Is India's period of being the most dominant side in history already over?

[Flem274*]

Neil Wagner isn't that great atm. Good limited overs bowler but his SA top tier record is meh and his NZ FC record off the top of my head is similar. Definitely didn't do very well last season.

Someone (might have been Howsie) posted the numbers and it was very revealing.

Wagner has a lot going for him, but he's yet to translate it into consistent results.

 

[GIMH]

We're reaching CRISIS POINT with injuries though.

I'm gonna sue your ass

 

[Shri]

Was it an anal injury?

 

[Howsie]

They were never dominant IMO, as has already been echoed by others.

Nah, CJ de villiers, Roussow and a few others would already be playing test cricket if they were born elsewhere in lower ranked countries. Neil Wagner moved to NZ and he was a beast in SA first class cricket. TT_Boy is a good source of info on SA domestic cricket. Should ask him about this when he is online as I don't know much else.

Neil Wagner isn't that great atm. Good limited overs bowler but his SA top tier record is meh and his NZ FC record off the top of my head is similar. Definitely didn't do very well last season.

Someone (might have been Howsie) posted the numbers and it was very revealing.

Wagner has a lot going for him, but he's yet to translate it into consistent results.

Yeah, all but three of his first-class wickets came from playing provincial cricket for Northerns (which is a pretty low standard when compared to franchise cricket over in South Africa).

 

[Prince EWS]

They were never dominant IMO, as has already been echoed by others.





Yeah, all but three of his first-class wickets came from playing provincial cricket for Northerns (which is a pretty low standard when compared to franchise cricket over in South Africa).

Yeah, where "pretty" is, see "terribly". The fact that he wasn't getting picked for franchise cricket says a lot really.

 

[Athlai]

What the **** does Neil Wagner have to do with Indian dominance?

 

[Noble One]

It is going to be very interesting to see how India handles the retirements of Tendulkar, Laxman and Dravid. Something sure needs to be fixed to ensure the next generation of cricketers can step up. Why does it feel like Yuvraj is still being groomed as a replacement for one of the big 3?

It seems in every position India are still waiting for someone to step up. Every young cricketer who is blooded appears to be the next superstar before being written off after 4-5 games. From the spinners, Chawla looked the goods, but soon is replaced by Mishra, who is replaced by Ojha who some want replaced by Ashwin. It needs to end at someone.

The track record of the pace bowlers is worse. How can a cricketer like Irfan Pathan be washed up at 25? Most Australian fast bowlers don't even make a first class debut until that age. Does anyone really hold out much hope for say Mithun? He looked good today, but so have so many other Indian pacemen. Do the selectors even care about the kid, who selects a 20 year old medium pacer with only a couple seasons of first class cricket experience to play as part of a two-pronged pace attack on the least friendly of pace bowling surfaces? Murdering Mithun's chances before he even had a chance to establish himself.

Could be some dark days ahead for India, and the cricketing world really cannot afford for this to happen.

 

[Uppercut]

Yeah, agree with this. They had the edge sometimes ahead of other times for months in patches based on the form of different players compared to other great sides who dominated for decades together. Amit Mishra against Oz in the home test series, Ganguly when he made his test return etc. The only ones who were reasonably consistent were Sehwag, Sachin and Gambhir during this peak period for the side.

Good point this. Their batting's been rock solid for ages though, in fairness. When you pretty much never lose 20 wickets, one of your bowlers will inevitably turn in a performance that wins you a few matches at some stage.

Thing is, they haven't had any tough tours in a long time now- Australia was two and a half years ago, and the only time they've played outside the subcontinent since was in New Zealand. The quality of their results has been built on being supremely awesome on the subcontinent, having few difficult tours away from it for a long period of time, and the fact that none of the other teams have been able to make any case for being the best in the world at all. And since none of these things look like changing any time soon, I expect their success to continue. If they win the next three series on the subcontinent- and they'll be favourites to do so- they'll rightfully remain number one even if defeated in South Africa at Christmas.

 

[Flem274*]

What the **** does Neil Wagner have to do with Indian dominance?

Everything.

 

[pasag]

Sewhag, Gambhir, Vijay, Sharma, Raina, Yuvraj, Dhoni with Bardi, Kholi and others waiting in the wings, the batting really isn't anything to worry about for Indian fans even when the three greats retire. Obviously they won't have such a good batting lineup for many many years (probably no one will), but it's still has the potential to be damn good.

