England V India Series Ratings

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So the whitewash is over with a spectacular unraveling of the Indian batting lineup from 262-3 to 283 allout.
Here are my ratings for the series.

England.
Andrew Strauss 5(The England captain has had a series that he would cherish, as under his leadership, England climbed to the top of the test rankings, and inflicted a complete thrashing on India with a whitewash. But the captain couldn't keep his high standards up with the bat. got a few starts but never really converted any of those into a big hundred. Also put down a couple of chances in the slips).
Alastair Cook 7(Cook struggled in the early parts of the series like his captain, but played a monumental innings in the 3rd match and got a few starts as well. One big knock in a 4 match series shouldn't give you a 7, but it really was a massive one).
Jonathan Trott 4(Trott got injured midway during the series, and apart from a fine hand in the first innings at Lord's he didn't post a big one).
Kevin Pietersen 9(The most consistent England batsman for England. when the big stage came, Pietersen showed his class. 2 hundreds, both biggies, one a trend setting double in asituation when England otherwise struggled a bit against the Indian bowling. 2 more 50 + scores in the other 2 matches, and some fill up overs to help the bowling unit and a few catches in the field).
Ian Bell 8(Like Pietersen, Bell also scored 2 hundreds in the series and continues to show his class. wasted a few starts, and of course was involved in that silly runout drama).
Eoin Morgan 6(scored a hundred and a quick 70 in the series, but Morgan needs to work on his technique and achiev greater consistency. Questions on his test match abilities haven't quite gone away, but Morgan showed enough to give him more chances, particularly in spin friendly conditions).
Matt Prior 8(showed with the bat in the early parts of the series at crucial moments, and was mostly tidy behind the wickets. had a bit of a trouble keeping to Swann on a turning pitch in the last match).
Stuart Broad 9(What a fine series he had. Lot of us wouldn't have had him in the side at the beginning of the series. But Broad showed with both bat and ball throughout the series. Without him the Trent Bridge turn around would not have been possible, and even in the first match, he was the difference between the 2 teams. Broad managed to keep the level of intensity up throughout the series, and very importantly, just like his fuller length, he was mostly well behaved!!).
Graeme Swann 7(Swann came into his real self in the last match picking up 9 wickets. He may not have picked many wickets otherwise, but other than in Trent Bridge, he bowled with decent control, and chipped in with a wicket or 2 while the seamers were inflicting most of the damage. More importantly, in the first match, along with KP he changed a good team total into a fine one, and his partnership with Broad was crucial in turning the Trent Bridge crisis around).
Chris Tremlett 5(Lot of people expected Tremlett to be the main threat in the England attack. He did no harm for that reputation in the only match he played by troubling each of India's top order batter. He didn't have many wickets to show for all that though, and then his participation in the rest of the series was limited by an injury).
James Anderson 8(Jimmy show why he's the leadder of the attack with a consistent display throughout the series. when the ball swung he was nearly unplayable, and even when it didn't he proved to be a real impact bowler. He really made some early strikes that put the Indian batting under pressure from the outset).
Tim Bresnan 8(Stormed into the team when Chris Tremlett got injured, and has made a strong claim to retain him even when Tremlett will be available. a fine all-round performace from the big man.
Ravi Bopara 4(Bopara had a tough time. Came into a situation where he couldn't have succeeded and failed, and although looked in decent touch in the last match, didn't have the time to go on to a big one. His bowling didn't prove no more threatening than that of Pietersen or Trott).

