Team India's negative mindset.

vs SA- 3rd test in SA
vs ENG- 3rd test in ENG
vs PAK- 3rd test in IND
vs AUS- 4th test in IND
vs ENG- 2nd test in this series....

They seem to be "satisfied" with a 1 nil win or a 1-1 draw. I reckon they should have won at least 3 out of these 5 games.

See my most recent post in the match thread - teams aspiring to be number 1 and 'great sides' never take the hand off the throat of the opposition.

out of those i would say the one in south africa, bombay 2006 vs england and bangalore 2006 vs pak were absolutely shameful and cost us series wins. the rest are acceptable for the situations we were in

India aren't a great side though. They have a couple of great batsmen, mostly on the wane, and a competent, competitive, yet unspectacular attack. They're playing cricket to their strengths, in my opinion, because they know that opposition could potentially win matches in which they are only offered a sniff against this Indian side. Whereas Australia were a side of greats, and thus a truly great side by definition.

India, like South Africa, are playing solid cricket to get more than acceptable results. Credit to them. Only Sri Lanka really have the genius in their ranks at the moment to be capable of winning such games with ease, but their batting's probably too weak to justify that genius inherent in Murali and Mendis.

i agree. pretty much what i said in the other thread. we may hope to be the 'best' side in the world, but that does not necessarily mean we are a 'great' side. we dont have a single great bowler and setting competitive targets to chase is pretty risky. test wins are important, but test series wins are gold

The One wrote:out of those i would say the one in south africa, bombay 2006 vs england and bangalore 2006 vs pak were absolutely shameful and cost us series wins. the rest are acceptable for the situations we were in

I thought the Oval 2007 was the worst . They had a massive lead in that game and decided to play for a draw

they were 11-3 at the start and had not won a series in england in 21 years. fair play to them, they achieved the main objective

Augustus wrote:Australia were a side of greats, and thus a truly great side by definition.

Being a team of greats doesn't make a side great on its own. But Australia used to have blokes who would produce much more just because they were wearing the baggy green. There are some in the current Aus side, and I would also suggest there are a few in the Indian side at the moment, to whom cricket is just a job. There's a healthy paycheck coming in regardless of the result, so it doesn't matter if the team loses.

The One wrote:i agree. pretty much what i said in the other thread. we may hope to be the 'best' side in the world, but that does not necessarily mean we are a 'great' side. we dont have a single great bowler and setting competitive targets to chase is pretty risky. test wins are important, but test series wins are gold

this is due to the 4-specialist bowler practice.

due to only 2 quicks, there is lack of confidence that we can restrain the opposition at a low total. Unless BCCI XI get confidence to play with 3 quicks and 5 bowlers in all tests, this behaviour of over-cautiousness will be around.

"vs AUS- 4th test in IND"



Eh? They won that. Soundly.

OP Tipping wrote:"vs AUS- 4th test in IND"



Eh? They won that. Soundly.

He probably meant the 3rd test. That said I would also say the last 2 drawn tests at home against Pak were drawn due to negative mindset and should have been won with a little more aggression.....

I call it Newzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzealand-itis. A rare disease that sometimes hits our batsmen which turns almost all of them simultaneously into comatose Mark Richardsons.