Wizard wrote
Two points:
1) When England are ranked #1 it tells you that world cricket is in a slump
That supposes that it's a case of everybody sinking below England rather than England raising their game. This current England side is pretty good - though India didn't put up much of a fight (and don't have reserve depth). Their attack is pretty handy and bowled well in this series. Dale Steyn is superior to any one of their bowlers, but we don't have three Steyns to put on the field.
Being number 1 in the rankings doesn't necessarily equate to the sort of dominance we saw from Australia in the late 90s early 00s or from the West Indies in the 1980s.
Whoever wants to be not just highest in the rankings but the undisputed best needs to win away from home. There's not always such a team, after the West Indies started going into decline in the 90s there was a period during which there was no clear champion team. I'm not sure there is such a team now.
Things may start to fall into place over the next 9 months or so. England go to Pakistan and Sri Lanka. We host Australia and Sri Lanka and then go to New Zealand. India are going to Australia.
2) India is missing Gary a lot
I dunno. You'd think a change of coach would not have that much effect that quickly. Their new coach is very experienced.
The key difference for me was in the attacks. In terms of the players available India would have had the same attack even if Kirsten was the coach. Possibly they may have bowled with more purpose and have ideas for each English player the way that the England bowlers seemed to have a plan for each Indian batsman, but the bowling coach is still the same guy - Eric Simons. With Harbhajan not at his best (and he hasn't been for a while) and Zaheer injured India don't have much in the way of bowling. England, OTOH, had a very capable, very motivated medium-fast attack, with reserve depth, and probably the best (certainly best performing) spinner around. However the England quicks need to show that level of performance in other countries and with a different ball.
