England can beat India "every day of week": Gough

[gvenkat]

The fact of the matter is England can't bat spin bowlers to save their lives. They will be eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner alive by the Indian spinners if the series were to happen in India.

If England claim they are better at fast bowling than India, Look what happened to South Africa in Durban. Any day of the week Zak, Sreesanth and Ishant are better than the English bowlers. Of Course Sree needs to get his head examined. That is a different Issue altogether.

And Darren Gough has a big mouth and he runs it like a madman. England will be beaten to pulp in India and India would be hard to beat in English conditions. Gough can put that in his pipe and smoke.

That is what I meant to say when I said England have not beaten India Since 1996 at home and 1984 away.

[Blaze 18]

Originally Posted by Marcuss

Originally Posted by GingerFurball

Bunkum.

Harris is mediocre and Swann is very good, but we are talking about Dale freaking Steyn here. Anderson is good, but he is nothing on Steyn. Nothing. Plus there are as many question marks about Anderson in unhelpful conditions as there are about Sehwag and Gambhir in unhelpful conditions.

[GingerFurball]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

Haha, well I suppose we'll just disagree on this point then. I don't think it's close, and I suppose you feel the same way from the other side.

You're right, it's not close. You're just picking the wrong attack.

The difference between Steyn and Anderson this year has been negligible, and over the past 3 years the difference is between a potential ATG bowler and a world class bowler. That's far smaller than the difference between Swann, a world class spinner, and Harris, a barely Test standard spinner.

[Shri]

Originally Posted by Marcuss

Technically we were 2 wickets away from that scoreline, one in each Test.
Small difference in the fact that when South Africa were in that situation they couldn't get us out... Australia were illegitimately denied a wicket which would've won them the Test and drawn the series when they had India 9 down.

How dense van you be Markarse? Aus wouldn't have got to 9 wickets in the 1st place if it was not for 2 wrong decisions.

[Marcuss]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

I don't buy this 'weakest link' theory. Going by that, considering Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth, India should be ranked #8. Being good vs. great in an area matters, and it can (and does) make up for other deficiencies - you can't just look at the weakest link and frankly, I don't think it's even the most important place to look,

Yeah, I think a few have been taking it a bit too literally in this thread but I don't think it is a bad indicator of a team's strength.

But yeah, you think Harris and Swann is closer than Steyn and Jimmeh, lol.

[Marcuss]

Originally Posted by Shri

How dense van you be Markarse? Aus wouldn't have got to 9 wickets in the 1st place if it was not for 2 wrong decisions.

I've never disputed that ffs. Go read my post again and pay special attention to the words "when India were 9 down".

[GingerFurball]

Originally Posted by Blaze 18

Harris is mediocre and Swann is very good, but we are talking about Dale freaking Steyn here. Anderson is good, but there is nothing on Steyn. Nothing. Plus there are as many question marks about Anderson in unhelpful conditions as there are about Sehwag and Gambhir in unhelpful conditions.

Anderson's answering those questions in Australia. He's putting in the best series performance by a visiting quick to Australia in a long, long time.

How exactly is the difference between excellent and very good greater than the difference between very good and mediocre?

[silentstriker]

Originally Posted by GingerFurball

You're right, it's not close. You're just picking the wrong attack.

The difference between Steyn and Anderson this year has been negligible, and over the past 3 years the difference is between a potential ATG bowler and a world class bowler. That's far smaller than the difference between Swann, a world class spinner, and Harris, a barely Test standard spinner.

Anderson has had a great year, but you're asking who I'd pick overall. Steyn can bowl anyone out, anywhere. If conditions are right, and suit Anderson, the difference is smaller. But that's not what we're asking. I don't see it as remotely close. Harris isn't being asked to, and isn't being set the same fields as Swann. Much of that is due to quality but not all of it. He has done just fine this series for example, and done pretty much what they asked him to do.

[Shri]

Originally Posted by Marcuss

I've never disputed that ffs. Go read my post again and pay special attention to the words "when India were 9 down".

