3-0 is NOT a Disaster!

Contrary to what many people believe, losing this series 3-0 is not a disaster. OK, we may lose our NO.1 Ranking if the Saffers whitewash the Kiwis but I don't see that happening. Our era of dominance is still on.

Firstly, and most importantly, Pakistan are a very good cricketing side. They probably wouldn't beat us in England, but on their own patch I'd wager that they could beat all the Test Sides. Playing in Dubai suits them. With the conditions in mind, this was the most fearsome bowling attack that England had faced in a long time and maybe our batsmen underestimated them a bit. We won't come up against this level of bowling for the rest of this year. Mendis is a quarter of the spinner that Ajmal is and India's bowling attack is in disarray. As for the Summer Tests, Steyn and Morkel will be our biggest threat and that's fast bowling which we can play.

Secondly, only half of our team is faulty. Our bowlers bowled beautifully and will be able to take stacks of wickets this year providing they stay fit. This isn't like being whitewashed against the Aussies in 2006/7. Against Pakistan, we should have won the second test and we certainly should have hammered them in the third test but we didn't thanks to inept batting and great bowling. You can easily see the chinks of light.

Lastly, the opposition gets easier from here on. Sri Lanka should be a close 1-0 win for the English but I would take a draw - that's IF we bat well. I have full confidence in our bowlers and if our batsmen come to the party there will be only one winner, England. Then it's home to the West Indies which should be an easy 3-0 win for England unless rain interferes. Then the Saffers, 2-0 England. We bully the opposition at home and will do so against South Africa - mind you, this series should be 5 tests. Finally, India. Unless they sort out their side by October, England should be comfortable here.

Duty281 wrote: Finally, India. Unless they sort out their side by October, England should be comfortable here.

Comedy gold, Only SA have threatened IND in IND in the past 10 years. IND will win 3-0

England have to remodel their hwhole approach - not easy at all. This leg out kicking away stuff doesnt work any more. Think this is a disaster - I mean its not as if you can say - well it could have been 4-0 or 5 -0. I suppose the only solace you can take from this series is that your bowlers are brilliant even in tough conditions - and that you knew beforehand anway.

Oh and demon congrats on calling a correct series victor. Hope you made some money on it.

ShahenshahG wrote:Oh and demon congrats on calling a correct series victor. Hope you made some money on it.

Thanks ShahenshahG, no money on it though, don't like betting!

Same here but I always regret not putting money on it when I call one right

Demon Racer wrote:

Duty281 wrote: Finally, India. Unless they sort out their side by October, England should be comfortable here.

Comedy gold, Only SA have threatened IND in IND in the past 10 years. IND will win 3-0

When England touch down in India, our bowlers will be facing an ageing, past their best batting line up. And India's bowling is far from world-class.

3-0 India

ShahenshahG wrote:England have to remodel their hwhole approach - not easy at all. This leg out kicking away stuff doesnt work any more. Think this is a disaster - I mean its not as if you can say - well it could have been 4-0 or 5 -0. I suppose the only solace you can take from this series is that your bowlers are brilliant even in tough conditions - and that you knew beforehand anway.

Not a disaster, could have easily been 2-1 England but because of inept batting it wasn't so. Plus, I didn't know how our bowlers would fare in the subcontinent.

Duty281 wrote:

Demon Racer wrote:

Duty281 wrote: Finally, India. Unless they sort out their side by October, England should be comfortable here.

Comedy gold, Only SA have threatened IND in IND in the past 10 years. IND will win 3-0

When England touch down in India, our bowlers will be facing an ageing, past their best batting line up. And India's bowling is far from world-class.

3-0 India

IND have lost one series at home in 10 years, that was to AUS(when AUS had their Legends). ENG don't compare to AUS.

India's OAPs won't be playing in the series. Laxman and Dravid will be gone before their tour to SL. Tendulkar might play on, I hope not though, as he's passed it.

ENG have won 1 Test in IND in the last 20 years.

Swann and Panesar(orthodox spinners) will be milked all day long.

If they prepare pitches that suit their spinners, it will be 4-0 then.

England said they were under prepared, you can guarantee for India next winter they will work as hard if not harder than they did for the ashes last winter

Demon Racer wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

Demon Racer wrote:

Duty281 wrote: Finally, India. Unless they sort out their side by October, England should be comfortable here.

Comedy gold, Only SA have threatened IND in IND in the past 10 years. IND will win 3-0

When England touch down in India, our bowlers will be facing an ageing, past their best batting line up. And India's bowling is far from world-class.

3-0 India

IND have lost one series at home in 10 years, that was to AUS(when AUS had their Legends). ENG don't compare to AUS.

India's OAPs won't be playing in the series. Laxman and Dravid will be gone before their tour to SL. Tendulkar might play on, I hope not though, as he's passed it.

ENG have won 1 Test in IND in the last 20 years.

Swann and Panesar(orthodox spinners) will be milked all day long.

If they prepare pitches that suit their spinners, it will be 4-0 then.

Their spinners are currently 1/10th of the ability of Swann so I don't see the worry.

