When India wrapped up their First Test victory by 197 runs over New Zealand at Kanpur, nobody was surprised. Go back fifty years or more, and it would have been a cause for celebration. This was India’s 500th Test match, excluding the two cancelled or abandoned, which is a genuine landmark in the nation’s sporting history.
In total, they have won 130, lost 157 drawn 212 and tied one, the classic against Australia in 1986. But those results, spread over 84 long years, are too broad to tell the true picture of India cricket.
Of the first ton, spanning 35 years, India won a mere 10, losing 40, and it took 25 matches and 20 years before they notched their first success, against England at what was then Madras. Mind you, Donald Carr’s wasn’t the greatest side ever to tour the Asian sub-continent, but Vinoo Mankad’s twelve wicket haul is impressive against any opposition.
The next 100 took just 15 years, and the win percentage improved to 25%. That period included a 15-game unbeaten run in 1979-80, although all bar three (drawn) were played on home soil. Those were the days of Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, Venkat and a young Kapil Dev. Just before that sequence, there had been and that famous series success against the otherwise all-conquering West Indies.
From heroes to zeroes. Between 1982 and 1984, India went 21 without a single win, and the third century comprised a 21:26 win:loss ratio. It wasn’t as if they had bad players in the early Nineties, and in 1993 Mohammad Azharuddin’s team featuring Tendulkar, Kamble and Kumble destroyed Gooch’s England 3-0.
Between 1996 and 2006, India finally won more than they lost (32 vs 31), albeit aided by the introduction to Test cricket of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. It was still a struggle for them on their travels but there were some memorable match victories, none more so than an innings trouncing of Mark Taylor’s Aussies at Eden Gardens in ’98.
However, it’s in the fifth hundred that offers the evidence of India’s progress. With 42 triumphs and 30 draws, the past decade has seen the nation become the best side in the world before slipping back in transition. Nevertheless, that transition is looking close to completion.
This week’s win over the Black Caps took their latest unbeaten run to eleven, of which eight were won. Snapping at the heels of Pakistan, a return to the ICC number one position is surely just a matter of time. It’s strange to think that their current top-scoring batsman, Virat Kohli, has fewer than 4000 Test runs to his name.
For ages the Achilles heel has been the bowling, and it still looks a very inexperienced attack. Only Ravi Ashwin has taken more than 100 wickets, but he is breaking records galore. His 203 have come in a mere 37 Tests, quicker than even Muralitharan managed. That’s even more remarkable when he seems to be one of the side’s heaviest run-makers, too. Jadeja’s miserly maiden-fest deservedly won the Man of the Match at Kanpur but he remains more of a one-day man. Should more of India’s ODI and T20 specialists spread their wings in the five-day format, India’s sixth century of Tests could be very special indeed.
Showing posts with label Kapil Dev. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kapil Dev. Show all posts
Monday, 26 September 2016
Monday, 7 July 2014
England v India - Dravid and Botham the Stars of the Past
In the past four decades, India have played 30 Tests in England and have won only four. Nevertheless those victories have come at opportune times, contributing to series victories in 1986 and 2007. Of course 2011 witnessed India's humiliating 4-0 drubbing, more humbling than even England's Ashes debacle last winter. When looking back over the nine series played in this period, there have been great batting performances from both sides, but it is with the bowling that England have dominated. This is apparent when selecting my teams of the past forty years.
ENGLAND: Graham Gooch will always be remembered for his 333 against India in 1990, and nobody has scored more than the 1134 runs he accumulated against this opposition in England across ten Tests. Michael Vaughan, though, boasts a superior average, at 75.83. His 910 runs were scored in only seven matches, including two scores of 190+ in 2002. Even Mike Atherton has a decent record at home to India but Gooch and Vaughan are my openers.
Kevin Pietersen's record is also excellent. He amassed 878 runs at almost 80 between 2007 and 2011, the highlight being his unbeaten 202 in the Lord's success almost exactly three years ago. Ian Bell played in the same seven Tests, collecting 694 at 52.87, a touch higher than David Gower's average. However, the former England strokemaker appeared twelve times and made 833 runs. At this point, I have to confess I have ignored a batsman who has an average of 260 at home to India! Nevertheless, he fails to make my team because David 'Bumble' Lloyd scored those 260 runs in only two games, albeit including an unbeaten 214 forty summers ago. Although Matt Prior has a century to his name, Alec Stewart's 423 runs at 52.87 between 1996 and 2002 earns him the gloves.
Perhaps surprisingly, Ian Botham's career batting average of 80.87 is the best of anyone in the last nine England v India rubbers. He never liked touring the subcontinent but he made up for it by destroying India on home territory, with bat and ball. 647 runs and 29 wickets at 27 make for an exceptional set of all-round statistics. His 11 catches also put him second behind Gooch amongst non-wicketkeepers in this period.
