Out of 10 - The Player Performances

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

CBA to do Oz.

As its Sunday morning & I'm bored I'll have a bash now.

Justin Langer - 5/10. Scored runs at Brisbane, but in a somewhat streaky fashion, and was quiet thereafter. Dropped catches at Sydney too. Probably made the correct call to go.
Matthew Hayden - 7/10. Got better as the series progressed and tonned up massively in Melbourne to effectively win the match. As safe a pair of hands as ever.
Ricky Ponting - 9.5/10. Loses .5 of a mark as his batting has dipped in the dead rubber tests. Before then he was utterly imperious with the willow and his captaincy, whilst still a bit conservative, has vastly improved.
Michael Hussey - 9/10. What can you say? Unfussy, simple batting but so effective. A criminal sahme he'll probably only have half a career.
Damien Martyn 2/10. Two average games & then jumped before the blade came down to end his test career. Slightly hurried & shabby way to end it for mine.
Michael Clarke 8/10. Seized his chance with both hands and looks now destined for the greatness he's always had in him. Shot-selection potentially his only weakness.
Andrew Symonds 6/10. Impressive & sizeable ton at the MCG, all the more so because he'd looked predictably all at sea at Perth. Nipped out a couple of vital wickets, but his bowling hardly above fill in at test level.
Adam Gilchrist 7/10. Sensational century & a couple of useful 50s, but clearly not the force he was. Kept well to Warne.
Shane Warne 7/10. As with Gilchrist, not the player of even 18 months ago, but his interjections have been crucial: his bowling won a game it had no right to in Adelaide & his uncomplicated, clean slogging took the game from us at the SCG.
Brett Lee 6/10. The weakest of Australia's seamers by a way and still to expensive. Bowled well in Sydney, but others had done the hard yards for him.
Stuart Clark 9.5/10. Loses the .5 because he didn't take a 5-for. Mesmeric & metronomic. The ball he bowled down the leg side at the SCG was remarkable because it was possibly the first bad ball he'd bowled. Just as McGrath chunters off into the sunset Australia have found his bowling doppleganger who's quicker & 5 years younger. Thanks God...
Glenn McGrath 8/10. Speaking of the old bastard...Clearly not the artist's prime & down on pace, but still unerringly accurate. Played 5 tests with his body almost palpably creaking.

[howardj]

lol why do people never give 10/10 ?

if clark or ponting weren't worthy, i'll eat my boots.

may as well have scales of 9.

but then probably nobody would give a 9.

[pasag]

Originally Posted by howardj

lol why do people never give 10/10 ?

if clark or ponting weren't worthy, i'll eat my boots.

may as well have scales of 9.

but then probably nobody would give a 9.

Ten out of ten denotes the perfect series imo. Whilst Ponting and Clark had an amazing Ashes, it wasn't the perfect series for either of them. That's my criteria for a 10 anyways.

[Mister Wright]

Originally Posted by Craig

TBF he never ran through a side and he didn't get a five wicket haul, but not to take anything away from him.

That's not really Clark's fault. He wasn't given the new ball at the start of the innings at any stage during the test series. He was the best bowler in the first innings in Adelaide when England got 6/550 odd and was the only one who looked like taking a wicket. He averaged under 20 and took crucial wickets. He didn't get the overs that Warne and Lee got. I'm sure if he had of bowled more he would have picked up a 5 fer along the way. Can't really see how he can't be awarded 10/10.

[Saqqy Mush]

Originally Posted by James90

Anderson: 1 Looked troublesome at times and could have picked up a few more wickets than he did (umpires at The Gabba).

Nonsense.

If anything, he should consider himself lucky that he was gifted the farcical bonus Gilchrist wicket in Sydney when the joke Bowden choked again.

[McKanga]

Originally Posted by Saqqy Mush

Nonsense.

If anything, he should consider himself lucky that he was gifted the farcical bonus Gilchrist wicket in Sydney when the joke Bowden choked again.

Wonderful stuff! Are you sure you aren't Australian?