As for winning 1 test in the last 20 years, for the majority of those 20 years we've been crap. We're not any more and if India's OAPs aren't are playing that means some IPL batsmen will be drafted up. I'm not shaking, Pakistan are twice the team that India are.

I seriously doubt that England will beat us 2-0. Both teams have decent batting and some very in form fast bowlers. Philander is still in great form in the Supersport series and Boucher and Duminy are both working hard on their batting, in fact they each got a 100 on the weekend.

To think India is going to be easy meat in India is false bravado. They have always been totally different there than away.

As someone aluded to earlier that England had been crap for most of the last decade, India were as well

Duty281 wrote:

Their spinners are currently 1/10th of the ability of Swann so I don't see the worry.

As for winning 1 test in the last 20 years, for the majority of those 20 years we've been crap. We're not any more and if India's OAPs aren't are playing that means some IPL batsmen will be drafted up. I'm not shaking, Pakistan are twice the team that India are.

In the recent ODI series in IND, Swann was dreadful. IND's 1/10th spinners had ENG in knots. Not bad for 1/10th bowlers, whatever the hell that means.

With regards to Swann, he was dreadful in the UAE as well, Panesar was miles better than him. Swann somewhat boosted his figures by picking up tailenders, whilst Panesar was troubling the top order.

Need I remind you, Warne and Muralitharan(legends of the game) where dealt with in IND with ease. Swann isn't in their class or has their talent/skill.

Demon Racer wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

Their spinners are currently 1/10th of the ability of Swann so I don't see the worry.

As for winning 1 test in the last 20 years, for the majority of those 20 years we've been crap. We're not any more and if India's OAPs aren't are playing that means some IPL batsmen will be drafted up. I'm not shaking, Pakistan are twice the team that India are.

In the recent ODI series in IND, Swann was dreadful. IND's 1/10th spinners had ENG in knots. Not bad for 1/10th bowlers, whatever the hell that means.

With regards to Swann, he was dreadful in the UAE as well, Panesar was miles better than him. Swann somewhat boosted his figures by picking up tailenders, whilst Panesar was troubling the top order.

Need I remind you, Warne and Muralitharan(legends of the game) where dealt with in IND with ease. Swann isn't in their class or has their talent/skill.

Different kettle of fish, old chap, is ODI cricket to Test Cricket. Anyway, my point is that Swann is better than any Indian spinner presently as is Panesar. If England sort the batting, piece of cake.

Duty281 wrote:

Different kettle of fish, old chap, is ODI cricket to Test Cricket. Anyway, my point is that Swann is better than any Indian spinner presently as is Panesar. If England sort the batting, piece of cake.

Not really, ODI is the stepping stone to Test cricket.

If Swann couldn't contain in an ODI, where batsmen are more likely to throw their wickets away, what hope has he got when the IND batsmen are batting for 2 days?

Panesar has never been successful against IND, so whatever he did against PAK is meaningless. PAK play spin poorly compared to SL and IND.

Let's see how Panesar/Swann do in SL, they won't be donating their wickets either.

Not being a betting man, I'll stick my neck out that 1/10th spinners will outperform Swann/Panesar.

do we not seem to be forgetting the England seam attack here, if they make in roads there is little need for spinners regardless of how well they bowl there or are played by the indians. Dravid amongst others recently has shown he is more susecptable against good pace now, Finn and Broad there. So we could bolster our seam attack with an extra seamer taking the reliance away from the spinner

hodge wrote:do we not seem to be forgetting the England seam attack here, if they make in roads there is little need for spinners regardless of how well they bowl there or are played by the indians. Dravid amongst others recently has shown he is more susecptable against good pace now, Finn and Broad there. So we could bolster our seam attack with an extra seamer taking the reliance away from the spinner

Unless ENG have Dale Steyn cloned, then I don't think the seamers will be as potent. Finn would do the job, but he never gets selected....

Well as raw pace was highlighted as what Dravid and co were struggling the england selectors may feel Finn would be the way forward. Broad is well up there on pace as well, then Anderson isn't exactly a sloth in how he bowls

hodge wrote:Well as raw pace was highlighted as what Dravid and co were struggling the england selectors may feel Finn would be the way forward. Broad is well up there on pace as well, then Anderson isn't exactly a sloth in how he bowls

In IND the short, skiddy bowlers do well, eg Steyn 26 wickets @ 20.

Taller bowler struggle, eg Morne 12 wickets @ 41

Its nearly impossible to push the INDs on the backfoot on their pitches, due to no real bounce.

ok seing as how this will have all been researched and analysed by the england staff i'm sure they will have a plan to pitch it up when they are there. Broad seems to have done ok in UAE

Most on this cricket forum predicted an England series win against Pakistan of 2-0. So I would suggest a 3-0 England loss to Pakistan was a bit of a disaster in terms of the predictions.

England are still as "good" as they were before arriving in Abu Dhabi to play Pakistan - they are just not very good playing (batting) in these "sub-continental" conditions against "decent" opposition. Hopefully they can learn from their experiences ... although they were also whitewashed 5-0 in the ODI series in India last October.

