duncan , he may be right but he is still saying this for the wrong reasons

if india were still #1 in tests and had had a good series against england he would never had started this thread

agreed with duncan... england are the best team, and might be for another 5 years......@super... I came up with this article when I was watcing some videos on pakistan, and australian bowlers.... They were a real force that made cricket so much better than what it is now.....and yh I just realised duncan's point on india being no.1. I mean think about the bowling attack india has got, and yet they were able to somehow stay no.1. That either shows India were good or other teams bar SA and england are pretty rubbish. that doesnt mean Im not proud of what India has achieved over the years but its a fact we all as cricket lovers should accept

I concur and dont forget despite the fall in standards Eng have yet to breach the tropical lands.Victories came at home..

i didn't realise we played australia in england last winter , or drew with SA in england the previous winter

This is just another 'when England win it's because their opponents are no good' article.
I've been reading this tripe for years.

"i didn't realise we played australia in england last winter , or drew with SA in england the previous winter "

What Ashes series? :P

As to your other posts rich, I agree entirely, the whole article smacks of sour grapes more than anything.

its been a while since we played the ashes in australia duncan then , as i cant seem to remember us being there in 2006-7 either

I actually respected the OP's view until I saw Laxmans name.

A good, battling batsman, but averages 47 and plays on the sub. In fact Ghambir averages more!

Bowling is pretty poor but some excellent batsmen still around.

I wonder how much pitches play in the poor bowling attacks around the world...

I concur and dont forget despite the fall in standards Eng have yet to breach the tropical lands.Victories came at home..
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Patience young man, patience

Right now we only have about 3-4 pace bowlers in the whole world who we can say are going to threaten a quality batsman.
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This comment is ridiculous and I will tell you why. England alone have about 6 of them. SOUR GRAPES after a crushing victory that you, more than most others are seriously struggling to come to terms with. Look on the bright side mate, you won't have to play us for a while now

This as to be the most funniest thread of all time along with how India will demolish England threads.oOh and how Sachin was going to score 200+ to save a test match 10 minutes later he was sat in the dressing room .. Egg on face spring to mind..

Purrplee patch matey , also dont forget India can be forgiven .. injuries , post WC motivation or lack of , IPL fatigue , the senile Fletcher , hotel laid seige by bloodthirsty rioters.

They should be fine in a few months.

Scarping the bottle of the barrel?

Pox, that is a pethetic excuse.

You didn't see Dravid using these excuses whilst his one man fight against England.

He is an extremely likeable and mature batsman and just maybe prepared himself and didn't take us for granted.

Laxman is just another good batsman.As I said earlier Cook,KP,Bell,Smith,Amla,De Villiers and Sangakkara are all better batsmen than Laxman.To mention him in the same breath as Tendulkar,Punter,Kallis,Dravid is ridiculous.To say that his class as batsmen is incomparable is utter tripe.He is just a good batsman.Nothing more nothing less.Dont compare him with the All Time Greats.
Apart from that I think the OP makes a valid point that the qualiy is declining.But I dont think that has got anything to do with England's resurgence.We have been fantastic in our own right.
And I dont think India and Australia are bad sides either.They are good sides who were beaten by a better side.
FACT

Get over it.

Laxman had one bad series and people are forgetting his immense contributions in the past two years.

He is not run accumulator in the mold of Cook and Kallis, and has generally contributed the most when all others have failed.

India won test series in SL, beat Australia at home, and drew with SA in SA, almost entirely due to the brilliance of Laxman.

laxman is not a great player however , his record does not justify that title

he is a very good player who has played a couple of great innings

thats a big difference imo

Just a couple of great innings?

Ask Australians.

still not enough to earn him the title of a great player tbh

i'm not belittling the guy , as i said he is, or at least has been , very good , the title great gets thrown around too easy however and altho i am not someone who gets too obsessed by numbers , his just aren't good enough to justify that tag

We all have our favourites. I like players who raise their game when the chips are down, and against top teams, and on the road. For Laxman, this series was a rare failure when his team needed runs from him. He usually excels in such situations.

An example was a few months ago at Kingsmead, during the second test after SA thrashed India in the first test. It was a very difficult pitch. He was the highest scorer in both innings. This was pitch where the Saffers couldn't handle Khan and Sresanth, and Laxman took care of Steyn and Morkel at their unplayable best.

There are players whose averages are inflated by tons and tons of runs they accumulate against teams like Bangladesh; he is not among those.

this is nothing to do with favourite players , its about players who deserve to be called great , and a few great innings do not make a great player reagrdless of the significance of those innings

Laxman might not be in the league of all-time greats like Hammond, Barrington, Hobbs, Bradman, Greg Chappell, G Pollock, Tendulkar, Gavaskar, Kallis, etc., but based on the quality of his performances and the context in which the runs were scored, he is at a tier slightly above the likes of Gooch, Gower, Strauss and Bell. In the case of Bell, barring a couple of occasions, he accumulated runs when a few other batsmen had already scored centuries in the same inning. Bell is also one of the lethal batsmen against Bangladesh, although perhaps not quite as good as Dizzy. Cook had a couple of good years; he wasn't that good before. Until a year ago, there were always question marks about Bell.

Quality of bowling must also be a consideration when assessing a batsman's performance.

Look at some of Laxman's knocks:
2000 - 167 vs Aus in Sydney (McGrath, Lee, Warne)
2001 - 281 vs Aus (McGrath, Gillespie, Kasprowicz, Warne)
2003 - 148 vs Aus in Adelaide (Gillespie, MacGill)
2004 - 178 vs Aus in Sydney (Lee, Gillespie, MacGill)
2005 - 104 vs SL (Malinga, Murali)
2008 - 109 vs Aus in Sydney (Lee, Johnson, Clark)
2008 - 200 n.o. vs Aus (Lee, Clark, Johnson)
2010 - 143 vs SA (steyn, Morkel, Kallis)
2010 -96 vs SA in Kigsmead (Steyn, Morkel, Kallis)
2010 - 103 vs SL (Malinga, Mendis in form)

Just because he had one bad series or just because he had not performed very well in England doesn't make him an average player.

I rate Gooch higher than the likes of Cook, Strauss, and Bell although he finished his career with a batting average in the forties because his career coincided with the golden years of West Indies bowling, and he faced the likes of Roberts, Holding, Garner and Marshall during his entire career.

sorry but exactly where did i say he was an "average" player

i merely said that his career record does not deserve the accolade of a "great" , yes he has played some important innings but thats not good enough to deserve to be ranked alongside the tendulkars or laras or pontings imo

as i said earlier i am not someone who relies purely on numbers but a career average of 46 is just not good enough to be included in that company

very good yes

great , i am afraid not