These.

Well, looks like 4-0 if the weather holds.

I fear the problem is deeper and its the lack of preparation by most sides for foreign tours. Expecting even experienced players to face a high class bowling attack in foreign conditions without several 3/4 day games under their belts is ridiculous, for the newer players and the tail is asking for exactly what happened to them.

This England side is excellent but a properly warmed up India would have been a very different proposition and its what I assume we all really want to be watching.

Some arrogant poms itt.

Just remember that 1 summer as the number 1 team in the world doesnt undo the 35 years of mediocrity that made you the laughing stock of international cricket.

ps. big deal beating India on home turf, you woudnt get near them if it was on the sub continent.

pps. if Morkel and Steyn are fit and bowling then you probably wont beat South Africa.

Agree with all this, and its even more true in a place like England where the batting conditions are relatively unfriendly. Back in the day when we used to dominate
England over there we would play a ton of tour matches.

don't ruin our moment of dominance!

Definitely something needs to be tweaked in the scheduling to give teams more time to rest and prepare for test series otherwise, I fear, one-sided series will become much more prevalent which will be terrible for the game.

I think there is something to be said for priortising in the international calendar for series between the top test nations. So the touring teams get good preperation therefore increasing the quality of the games.

Currently series between England, South Africa, India, Sri Lanka and Lolstralia. Should have 3 warm up games for the touring side or similar. Ofc this will probably won't happen until test cricket is in serious trouble as it is a short term money disaster.

It's a tough one really. I mean, players don't want long tours so they have fewer warm up games (otherwise Oz tours would go on even longer). FWIW I'd like a slight reduction in the number of games, but really we are already a the stage where countries just can't expect to play the same players for every game if they play one day stuff and test matches. If it means resting players, rotating bowlers etc then do that - just so long as the really big series can genuinely be the best 11 V the best 11. Who cares if players get rested V Bangladesh or the WI from time to time.

So true. We shouldn't forget the bad times: the team that couldn't bat, bowl or field




the ignominious failure



the sight of the english captain reduced to sobbing in front of the press




35 years, it seemed like so much longer.

vaughan was for that brief period of about a year as good as any english batsmen in my lifetime. so good to watch, scored his runs so quickly but correctly. cook will never have the shots or be anywhere near as good to watch as vaughan. but given he's only 26 and the success he's already had he's likely to break all english records and may get somewhere near some of the greats in term of runs scored, hundreds scored. obviously in no way will he ever be as good as tendulkar or ponting but he may rival them in terms of runs scored and records. he undoubtedly will go down as a better player than vaughan in the history of english cricket.

for some time people have talked about taylor. he plays for leicestershire who are at the bottom of the second division - he really needs first division cricket. there are a number of good young english batsmen in county cricket at present but i would say no-one yet has shown that he will definitely go on and have a good career for england. taylor is probably the closest of those in county cricket to this but there is no guarantee.

there are a number of bowlers currently in county cricket who if selected for england probably would do a good job(onions, finn, harris, tremlett, panesar), the batsmen i'm not so sure off.

lol this is brilliant

the guys obviously knackered. who can blame him??

i mean the reaction of the crowd would have been the same anywhere in the world, if not worse. i doubt the game would have started again in india

it's a shame for bell that one of his best innings in test cricket will be overshadowed by this because his innings really was excellent.

from what i've read since it seems that it was more the senior players, in particular tendulkar who changed the decision rather than dhoni. so you can blame tendulkar rather than dhoni.

there was hardly a pom commenting on the result in this thread. if india, england and south africa all had adequate preparation, all things being equal then at present there wouldn;t be too much between the three teams.

the fact is that india are an ageing team with a number of greats on the way out (sachin(38), dravid(38), laxman(36)), some injury prone ageing players (sehwag(32), khan(32)) and are likely to recede rather than improve as a result

england on the other hand are still an improving outfit with a number of batsmen just entering their peak years(trott(30), pietersen(31), bell(29), prior(29)), and a number of bowlers who are performing well(anderson29, swann32 tremlett29 either in their prime or still in their early yearsbroad25, bresnan26.

south africa also have excellent young players just reaching their peaks (morkel, de villiers) and the star of a generation(steyn) so like england are only likely to improve(although losing kallis is obvious a massive whole to fill when it happens).

SO my point is that you're going to have to deal with english success and arrogance for a few years yet because we're only going to get better and south africa are likely to be the only team to realistically challenge us in test cricket forthe next 5 years.

I;d also like to say that india are going throught the same thing england went through at the cricket world cup. india have been away from home for a long period having played a lot of cricket in the last 6 months, with players regularly picking up injuries and just looking very tired. they just have nothing really left to give.

sehwag yes, gambhir still has a long long way to go imo

And Mukund looks like total **** in the 5 matches I've seen him. Guys like Dravid/Ganguly/Tendulkar made batting look easy on their maiden tours to England. Just something to keep in mind, they were once in a lifetime type players

and their all on the wrong side of 30. India's decline will be just as quick as Australia's was a few years ago. From what I've seen though Gambhir has been more than solid.

& yeah I agree that the at least for next couple of years the two clear top teams will be South Africa and England; just struggling to come tp grips with it

I am amazed at how badly Raina plays the short ball, I mean one thing to not like the short ball and get out to it but all he does is flinch and throw his bat somewhere

he needs to fix this or I can't see how he could ever get runs in test cricket

he needs to practice tennis ball cricket imo

Why is no one talking about Zimbabwe vs Bangladesh???

Seriously though, I think it's good to have Zimbabwe back. While on the subject of second rate teams...who else is in favour of the two tier system?

Australia touring SRi Lanka for the first time since 2004. Should be an even series between two very mediocre teams

I think I'd take Sri Lanka there every time on home turf

A good match so far. They should really be playing 2-3 test series though. The wonder boy Hamilton Mazakadza with a great 100. Zimbabwe looking in control.

We were significantly better in 04 but lost 3-0 in tests. Ofc Aussies had guys like Warne and Mcgrath too. That was an epic series, we had the first innings lead in each test but lost. Warne vs Murali both taking loads of wickets. Was some great cricket.

I'd say Sri Lanka every time on any turf .

IMO this is the weakest Australian touring party that I've seen. Batting is unstable (lol @ dropping Katich), bowling is pathetic. Only young player to get excited about is Khawaja who will probably be the next captain of Australia (assuming Clarke doesnt implode in the next 12months). Noone else under 25 can play that Ive seen. Marsh is ok but I'm not sure if he'll be that good a test player - much more suited to ODIs.

Being Australian was so much more fun when we were crushing everyone

+1

Bopara in for Trott. I think if England weren't 2-0 up they could prepare a bowler friendly pitch and play 5 bowlers for a one off test, but I can see why they'd go for Bopara. I don't however see him as a long term part of the England test set-up - although he's probably the best option in terms of form I think there are a few better batting prospects.