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Originally Posted by RazabQ
@asad. Don't just look at team strength on paper ...
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i know. it was an overseas series, our players prolly had no idea of what to expect after studying for Gayle, Sarwan, Chanderpaul, Taylor, Bravo and Edwards...and ended up with a completely new package.
but at the same time, years and years from now, when you tell your grandchildren "i watched us beat a team that had vettori, ryder, mccullum, young kane, styris and oram (2008 team we beat)" your grandkids will either know those names vaguely or can at least look them up and say "vettori took 300+ test wickets" or "williamson and ryder were great batsman".
the same can't be said of of the floyd reifer, chadwick walton, nikita millers or that 2009 tour.
the importance of the 2009 tour was that it established sakib's position within the team, and it provided a spring board for our team to BELIEVE. previously they only believed in Eid ul Ashraf's and the ability to knock off a maximum of one major side per calendar year.
since that series, we haven't managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. that was the big thing we gained from that tour, where we had to fight back from a first innings deficit to win the series.
that was also the series that produced Tamim Iqbal version 2.0...with his match winning 128 in the 2nd innings of the first test.
i read that shakib quote before my earlier post. obviously shakib is not going to want to diminish that achievement - and it was an achievement, but different from this NZ achievement which is REAL achievement - but i can't agree with what he said. if he spoke about the conditions, then fine. or the lack of preparedness due to playing a totally unknown oppossition, sure. but he spoke of the strength of the players. and frankly, most of those players wouldn't hang around the WI national team for very long.
you have to realize that its impossible for Shakib to say "yeah that team sucked" when we barely beat them in the tests, when even the ODIs were close, and we got thrashed in the lone T20.
but if that team played us now, i'd imagine we'd beat them by an innings in both tests.