[aussie]

Originally Posted by Richard

There's a difference between a career averaging 29 and an average like that at what some people have the nerve to call a "good" ground of his.
A good spinner, incidentally, should average far less than 29 on a ground which produces so many turners.

Well think about this then both India has the biggest turners in the world & the two greatest spinners of all-time Shane Warne & Muttiah Muralitharan when they were in top form & had the best backup in support, i.e:

Warne had the best seam attack to with in India in his career in 2004
Muralitharan had his old champion Vaas in 2005

Yet they both averaged over 30, note i'm not comparing MacGill to them all i'm saying is that even though the pitch is a turner averaging 29 isn't a bad effort especially looking at the fact that he took wickets.

Originally Posted by Richard

He wasn't that good. Incidentally, with regards The MCG 2002\03... he started poorly and continued that way, getting Dawson out isn't exactly that much of an achievement, Hussain was out to a poor stroke off a nothing ball; then in the second-innings Trescothick was a poor decision, then having had at one point 1-112 and 2-147 he got Vaughan, White, Foster and Caddick with similarly poor balls, all were dismissed playing ill-judged cut strokes.

Fair enough you brought back addittion memories i'll give you the MCG as well but i maintain its 4 out of 16 & not 1 out of 16 as you are stating.

Originally Posted by Richard

So in other words MacGill bowled rubbish for all the game then got a few tailenders, a familiar pattern...

Ha, now how the hell did you come to the conclusion after what i stated that MacGill bowled rubbish that entire game & then took a few tailend wickets?

Originally Posted by Richard

but certainly not against the World XI, he just got a load of tailenders and ill-judged top-order strokes.

I mentioned before thats how MacGill bowls, if he doesn't get top order wickets he is very effective at cleaning up the tail. When he isn't e.g India 2003/04, WI 2003 1st, 2nd, 4th test he doesn't even do that.

MacGill certainly troubled the top order of the World XI batsmen, the delivery that got Inzi stumped was beauty of a leg-break.

Originally Posted by Richard

But you mentioned 2001 when in fact it had nothing to do with it...

I know but i was really referring exactly to 2001, i meant `since then`. But yea i understand what you are saying i should have been more specific from the start.

Originally Posted by Richard

Smith, Prince and to a lesser extent Rudolph are all strokeplayers. No, they didn't manage to attack McGrath or Clark, but few can successfully - especially on the pitches we got served-up in SA.
Almost all batsmen these days are strokeplayers - only Dravid and Kallis of the current top players are not.

They would play their strokes yea , but they aren't batsmen who can take it to oppositon bowlers even at their best. South Africa in every series i can remember dating back to the unofficial world championship series in 2001/02 season have always batted like that. Againts all the major test playing nations in most conditions except ZIM & BAN they play like that unless the opposition bowl trash like pakistan did herehttp://usa.cricinfo.com/link_to_database/ARCHIVE/2002-03/PAK_IN_RSA/SCORECARDS/PAK_RSA_T2_02-06JAN2003.html[/URL] or what England bowled on occassions in 2003, when they bat they are generally a defensive in their approach.

Originally Posted by Richard

At the current time we don't really see much "grinding opposition bowlers", mainly because the bowlers are so poor it's not really neccessary.

Thats true but even againts poor attacks on flat patches South still bat that way. In the West Indies last year they batted like that.