India.
Gautam Gambhir 4(A series of injuries and unconverted starts for Gambhir).
Abhinav Mukund 2(is a future prospect, but not quite ready for international cricket as yet).
Rahul Dravid 9(was outstanding throughout the series, the only one who really stood up when everyone else around him were busy going down. 3 hundreds in the series, and no other Indian scored another one. His reflexes in the field may have slowed a littl but a real class act from the wall.
Sachin Tendulkar 5(2 50s and no ton of tons for Tendulkar. got a few starts, but never played a Tendulkar innings).
VVS Laxman 5(Laxman sparkled briefly, but no big scores from India's crisis man in a series where they moved from one crisis to another).
Suresh Raina 3(played 1 good innings otherwise looked like a walking wicket).
Mahendra Singh Dhoni 5(A series the Indian captain would love to forget as soon as possible. showed some fight in the 3rd test, otherwise not much of a show with the bat, and had a poor series with the gloves).
Harbhajan Singh 1(was a liability with the ball in the 2 matches he played, and even the timely runs didn't come although he scored a 46 when all was lost in the 2nd game. Got injured and missed the rest of the series). Praveen Kumar 8(The only Indian bowler who looked like picking up a wicket. Praveen surpassed expectations. Swung the ball and showed great control although bowled with no great pace. His lower order hitting was wonderful entertainment. unfortunately missed out on the last match).
Zaheer Khan 5(He was on the field for a session and a half, and in that time Zaheer made the Indian bowling unit look much better than it actually is. But he was not fit enough and India really missed him).
Ishant Sharma 5(Ishant bowled well in patches, but was never consistent enough).
S Sreesanth 4(like Sharma Sreesanth also bowled a few good spels and overs, but lacked any consistency).
Yuvraj Singh 5(What an unfortunate series for Yuvraj. Got an infection after his steller performance in the WC and missed the WI tour, Didn't get selected for the first test, when he got his chance in place of the injured Gambhir, Yuvraj fought it out with a 50 in one of those rare passages India won in the series. Bowled way better than India's main spinners and then again got injured. Questions about his test technique and temprament are very much there, but Yuvraj didn't even get a propper chance to suggest anything).
Amit Mishra 6(like Harbhajan was found wanting with the ball, but contributed runs that enabled India to put up some fight in the last match. In fact looked a better batter than a bowler. Bowls a hell lot of no balls for a spinner).
Virender Sehwag 2(was brought back, as is been made clear now without being fully fit, and that showed in his performance. a total of 41 runs in 4 innings).
RP Singh 1(never deserved to be here, and proved it with his dreadful bowling. bashed a few with the bat to get India to 300 for the first time in the series).

As i have said many times, i am yet to be convinced that Moggs is test quality. He has his good innings' but he just does'nt seem to be test quality in my eyes.
Trott will come back into the side at 3 where he is currently one of the best in the world.
The only player under serious pressure is Moggs.

Gregers wrote:Hildreth is 25ish isn't he?

Should be in the side over Morgan

Surely if Morgan is to be replaced it will be James Taylor who will be brought into the side.

bye bye india lol

Dorothy_Mantooth wrote:

Gregers wrote:Hildreth is 25ish isn't he?

Should be in the side over Morgan

Surely if Morgan is to be replaced it will be James Taylor who will be brought into the side.

Well for teh winter tours and looking ahead to India the immdeiate need is to try for second spinner options. Without a Kallis or even a Collingwood in the side theres no way theyll go with just 2 proper seamers, so that means a batsman going for either Patel (conservative option) or Panessar ( high risk option)...and that batsman, assuming everyone else is fit/not rested would be Morgan...which is tough on him because his speciality is playing against spin.
Next batsman in line for the side, ifd Bopara spontaneuously combusts ..is Taylor. Neitehr he nor Hildreth will go on the winter tours unless its cover for injured rested players though.

I'm not a great fan of ratings for cricket (reckon there are enough stats so we don't need them ,unlike football) but I have to say msp has got it pretty well spot on.
Maybe a little generous to Swann? And I'd give one less for Mishra whose batting heroics don't really make up for the "friendly" bowling , and one more for Sreesanth just for having the bottle to stare down England batsmen at about 500/3

And to msp also congratulations for keeping your sense of humour and spirit despite all the afflictions suffered by your team over the past few weeks. I hope for your sake they can get back some form in the ODIs at least.

England

Andrew Strauss- 5
Alistair Cook- 7
Jonathan Trott- 3
Kevin Pietersen- 9
Ian Bell- 8
Eoin Morgan- 6
Matt Prior- 8
Stuart Broad- 10
Tim Bresnan- 8
Graeme Swann- 6
Chris Tremlett- 5
James Anderson- 9

India

Gautam Gambhir- 3
Abhinav Makund- 3
Rahul Dravid- 9
Sachin Tendulkar- 5
VVS Laxman- 4
Suresh Raina- 2
MS Dhoni- 5
Harbhajan Singh- 1
Zaheer Khan- 5
Amit Mishra- 5
Virender Sehwag- 2
RP Singh- 1

Fists of Fury wrote:An average of 50+ cannot count surely with regard to ratings when it was only over two innings and one of them was a not out... Around 4/5 is fair.

Gregers - to say KP was nowhere near a 10 is, quite simply, ludicrous. Our best batsman averaging over 100, and had no not outs to boost it, it was a truly emphatic series from him.

