Sub-Continent - No longer a place to fear?

[swghayward79]

Sub-Continent - No longer a place to fear?

Increasingly, visiting teams seem to be doing better than before on their visits to the subcontinent, which the home teams once considered as their bastion.

South Africa have all but whitewashed Pakistan at home in Tests, Australia have got the better of India and perhaps most surprisingly, England have thoroughly defeated Sri Lanka in ODIs.

It leaves me wondering if modern visiting players are getting used to subcontinental conditions and wickets because of the amount of cricket played these days?

 

[deer]

Re: Sub-Continent - No longer a place to fear?

three teams beat the subcontinental teams at home at the same time. i think it is a conincidence. south africa are strugging against pakistan in the ODI series. Australia are the best team in the world so they would have won anyway.england played very well except for 2 games when they were horrible.

 

[StanTheMan]

Re: Sub-Continent - No longer a place to fear?

There may be some merit in that point of view. Of course there will be times in the future that the Asian teams are back on top again.

In this modern world all the things that players used to fear are gone, the food is better, tours aren't as long and they no prepare properly.

In the olden days you'd have a 6 month tour and players would already have a bad mindset before even stepping off the plane or boat.

It's a world of change nowadays.

 

[mas cambios]

Re: Sub-Continent - No longer a place to fear?

I have to agree somewhat with Stan as things are different in this modern age.

If I had the prospect of touring India or Pakistan 30 years ago or more it would have been a wonderful but daunting prospect for many reasons. Not least the completely different climate, culture and food but the time away from loved ones.

Look at the current England tour - they get to go home in-between!

 

[Mr-Cricket]

Re: Sub-Continent - No longer a place to fear?

Most batsmen seem to struggle nowadays when faced with bowlers who can do something with the ball, I don't think its a sub-continent thing.

In fact with tours to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, players will now be that much more use to playing on the sub-continent, and possibly more use to it than to playing the swinging ball.

Both Pakistan and India are teams in transition (or at least India should be, but they stupidly recalled Ganguly, Tendulkar and Dravid instead of going for a younger, more mobile team like in the 20:20). Not sure what is up with Sri Lanka, although Murali is a massive loss.

 

[swghayward79]

Re: Sub-Continent - No longer a place to fear?

Both Pakistan and India are teams in transition (or at least India should be, but they stupidly recalled Ganguly, Tendulkar and Dravid instead of going for a younger, more mobile team like in the 20:20). Not sure what is up with Sri Lanka, although Murali is a massive loss.

I had jumped on that particular bandwagon a few weeks ago, but it is clear now that it would have actually have been a stupid decision to dump all of them. All said and done, this team isn't that different from the one that won the Twenty20 World Cup. Only Sharma hasn't been given a proper go in this series (which I think he should have been).

Fielding is important in ODIs but players can't be selected for their fielding alone. To shift Ganguly and Tendulkar off the opening slot, Gambhir and Uthappa have to start scoring more runs in the opportunities they get. I fear neither is going to survive for long at this level, though Uthappa really can score at a brisk pace when he gets set. India have to see if the next set of youngsters - Sharma, Badrinath, Tiwary, Parthiv Patel - are better suited to the highest level. If they succeed, then the selectors' decision to drop the seniors will become easier.

 

[AB]

Re: Sub-Continent - No longer a place to fear?

I think India struggled mainly because it was Australia they were playing. Also, it was Dhoni's first ODI series as captain and he made some decisions in the 6th ODI that cost India the game. It could have been a drawn series otherwise. South Africa performed well in the Tests, but not surprisingly they are struggling against the spinners in the ODIs. If Murali was playing, I think, the England-Sri Lanka ODI series could have easily gone in favour of Sri Lanka. Its not a massive improvement, but there has been notable improvement.

 

[Rohitpatel]

Re: Sub-Continent - No longer a place to fear?

I think many batsman have improved how they play in sub continent. The good batsman will always want to improve their records but some people still struggle in the sub continent. I think batting has improved but they dont have spinner which can take full advantage of sub continent pitches.