India cannot stay on top for long

Ian Chappell says.

Agree with it in general. He forgot to mention the lack of focus on fielding, ftiness etc. which will always hurt them when defending in tight situations & Crunch matches.

Sorry, I thought this was a Kama Sutra thread.


Sorry.

It is a bit of an over analysis. All you really need to stay on top is to be less shit than everyone else

and at the moment thats not hard . . . this is probably the weakest world cricket has been for a long while

tac wrote:and at the moment thats not hard . . . this is probably the weakest world cricket has been for a long while

Not sure about that. Does having no one dominant team qualify as world cricket being weak? I think it's quite exciting and healthy personally. India are on top at the moment, but I think few rational people would believe they are markedly better than anyone else. I think that's rather fun.

Aye, SS as much as I loved watching Aus smash everyone for 15 years, test cricket is definitely the most interesting it has been in a long time

No, it doesn't, Mr Shine (or can I call you Shoe?). It's just that Oz, for instance, is pretty shite and still pushes for No1 spot . . . same with SA and England. It makes for interesting cricket, but there seems a real lack of star players ot the mo (even more when you take India and Sri Lanka out of the subcontinent), wouldn't you say?

It gets boring after a few years. Same as with the Windies in the 70s and 80s - there's only so long you can admire them before you start getting fed up of being continually walloped. And of course with Australia it hurt all the more - exactly why 2005 was celebrated so much.

tac wrote:No, it doesn't, Mr Shine (or can I call you Shoe?). It's just that Oz, for instance, is pretty shite and still pushes for No1 spot . . . same with SA and England. It makes for interesting cricket, but there seems a real lack of star players ot the mo (even more when you take India and Sri Lanka out of the subcontinent), wouldn't you say?

They're a bit spread out the star players. Australia had about four in the same side, which made them so bloody good. Transition is no bad thing, but I think there are plenty of stars out there, just not concentrated in a single team.

But many are on their last legs, eh?

Well, I think that's always the case. We tend to look back and remember how people turned out rather than how they were at the time. Someone mentioned England in South Africa in 1999 saying how they were facing Donald and Pollock, but it was only Pollock's 2nd Test. We kind of forget that. Who knows, in 5 years time we might be talking about a Broad (just an example - whoever really) as a modern great.

I find the current state of test cricket quite interesting too. The Eng - SA series is one example. The oncoming SA-Ind should be the same.
What has happened is that the Aussies have gone backwards and few teams have gone forwards at the same time.

Actually, Josh, I don't think the other teams really have gone forwards . . . . that's the problem in a nutshell as far as I can see . . . .

tac wrote:Actually, Josh, I don't think the other teams really have gone forwards . . . . that's the problem in a nutshell as far as I can see . . . .

Hmm, let me think aloud...

England have
West Indies have
Pakistan haven't
New Zealand haven't
Sri Lanka......not sure
India have a bit
South Africa have done both
Bangladesh have - from a low base
Australia have gone backwards

Make of that what you will really.

England of 2004 and 2005 was far better than the current team

embee wrote:England of 2004 and 2005 was far better than the current team

But England of 2006-2008 wasn't. Thus.....improvement.

In context of personal development India has taken a huge improvement forwards winning more tests first and then more rubbers away outside India. I don't see that being sustained though once legends like Dravid, SRT and Laxman retire.....

It's understood that we may not see a single dominating era like Aus and WI in sometime to come and we may have a see saw game between India, Aus and SA with possibility of England too for sometime. India can probably try and stay on top for a while longer though by focussin g on the individual series along the way. Right now the focus should be on SA tests coming up.