Just a point on this, I thought KP's double hundred was not out? Didnt we declare straight after he got to it? Not that it should make a difference to the ratings, just a point to be made.

Personally, I don't see how you can distinguish between the two of them in this series, both scored a double hundred, both scored a 150, ok KP got a couple of 50's whereas Bell got a 40 and 30's but at this level, when both players score over 500 runs in a 4 match series and there is a difference of 30 od runs between them, how can you separate them? Both get 9's from me.

However you rate the individuals, it's a team game afterall, so:

England 9.5 - A whitewash and in all honesty a pummeling too, I could have given 10/10 but we weren't quite perfect.

India 3.5 - The much vaunted worlds number one side were simply outclassed in ALL departments and if it wasn't for the outstanding Dravid and some quality from Kumar, I'd only give them a couple of points, at most.

This is not an old England team, realistically only Strauss will come under pressure to retire within the next four years so i really don't see why people are discussing tinkering with batting orders, blooding new players etc. A formula for success has been found and should be stuck with until there is evidence that it is no longer working.

Morgan might be seen as the weak link in this team and i agree he seems to have technical issues against good quality seam bowling but he will play all 5 tests in the winter because the England management like what they see with him.

killer938 wrote:

Fists of Fury wrote:An average of 50+ cannot count surely with regard to ratings when it was only over two innings and one of them was a not out... Around 4/5 is fair.

Gregers - to say KP was nowhere near a 10 is, quite simply, ludicrous. Our best batsman averaging over 100, and had no not outs to boost it, it was a truly emphatic series from him.

Just a point on this, I thought KP's double hundred was not out? Didnt we declare straight after he got to it? Not that it should make a difference to the ratings, just a point to be made.

Personally, I don't see how you can distinguish between the two of them in this series, both scored a double hundred, both scored a 150, ok KP got a couple of 50's whereas Bell got a 40 and 30's but at this level, when both players score over 500 runs in a 4 match series and there is a difference of 30 od runs between them, how can you separate them? Both get 9's from me.

Yeah you may be right actually, either way, it is still a huge amount of runs he scored.

Thanks FF and Alfie.
I just hope the real India turns up for the ODI game. Witout Yuvraj, they already start with an unbalanced side, and from the first choice 11, Sehwag, Harbhajan(who shouldn't actually be first choice in my view), and Zaheer Khan are also missing.
But I am excited by young Varun Aaron, you know he bowls fast, I mean FAST, and we really don't get to see many from our backyard who actually does that at the international level.
It would have been better had he got the opportunity in test matches, as if he gets knocked around a bit, then that may have a bad impact on his confidence.

Andrew Strauss- 6 : Rarely failed but only got to 50 once (however it was an important one as it came after an Indian lower order rally). + 1 for captaincy.
Alistair Cook- 7: only got to 50 once but made sure he made it count.
Jonathan Trott- 5: 1 good knock in 3 innings (I don't count his effort with one arm).
Kevin Pietersen- 8.5: Outstanding. misses out on a 9 as I want to give Broad 9.
Ian Bell- 8.5: ditto. Also one of the best (the best?) short leg fielders of all time.
Eoin Morgan- 7: two good knocks, a special talent who is still trying to find his feet at this level somewhat. I have faith he will turn out to be quality. England's best fielder with Anderson.
Matt Prior- 8: batted very well, kept well (dropped chance was very tough, big edge). Will be more tested in the winter with both gloves and bat.
Stuart Broad- 9: rightly man of the series.
Tim Bresnan- 8: keeps proving the doubters wrong.
Graeme Swann- 6: did ok in the first two tests by keeping it tight and taking the odd wicket. Bowled England to victory at the oval. the best spinner in world cricket by some distance.
Chris Tremlett- 6: bowled well and perhaps unfortunate not to get more wickets. Not sure he'll play the next test match though...
James Anderson- 8: quality bowler who got the wood on Tendulkar.