Bob Willis claimed one more victim than Beefy; 30 at an average of 24.16. Mike Hendrick is an under-rated England stalwart. History has been less kind to him than, say, Botham and Willis, but his swing and seam in '74 were as dangerous as anybody's. His match figures of 7-71 did as much as Lloyd's double-century to beat India by an innings in that game at Edgbaston. In '74 and '79 he took 26 wickets at under 17 apiece. Moving forward to more recent times, Stuart Broad's series average of 13.84 in 2011 is even more special, and he makes my fantasy XI alongside Jimmy Anderson. While the latter's average of 27 is not spectacular, his wicket tally of 35 is unsurpassed on the England side.
INDIA: The visitors, of course, have had their fair share of superstars even if some didn't quite reproduce their form for India in England. Gambhir, Bedi, Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh spring to mind. It's no surprise that Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid have more runs to their name than anybody else on either team. Dravid collected 1376 runs at 68.80 and was India's sole beacon of excellence in that disastrous 2011 series. Three of his six centuries came in that run of four heavy defeats. Some of his runs came as an opener, so he starts alongside the legendary Sunil Gavaskar. In 13 Tests between 1974 and 1986, he made 1008 runs at 46.
SRT represented his country 17 times in Test matches in England and his average of 54.31 more or less matches his career record around the world. Saurav Ganguly scored fewer runs (960 to the Little Master's 1575) but 65.35 makes for a superior batting average. He was player of the series in 1996 and led his country with a 128 to an innings defeat of Hussain's side at Headingley in 2002. My middle-order is completed by Dilip Vengsarkar. He and Gavaskar did so much to keep Indian innings afloat in the 1970s and early '80s, as witnessed by his rearguard 157 at Lord's in '82 and 102 not out in the Headingley victory four years later.
MS Dhoni pips Faroukh Engineer to the wicketkeeper slot, but not by much. India's all-rounder line-up pretty much begins and ends with Kapil Dev. Ravi Shastri had his moments in England but his spin bowling netted him a mere 11 wickets at over 70 apiece! Kapil's average of 39.18 is nothing to write home about but he did claim 43 wickets with his fast bowling and score 638 runs at 35.44 with the bat. His only century came in his last appearance in 1990 but his most memorable innings was an 89 in 55 balls at Lord's in 1982. It merely delayed the inevitable defeat but it did make England bat again and give Botham and Willis something to fret about for an hour or so.
None of India's great spinners set the world alight over here, but Anil Kumble gets a place in my team because of his 36 wickets. Chetan Sharma (16 wickets at 18.75 in 1986) and Praveen Kumar (15 at under 30 in 2011) have decent records in single series but my India XI is completed by Zaheer Khan. 31 wickets at under 28 represents a decent return over eight Tests, and his nine wickets at Trent Bridge seven years ago earned him the MOTM award.
In summary;
ENGLAND: Gooch, Vaughan (*), Pietersen, Gower, Bell, Stewart (+), Botham, Broad, Anderson, Hendrick, Willis
INDIA: Gavaskar, Dravid, Tendulkar, Vengsarkar, Ganguly (*), Dhoni (+), Kapil Dev, Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Kumar, Sharma
ENGLAND: Graham Gooch will always be remembered for his 333 against India in 1990, and nobody has scored more than the 1134 runs he accumulated against this opposition in England across ten Tests. Michael Vaughan, though, boasts a superior average, at 75.83. His 910 runs were scored in only seven matches, including two scores of 190+ in 2002. Even Mike Atherton has a decent record at home to India but Gooch and Vaughan are my openers.
Kevin Pietersen's record is also excellent. He amassed 878 runs at almost 80 between 2007 and 2011, the highlight being his unbeaten 202 in the Lord's success almost exactly three years ago. Ian Bell played in the same seven Tests, collecting 694 at 52.87, a touch higher than David Gower's average. However, the former England strokemaker appeared twelve times and made 833 runs. At this point, I have to confess I have ignored a batsman who has an average of 260 at home to India! Nevertheless, he fails to make my team because David 'Bumble' Lloyd scored those 260 runs in only two games, albeit including an unbeaten 214 forty summers ago. Although Matt Prior has a century to his name, Alec Stewart's 423 runs at 52.87 between 1996 and 2002 earns him the gloves.
Perhaps surprisingly, Ian Botham's career batting average of 80.87 is the best of anyone in the last nine England v India rubbers. He never liked touring the subcontinent but he made up for it by destroying India on home territory, with bat and ball. 647 runs and 29 wickets at 27 make for an exceptional set of all-round statistics. His 11 catches also put him second behind Gooch amongst non-wicketkeepers in this period.
