Indian Team in New Year

Ian Chappel says that India are not a long term no.1 because they don't have the bowling firepower to take 20 wickets against top notch sides. M S Dhoni was quick to retort by saying they can prove otherwise by staying no. 1.

So how good is this Indian team? I believe an all rounder's absence is not a problem in test matches. I don't remember a genuine all rounder in both the great sides West Indies (75-90) and Australia (99-07). If there is one format where specialists thrive it is test cricket. As far as batting is concerned India have problem of plenty. Even when Dravid and Sachin were not in good form India didn't perform poorly. I believe replacing batsmen is not as difficult as replacing bowlers is. Remember Aussies had no problem replacing the likes of Waugh brothers while the struggles of Aussie bowlers after departure of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne are there to see. So it all boils down to champion bowlers as pointed out by Chappel. Yes we do not have any great bowler currently. Take it with a pinch of salt but Zaheer and Harbhajan currently are not greats even when compared to Indian greats only. However one thing which is good is that we have 4 bowlers available all the time. In 1990s we had hard time finding the third seamer to accompany Srinath and Prasad. We played ordinary bowlers like D Ganesh, David Johnson, Paras Mhambrey etc. That changed with the advent of Zaheer and Nehra. Later on we got Irfan, Sreeshanth, Munaf, RP Singh and Ishant. None of them have been consistent but at different times one or two of them have been in superb form to provide us with necessary sting to dismiss opposition. Ishant and Sreeshanth look to me as genuine world class bowlers in Test Cricket. So, my point is even if we don't have someone of the ilk of Kumble now, we still have 4 men who can combine well to give desired results. Well I agree that this requires proper selection and intelligent manoeuvring of bowlers when taking the field. Yes an auto pilot luxury is still not available to Indian Captain and Coach.

India is no.1 in test cricket

So, finally India is no. 1 in the ICC test ranking. Any Indian cricket fan would be proud of this achievement. It all started after India beat mighty Aussies (the best team I have ever seen play till date) 2-1 at home. That was the time when under Sourav Ganguly we started our journey to become a powerhouse. I remember the problems plaguing the team then.

Anil Kumble was ineffective outside sub continent. He changed that in 2003-04 Australia tour. India always lacked genuine pace attack to rattle opposition on green tops. They have not found a great seam bowler yet but likes of Ishant Sharma, Sreeshanth, Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel did well after Srinath retired. Not all of them have been consistently delivered performance in last decade. Perhaps only Zaheer Khan is consistent. But we always had one or the other pacer coming in and doing well. Add to it the performances of Irfan Pathan, R P Singh and L Balaji. Our opening woes were partially ended by Virendra Sehwag in 2002 while opening became our strength with resurgence of Gautam Gambhir. Adam Gilchrist's advent meant that a wicket keeper had to bat as well as a middle order batsman if not better. That problem was taken care by M S Dhoni in 2005. Batsmen struggled in 90's to do well outside the sub continent except for Sachin Tendulkar. Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman in their unique way of batting ensured that Indian team became TEAM INDIA from ONE-MAN-ARMY.

Much has been done but much more remains. With India playing only two tests in next 10 months this stay at top wont be long. It would be interesting to see how India copes with retirements of Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman. Signing off on positive note I believe that it is much easier to replace batting greats rather than bowling greats.