Thursday, August 4, 2011

Are we witnessing the rise of the New No. 1 Test Team?

I recently wrote a post about whether India deserved to be ranked number one in the world about Test Cricket. Also Star Cricket HD has been re-telecasting the 2011 Ashes Series down under, which reminded me that, at the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011, which is not that long ago if you think about it, England toured Australia, defended the Ashes, for the first time since god knows when, and thulped Australia, in their back-yard, 3-1.

When they last defended their Ashes Crown in 2007, the were white-washed 5-0 by a rampaging Australian outfit. Granted, the 2007 Aussies were great, and the 2011 Aussies a shadow of their predecessors, but it is still something the Indian team has not done. Not only did they beat Australia in Australia, all 3 test matches England won, they won by an Innings and 50 plus runs. It isn't like the Aussie's rolled over, during the first test match at Gabba, Peter Siddle produced a Hat-Trick and destroyed the English middle order. There were Heroics for Micheal Hussey who had been foefully out of form just prior to the Ashes, hit two centuries and score 570 runs at an average of 63.33. His effort seems to be eerily similar to what Rahul Dravid is doing for India in the ongoing series, and for the sake of my sanity in the month of August, i hope his team does not suffer a similar fate to Hussey's team.

Therefore, taking the performance of this England team into context, it is they who are building on momentum, sustained over the same period India was building their momentum. We beat Australia at Home, then Australia went home and got beaten by England. India and England have both been on the path to the top of the rankings, India managed to get there slightly earlier. Are we just a stop-gap between two era's in test cricket, one a brutal period of Australian dominance, and the other an equally unbearable period of English supremacy. I hope once again, that such is not the case. But if India do not manage to take even one test off the Englishmen, even the most ardent of Indian supporters will have a hard time being optimistic, knowing that their number one team, though a tenuous and dispute number one team,  went down without a fight. 

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Number 1 Ranking: Deserved or Not?


There was a great amount of hoopla and jingoistic fervour around the time the Indian test team achieved the No. 1 ranking, which seems likely to now be conceded to the English team. However, we need to take a step back and see how we reached the supposed zenith of test cricket.

India is playing its 14th test series since their infamous tour to Australia in 2007-2008. A tabular representation of their results is as follows:

Opposition
Venue
Result
South Africa
Home
Drawn (1-1)
Sri Lanka
Away
Lost (1-2)
Australia
Home
Won (2-0)
England
Home
Won (1-0)
New Zealand
Away
Won (1-0)
Sri Lanka
Home
Won (2-0)
Bangladesh
Away
Won (2-0)
South Africa
Home
Drawn (1-1)
Sri Lanka
Away
Drawn (1-1)
Australia
Home
Won (2-0)
New Zealand
Home
Won (1-0)
South Africa
Away
Drawn (1-1)
West Indies
Away
Won (1-0)

What jumps out at you from this table is that, India has not lost an away series since mid-2008, for a period of 3 years, India has not been defeated on its travels, which is in itself is no mean achievement. However, they have not comprehensively beaten any of the major test playing nations in their backyard. This current series against England is now reduced to a fight for the number one spot, being 2-0 down in the 4 match series, Indian cannot win, but they can salvage pride. This they may end up doing, but their claim to the number one ranking has weakened considerably.

Despite all the jingoistic rhetoric you get to see regarding the test rankings, there are some things which are quite clear. Previous dominant test teams, have built their dominance upon a world beating bowling line up. The West Indies in the 80’s and early 90’s, and thereafter the Australians, till very recently, produced bowlers of the highest quality. And not just one or two, they produced these bowlers with alarming regularity. This is the point at which I start looking at my Indian team, and realise that the cupboard is pretty bare.

Despite all the negative coverage about the Indian batting in the trent bridge test match, I still maintain that if your bowlers concede 400 runs in one day, there is precious little the batsmen can do to remedy the situation. Our fast bowlers, aren’t really fast, Zaheer is possibly the most skilful quickie India has produced, but beyond him there is really no one else. Praveen has skill, and a big heart and gives it his all, but his lack of pace will ensure that his utility will continue to diminish with time, as high class batsmen will eventually sort him out. Ishant and Sreesanth though brimming with talent, are too erratic and inconsistent in the longer form of the game.

Coming to Bhajji, I have always believed that he is a different bowler when there is a second spinner in the team. When he is the lone spinner, he just cannot pull out the performances required of him. He has had basically 2-3 good years, and many more average ones over his career, and his average of over 32 runs per wicket does not signify a world beater such as the likes of Shane Warne, Muralitharan or Anil Kumble. On parity, after looking at the contributions over a period of the last 2 years to his side, I would not rate Harbhajan Singh as even one of the top 3 spinners in the world currently, those would be Graeme Swann, Daniel Vettori and Shakib Al Hassan.

Coming to the fast bowling reserves, we have Munaf Patel, Jaidev Unadkat, Abhimanyu Mithun etc. none of whom inspire any confidence in a brighter tomorrow for our pace attack. In the spin department, there is Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha on the fringes, and neither has had much of an impact whenever given the opportunity.

Considering the state of our bowling department, no amount of strength in batting can compensate for it. Unless the Indian selectors come up with some young guns in the bowling department and pretty soon at that, the upcoming tour of Australia and other fixtures as well, could be equally disastrous as the current India-England series.