Bob Willis claimed one more victim than Beefy; 30 at an average of 24.16. Mike Hendrick is an under-rated England stalwart. History has been less kind to him than, say, Botham and Willis, but his swing and seam in '74 were as dangerous as anybody's. His match figures of 7-71 did as much as Lloyd's double-century to beat India by an innings in that game at Edgbaston. In '74 and '79 he took 26 wickets at under 17 apiece. Moving forward to more recent times, Stuart Broad's series average of 13.84 in 2011 is even more special, and he makes my fantasy XI alongside Jimmy Anderson. While the latter's average of 27 is not spectacular, his wicket tally of 35 is unsurpassed on the England side.
INDIA: The visitors, of course, have had their fair share of superstars even if some didn't quite reproduce their form for India in England. Gambhir, Bedi, Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh spring to mind. It's no surprise that Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid have more runs to their name than anybody else on either team. Dravid collected 1376 runs at 68.80 and was India's sole beacon of excellence in that disastrous 2011 series. Three of his six centuries came in that run of four heavy defeats. Some of his runs came as an opener, so he starts alongside the legendary Sunil Gavaskar. In 13 Tests between 1974 and 1986, he made 1008 runs at 46.
SRT represented his country 17 times in Test matches in England and his average of 54.31 more or less matches his career record around the world. Saurav Ganguly scored fewer runs (960 to the Little Master's 1575) but 65.35 makes for a superior batting average. He was player of the series in 1996 and led his country with a 128 to an innings defeat of Hussain's side at Headingley in 2002. My middle-order is completed by Dilip Vengsarkar. He and Gavaskar did so much to keep Indian innings afloat in the 1970s and early '80s, as witnessed by his rearguard 157 at Lord's in '82 and 102 not out in the Headingley victory four years later.
MS Dhoni pips Faroukh Engineer to the wicketkeeper slot, but not by much. India's all-rounder line-up pretty much begins and ends with Kapil Dev. Ravi Shastri had his moments in England but his spin bowling netted him a mere 11 wickets at over 70 apiece! Kapil's average of 39.18 is nothing to write home about but he did claim 43 wickets with his fast bowling and score 638 runs at 35.44 with the bat. His only century came in his last appearance in 1990 but his most memorable innings was an 89 in 55 balls at Lord's in 1982. It merely delayed the inevitable defeat but it did make England bat again and give Botham and Willis something to fret about for an hour or so.
None of India's great spinners set the world alight over here, but Anil Kumble gets a place in my team because of his 36 wickets. Chetan Sharma (16 wickets at 18.75 in 1986) and Praveen Kumar (15 at under 30 in 2011) have decent records in single series but my India XI is completed by Zaheer Khan. 31 wickets at under 28 represents a decent return over eight Tests, and his nine wickets at Trent Bridge seven years ago earned him the MOTM award.
In summary;
ENGLAND: Gooch, Vaughan (*), Pietersen, Gower, Bell, Stewart (+), Botham, Broad, Anderson, Hendrick, Willis
INDIA: Gavaskar, Dravid, Tendulkar, Vengsarkar, Ganguly (*), Dhoni (+), Kapil Dev, Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Kumar, Sharma
Saturday, 3 November 2012
England v India - India's Best XI
With only five home Tests against England in the last decade, my picks for India's best XI of the past forty years is short of players likely to feature in the forthcoming series. No Dhoni, Zaheer Khan, Gambhir or Sehwag. However, it's a formidable line-up in anyone's book.
Legendary opener Sunil Gavaskar played 22 times in these fixtures but only in 1982 did he really show his true talent. His average of 36 was well short of his Test career figure of 51 but his aggregate of 1331 runs makes him an automatic choice. No other opener has scored particularly highly, so I'm making Sunil's partner his 1970s team-mate Farokh Engineer. A wicket-keeper who usually batted at six or seven, his highest score in five-day cricket came at the top of the order at Bombay in February 1973. He was a fine 'keeper, too, and he needed to be when standing up to India's spin quartet of that era.
The middle-order is so hard to pick. Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar didn't disappoint against England, scoring over 1400 runs between them. The Little Master has aggregated 848 in eleven games at more than 60. So what about Ganguly and Laxman? Well, they don't make it. Neither does Duleep Vengsarkar, the elegant strokeplayer from an earlier age. Instead, disgraced former captain Mohammad Azharuddin is my number five. He is the only man in the past four decades to have notched four centuries in the India vs England series, peakng with 182 at Eden Gardens in 1993, and averaging 93 in only six Tests. Creeping in at number six is another regular from the '70s, Gundappa Viswanath. More squat than Vengsarkar, he nonetheless compiled more than 1000 runs and struck by far his top Test score, 222, in the 1982 draw at Chennai towards the end of his career.
