The best Indian side: India (2007-2011) vs India (2015-2022)

[Xix2565]

Calm down. The idea of breakthrough tours is not new, when a team is able to unexpectedly well and overcome the fear factor of a legacy of doing poorly in a country for a long period and pave the road for future success.

Way to dodge his point though, just like you keep dodging me.

 

[h_hurricane]

Calm down. The idea of breakthrough tours is not new, when a team is able to unexpectedly do well and overcome the fear factor of a legacy of doing poorly in a country for a long period and pave the road for future success.

Pakistan has several examples.

Pakistan had their breakthrough tour in 76 in Australia when Imran bowled the team to victory in a famous spell, drew the series and for 20 years, Pakistan was fairly competitive as they backed their bowlers to win games. In 99 IMO, the reverse happened, Pakistan were whitewashed despite getting close to a victory in Hobart but couldnt close the deal, and since then developed a mental barrier now against doing well in Australia, especially their bowlers.

In England in 1982, Pakistan narrowly lost the series but in many ways it was a breakthrough tour for the team, which ended up doing well for the next decade or so after that.

India in 2003 overcame the fear of batting as a unit in those conditions, which laid the groundwork for future teams to do well, especially for their batsmen.

You may (or may not) have a point regarding Pakistan from 1976-95 as Imran passed on the legacy to Wasim. Doesn't work one bit in India's example. Lets get to the details.

Pujara and Bumrah were the main architects of the 2018-19 triumph. Pujara made massive contributions with the bat, but he always bats like that (cocooning himself in a shell). It came off very well of course, but you can't attribute that to how Tendulkar, Dravid or Laxman batted in 2003.
And it will be preposterous if someone suggests that Bumrah learned something from Agarkar, a far inferior bowler.

We all know what happened in 2020-21. It was a triumph against adversaries by an injury ravaged team. Pant played some outstanding knocks, but that is the way he bats. Did he draw any inspiration from Parthiv Patel 2003 ?

 

[ankitj]

Hot take: psychological edge, mental block etc. don't exist in cricket

Except for SA in world cups

 

[subshakerz]

You may (or may not) have a point regarding Pakistan from 1976-95 as Imran passed on the legacy to Wasim. Doesn't work one bit in India's example. Lets get to the details.

Pujara and Bumrah were the main architects of the 2018-19 triumph. Pujara made massive contributions with the bat, but he always bats like that (cocooning himself in a shell). It came off very well of course, but you can't attribute that to how Tendulkar, Dravid or Laxman batted in 2003.
And it will be preposterous if someone suggests that Bumrah learned something from Agarkar, a far inferior bowler.

We all know what happened in 2020-21. It was a triumph against adversaries by an injury ravaged team. Pant played some outstanding knocks, but that is the way he bats. Did he draw any inspiration from Parthiv Patel 2003 ?

I think you missed my point. Before 2003, Indian batsmen except Tendulkar were largely flops in Australia in the 90s dealing with bounce,etc. Then 2003 came and the entire lineup cashed in. The spell was broken. 2003 onwards, scoring runs in Australia for an Indian bat was par for the course.

Following that and the exposure with Australia as they played several long series together, the next gen of batsmen didn't have the fear factor when it came to touring there. Pujara and Kohli briefly shared the same dressing room as the old crowd and likely were mentored by them. Rahane had scored heavily in 2014/5 too.

2018 both Kohli and mainly Pujara scored. I will agree with you though that this is only a partial effect, as Bumrah and the bowlers did their own thing. Pujara was important in 2021 too and Rahane scored a critical knock in Melbourne.

I will also add that 2021 wouldn't have happened if 2018 hadn't been done. They needed to cross that post first to gain the self belief that it could be done again even with a weaker team.

 

[subshakerz]

Hot take: psychological edge, mental block etc. don't exist in cricket

Except for SA in world cups

Certainly does with Pakistan in Australia.

 

[srbhkshk]

I think you missed my point. Before 2003, Indian batsmen except Tendulkar were largely flops in Australia in the 90s dealing with bounce,etc. Then 2003 came and the entire lineup cashed in. The spell was broken. 2003 onwards, scoring runs in Australia for an Indian bat was par for the course.

Following that and the exposure with Australia as they played several long series together, the next gen of batsmen didn't have the fear factor when it came to touring there. Pujara and Kohli briefly shared the same dressing room as the old crowd and likely were mentored by them. Rahane had scored heavily in 2014/5 too.