[McKanga]

Originally Posted by Barney Rubble

......Might as well give them 10/10 each, really. Can't be bothered doing individual ones.

Must be an English thing, isn't that how Collingwood got his MBE?

[Great Birtannia]

Originally Posted by GeraintIsMyHero

SR Clark: 9/10. Should have got MOTS. Marvellous - like Hussey, I can't help but feel glad he never got picked last year, especially as I rememebr reading that he'd been called up at some point. Is this correct?

I've just finished reading Ponting's 2005 ashes diary, someone bought it for me last Christmas and until the massacre of the poms this season I have never had the motivation to read it. I think it was after the second test that Clark was called up as both McGrath and Lee were going into the next game as 'doubtfuls'. The funny thing though was that Ponting was pushing for the selection of Mick Lewis but the selectors went with Clark instead. What a disaster that could have been; 2005 Gillespie and Kasprowicz, and Lewis in the one attack

[albo97056]

Can we give minus figures?

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Craig

TBF he never ran through a side and he didn't get a five wicket haul, but not to take anything away from him.

Kinda hard to do that when you have Warne and McGrath in your side.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by McKanga

Must be an English thing, isn't that how Collingwood got his MBE?

Yep. Utterly ludicrous that Collingwood got a MBE for doing not much in 1 Test, while Thorpe had to wait another year to get recognition for his 96 Tests of outstanding service.

[GIMH]

I take it he played 4 against Bangladesh?

[Richard]

Originally Posted by NZTailender

Rate the players out of ten, with a brief reason.

Yes sir!

England (losers always come first)

1. Strauss: 6\10: three bad decisions in a row, and a superb performance on a MCG minefield. Many here have been very harsh on him IMO. Had he not been sawn-off 3 times it's almost certain he'd have scored at least 1 big innings, and when you do that a load of starts is usually forgotten.

1. Cook: 5\10: not the greatest series, though he got some good deliveries (not surprising considering there were some good bowlers on view). He's almost certainly got the talent to keep going and make-up for this series (and after all he did have quite some credit in the bank beforehand).

1. Bell: 5\10: England's most consistent batsman, but got himself out cheaply too often. Was entitled to a slightly-less-than-excellent series after his superb exploits last summer.

1. Collingwood: 5\10: two excellent innings, sod-all besides. Batting is about consistency, not flashes in the pan (one of which happened when a game was already long-lost).

1. Pietersen: 9\10: batted superbly many times, I don't give a flying you-know-what about not protecting the tail when a game's long-lost. Mutterings about attitude issues are just bull****ting from people who're desperately thrashing around for idiotic excuses.

1. Flintoff: 5\10: hard to criticise his bowling too badly with the ankle impingement, and for me didn't really underperform with the bat. Captaincy had nothing to do with it, he just isn't that good a batsman. Only rarely (SA 2003, Aus 2005, India 2005\06) has he ever actually performed well against a bowling-attack of anything other than rabble status. It's a shame he was given the captaincy, but equally it'd have been a shame if Strauss had been given it.

1. Jones: 1\10: abysmal. If you'd told me in 2004 that this was what he'd be reduced to I'd have widenened my eyes in shock. Looked the real deal when he first came in but since the Third Test in Pakistan has been a walking wicket. Kept well but that doesn't matter one iota when you're batting so terribly. Surely must've played his last Test.

1. Read: 2\10: abysmal too, but got an extra mark because he was abysmal for less time. Surely deserves one more go against West Indies next summer, but if he fails then, and Steven Davies starts well, maybe his time in Tests, too, has gone.

1. Giles: I'm not prepared to rate him given that he's currently going through the trauma of his wife possibly having a brain-tumour. In such circumstances, cricket completely ceases to matter. Absolutely gutted for the poor guy, and I hope and pray that she comes through. If so, maybe he might be able to resume a cricket career and maybe I might be able to give a toss about what he did in The Ashes 2006\07.

1. Mahmood: 1\10: bowled a heap of crap as per usual, as he has done throughout the last 3 years. Why on Earth everyone thinks so highly of him is totally beyond me, if he ever comes close to being an international-standard bowler I'll be flabbergasted.

