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.
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.
The discussion was about Warnie at home against the Indians... meaning Warnie's home--Australia. Where he does average 62.55.
Good point.
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.
See above.
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 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.
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.
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.
