Current Indian team has potential to become like old Australia.
By grvdubey11
@grvdubey11 (1879)
India
January 17, 2011 5:06am CST
I am not being over optimistic , just want to discuss the possibility that this current Indian team has the potential to match the old Aussie team which was almost invincible. However there is no intention to make comparisons as Australian team has achieved lot of success while Indian team still has long way to go.If we see old Aussie team and current Indian unit we can draw some noticeable similarities.In those times Australia used to snatch victories from difficult and almost impossible situations, Indian team has achieved such victories in last 3-4 years.Aussie team had very strong batting line up and good bench strength , similar is the case with Indian team as from last one year India has not played with their strongest possible side , yet the managed to win many important series.In that Aussie team part time bowlers like Mark Waugh , Lehmann, Steve Waugh and at later stage Symonds used to give good contribution with the ball and nowadays for India , Yuvi , Pathan,Raina ,Sehwag are doing a good job.Also Australia used to do well overseas but they were unbeatable at home, current Indian team has done very well at home and managed to win all the ODI and test series at home in last one year expect drawing one with SA in a test series. So looking at all these similarities do you think India can become like old Aussie team in-spite of having the disadvantage of weak bowling and average fielding .
2 responses
@madhuvamsi (1185)
• India
17 Jan 11
Well I will not compare the current Indian team with Australia which was invincible in the past. In current scenario, team like Australia had become a beatable team because they have no solid openers like they use to have in past like David Boon, Marsh, Taylor, Gilchrist, Langer, Mark Waugh and Hayden. Australia is struggling to find a good opener in both Test and ODI formats which India too faced for a long time until Tendulkar, Ganguly and Ajay Jadeja become a make shift openers in ODI's. In test we do struggle until Sehwag and Gambhir came.
Australia with players like Gilchrist, Warne, Mc Grath, Ponting, Waugh brothers and Hayden looked very dangerous because all these players use to single handedly win matches for Australia when they were about to lose. I had never seen a spinner like Murali or Warne type playing for India in recent times. I am not talking about the era where India use to have great spinners like Chandrasekhar, Bedi, Prasanna,etc. But we can name only Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh in recent times. Which pace bowler can ball perfect line and length like Glen McGrath in Indian team. After Kapil Dev, India is struggling to find a bowler who can swing the ball both the sides. Zaheer Khan is now can be said a No 1 bowler for India right now because he can swing the ball both sides and he can even reverse swing as well but his fitness standard is very poor compared to Glen McGrath or Kapil Dev.
Finally after Sachin, Dravid and Laxman retirements, how will Indian batting look, I want to see in Test cricket. Players like Virat Kohli, Raina, Rohit sharma and Pujara is not grown up players in Test cricket and they are not much exposed to Test cricket. Instead they were exposed to ODI's and T20 formats. Whatever, these players will take some time to get into decent batsmen in Test cricket and during this period India might slide town their Number 1 ranking in test cricket. In ODI's India is not up to to caliber of past Australian sides. Presently all the teams are building their teams with new players but India is still looking towards players like Sachin, Sehwag or Laxman in Tests. It is time for Yuvaraj Singh to become more consistent with bat more than ball. Same is the case with Raina and even players like Murali Vijay,etc. I still do not feel that Indian team is invincible team in any format. They have struggled a lot against South Africa strangely in South Africa and India as well. One great positive about Indian team is that fielding has improved a lot that is why we are winning more matches compared to past Indian teams. I will love to see players like Raina, Virat, Rohit, Vijay, Karthick,partiv patel,etc develop into great players and make Indian cricket proud in coming days.
India need to work a lot in bowling department because batsmen cannot always win matches for India by playing outstandingly.
