India is now the No. 1 ranked team in Test Cricket

UPDATE: Dec6 2009: INDIA is now the NO. 1 Ranked Test Team basis official ICC rankings! This phenomenal achiement came when India defeated Sri Lanka in the recently concluded Test in Mumbai.

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India’s 100 Test Match Wins – Growing Win%

Have a look at India’s decade wise Test match performances, and we can easily understand that India’s win rate is increasing every 10 year years. More importantly, the more tests we play, the more we win. This chart also probably highlights how Indian team selection over the last few years has improved. The more merit involved in team selection, the better the results.

More than anything else, this coincides with the entry and rise of the Big 5 batting superstars:  Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag and  Saurav Ganguly. India’s bowling strengths were Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan. The youngsters, Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth will hopefully carry the pace bowling torch forward.

In terms of captaincy, India’s winning streak started with Azharuddin in a series of Home Wins… and Saurav Ganguly started India’s Overseas Wins.  Dravid/Kumble maintained the win rate for their brief stints. The new captain, M.S. Dhoni has taken over from the previous generation and consolidated the win percentage.

Decade	No. of Tests	No. of Victories	Win %	Cume Tests	Cume Victories	Cume Win %
1931-1940	7	0	0	7	0	0%
1941-1950	13	0	0	20	0	0%
1951-1960	50	6	12%	70	6	9%
1961-1970	46	9	20%	116	15	13%
1971-1980	67	18	27%	183	33	18%
1981-1990	86	11	13%	269	44	16%
1991-2000	69	19	28%	338	63	19%
2001-2010	96	37	39%	434	100	23%

Filed under: Sport , 100 test wins, azharuddin, brabourne stadium, captaincy, cricinfo, cricket, dhoni, dravid, gambhir, gautham gambhir, icc test ranking, India cricket, india cricket statistics, india no 1 ranked test team, India statistics test match, India Test Match, India test match stats, India wins 100 tests, India wins 100 tets matches, India's 100th test match victory, India's 100th test match win, India's wins in tests, kumble, laxman, MS Dhoni, mumbai test, rahul dravid, rank 1, sachin tendulkar, sehwag, sehwag 293, sreesanth, srisanth, tendulkar, Tets match cricket, viru, zaheer khan

Why Nadal’s 5-2 head-to-head record against Federer is misleading!

A lot of arm-chair Nadal fanboys keep touting the stat that in Grand Slams, Nadal has a 5-2 head to head record against Federer and hence Federer hasn’t “dominated” Rafa.

But these guys completely miss the point (which all tennis legends like Sampras, Agassi, Laver, Mcenroe and Becker accept):

Nadal didn’t even make ONE  U.S. Open final during Federer’s reign!!!

ZILCH. ZERO. Not ONE SINGLE final in the 5 YEARS Federer won.

Why should we bother about Federer losing to Nadal, if we don’t scrutinize Nadal losing to weak players in US and Aus Opens? In fact, Nadal lost to way lower ranked Soderling in 4th round of his FAVOURITE surface after winning 4 times.  Federer has lost ONLY in the finals of Wimbledon since his 1st win in 2003  and NEVER lost US Open after he first won it in 2004.

Nadal is extremely inconsistent in Hardcourt Slams.

Considering Roger’s awesome hardcourt Slam record, the head to head would easily be in FEDERER’s favour  of at least 8-5 (4 US Open wins and 2 Aus Open wins in Federer’s prime).

By  refusing to acknowledge Nadal’s miserable hard court slam record, and refusing to see Federer’s total dominance in US Open, the head -to-head stat supporters are  PUNISHING Federer for his CONSISTENCY in reaching FINALS of ALL slams, and REWARDING Nadal for his failure in U.S.Open and Aus Open.

Absolutely ridiculous. Basically Nadal fanboys have been devastated by Federer’s French open win and the fact that he has been declared the Greatest Tennis Player of ALL Time by none other than Sampras, Agassi, Lendl, McEnroe etc etc.

The right way to check slam dominance, is to take up ALL THE SLAMS in which BOTH Nadal and Federer participated and check the winning percentage you find that Nadal is way inferior to Federer than Agassi was to Sampras (and not otherwise as Nadal fanboys love to believe).  When you add the 2 Wimbledons, 4 Aus Opens and 5 US Opens that Nadal and Federer haven’t met in, but Federer won 2 , 3  & 5 of those Slams respectively, you get the TRUE picture.