2018 both Kohli and mainly Pujara scored. I will agree with you though that this is only a partial effect, as Bumrah and the bowlers did their own thing. Pujara was important in 2021 too and Rahane scored a critical knock in Melbourne.

I will also add that 2021 wouldn't have happened if 2018 hadn't been done. They needed to cross that post first to gain the self belief that it could be done again even with a weaker team.

Shame the 03 team couldn't transfer the same confidence to them for batting in England , SA and NZ. Think I am gonna mark them down for such a blatantly stupid mistake when they clearly could have got the 2018 team to bat much better there as well with all that confidence.

 

[subshakerz]

Shame the 03 team couldn't transfer the same confidence to them for batting in England , SA and NZ. Think I am gonna mark them down for such a blatantly stupid mistake when they clearly could have got the 2018 team to bat much better there as well with all that confidence.

Dealing with lateral movement isn't really a confidence thing. Even the 03 side would struggle in these places sometimes, though not as bad as this side.

 

[Xuhaib]

Hot take: psychological edge, mental block etc. don't exist in cricket

Except for SA in world cups

Nah it does otherwise South Africa and world cups would not exist.

 

[ankitj]

Nah it does otherwise South Africa and world cups would not exist.

That's what I said

Hot take: psychological edge, mental block etc. don't exist in cricket

Except for SA in world cups

 

[honestbharani]

Now that RSA are almost on the way to winning/drawing away in both Eng and NZ, and given it was that side that beat us in RSA, I wonder if saltshakerz would actually apply his post-facto reasoning and rate this RSA side better than the ones we faced earlier.

 

[Calm_profit]

Now that RSA are almost on the way to winning/drawing away in both Eng and NZ, and given it was that side that beat us in RSA, I wonder if saltshakerz would actually apply his post-facto reasoning and rate this RSA side better than the ones we faced earlier.

Tbh that 2018 South African side was better.De Villiers ,Du plessis and Amla are miles better than the middle order they are having now.

 

[CricAddict]

Tbh that 2018 South African side was better.De Villiers ,Du plessis and Amla are miles better than the middle order they are having now.

But did they win in all of SA, NZ and Eng? That's the only criteria that matters.

 

[Chrish]

I have a premonition that SA will win the series in Australia this year..

 

[Chrish]

I think Kohli's team has underachieved apart from winning series in Australia.

Drew series in England which was a vast improvement over previous humiliations..

 

[subshakerz]

Now that RSA are almost on the way to winning/drawing away in both Eng and NZ, and given it was that side that beat us in RSA, I wonder if saltshakerz would actually apply his post-facto reasoning and rate this RSA side better than the ones we faced earlier.

Do you really think it is better than previous sides?

 

[subshakerz]

Drew series in England which was a vast improvement over previous humiliations..

It is an improvement, though I wouldn't call it an achievement.

 

[Chrish]

Come on we have seen enough of this torture already..

 

[Shady Slim]

Kohli’s India falls short on a few fronts

Standardised batting averages - The oldies come down a touch here but as per they are still a far superior batting side. Interestingly, they were actually better than the current side against pace more than spin. PM me if you need the numbers, can’t post here as it’s proprietary and will get picked up by one of our competitors.

Fielding - Not many good statistics here exist but this is one where you can rely on the eye test. But since it’s not objective enough as per certain requirements, we can ignore this.

Fast bowling - Pace bowling wise, it’s surprisingly close. Zaheer got top order batsmen out at a much higher frequency (12.6% higher!) than Bumrah does, after adjusting for the friendly pitches of today. Overall though you’ve got to give it to the new team.

Spin - We used a new metric called Degree Weighted Average for this, standardising averages against degrees of turn and extra cm of bounce in each test match. It clearly shows Ashwin and Jaddu had a ridiculous advantage, and that their averages would have skyrocketed to mid 30s in a different era. The oldies are a clear winner here.

Again, if you need to validate these feel free to hit me up for the numbers, they’ve been peer reviewed.

posts like this make me long for a viriya return

where's he at

 

[_00_deathscar]

Do you really think it is better than previous sides?

It is better than sides that lost at home to Sri Lanka. That side had big names. So you’re going to *** yourself silly over them. This one doesn’t so you don’t rate them.
Or whatever fits your weird little agenda.

 

[Kirkut]

2007 side.

As good as the current bowling attack is the earlier side is one of the greatest batting side off all time and I would back them to score runs both home and away against pace and spin.

2007 side had more solidity and you can be assured they will draw a test if not win it.

The 2018 side had a great bowling attack, but suddenly the next day the batting will be like 90 all out.