'I don't rate India a long-term No.1'

I don't think Chappell is saying Indian bowling sucks, he is saying India doesn't have 2 champion bowlers.

And in History every dominant #1 team had a couple of champions.
 
I never said that he would dominate or anything. All I said is that he probably wouldn't do bad and 65 is bad. I just don't think it be the same. Just my opinion.
My bad. You said "he wouldn't have gone bad at all". If that's your opinion, that's fine, but you can't use your opinion as justification for taking something away from an Indian victory in Australia.

210 runs on the final day is never easy. Remember Sehwag made a name for himself back then for giving away his wicket. In fact 210 is about 50-50 in any chase with two well matched teams on a 5th day. Show me where I said Warne would have dominated India?
Not in that match, on that pitch. I'd say India were still favourites, if marginally, going into the final day. Of course, we'll never know what would have happened, just as we'll never know what would have happened if Australia had full-strength teams when India toured them in 03/04.

sohum added 9 Minutes and 16 Seconds later...

I don't know where you are getting 62.55 from. This page suggests Warne's average in India is 43.11:
Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | Cricinfo.com
And even that average is inflated a bit due to the lack of support in that legendary 97/98 - he was a one man band. Gavin Robertson was the other spinner, Kasprowicz led the pace bowlers with Adam Dale as support. Warne was quickly worn (:doh) down.
To prove, here's Warne's averages in India:
with McGrath: 6 Tests, 24 wickets @ 38.58
without McGrath ('97/98): 3 Tests, 10 wickets @ 54.00
Still not awesome with McGrath, but a darn sight better than that 97/98 tour indicated. I'll be the first to admit that India is his worst venue - but he wasn't HELLISHLY BAD, like Joe Average cricket fan thinks.
The discussion was about Warnie at home against the Indians... meaning Warnie's home--Australia. Where he does average 62.55.

And to play devil's advocate. The only LIVE Tests Australia lost between Oct 1999 up until that 2004 India series were the 2 India Tests in 2001, and in Adelaide in 2003/04. All their other losses were in dead rubbers: v England in 2001, v SA in 2001/02, v Eng in 2002/03, v WI in 2003 then v India in 2004. So they lost 5 dead rubbers Test. They only lost 8 in TOTAL!!
Good point.

To be clear, Australia's record in Tests: Oct 1999 - end of India tour 2004:
I count 18 dead rubbers: 5 Losses.
I count 43 Live tests: 3 Losses.
And if I just include the series with those dead rubber losses - In the live Tests: 13 Tests, 12 Wins, 1 Draw (the Chennai match - which MIGHT have turned into an Aussie loss)
They played well in dead rubbers sure - but only because they were so awesome to start with they couldn't play THAT much worse.
Yeah, that's my point. You can't discount an Indian win just because it was in a dead rubber. An Australian team is an Australian team and they were used to steam-rolling opponents, live Test or not.

I know what you are saying. The series was much closer than the result. I agree. BUT THE LAST TEST WAS STILL DEAD.
See above.

sohum added 6 Minutes and 37 Seconds later...

I don't think Chappell is saying Indian bowling sucks, he is saying India doesn't have 2 champion bowlers.

And in History every dominant #1 team had a couple of champions.
He's absolutely right in his final analysis. Anyone who knows anything about cricket today knows that there is no team right now that can make a claim as being as good as the Australian team in the 90's/00's. Australia had the complete package with a awesome batting lineup (Ponting coming in at 6!) coupled with one of the best spinners and one of the best pace bowlers in the world. I doubt we'll see such a complete and consistent package any time soon.

The only bone I have to pick is he grouped India alongside all the other teams when it came to challenging Australia. The statistics clearly prove otherwise. Dead matches, players missing, etc. These are all part and parcel of the game. The Australian team had been largely oblivious to this winning home and away with crunching consistency. The fact that they only lost 8 times in a stretch of about 10 years shows that even in adversity they were the best team going around. The fact that they lost half those Test matches to India suggests that we were a cut above the others when it came to challenging Australia.
 
