India World Champions

england bowling in home conditions looks better off vs indian bowling.

england batting lineup is great but indian batting unit is legendary.

india leadership (Dhoni plus experience of seniors) is clearly ahead of england's.

India's battle readiness after world cup and beating every worthwhile team on the way is still an advantage.

I had underestimated england chances but now rate them highly....what a cracking series coming up.

hoggy - "Support bowlers Sreesanth and Sharma vs. Tremlett and (in all probability) Broad. Touch and go. If Broad hits top form I'd give it to England, as I reckon Tremlett is the best of those 4."

i rate tremlett/broad much better. they've been given the chance to spearhead the attack and proved themselves. meanwhile ishant's bowling is inconsistent...his most significant contribution was his tail-end batting partnership with laxman to win a test. sreesanth is frustrating to say the least, with his temperament and bowling.

india leadership (Dhoni plus experience of seniors) is clearly ahead of england's.

really i'd say Englands leadership team of strauss/flower is absolutely brilliant.

As for Kahn/Anderson - no comparison in my opinion Anderson is a unique, brilliant bowler

Back up bowling Tremlett is superb, a far better player than Sreesanth or Ishant, Broad is a massive worry against India's brilliant batsman if he bowls the tripe he's served up of late he'll get smashed!

Swann/Singh - Swanns going to have his hands full with the Indian batsman all fantastic players of spin, if we produce flat pitches and the weather stays fine the series could be decided by who performs better out of these 2.

Batting - India are amazing 1 - 7
England are developing and exceptional 1 - 7 this could be the hardest series these 7 have had could well find themselves under huge pressure but so far they've almost always responded we to pressure

In terms of batting, openers Sehwag and Gambhir for India, Strauss and Cook for England. Sehwag can take a game away from the opposition pretty quickly and decimate the best bowling units. Gambhir has proved himself in tough conditions against tough bowling units. Sehwag can play too flashy and self destroy, both he and Gautam are coming back after an injury.
Cook has been in the form of his life, But Strauss has had a very poor series against India. Saying that, Strauss, whenever he played India took his game to a higher level.
So close call with edge to India.
3-5 Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman for India, Trott, Pietersen and Bell for England.
Although both lineups look solid, India's is the finest and is much more experienced in different conditions.
lower middle order Raina, Dhoni, Harbhajan for India, Morgan, Prior and Broad for England. There are some game changers in there, but I think England has a bit of an advantage there.
Lower order, Khan, Sharma, Sreesanth/Munaf/Kumar/Mithun for India, Swann, Anderson and Tremlett for England. Swann's presence makes it advantage England.

Now Bowling, both are 4 man attacks, mostly going to be 3 pacers and a spinners.
England's is a more settled lineup barring injuries with Anderson, Tremlett Swann and Broad. the first 3 are in great form, and Broad is struggling at the moment.
for India its going to be Zaheer, Ishant and Harbhajan, and one of Praveen Kumar, S Sreesanth, Abhimanyu Mithun, and Munaf Patel. Zaheer is the best of the whole lot, and Swann is, atthe moment better than Harbhajan. the others eventualy match each other, particularly if its Sreesanth who plays for India and Broad for England.
but a bit of advantage to England.
overall, a close series in the making.

india leadership (Dhoni plus experience of seniors) is clearly ahead of england's.

really i'd say Englands leadership team of strauss/flower is absolutely brilliant.
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They are brilliant but certainly nowhere close in terms of experience ...some have handled situations and bowlers from the times of wasim akram, mc grath, shane warne and murali. And have taken the team to the top with their performance and experience. Some played more than the rest/most of england team put togather.

Dravid and Laxman brought india back in 1st and 2nd tests against WI with their experience.

Most great bowling attacks have had great batting line ups as well. The WI, Australia and now India.
It surely is confidence building for bowlers when they know their batsmen are capable of scoring big runs.
In the last ashes series England met that standard.
Incidentally, India are certainly world champions but so are England. Neither of these championships have any bearing on the likely result of the upcoming test series.
I have the feeling that the team that take an early lead in the series will win.

thats a fair point risingstar I was looking at it from the management point of view meaning flower/strauss not necessarily game skill and nerve e.g. dravid and laxman in WI

on paper that indian line up has got to be amongst the best of all time. what would have been the aussies best ? :

slater
taylor
boon
jones
border
waugh
healy


langer
hayden
ponting
martyn
waugh
clarke
gilchrist



west indies ? :


greenidge
haynes
hooper
richards
richardson
logie
dujon


probably none of them match that indian line up do they ?

indeed York. Sachin alone has made 14.5k runs compared to 18.5k runs by whole england team.

Sachin and Dravid between them have made 27k which is 50% higher than whole of eng team.

such wealth of experience accumulated over the ages...only ignore at one's own perils...some do that by calling them ageing/retiring/fading ...but you have only to be in WI shoes to have a feel of what it is like.

This is what I called leadership premium in India team compared to any other team in the world.