(P.S. when you hear news that Yuvraj Singh has cancer it puts everything into perspective. Cricket is "just" a sport).

One thing I have notice is that the current England bowlers have very little experience of Indian conditions, Swann has only played 2 tests there, Panesar has played 5 but have only taken 11 wikcets at 55, Broad has only played 2 tests, Anderson 3. Firstly looking at their wicket taking abilities in India and the averages they will most likely continue to struggle there.

This would mean big Indian totals to chase down, even if it is percieved that the Indian batsmen have struggled in Australia. Gambhir has been struggling with form for a while now, Sehwag is a different beast at home, Dravid and Tendulkar know these conditions and will once again do well.

Strauss has been strong in India, but hasn't played there since 2008, Cook has been solid, Bell has been poor in India, Pietersen solid, Trott has never been there, Prior had a decent time there in 2008.

So overall no English batsman owns the conditions there with a number having solid performances there but nothing really to get excited about either.

I can see a few draws if the english batsmen perform and apply themselves, but India should win this.

i really dont think that looking at a stats from a test series 4 years ago has any bearing whatsoever on the series we will see in india later this year. did the outcome of the series india played in england in 2007 reflect what happened last year ?

almost every player in the england team is better individually than they were 4 years ago, and as a team we are significantly better than we were then

whereas most of the indian side have declined as players imo since then and the lack of spirit and fight they have showed as a whole during the two away series defeats has not looked good for them

england WILL learn and improve from the series just gone and i maintain that the quality of bowling we will see from india later this year will not be as consistent as what we just saw from pakistan

before australia last year all the talk was that the england bowlers would struggle to take 20 wickets, we heard the same before the series against india in england, and yet again for the pakistan series in the UAE, every single time our bowlers have came through for us and i see no reason to suggest that this is going to change

rich1uk wrote:i really dont think that looking at a stats from a test series 4 years ago has any bearing whatsoever on the series we will see in india later this year. did the outcome of the series india played in england in 2007 reflect what happened last year ?

almost every player in the england team is better individually than they were 4 years ago, and as a team we are significantly better than we were then

Rich the stats and experience of the english players in India has a lot of bearing, yes they have improved, but when you look at the Pakistan series, and how they have failed as batsmen, you would be foolish to ignore the trend of England in India and Asia as a whole.

how can you predict a series in 2012 based on how they did in 2008 , there are different players involved and different levels of overall experience

as i said if past series were reliable as indicators of a series 4 years later then how come india lost 4-0 in england last year after winning in 2007

all teams have a bad series, we had a very bad one in the UAE but we will learn from it. tbh we should have won the second test, we were the better team for the majority of the match and even with the struggles they had 145 was gettable. and if we had managed to win that game the dynamics for the 3rd test would have been completely different.

even the pakistan batsmen who have had alot of experience in those conditions struggles bigtime with the bat for the vast majority of the game

too much is being read into what just happened in that series and too much knee-jerking and stereotyping going on

Nonsense. I lloked at player who played for england then.

You learn from the past. If Flower ignores the 2008 series he will be able to teach his players nothing.

The Pakistan series have shown glaring weaknesses (perhaps they were aware of it before) in their batting. They have little time to correct that.

I have said on numerous occassions that no kneejerk is necessary.

you still haven't answered my question

if you can make predictions based on previous series 4 years ago then why did india lose 4-0 last year after winning the series in 2007 ?

surely if form from 4 years ago was so important as you suggest then india should have at least been competitive last year, or is it that different players in some positions combined with changes in experience, age and form over a four year period make it nonsensical to use that as a reliable guide to what might or might not happen

Rich, I am not making a prediction on the basis of 4 yesr ago. I am looking at the following factors.

Your bowlers do not have much experience in India.
Panesar has the most experience in India with an average at 50.
Your Batsmen struggle in Asia and currently struggle wth form.
Pakistan showed once again your batsmen struggle in those conditions.

we have had one bad series ...

and as i said above even the pakistan batsmen, who should be comfortable in those conditions struggled

i am not worried about our bowlers at all , i think they have shown as a unit that they can compete anywhere against any opposition in tests

i cant see the batsmen playing as badly as that again, they should learn from that and by the time we get to india we will have been playing cricket for about 6 months solid so will have no excuses for being under-prepared again

india dont play any test cricket for 7-8 months now and have quite a few question marks over who is going to still be around for that series as well and their bowling attack is not as good as pakistan's is atm imo. pakistan bowled incredibly well and hardly bowled a bad ball which meant they built up almost unrelenting pressure on the batsmen. i dont see ishant, ashwin or yadav being able to do that and khan is a shadow of his former self imo.

I've given up predicting matches after we beat India 4-0 and then lost to Pakistan 3-0.

Inexperience can be a bad thing but not always. I don't have too many worries with our bowlers getting milked by India's batsmen.

And our batters will surely look at the Pakistan series and look at their technique and attitude at playing spin in the sub con.

if, we have a similar experience against sri lanka that we just had in the UAE, then i might start to have some concerns but i will wait to see what happens there first

Theres another 4 test series to play for this year, win them all and the Pakistan series result will have little meaning.