India

Gautam Gambhir- 4: many starts, many thrown away.
Abhinav Makund- 2: clearly not ready for test cricket yet and I said this after the West Indies tour.
Rahul Dravid- 8: India's best by a mile, loses half a mark for fielding lapses.
Sachin Tendulkar- 4: poor return for such a great player. Looked nervous and played a few uncharacteristically loose shots.
VVS Laxman- 4: sure he got a few good'uns, but how many times did he throw his wicket away?
Suresh Raina- 2: for his bowling mostly. Looked well short of test class with the bat, unable to deal with seam or spin.
MS Dhoni- 3: he had one good innings (first innings of 3rd test). Loads of loose shots outside the off-stump. Poor keeping and overly defensive captaincy.
Harbhajan Singh- 1: did nothing with the ball, played a stupidly irresponsible innings at Lords. Only good thing he did was a swinging 40 with the game already gone. India should look for another spinner.
Zaheer Khan- 7: bowled beautifully but should have rested during IPL.
Amit Mishra- 4: batting heroics aside, his bowling was friendly and geez the no-balls!
Virender Sehwag- 0.5: you see, every time I feel sorry for him I remember the shots he played in the 2nd innings (in both tests).
RP Singh- 1: Boyc's gran would have looked more threatening probably.

Coaches:
Flower-9: brilliant, simple as. Spot on with team selection, tactics, says all the right things, always gives credit to the players. I know a few people who have worked with him and have yet to hear a bad word about the man.

Fletcher-4: tough to judge but doesn't seem to have installed his work ethic on this Indian team. practices looked shoddy a lot of the time, is this from Dhoni? Complacency after the world cup win?

I had not rated Yuvraj initially, now edited the post.

msp83 wrote:Thanks FF and Alfie.
I just hope the real India turns up for the ODI game. Witout Yuvraj, they already start with an unbalanced side, and from the first choice 11, Sehwag, Harbhajan(who shouldn't actually be first choice in my view), and Zaheer Khan are also missing.
But I am excited by young Varun Aaron, you know he bowls fast, I mean FAST, and we really don't get to see many from our backyard who actually does that at the international level.
It would have been better had he got the opportunity in test matches, as if he gets knocked around a bit, then that may have a bad impact on his confidence.

I am looking forward to seeing Aaron, how fast are we talking, high 80's - early 90's?

To be honest, the Tests could have also been a baptism of fire for him, as we had a very in-form batting lineup, and there would be much less field protection for him there.

They said on TMS that hes ben clocked at 150kmph (94mphish) which puts him right up there. True fast bowlers can be really destructive in limitd overs so who knows.

Wow, this should be fun then.

I think that India will turn up for the ODI series. For me they just never looked interested in the test series.

I honestly fee that the IPL is having a very negative impact on test cricket in India.

Add to that we are awful at ODI's in general..

Yeah England arent the best at ODI's. That said, ODI's and T20 seem to be the only versions of the game that India are really interested in now

With 7 months to the next Test match (!) England have some time to concentrate on improving their ODI form ...

Aaron sounds as if he might be interesting to watch. At least India have a chance to try a couple of new young players. Who knows , maybe someone will emerge as a Test prospect?

At the very least the ODI series shouldn't be as one sided as the Tests have been. England may not be a particularly good ODI side, but we will be playing in conditions that suit our players reasonably well and against a somewhat under-strength Indian side.

I think it might be quite a tight series although wouldn't be that surprised if the individual matches were often not that close.

WE ARE NUMBER 1!!!!!!!!!!!!

come on

CF90

Are you STILL celebrating turning 18?

lol haha

HA. That was a funny night

it was lol.

The one possible test prospect of course other than Aaron is young Ajinkya Rahane. He averages well over 60 in 4 seasons of first class cricket, and found his way to the Indian team not through IPL, but by consistently scoring big in the domestic 4 day games. He did well against international opposition in the past, scoring a hundred against the touring Australians last year, and scoring 2 hundreds in the emerging players tournament in Australia just recently.
I just hope he gets a few games and do well.
Ravichandran Ashwin is another one, but for some strange reasons, even after proving he's good enough to be the first choice spinner for India, Harbhajan's shadow has always been there on him, and even when India played without Harbhajan, or played 2 spinners, they opted for mediocre bowlers such as Amit Mishra and Piyush Chawla. now since Harbhajan thankfully is not available, I hope they give Ashwin a propper opportunity and that in turn lead to him finding a way to the test side.

MSP (This has nothing to do with the thread) But would you like to join the IPL Fantasy League? Ran by Gregers

we're number 1

Liam_Main wrote:MSP (This has nothing to do with the thread) But would you like to join the IPL Fantasy League? Ran by Gregers

Never really checked it, now since you've told me, think I should step in at some point.
Haven't really fancied too much of the IPL, watches only the major games, or when CSK plays.

There's still Kings XI Punjab left to take. Take a look at the page, see if you like it and if you do join up.

they are a very good side