Over time, Federer will dominate sports history books, while Nadal may remain a footnote (unless he starts winning 10more slams…)

Also read: how-nadal-maintains-his-head-to-head-record-against-federer

To quote a fellow tennis enthusiast & blogger (see comments section below):  “…Roger leads (Rafa) 29-20 and 35-23, in the Same Tournament Entered and the Titles in Total Tournaments Available, respectively. On top of that Roger leads 12-6 in the Same 21 Grand Slams Played.”

This is an awesome stat and once and for all makes the lousy “Roger didn’t dominate Rafa” argument completely untenable. Read the full analysis here which debunks the popular myth that Roger never dominated Rafa. A better and more statistically valid data set to measure GOAT and true Grand Slam head to head is the above mentioned  “Same 21 Grand Slams Played”.  Click here to read more:  There’s More to Nadal and Federer Than Head-To-Head Meetings

Filed under: Sport , 21 Grand Slams Played, 5 U.S.Open wins in a row, Australian Open, Becker, Bjorn Borg, bleacher report, bleacherreport, bleacherreport.com, Federer, Federer better than Nadal, Federer is greatest if all time, Federer Nadal rivalry, federer stats, Federer–Nadal_rivalry, Grand Slam, Grass courts, hard court, Hardcourt slams, hardcourts, inconsistent Nadal, ivan lendl, John Mcenroe, lendl, misleading, Nadal, Nadal failure in US Open, Nadal Federer rivalry, nadal head to head, nadal stats, nadal US Open flop, Pete Sampras, rafa roger head to head, Rafael Nadal, Rod Laver, Roger Federer, roger rafa head to head, Same 21 Grand Slams Played, Same Tournament Entered, sampras, truth about statistics, U.S. Open

Pete Sampras confirms Roger Federer is “the greatest player” ever in history.

For a long time, Pete Sampras believed Rod Laver to be the best tennis player in history. Laver was the last man to win all four Grand Slam titles in a single season, a feat he accomplished in both 1962 and 1967 (Open Era). Laver, however (and compatriot Ken Rosewall) was barred from competing in those tournaments from the time he turned professional in 1963 to the start of the Open era in 1968.

But Sampras now believes that Roger Federer is the greatest tennis player of all time to have ever played the game.

Roger Federer Wins French Open 2009

“Now that he’s won in Paris, I think it just more solidifies his place in history as the greatest player that played the game, in my opinion.”

“I’m a huge Laver fan, and he had a few years in there where he didn’t have an opportunity to win majors. But you can’t compare the eras, and in this era, the competition is much more fierce than Rod’s.”

“What he’s done over the past five years has never, ever been done — and probably will never, ever happen again. Regardless if he won there or not, he goes down as the greatest ever. This just confirms it.”

- Pete Sampras.

Source: CBS Sports,  June,7, 2009

Filed under: Sport , all time greatest tennis player, Andre Agassi, best tennis player in history, French Open, greatest player ever, greatest player of all time, greatest tennis player in history, Nadal, Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal, Rod Laver, Roger Federer, Tennis

Who is the Fake IPL Player?

The mystery author of the Fake IPL Player blog is not a cricketer.

My guess is that he isn’t even present in South Africa. He is most likely an intelligent journalist but could easily be a recently “pink-slipped” IT chap with loads of free time sitting in the US. This isn’t a money-making blog as there are no Google Ads on the blog though it takes just 2 minutes to start Google Ads on Blogger.

If he isn’t in South Africa, then how does he get his “information”?  He either makes up the story using already published news articles or probably through a “source” who could be one of hundreds of small time journalists covering the IPL in South Africa. These journalists travel from city to city ,  cover many teams and have lots of access to information most of which is hardly “secret” info and available to thousands of cricket fans. The content in the blog posts (especially the dressing room stuff) is pure conjecture & guesswork built on easily available info anyways. Any cricket fan in India who saw the pre-IPL press conference with Buchanan and Ganguly, can see that former Indian captain is irritated by Buchanan. Anyone who saw KKR matches can find out that there is no unity in the team. Very similar to the Indian National team under Greg Chappell during the world cup in West Indies!!!

