Not so far. They lost the T20 series to Sri Lanka 0-2 on Monday by insipid batting after belligerent Shane Watson’s smacked 57 off 24 balls including six fours and five towering sixes.
Bravo to Lankan spinner Ajatha Mendis for his magnificent 6-16, the best figures in an international T20.
In rugby too, the Wallabies were trampled upon by the All Blacks in New Zealand on Saturday.
Am I a jinx to the teams I support?
So I am employing reverse psychology and changing sides. I’ll support England in the third Test starting tomorrow, the 10th, in Birmingham. The turncoat!
Jokes aside, England deserves to be ranked number one in Test cricket, and not India. Just look at England’s Test record.
In the last one year, they beat Pakistan 3-1 in England, retained the Ashes 3-1 in Australia and went on to defeat the strong Sri Lankans 1-0 in England. And they are 2-0 against currently ranked number one, but highly shell-shocked India.
There are some explanations for India’s fall and fall in recent months. Or excuses?
Due to injury, their flamboyant match-winning opener, Virender Sehwag did not play in both the Tests India was shampooed in England. His partner Gautam Gambhir was injured in the Lord’s Test and missed the Trent Bridge Test.
Same was the case with their reverse swing king, Zaheer Khan and to a lesser degree, off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and all-rounder Yuvraj Singh.
To lose five players is a crippling handicap and not an excuse. But who is to blame for it?
It was the meaningless IPL which was behind these injuries. BCCI should either ban it or not allow current Test players to play for it.
It’s either money or your country. You cannot serve two masters.
Also, these days, the Test cricketers are well paid even if they do not participate in the IPL circus.
The fact is that England proved to be, by far, the better team in the series. No ifs and buts.
They out-batted, out-bowled, out-fielded and out-gunned India.
Their lower order batsmen, Stuart Broad, Matt Prior and Tim Bresnan performed better than India’s highly-rated top order, except Rahul Dravid. Sachin Tendulkar was particularly disappointing.
India still has quality batsmen to total 400 per innings. But with their poor attack, England can always reply with more than 400.
A brief look at statistics indicates a huge difference in the performances of the two teams so far with two Tests still to go.
Against five English batsmen topping an average of 50.00 (Kevin Pietersen 98.33, Prior 82.66, Broad 60.66, Ian Bell 58.75 and Bresnan 50.50), only a lone Indian had an average of over 50; Dravid at 87.33.
English bowling out-classed India; Broad capturing 15 wickets at 11.33 (including a hat-trick that flattened India), Bresnan seven at 13.71 and Jimmy Anderson has 24 at 23.58. Only one Indian could take over 10 wickets; Praveen Kumar, who has 13 at 26.53.
In short, England number one, then daylight!
In the Test arena, Broad became only the seventh cricketer to take a hat-trick and score a century in their Test careers. The others are John Briggs (England), Wasim Akram and Abdul Razzaq (Pakistan), Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan (India) and James Franklin (New Zealand).
Kersi Meher-Homji
Guest
Much has been made on Alastair Cook's great batting form against India in the current series. He did play a big innings of 294 in the 3rd Test in Brmingham. But in the first two Tests in this series he had scored 12, 1, 2 and 5 to average a measly 5.00. This should inspire the Indians. At least four of them (Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar and VVS) are capable of doing a Cook in the The Oval Test starting today. Come on, India. You are not as bad as you have pictured yourselves in the first three Tests.
Kersi Meher-Homji
Guest
Good on you, England. A well-deserved and convincing Test win and series victory. Cook out-scored India in both innings. What next?
James
Guest
im pretty sure slivio is just being a troll. yes a few of the starting english 11 were born in another country, however as mentioned of them strauss and prior both moved here when very young and i really dont think you can find a more englishman than strauss really. of the others only really pieterson could be even by a stretch be called a ring in but all of them are englishmen and consider themselves thus. what does the country of birth have to do with it if you go to another country before you are even a teenager, if any of us moved to a country at that age and have lived there for 20 years or so im pretty sure they would consider themselves english. but yes i agree with you calling cook soft, he is definetely a choker out for 294 is unforgivable. he should go back to singing and leave cricket to the real men like all of the mighty wonderful manly men that make up the australian team
Kersi Meher-Homji
Guest
A lead of 486 runs over a team having three all-time great batsmen, Tendulkar, Dravid and VVS! And Cook scoring 70 more runs off his own bat than the whole Indian team! England deserves her No. 1 ranking for sure.
amazonfan
Roar Guru
No problem. :D
Kersi Meher-Homji
Guest
Thank you, Amazonfan, for this interesting addition (Warne being the one to take a hat-trick and have a top score of 99 in his amazing Test career).
amazonfan
Roar Guru
If Shane Warne had scored just one more run, he would have joined that list. He's the only cricketer to have taken a hat-trick and to have top scored with 99 throughout his career. :D
ChrisT
Guest
Yep, as I thought. Still waiting ....
fisher price
Guest
"...neither cook nor bell would make the Australian team, both are too ‘soft’." Yeah, sure. How many 'harder' Aussie batsmen are better than them?
