Its one thing to make such claims but quite a different thing to back that up .... pretty sure you will quietly slip away from this debate once things start to unravel and your memory starts to fail you .
So an Aussie team lead by Allan Border with players like Boon, Geoff Marsh, Steve Waugh, Craig McDermott, Bruce Reid is a weak team ? These players (Except Reid) went on to win the World Cup in absolutely alien conditions playing in India just 18 months after that Test Series.
Next ... you ignore the 1981 Series in Aus
Next you forget that India Won the WC in Eng 1983 playing against WI ( the team you revere ) . And to make matters worse it was the First choice WI team and we won fair and square and actually beat them twice and for good measure beat a strong Eng team in their backyard.
Next Won the B&H without losing a single match.
Next ... Ind Won the Eng Series (Laughable if you think Eng were scared by the WI defeat and hence did not play well )
Next we drew a Test Series against WI in India ( 87 )
Next we drew vs Pakistan in Pakistan on Imran ordered Green tracks minus home umpires ... this is the same team that won a Test in WI ( When they were not playing Marshall and Viv and Greenidge was captaining the WI in what would be his only match as captain ).
So you want to call this team a minnow ?
PS: I have left out some other series but let me know if you insist.
Sounds like a fight is about to break out!
You will note that:
1. I specifically commented that ODI and Test cricket were much the same - in terms of skill sets but not results as a 100 or 120 over match obviously gives the weaker team a better chance than a 450 over Test match. EXCEPT where the white ball was used - which covers India's win in the 1985 World Championship of Cricket.
2. The India team which won the 1983 World Cup was not among the favourites. The favourites were West Indies and Pakistan - hence "The Cricketer"'s famous cover "
Can Pakistan Topple The Champions?" But Pakistan's pace attack was rubbish without Imran Khan's bowling, and it was a damp early summer, which made Madan Lal, Kapil Dev and BS Sandhu assume a menace that only an English Spring, red balls and greenish tracks could give it.
2. India winning the World Cup in 1983 was a true outlier. They had only just been slaughtered in the West Indies in both Tests and ODI's, and a few months later were slaughtered by the same West Indians in India in both Tests and ODIs. Whereas Pakistan was unbeaten in Test series v the West Indies between 1980 and 1993.
My verdict is this. India was a weak Test team, but one which had medium-pace bowling skills which made it competitive in damp English conditions and in the 1985 World Championship of Cricket against a massively weakened field.
And you use the expression "World Champion" in a way which none of us did in the 1980s. Nobody on the entire planet considered India to be the "world champions" between 1983-1987 or Australia to be the "world champions" between 1987-1992. (Or for that matter Pakistan from 1992-1996).
They were the 60 overs (and then 50 overs) World Cup holders, but the undisputed world champions were the West Indies. The fact that India won in 1983 and Australia won in 1987 with teams which were massively inferior to several others is why the competition had all the status of the EFL Cup in England or the Europa League.
As for Australia, I think you have completely misunderstood what happened to them between 1980-1989.
They had been the second best team in the world behind the West Indies during the Packer Years at the end of the 1970s, albeit only because South Africa was banned.
1980- January 1984
The Aussies were fading, but still strong at home.
But then Lillee, Greg Chappell and Marsh retired when they beat Pakistan 2-0 in a home 5 Test series, and it was obvious that a big fall was coming.
February 1984-May 1989
This team was seriously rubbish, losing home Test series to England and New Zealand.
The three giants had left, but when the West Indies smashed them to smithereens at home in 1984-1985 they drove the Aussie skipper Kim Hughes first to tears and then to South Africa, and he took with him several key squad members including Terry Alderman (and also James Faulkner's dad).
You are judging the 1985-1989 players by what they became, but in the period 1985-1989 they were a complete laughing stock. The words "David Boon" and "Steve Waugh" used to elicit howls of laughter until 1989. David Boon's only reputation was as Richard Hadlee's bunny, while Steve Waugh until 1989 was viewed precisely the same way that Mitchell Marsh is today.
Bruce Reid was never fit, and poor Craig McDermott, so promising in 1985, had become a musclebound joke in the period 1986-1990.
18 months later they were World Champs hmmm
