Re: "I don't rate India a long-term No.1" - Ian Chappell
This criteria of "two champion bowlers" is a nice one, but not sure what it is worth in the context of a number 1 test team. Dont know that either of the other two top-three teams - Australia or SA - meet this criterion. Who are the two champion bowlers for Aus? Johnson is too inconsistent, Bollinger is still new, and Siddle is just a hardworking bowler, nothing special. No real variety in their pace attack, just hit-the-deck type bowlers with limited capability to swing the ball. And Hauritz wouldnt even make it into a domestic side in India or Pakistan as a spinner.
SA attack is slightly better with Steyn possibly qualifying as a "champion" bowler, but even they lack variety, and a good spinner. For a standard 3 pace bowlers + 1 spinner combination, I'll back Zaheer, Sreesanth, Ishant + Harbhajan to take 20 Aus or SA wickets any day over their bowling attacks getting 20 of ours.
That said, no denying that bowling is a relative weakness for India compared to batting. Even on the domestic scene, we keep churning out batsmen after batsmen, but seem to perpetually struggle in the bowling dept, esp pace. Am extremely envious of Pakistan's seemingly endless assembly line of high-quality pace bowlers.