1. Hoggard: 7\10: bowled one of the best spells you're ever going to see at Adelaide in the first-innings. But didn't really do that much apart from that. Why, I'm not sure, because if Flintoff's not fully fit and Jones isn't available to play, he's England's best bowler by a distance.

1. Harmison: 1\10: nonsense as per usual. What was unusual was that he played a full series and didn't get flattered by his figures once, it usually happens at least once a season (2003 it was The Oval second-innings, 2004 it was The Oval all game, 2005 it was Lord's, 2005\06 it was the 1st, 2nd and 4th, 2006 it was Old Trafford). He'll presumably keep being picked, though when eventually he gets dropped I'll be happy, because finally his record does justice to a wholly mediocre bowler who can try as hard as he likes but is simply never, ever going to be remotely good enough.

1. Panesar: 4\10: bowled well on the pitch that helped him but didn't do much thereafter. For the third series in a row, the same story was true. He's a mortal fingerspinner, and the sooner the population of Britain realise this, the better for them, because otherwise one hell of a lot of disappointments await.

Australia:

1. Langer: 6\10: started well, but faded. Have seen people bat worse than he did Adelaide-Sydney, though

1. Hayden: 4\10: only one big score, and was plumb lbw twice before reaching 12 there

1. Ponting: 9\10: superb at The 'Gabba, very lucky at Adelaide, but consistent enough throughout the rest of the series

1. Martyn: 2\10: poor when he played, and impulsive as ever in retiring when he might have had more chances and might well have taken them

1. Hussey: 9\10: superb all in all, YET AGAIN!!!!!!

1. Clarke: 9\10: really did play better than you'd ever have imagined he could - unless, that is, you noted that he scored 398 for once out last season (as someone did - though I can't find the post where I mentioned it) and looks to have finally cracked Test cricket. Shame, though, that Watson had to miss-out with injury

1. Symonds: 3\10: poor with the bat mostly, including in that 154 - was absolutely plumb to Monty Panesar and if he has a sizeable Test career he can be buying Rudi Koertzen gifts for the rest of their lives, as Nasser Hussain damn well should be for Darrell Hair

1. Gilchrist: 5\10: typical Gilchrist of recent times, bomb or blast. The blast was so spectacular that it gets an extra mark, but he still didn't have a particularly good series and is clearly no longer the force he was 4 years ago

1. Warne: 8\10: good, not as good as the previous series (which is hardly surprising), but still more than enough skill (and humility to go with it - witness the round-the-wicket attack to Pietersen) to oust one last lot of English batsmen. Greatest bowler ever? Nonsense of the highest order. Greatest Ashes bowler ever? Very, very probably

1. Lee: 3\10: flattered, grossly, by his figures in the last 3 Tests, and only bowled particularly well once (when he got 2\35). Surely India will once again hammer him out of Test cricket - perminantly this time? - next winter

1. Clark: 9.5\10: no-one can get a perfect score for a series, really, but Clark bowled about as well this series as you could hope for. Mitchell Johnson and Shaun Tait being selected ahead of him? Sounds like the most ludicrous idea in The World now, doesn't it?

1. McGrath: 8\10: about as good as ever, really. Ball of the series to dismiss Cook at The 'Gabba and set the tone. Needed something in the pitch but, in my experience, mostly has anyway. Deserved nothing better than to breeze into the sunset with his old mucker Warne, just a shame that his other old mucker and longest-term opening partner Gillespie couldn't have been there to share it with him - maybe if England had played Lee better at The WACA and MCG he just might have been.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by GeraintIsMyHero

I take it he played 4 against Bangladesh?

Indeed he did.

[Mister Wright]

Originally Posted by Richard

Yes sir!

Australia:

1. Hayden: 4\10: only one big score, and was plumb lbw twice before reaching 12 there

[/LIST]

We know you don't like him, but that is a very harsh grading. He had a 92 & 153, that is 2 big scores for the series. He was also spectacular in the field.