India's Dream Cricket Test Team

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Prashant
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by Prashant »

Sivaramakrishnan wasn't all that bad. He started out as a decent bowler but couldn't sustain the quality. Agarkar doesn't deserve to be on either list in my opinion. He wasn't great, but he was often the best available option at the time. I would definitely second Srikanth for tests.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by prasen9 »

Imho, Agarkar thoroughly deserves everything I said and more. He is the worst bowler from India ever who got over 25 tests. Name me any other bowler who was worse than Agarkar and got more than 25 tests. Maybe Madanlal would come close. Note that I am not considering his batting. The only other baffling persistences on useless test players are on Mohammad Sami of Pak and on the batting side Darren Ganga of the WI. This is my recollection. I would be willing to listen to other candidates for the worst ever bowler category who got a long run and was rather useless. Note that if someone got 25 tests or more, they must have had one good series. Undoubtedly, Agarkar was very good in Australia. But that is it. Other than that, he was totally crappy. Similarly, Siva was good in one series or so and useless in the rest. You have to remember that when we are talking of players who played at least 10 tests, they must have done something to keep playing and thus are not total nightmares. The Kulkarnis and Chopras are at a different level. However, if we consider those that got a longish chance and completely proved themselves incompetent, I cannot remember any Indian bowler being so bad for so long. Maybe Nehra and Madanlal were the other ones who got a longish rope and were generally bad.

I have to think more about the batting lineup. But, I would have Angshuman Gaekwad, Srikkanth, Brijesh Patel, Ajit Wadekar, Jaisima would be the ones who got 20 tests or above and were generally mediocre. If you relax the 20 tests, I would get in Datta Gaekwad and throw in Abbas Ali Baig, WV Raman, Ashok Mankad, and Arun Lal. The allrounder slot may go to Rusi Surti. I know people may not like Abbas Ali or Jaisima in the XI but they did not perform as well as their potential over their career.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by gbelday »

Jaisimha should not be on any list.
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prasen9
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by prasen9 »

Gautam, I know we do not agree on our value systems. But, I look at the bottom-line. There is no doubt that Jaisimha was a great talent, a very elegant batsman but at the end he scored very few runs. He was a big disappointment. So, he would belong to a list of most disappointing batsmen who played more than 20 tests or so.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by SaniaFan »

Ashok Mankad played 22 Test matches So he has to be there.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by prasen9 »

Kohli is possibly on his way to the first-team. My team now would be Gavaskar, Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Kohli, Kapil, Kirmani/Dhoni.

With respect to spinners, if we are playing abroad, it would possibly be Bedi and Gupte/Chandra. [PKB likes Mankad over Bedi. I'd be fine with that.]

If we are playing in India, it would be Ashwin, Kumble and Bedi/Jadeja.

Kapil and Srinath with the new ball. Maybe 3rd pacer would be Amar Singh?
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by Omkara »

Bedi can't be replaced with jadeja. If your batting line up is so strong then never. 3rd pacer Venkatesh Prasad or Zaheer??
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by PKBasu »

Ashwin and Kohli are definitely in the all-time first XI for India now. (Ashwin replaces Prasanna comfortably, except perhaps on a tour of New Zealand or Australia). Jadeja too beginning to nip at Vinoo Mankad's heels, but only as a bowler. Vinoo was one of the batting greats, Jadeja so far is batting pygmy in tests. So as bowling all rounder, Jadeja is quite far back.

Gavaskar, Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Kohli, Vinoo Mankad, Dhoni, Kapil Dev, Ashwin, Kumble, Srinath would be my XI now. Kohli as captain in India. For tests abroad, I would replace Kumble with Ganguly (so he could captain the side).
We have become a much better test side this century, hence the more recent players dominate.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by sameerph »

I think if a third seemer has to be played than Zaheer Khan should be the choice. But, having Srinath and Zaheer in our best eleven shows the lack of pace bowling talent we have produced. Both Srinath and Zaheer were very good bowlers but not truly world class. They both have averages above 30 and even Kapil is just below 30. Most of the best test Xi's around the world will have bowlers with averages below 25.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by prasen9 »

In India mine would be: Gavaskar, Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Kohli, Dhoni, Ashwin, Kapil, Kumble, Jadeja, Srinath.