Kapil Dev outstrips Ravi Shastri in the all-rounder stakes, averaging almost 48 with the bat and capturing 42 wickets at 35 apiece. In any case, there are so many other fabulous spinners to choose from. The most prolific wicket-taker in these series is also one of the highest wicket-takers in Test history: Anil Kumble. He played only nine Tests at home to England yet snaffled 56 victims at only 23 apiece, utterly dominant in both 1993 and 2001 in particular.
I've already mentioned the Fab Four spinners from the '60s and '70s and three of them could easily join this particular fantasy XI. However, poor Kapil Dev can't be expected to shoulder the pace burden alone, so I'm pairing him on the new ball with Madan Lal. Maybe not an all-time great, and he looked very ordinary on English pitches, but he proved to be an admirable foil for his more illustrious compatriots in 1981-2. That leaves only two more places. Harbhajan Singh was in the frame, as was Prasanna, but the line-up is completed by Bishan Bedi and Bhagwath Chandrasekhar. Both took more than 50 wickets at home to England at averages below 25. They bowled so many overs they often simply ground down visiting batsmen into submission. Were Indian pitches in those days realy prepared for spinners? Bedi, Venkat, Chandra and Prasanna reigned supreme together in the Indian attack for more than a decade but their longevity also owes much to the dearth of seam talent at the time. After all, English fast men were also quite successful on those same strips, as I shall elaborate upon next time....
A recap on my India vs England Eleven:-
Gavaskar, Engineer (+), Dravid, Tendulkar, Azharuddin (*), Viswanath, Kapil Dev, Kumble, Madan Lal, Bedi, Chandrasehkar.
Legendary opener Sunil Gavaskar played 22 times in these fixtures but only in 1982 did he really show his true talent. His average of 36 was well short of his Test career figure of 51 but his aggregate of 1331 runs makes him an automatic choice. No other opener has scored particularly highly, so I'm making Sunil's partner his 1970s team-mate Farokh Engineer. A wicket-keeper who usually batted at six or seven, his highest score in five-day cricket came at the top of the order at Bombay in February 1973. He was a fine 'keeper, too, and he needed to be when standing up to India's spin quartet of that era.
The middle-order is so hard to pick. Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar didn't disappoint against England, scoring over 1400 runs between them. The Little Master has aggregated 848 in eleven games at more than 60. So what about Ganguly and Laxman? Well, they don't make it. Neither does Duleep Vengsarkar, the elegant strokeplayer from an earlier age. Instead, disgraced former captain Mohammad Azharuddin is my number five. He is the only man in the past four decades to have notched four centuries in the India vs England series, peakng with 182 at Eden Gardens in 1993, and averaging 93 in only six Tests. Creeping in at number six is another regular from the '70s, Gundappa Viswanath. More squat than Vengsarkar, he nonetheless compiled more than 1000 runs and struck by far his top Test score, 222, in the 1982 draw at Chennai towards the end of his career.
Kapil Dev outstrips Ravi Shastri in the all-rounder stakes, averaging almost 48 with the bat and capturing 42 wickets at 35 apiece. In any case, there are so many other fabulous spinners to choose from. The most prolific wicket-taker in these series is also one of the highest wicket-takers in Test history: Anil Kumble. He played only nine Tests at home to England yet snaffled 56 victims at only 23 apiece, utterly dominant in both 1993 and 2001 in particular.
I've already mentioned the Fab Four spinners from the '60s and '70s and three of them could easily join this particular fantasy XI. However, poor Kapil Dev can't be expected to shoulder the pace burden alone, so I'm pairing him on the new ball with Madan Lal. Maybe not an all-time great, and he looked very ordinary on English pitches, but he proved to be an admirable foil for his more illustrious compatriots in 1981-2. That leaves only two more places. Harbhajan Singh was in the frame, as was Prasanna, but the line-up is completed by Bishan Bedi and Bhagwath Chandrasekhar. Both took more than 50 wickets at home to England at averages below 25. They bowled so many overs they often simply ground down visiting batsmen into submission. Were Indian pitches in those days realy prepared for spinners? Bedi, Venkat, Chandra and Prasanna reigned supreme together in the Indian attack for more than a decade but their longevity also owes much to the dearth of seam talent at the time. After all, English fast men were also quite successful on those same strips, as I shall elaborate upon next time....
A recap on my India vs England Eleven:-
Gavaskar, Engineer (+), Dravid, Tendulkar, Azharuddin (*), Viswanath, Kapil Dev, Kumble, Madan Lal, Bedi, Chandrasehkar.
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