 

[morgieb]

The age of England is upon us.

Nah, when do Aus and Ind square up next? Should be interesting.

Actually do we have India at home next summer or is it the year after?

We tour over there in about 3 or 4 months for a short tour. Then we play them in 2011-12.

 

[morgieb]

You haven't really listed "depth" though; you've listed potential players of the future (and Pomersbach lol). Players like Andrew Hall, Jacques Rudolph, Johannes van der Wath, Martin van Jaarsveldt etc what I'd like to think of as good depth but none of them are available anymore. South Africa's current depth is not particularly impressive and probably won't be for a while because quality players who can't get a gig just go and earn a living playing CC once they get to a certain age - and who could blame them?

van der Wath is back in SA iirc, good point though.

 

[morgieb]

To answer the question, wasn't really dominance. It'll be interesting to see how they go when Zaheer pulls the plug - he seems to be holding the pace bowling together. The fact that Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman are probably only a few months off retirement means that they could be in trouble.

 

[Sir Alex]

Blatant trolling. Thread closed.

Nah, seriously tho, was it ever dominance? Pre-eminence, yes, however briefly, but India wasn't ever so far ahead of the pack as to really be a dominant team in the same way as Oz were and the Windies before then had been. IMHO, obv.

This. We deserved to get there, but don't think we'veenough to keep that. Unless th rest continuedtobe mediocre.

 

[Sir Alex]

Nah, CJ de villiers, Roussow and a few others would already be playing test cricket if they were born elsewhere in lower ranked countries. Neil Wagner moved to NZ and he was a beast in SA first class cricket. TT_Boy is a good source of info on SA domestic cricket. Should ask him about this when he is online as I don't know much else.

Then there is Oz, with Hughes, Pomersbach, Khawaja, Bailey, Hazlewood etc who are sure to play for the national side in the future. These two countries are way ahead of the others as far as reserves are concerned.

Pomersbach? Luke Pomersbach?

By the same standards we'e guys like Sharma, Mithun, Sree, Chawla and batsmen like Pujara, Vijay, Mukund, Tiwary, Rehane etc who would give any test side a decent competition.

 

[Shri]

Not been impressed by any of their techniques except for Pujara. The rest of them will disappear soon. Saurabh Tiwary could go on to become an Odi regular but thats about it.

 

[Sir Alex]

I hope you aren't assessing the likes of Rehane etc based on what you saw in IPL.

Further what exactly is a good technique? I would prefer a batsman like Dhoni if he can score runs. At the end of the day that's all what matters to quote the cliched quote. All the batsmen I have quoted have shown their ability to stay at the crease and score truckloads of runs in domestic cricket. Now, India is invariably going to play 50% of their cricket in India, and atleast 60-65% in the subcontinent, hence I would easily put a premium on their performances against our domestic bowlers on our soil ahead of their minor deficiencies like inability to play shortpitched fast bowling on pacy tracks. There aren't "perfect" batsmen if you are looking ability to play in all conditions the same way.

Further if 50% of these have the brains and the willingness to work on adapting to different surfaces, that minor deficiency could also be brought under control isn't it?

 

[Sir Alex]

I think it's a tad premature for a thread like this. First of all there wasn't the kind of dominance that Australia or WI had. But let's give the pack a bit of time. In an ideal world, this series wouldn't be happening in the first place. Sri Lanka is one of the hardest places in the world to tour and we are doing so without our best pace attack. Even our main spinner is suffering from slight issues and is not at his peak. And after all it's just the first day of the test match! Had this series not been happening, I doubt whether such a thread would've propped up in the first place. We are favorites to beat Australia and New zealand on our soil (NZ purely because of their paucity of good batsmen, and Australia because they don't have a good spinner) and are expected to get beaten in South Africa, which still I think won't affect our World no.1 rankings.

Of course we aren't going to be all conquering juggernauths. For that we need a bowler like Steyn.

 

[kingkallis]

Zaheer, Sreesanth, Ishant, Munaf, RP, Irfan, Nehra, VRV. That's decent depth and quality but NONE of them stay in top shape for long.

If you call them quality then, well...

 

[honestbharani]

Blatant trolling. Thread closed.

Nah, seriously tho, was it ever dominance? Pre-eminence, yes, however briefly, but India wasn't ever so far ahead of the pack as to really be a dominant team in the same way as Oz were and the Windies before then had been. IMHO, obv.

Yep totally agree we were better than others but never really dominant