Consider this. In the last 15 years, Australia has played in 53 Test series'. It has won 42 of these series' and drawn 3 (NZL, WIN, IND). Of the 8 series' it has lost, it has lost to India 4 times, England 2 times and South Africa and Sri Lanka once. So to claim that Australia hasn't been the most challenged by India in recent times is a bit irresponsible.
The debate wasn't if India has challenged Australia, because that would have an obvious answer. It was which team performed better head to head.

Gazza_11 added 6 Minutes and 6 Seconds later...

Shane Warne was hellishly bad against India.

Maybe that was because he rarely bowled against them at home?
 
Surely Warne's bad first two test in 92 count against his record in Australia. After that he only had 3 tests in 99/00 and that was it. So 5 tests at home vs India. He didnt bowl badly in 99/00 and was rarely gotten hold of. The pitches in that series were very much in favour of pace bowling, even Agarkar skittled out top order in Adelaide on day 1.

Plus, rarely has any spinner actually done consistently well against India anyway since the early 90's. Cant blame Warne for everything.
 
Surely Warne's bad first two test in 92 count against his record in Australia. After that he only had 3 tests in 99/00 and that was it. So 5 tests at home vs India. He didnt bowl badly in 99/00 and was rarely gotten hold of. The pitches in that series were very much in favour of pace bowling, even Agarkar skittled out top order in Adelaide on day 1.

Plus, rarely has any spinner actually done consistently well against India anyway since the early 90's. Cant blame Warne for everything.

No, he bowled in 2001,2004 as well.

Shane Warne wasn't really smacked either his runrate against India was only 3.07.
 
I believe we are talking about IN Australia vs India.

In India in 01 he bowled quite well actually, just not enough to get all the wickets. None of the Indians played him easily, even during the big Laxman Dravid partnerhsip.
 
He bowled well in the 2004 series. Took 14 wickets at 30 I think, and he only played three games. If he'd played at Mumbai, I'm pretty sure the Aussies would have won by a fair bit. Have you seen the bowling stats for that game!
 
Dunno. Someone brought it up.

India will struggle to bowl out Phillip Hughes :D

But seriously, can't wait to see Johnson v Gambhir down under. If only they played at the Gabba or Perth....
 
Warne was a big factor, but he missed 3 whole home test summers- 98/99, 00/01, latter half of 02/03, all of 03/04, so others had to step up in absence. In that time McGrath, Ponting, Hayden and Gilly all stepped up hugely.
 
And Stuart MacGill. Gah, when you put it like that, it's unbelievable to think that he got that ban :facepalm
 
The debate wasn't if India has challenged Australia, because that would have an obvious answer. It was which team performed better head to head.
Umm, no. The debate was whether India had challenged Australia. It's obvious that Australia was better than India during that era.

sohum added 2 Minutes and 6 Seconds later...

What has Warne got to do in this thread?
Warne was brought up because it was implied that Australia would have easily beaten India the times that India has won a match, had Warne been part of the XI.

sohum added 13 Minutes and 18 Seconds later...

I believe we are talking about IN Australia vs India.

In India in 01 he bowled quite well actually, just not enough to get all the wickets. None of the Indians played him easily, even during the big Laxman Dravid partnerhsip.
Unfortunately, the player-vs-player statistics weren't stored during that time in Cricinfo. But the fact that he was the most expensive bowler in the second innings both in terms of total runs and in terms of economy rate suggests the opposite.

Without even looking at wickets, he went at 3.31 which was less than only Colin Miller and Michael Kasprowicz, both of whom played only one game. Wasn't that also the series that Shane Warne became so frustrated with bowling at Tendulkar that he actually bowled a bouncer? :p
 
Umm, no. The debate was whether India had challenged Australia. It's obvious that Australia was better than India during that era.

tbh, chappell was making the point that australia were clearly better and india had not seriously challenged australia's dominance, and I agree with him. it's completely obvious.

But it became a debate from that about india not challenging india even when they went head to head, which india very clearly have done.
 

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