by one versus arguably the longest batting line-up in the world. But sure, India only need five batsmen to be better than England, we don't currently have any batsmen ploughing runs all over the show or anything; we don't have the batsman with the second highest average in the history of Test cricket batting #3 for us after all. Oh wait, we do. Batting may not be our strong suit and obviously India's is fantastic, but you ignore the fundamentals of team sport with such statements.
Well we don't have the series won yet, but let's jump ahead and assume we will (which is a big assumption, but still). Tell me, if India went to Australia and won, what would you think? You wouldn't see it as a huge achievement if their ranking was low?
Such nonsense, who cares where the Aussies are ranked? They've lost one Test series at home in about fifteen years. Any side would kill to win there. If we finish the deal, it's massive, and yeah, we will make a lot out of it.
If India manage to win in Australia next time you go over there, I'll be sure to check the rankings and bring it up when you all crow about it.
These are true, but it's hardly relevant to who would win a series if it were to be played now, and even more so to a series in England
Possibly your worst ever post SS.
Steyn is the best pacer in the world, pretty much accepted as a consensus. Anderson is second. Perhaps less of a consensus but you've got to clutch straws pretty hard to get away from it. Now this doesn't mean that there isn't a gap between them - there is - but as someone else (Furball?) said - it's the difference between being ATG and world-class.
Swann is the best spinner in the world. Inescapable. Harris is not all that good, really. Not as good as Nathan Hauritz, who is deemed not good enough for Australia's spin slot. That's a big bloody gap.
If you think the gap is bigger between Steyn and Anderson than the spinners, you're either smoking something or you just don't understand and respect spin bowling enough to atcually have a decent opinion on the matter.
Last I heard, one wicket can't lose you two matches at once. Nonetheless, we actually survived those games through batting, not weather. Not like a certain series I've seen India fans bring up ad nauseam in the last three and a half years. It doesn't matter, India beat us 1-0 in 07 and that's that, but if you want to try and go down that route, well, just don't.
... much as India are to the rest of the world right now, I imagine.
