when was the last time england has beaten i

Yeah England only win when the opponents are rubbish?

I just fail to see how England could beat India otherwise. When Ganguly and Dravid played in the second and third test, England hardly looked the dominant team. When have England even looked like a winning team against Ind?
Even for the series this summer all major Indian players should sit out injured if England are to win. Else India are atm too strong for them.

that is your opinion kunjumon, but i think you maybe a bit over confident. let's see how it goes, but i have a sneeking suspicion that you will dissapointingly suprised

England will bowl such a good line the likes of Dravid will go so slow the scoring rate will be none existent..

India chose not to play Ganguly and Dravid in the first Test. I just looked up the team we played with and they were a pile of rubbish.

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Didn't they make their debuts in the next test?

we stuffed em in 1990

on paper the india team in that 96 match looks far strogner than england. jadeja, manjraker, tendulkar, azzhurudin, srinath, prasad v one of the worst looking england teams there's been.

India should be ashamed of themselves that given that they have millions and millions more players playing the game than England, Australia, West Indies, new Zealand and South Africa put together, that they haven't got the infrastructure to raise more players of better quality to ensure that they are no1 in the World year after year.

Too many Administrators dipping their bread into the gravy to satisfy personal greed.

town whiner:
Don't you have better things to do than worry about India's finances and administration? We have a billion people here to worry about it and even if we don't make a good job of it, I don't think one extra Englishman/whomsoever you may be will make any difference.

Now, back to the point at hand, England did win the 1996 series against India, but that was against quite a poor side.

In fact, the English side was considerably stronger especially in the 1st Test at Birmingham which was ultimately the decisive one in the series.

I don't understand how English fans can even state that it was one of the poorest English sides.

Let's look at India's batting:
Rathour played only 6 Tests and Jadeja played 15 Tests over a career spanning 8 years.

Nayan Mongia was the makeshift opener and even though he has hit a few knocks at the top of the order in India where the new ball doesn't swing as much as in a wet English summer, nobody in his right mind would say Mongia is a decent opener compared to the Englishmen Athers and Stewart.

Even though Azhar and Manjrekar were in the side, they weren't in form.

In fact throughout the series only three batsmen made runs- Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid.

Just compare India's batting lineup to England's:
Athers, Stewart, Thorpe, Hussain, Knight, Hick, Irani, Russell

Rathour, Jadeja, Mongia, Manjrekar, Azhar, Tendulkar,

That's only the batting.
In the bowling department, England had two excellent bowlers in Cork and Lewis.

Srinath and Prasad were nowhere in that class and since it was their first tour to England they were also pretty inexperienced as well.

India's first change bowler was Paras Mhambrey of all people- he played only two Tests in his life!

There was actually immense pressure on the selectors to pick Ganguly and Dravid for the first Test and immediately after the loss, there was almost uproar with calls of favoritism etc (since Jadeja was from Mumbai while Ganguly and Dravid were from Kolkata and Bangalore- not so established as Mumbai then).

I have no doubts in suggesting that had Ganguly (whose seam bowling was more than useful in English conditions) and Dravid been selected in the first Test, India would have saved it or won it especially since Tendulkar hit a chanceless century in the 1st Test but had no Indian for support (nobody else reached 20).

By the time India toured England next, in 2002, they had learnt their lessons and the selection was bold- with Sehwag opening and India drew the series 1-1.

Just wanted to clear up misconceptions.

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