Oops. My defense is...well, I am Shri.

[Marcuss]

Originally Posted by Blaze 18

Harris is mediocre and Swann is very good, but we are talking about Dale freaking Steyn here. Anderson is good, but he is nothing on Steyn. Nothing. Plus there are as many question marks about Anderson in unhelpful conditions as there are about Sehwag and Gambhir in unhelpful conditions.

Steyn's incredible and Jimmeh is pretty damn awesome himself but we're talking about the world's best spinner here. Harris is serviceable but he's nothing on Swann. Nothing. Plus there are as many question marks over Harris at playing cricket as there are over Ishant Sharma.

[ImpatientLime]

Originally Posted by gvenkat

the fact of the matter is england can't bat spin bowlers to save their lives. They will be eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner alive by the indian spinners if the series were to happen in india.

If england claim they are better at fast bowling than india, look what happened to south africa in durban. Any day of the week zak, sreesanth and ishant are better than the english bowlers. Of course sree needs to get his head examined. That is a different issue altogether.

And darren gough has a big mouth and he runs it like a madman. England will be beaten to pulp in india and india would be hard to beat in english conditions. Gough can put that in his pipe and smoke.

That is what i meant to say when i said england have not beaten india since 1996 at home and 1984 away.

awta.

[GingerFurball]

Originally Posted by Bun

And what did England do in Perth?

Bowled pretty well, actually.

[Marcuss]

Originally Posted by gvenkat

The fact of the matter is England can't bat spin bowlers to save their lives. They will be eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner alive by the Indian spinners if the series were to happen in India.

If England claim they are better at fast bowling than India, Look what happened to South Africa in Durban. Any day of the week Zak, Sreesanth and Ishant are better than the English bowlers. Of Course Sree needs to get his head examined. That is a different Issue altogether.

And Darren Gough has a big mouth and he runs it like a madman. England will be beaten to pulp in India and India would be hard to beat in English conditions. Gough can put that in his pipe and smoke.

That is what I meant to say when I said England have not beaten India Since 1996 at home and 1984 away.

Huge amounts of facepalm. Give me a shout when you arrive at the present.

[Blaze 18]

Originally Posted by Marcuss

Technically we were 2 wickets away from that scoreline, one in each Test.
Small difference in the fact that when South Africa were in that situation they couldn't get us out... Australia were illegitimately denied a wicket which would've won them the Test and drawn the series when they had India 9 down.

And they shouldn't have had India nine down in the first place. Hey, India were "illegitimately" denied a series win in Australia back in 2007-2008.

Nah, let us ignore that. Let us just consider the arguments that favour us.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

I don't buy this 'weakest link' theory. Going by that, considering Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth, India should be ranked #8. Being good vs. great in an area matters, and it can (and does) make up for other deficiencies - you can't just look at the weakest link and frankly, I don't think it's even the most important place to look,

I don't buy into it as much as saying "you're only as good as your worst player" which is an overly simplistic cliche that fails to take into account several variables.

That's different to what I'm saying though. If you put me in the England team and then compared it to Zimbabwe, England's worst player would be worse than Zimbabwe's (unless they picked Dabengwa ) and the above theory would hilariously suggest that Zimbabwe were the better team. However, Zimbabwe would still have a lot more weak areas so an analysis of the teams' weaknesses would still reveal the better team. There's a big difference between comparing the worst player of two teams, and comparing the overall weaknesses. I think that weaknesses are more important at extremely high levels of team sport (eg. Test cricket) than ridiculous strengths. The obvious argument against this would be the fact that India have achieved #1 status despite some pretty obvious weaknesses, but I'd argue that this was achieved because every team in world cricket had weak areas to exploit at the time.

That's not to say I don't think teams can make up weaknesses with ridiculously good players to an extent; I just don't think it's quite as possible as you do and I also think it leads to inconsistency. South Africa are a good example of this.