Bayman
Guest
sliv mate, Having spent last summer watching Cook I reckon he's an outside chance of getting in our side, should the opportunity arise. Bell I saw last week make a hundred and look pretty good doing it. Another outside chance, I reckon. I'm not sure where the "soft" rating came from but Cook last summer made almost as many runs as our first three top order batsmen and he did it in about a quarter of the innings they needed. On reflection, better than an outside chance. Meanwhile, Bell makes a hundred about every fourth Test and makes fifty or more at better than one in three innings. I'd be more than happy with that. He can play in our team, too!
Kersi Meher-Homji
Guest
Once again England showed their superiority over India on the opening day of the Birmingham Test yesterday. Hope India puts up some fight today and the next three days. What's gone wrong with Indian cricket? Not exactly "from subline to ridiculous" but "from high to fragile".
Colin N
Guest
Cook....soft? Of all the things, Cook seems very mentally tough to me. Having endured wretched form leading into the Ashes and then to have the series he had shows a huge amount of mental toughness. He's also someone who you can rely on to dig in and generally has the temperament to play long innings. An example of this is the first day of the current test when he clearly hasn't been in great knick, but has battled away and not given his wicket away so far and by doing that, has given himself a chance of making a decent score (whether he does or not remains to be seen) As for Bell, well, he always had the reputation of being mentally frail, but has had a storming past 12 months, and his average has rocketed as a result. And improvements in his mental state was illustrated when on a difficult pitch at Trent Bridge, he came in early after the dismissal of Cook and the injury to Trott, to see out the new ball and score a big hundred. "A common malaise amongst English sportsmen!" Well, the same could be said of the Aussie cricket and rugby union sides in the last few years!!
slivio
Guest
It isn't double standards, I gave the example of Australian rugby!. I know the Australian cricket team are rubbish at the moment, neither cook nor bell would make the Australian team, both are too 'soft'. A common malaise amongst English sportsmen! And in case you missed it, I gave full credit to the English bowlers, it's the batsmen/wicketkeepers that are ring-ins.
slivio
Guest
Which question? I assume you are referring to the batting stats, as I answered your other rather obvious queries.(but I guess that's not convenient) I simply cannot be arsed to go trawling through stats on current batsmen to answer your wilful ignorance on the damn obvious. Try asking yourself this basic question-Who have been the best 'England' batsmen over the past half dozen years? And how many are 'English'? The stats will reflect the painfully apparent. Why so deluded? Does coming from a country so devoid of sporting success, matter so much? The 'England' cricket team is just a sad example of the flags of convenience, of which I gave other examples (including Australian rugby), which are taking the sport out of sport. And all the head-in-the-sand denial and bleating isn't going to change the fact that any achievements by said team are hollow and essentially without merit (as a 'national' team.)
Barkis
Guest
What fun it is to see English desperation!!!
ChrisT
Guest
That's the problem with statistics Kersi. Often meaningless in isolation.
ChrisT
Guest
Johnno, would you care to define 'poaching' and explain who and how it was conducted?
ChrisT
Guest
That must come as a real relief to all England's recent opponents. Forget searching for any new talented batsmen or bowlers, just get down the gym, get down the pub, get yourself a year planner and get yourself along to a few of them smarts classes. That's really all you need do. Your fine.
Ovalball
Guest
Strauss and prior were both born in SA to English parents. Strauss moved here as a baby and prior when he wass 11. Kieswetter, dernbach, and lumb are no where near the test team and in and out of the ODI team. You conveniently ignore facts like actual nationality, and the achievements of jimmy a, swann, tremlett, broad, bresnan, cook, bell all of whom would walk into the Oz side Also it's double standards coming from an Aussie
Viscount Crouchback
Guest
The interesting thing about this England team is that individually they seem little more talented than their competitors. I remember lots of comments on the Roar before the Ashes that there wasn't much to choose between Australia and England - I agreed then and, frankly, I think this is probably still the case even now (the bowlers possibly excepted). England's edge over everybody else seems to come from planning, fitness, spirit, cohesiveness and "smarts" rather than from pure talent. It's fascinating. Flower's methods really ought to be a prime case study for sports scientists.