If the Fake IPL Player is indeed a journalist, then it is highly probable that the journalist is a Bengali (and belongs to a Calcutta based Bengali or English newspaper) and most likely he is pretty pissed at Ganguly being insulted & snubbed by Buchanan and SRK by removing him as captain. I would be furious too, as Ganguly is India’s most successful captain in history and has the respect of almost entire cricketing fraternity in India. And the lesser said about John Buchanan the better.  Just ask Shane Warne about Buchanan. McCullum hasn’t even captained a provincial New Zealand squad, leave alone international teams. Almost nobody in India likes John Buchanan I guess. If SRK has even half a cricketing brain he would immediately make Ganguly not only the sole Captain but also the Coach of Knight Riders (like Shane Warne for Rajasthan Royals).

Of course the content of the blog isn’t of the same quality as compared to the Fake Steve Jobs blog written by a Forbes journalist, but in its own way its pretty entertaining and completely harmless if the reader’s understand it is pure fiction.

Filed under: Sport , cricket, ganguly, brett lee, Sony, yuvraj singh, shahrukh khan, srk, fake ipl player, fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com, fakeiplplayer, fakeiplplayer blog, ranadeb bose, appam chutiya, sreesanth, KKR, shah rukh khan, Kolkotta, kolkatta, calcutta, bengali, Knight riders, gayle, Setmax, IPL, IPL 2, IPL season 2, Indian premier league, t20, twenty20, saurav ganguly, RDB, buchanan, lalit modi, preity zinta, zinta, ness wadia, shane warne

Will Nadal burn out at age 26 like Bjorn Borg?

I found interesting similarities in the Grand Slam runs between Sampras and Federer as well as Borg and Nadal in terms of their Age vs Slams won!

(Note that have taken 31 yrs as maximum age considering Sampras retired at that age for apples to apples comparison for the 14 slam win rate).

Some important pointers:

1. Pete Sampras had only 3 wins in his last 16 slams.

2. Roger Federer needs only ONE win in his next 15 slams to equal Sampras and just 2 to break the world record.

3.  Nadal has more than 35 slams to beat Sampras, and is close to beating Borg’s slam total by age 23

4. Borg had the highest rate of slams by age 23 and played only 3 slams a year. He never played a lot of Aussie opens (except early on in 1974 types ) as he kept losing US Opens . Borg didn’t feel Aussie Open was important unless he won the US Open.

Nadal seems to be slightly behind Borg’s run rate. And Federer’s win rate is next to Borg despite playing way longer schedules. Unbelievable.

Nadal too may burn out like Borg especially because his game is more Physical than Federer’s and the body takes punishment on hard courts. Nadal also won’t be able to maintain the speed and power beyond age 25-26…as the tennis schedules are too long now days. Federer’s game like Sampras suits long term play.

Grand Slam wins

But I feel even if Nadal wins 15 slams and Federer wins the French, they can still be called greatest only of the MODERN era as people forget Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall were banned for more than 44 Slams due to them turning PRO… Rosewall lost peak 11 years of his life. It was Laver and Rosewall’s efforts which led to the Open era in the first place and modern players from Borg to Nadal and Federer have to be thankful for them. Between them, Laver and Rosewall would have won 20+ slams if allowed to play as there was no one close to them. And it isn’t their problem that Hardcourts weren’t provided for Slams, as either would have won for SURE if there was that surface provided.  It is for this reason, that historians will ALWAYS place Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall as the Greatest Tennis Players of ALL TIME.  To beat them, the minimum no. of slam which Federer or Nadal must win are 20, else there is no comparison for the unfair way in which Laver/Rosewall were prevented for 44 Slams simply because they turned Pro.

For a detailed perspective, please also read the following article:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/119898-the-hall-of-goats

Filed under: Sport , Australian Open, Bjorn Borg, Borg, borg nadal, Federer, federer greatest all time, federer vs nadal, French Open, Grand Slam, Greatest Tennis Player of all time, Ken Rosewall, laver, laver vs federer, Nadal, nadal vs federer, Rafa Nadal, Rafael Nadal, Rod Laver, rod laver vs federer, Roger Federer, rosewall, sampras, sampras federer, sampras federer borg nadal, sampras federer laver borg, Tennis, tennis player, U.S. Open, Wimbledon