England V India ***Clash of the Heavyweights*** Test, T20 and ODI Series

elmuzzy66. said:
Makes you wonder why teams want to use the golden oldies till the end, after they gone theres know one to fill in the void.
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Have you just seen Dravid's knock? THIS is why they use oldies :D

Incidentally, between them, Sachin Dravid and VVS now have 100 centuries in Test cricket. Whatever way you look at it, that's impressive and amazing that they've been playing together for over 10 years :)


sigma said:
I prefer someone who plays for the team rather than just being destructive, especially in the test format.
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You're telling me that Sehwag doesn't play for the team, and you wouldn't have him in your team? Really?!
 
sigma said:
No I didn't. I said I prefer him, I prefer the way he plays and I rate Tendulkar as the better player, his has a better temperament. Who wouldn't want Sehwag in a team? :confused:
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Oh okay. Well my point was that India can cover for Tendulkar not playing FAR easier than they can cope with Sehwag not playing. He brings so much to the team. And without Zaheer, the bowling is impotent.
 
bigredshark said:
While that's true, I'm not sure you can complain completely, it's a team game after all, you can't write off bad performance on 'our best player is missing' grounds. It's going to happen, great teams manage.

I'll give you this match is different again as Zaheer was injured during the match and couldn't be replaced but still, great teams manage.

Neither of these teams are really complete enough to be called no. 1 in my opinion, they both look too fragile when things don't go their way. It's just the lack of anyone better.
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The balance of the India team is very different to the balance of the England team.

England has a very well balanced team. If any player gets injured, someone else gets in to cover. Eg Anderson out, Bresnan in. Of course, it wouldn't be as strong, but they'd manage.

India's team is very different. The batting is extremely reliant on the openers getting them off to a good start. If you look at the stats of the past few years, India's performance when the openers fail is VERY different to when they get big scores.

With the bowling, not only is Zaheer Khan by far the best bowler in the country, but when he's there, the other bowlers bowl a lot better. His importance to the bowling attack is far more vital than that of someone like Anderson.

If you look at the stats, when all of India's key players are actually playing, they are an extremely strong side and rightfully deserve to be called number one.
 
Like I said, India can do without a player or too. Unless that player is Sehwag or Zaheer, in which case it weakens their team much more so than losing others. Because those two bring much more to the team than just their own contributions to the score.
 
England will need to declare at some point tomorrow and get early wickets. If day 5 starts and India haven't lost any wickets yet, I can't see them getting all out, this pitch is only getting easier for batting.
 
Not sure about today. Brilliant first session, but I just cannot understand the defensive field setting that started after lunch and continued after tea. Prior and broad took singles with far too much ease. If we'd got one of them, by Fielding aaggressively, then we could have wrapped them up for under 1
200. Good batting by the two bossmen though, meaning that we can fight for a draw tomorrow!
 
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