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Are India the best Test cricket team at the moment?

Bowled on 7th December, 2009 at 07:51 by King Cricket
Category: India cricket news

We’d say India have as good a claim as anyone to being the best Test cricket team at the moment.

Batting

Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Mahendra Dhoni. This is not shit. They’re all fantastic batsmen and they’re all different.

We mean they’re all different in terms of batting style, rather than in the sense of their being distinct individuals. Repeatedly using the same batsman but in different disguises is tricky to pull off with all the TV cameras these days. The downside is that some of those batsmen are approaching ‘let’s have a nice sit down’ age.

Bowling

Spin bowling’s been better, but India rarely need to seriously worry about this part of the game. Pace bowling is as strong as it’s ever been and there’s depth to it too. You wouldn’t say that India have the best pace bowlers in the world, but no country’s really ahead of them either.

So are they the best?

If you want to write a crowd-pleasing cricket website, it’s all about the outlandish proclamations, so here’s ours: India are among the better Test teams in world cricket and for the moment probably have as good a claim as any to being the best, even if there’s not much in it.

We’re thinking about getting that put on a T-shirt.

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  1. Reply
    chowkster   //   December 7th, 2009 at 14:29

    Currently there’s a ridiculous amount of hype on Indian TV about this. Every news channel has done at least one 30 minute show, playing the same quotes from Sehwag, Dhoni and Sachin in an endless loop. People on the other hand seem to be taking this in the right way – sure this is an achievement, but it will probably be a short-lived one and there isn’t much to choose from the top 4 test countries.

    One channel wanted to show people dancing in the street in Najafgarh (Sehwag’s hometown) but couldn’t find any. So they hired a crowed of street dancer and played it on a loop.

    Indian news channels suck.

  2. Reply
    chowkster   //   December 7th, 2009 at 14:31

    The sheer amount of jingoism on Indian TV makes me want to root for Pakistan.

  3. Reply
    e normous   //   December 7th, 2009 at 17:35

    not the fact that Pakistan are just generally more entertaining?

  4. Reply
    chowkster   //   December 8th, 2009 at 07:19

    Not when they are playing India.

  5. Reply
    John   //   December 14th, 2009 at 23:38

    i am not so sure. coz if you loose a match. it doesn’t matter how good you are.

  6. Reply
    Sir Paddles   //   December 16th, 2009 at 12:50

    You can say all you want about how good their bowling and batting is.

    They’re fielding’s still shit though.

    Maybe they should hire Jonty?

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