Abroad, I would seriously consider dropping Ashwin, Kumble, and Jadeja but the replacements (or retainment) would depend upon where we are playing. The last two decades we have seen phenomenal performance at home. Hence, the selections are almost all from players who played in the last 2-3 decades. Gavaskar is the only exception. When we are playing abroad, we have not done as well. Hence, Bedi, Chandra, Gupte, Zaheer etc. would come in the picture.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by Prashant »

My bias: I would never have an India XI without Kumble. My cricket watching days start with the late 70s, so I never watched Prasanna/Chandra. But I would be very hard pressed to include spinners other than Kumble & Ashwin. I did watch Bedi towards the end of his career & he wouldn't replace either of those guys.

Also, as much as I respect and regard Ganguly's captaincy, it isn't enough to ever earn a place on my all time side.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by prasen9 »

If it is generic "abroad", the bowlers would be: Kapil, Zaheer, Ashwin, Gupte/Chandra, Irfan/Srinath/Bedi. Irfan and Gupte were better in their short careers than their replacements, but, they possibly got around 15 tests abroad --- a small-ish sample size. I would always keep Kumble out when we are playing abroad. His inefficacy was one of the reasons we did not win much abroad despite having the fabulous batting lineup --- although the batting lineup never clicked together abroad either. Kumble was more bad with a few sprinklings of good abroad. Prashant, maybe I do not remember, but, can you remind me of Kumble's heroics abroad? My memory is that he would not spin the ball at all and the opposition would play him as a medium-pacer. Srinath and Prasad would take the wickets and Kumble would let the pressure out after they were done with their spells. I think he got slightly better towards the latter part of his career. I think in his last Australia tour, he did get a few wickets at low cost. I chose a true leggie who spins the ball because they are more likely to take wickets abroad.

Bedi comes in as the third spinner instead of Kapil/Irfan/Srinath if we are playing in a spinning wicket in SL or Pak. I think Zaheer was our best pace-bowler abroad. Kapil was better than Srinath but worse than the high Irfan gave us.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by Sin Hombre »

Bedi was a zero with the bat and a complete liability in the field.

Post 2002 Kumble was very decent outside India as he added more variations.

Zaheer is also a cert when playing outside the subcontinent; he has the best strike rate of any Indian bowler in those conditions.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by sameerph »

Prashant wrote: My cricket watching days start with the late 70s, so I never watched Prasanna/Chandra. But I would be very hard pressed to include spinners other than Kumble & Ashwin. I did watch Bedi towards the end of his career & he wouldn't replace either of those guys.
Same here, Prashant. My first memories of great yesteryear spinning trio was the series against Pakistan in 1978. I think that was first Indo-Pak series after 1971 war and there was a lot of excitement around. Our spinning trio of Bedi, Chandra and Prasanna were abdolutely plundered by the likes of Zaheer Abbas, young Javed Miandad, Asif Iqbal. I think that series turned out be a death knell for the careers of these 3 spinners. So, I have watched only bad times of these guys and not when they were on top.

If one looks at bowling averages, Bedi (28.71) is slightly better than Kumble (29.65) and Chandra is only slightly below (29.74). Prasanna is below 30 but still much better than Harbhajan. Ashwin and Jadeja at this stage are much better but let us see at the end of their career.

So, overall Bedi-Chandra-Pras could be as good as Kumble-Harbhajan-Ashwin-Jadeja. Also one needs to take into account that quality of batsmenship particularly against spin and in test cricket as general has gone down considerably these days compared to the days when the previous spinning trio was bowling. One needs to factor these considerations when comparing across eras.
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Re: India's Dream Cricket Test Team

Post by Prashant »

prasen9 wrote:Prashant, maybe I do not remember, but, can you remind me of Kumble's heroics abroad?
Kumble averaged ~36 abroad vs ~25 at home. So I agree, he was much much better at home, although as Sin Hombre pointed out, he got better abroad as his career went along.

But let's look at your choices to replace him:
Subhash Gupte averaged about 30 both home & away, in a very different era where he probably played at least some of the time on uncovered pitches.
Chandra averaged ~33 away over 26 tests. Similar to Kumble, he was much better at home, and his away record isn't very much better.
Bedi averaged ~24 at home vs ~34 away, i.e. almost identical split to Kumble.

I guess I don't see any of those as objectively better based on the average, except maybe Gupte who is from a different era. So it comes to intangibles for me.

By the way, Ashwin has a similar split - averages 21 at home vs 33+ abroad.
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