View Full Version : Have England improved or have India just gotten worse?
I've been briefly watching the ODI series between these two and it looks like England have taken some large strides in their form. Either that or India have turned crap...
1) Which one is it
2) When the hell did this happen?
Well mate first I've gotta say that England have got better & secondly in answer to 'when the hell did this happen' it hasn't suddenly happened overnight it's been an ongoing process over the last year.
On the other hand I don't think too much should be read into a couple of 1 dayers, India have come over cold & got sorted out on a pitch that had a little bit in it, & was clearly different to what they're used to at home.
To be honest I don't care how good this current Indian batting line up is, if you get them on pitches with a bit of life in them & you've got a couple of genuinely quick bolwers, then you can have them in trouble, especially if the bowlers are tall as well.
To me it was interesting to see India do well in Asutralia early this year on what looked to be some pretty flat pitches, play them 5 matches on an old style Perth track & you'd win every Test with a day or two to spare.
As for England hopefully the 1 day form can pick up in the same way that the Test form has, but I'm not totally convinced.
The Champion's trophy should show whether we've caught up or whether we still deserve to be rated below Aus,SA,NZ, SL,Pak, WI & Ind.
England have gotten better, and india are worse. I agree, i don't know why the acb didnt play india in perth. That match woulda been a certainty, but instead they play them in sydney and adelaide, the slower pitches. India can only play spin, its the way they are brought up. Engalnd for my mind is no.2 in the world, my ratings table is this.
Australia-----daylight----England----daylight-------the rest.
Australia and England as 1 and 2? Give yourself a couple!
England have got better, but not that much. India have never been good travellers. They are the best team in the world on their own soil, as shown by Australia's abysmal record in India.
England have sub standard bowlers, and a very weak middle order with a long tail.
India have great spin bowlers and are full of batting talent. But english wickets are not spin friendly in my opinion.
I suspect that England have gotten better, but their commentators are now acting like Australian commentators with their gushing about the team's glory. Botham wants to have Fintoff's child badly.
I've been briefly watching the ODI series between these two and it looks like England have taken some large strides in their form. Either that or India have turned crap...
1) Which one is it
2) When the hell did this happen?
England have improved mainly because of Flintoff being fit and Harmison actually bowling straight.
India are skithouse away from home.
Did anyone see Ganguly get runout ?
It was hilarious.Him and Laxman ran for a single and both ran down the middle of the pitch and went smack bang into each other.Ganguly dropped his bat and was runout by a direct hit from Flintoff.
Ganguly gave Laxman a huge spray as he was going off.
stmookeyj
4 Sep 2004, 09:32
Wonder what it is with SoreAbs and run outs.
Wonder what it is with SoreAbs and run outs.
Either him or Inzamin Ul-Haq must hold the record for most run outs.
Dont forget ranatunga.
Sorry,I mean't current players.
The fat bastard Ranatunga makes Ul-Haq look quick.
England have sub standard bowlers, and a very weak middle order with a long tail.
This seems a pretty harsh appraisal.
To say England has sub standard bowlers you have to think where you're setting the 'standard', & to be honest if the standard is the absolute average midpoint of the bowling attacks of all the Test nations then there's no way that England's is sub standard' or to put it another way below the average.
Maybe you can make a case for the bowling in Test cricket in general to be pretty low but that doesn't matter, we're comparing current sides & there's no way that most sides out there have a better allround Test attack than England.Certainly Windies & NZ don't, as of course nor do Zim or Bangladesh, to my mind nor do India or SL.So you're just down to SA, Aus & Paksitan.Well Australia is still the bench mark but as for the other 2, you could argue either way on both of them, personally I think our attack is better than both of them but if not it's not by much.
AS for having a weak middle order, Thorpe at 5 is playing the best cricket of his career, Flintoff at 6 has been scoring loads of runs since last summer, Jones the wicketkeeper looks a pretty decent batsmen & even Giles at 8 has a Test average of over 20 but it's significantly better over the last year or 2.So it's not as bad as it was.The tail isn't as long as it was but it can still be brittle that's for sure, the bigger problem is probably that there's no really heavy scorers at the top of the order, the highest average is Vaughan at 45 & none of them really tend to go & make really big scores when they get past 100.
India have great spin bowlers and are full of batting talent. But english wickets are not spin friendly in my opinion.
They're not generally but the one for the last one dayer was, as shown by the Turbenator's figures of 2/14 off 10 overs, but the great Indian batting line up struggled to cope with Ashley Giles who took 3 for 20 odd, so it wasn't all down to the wicket.