*Official* Road to the 2010/11 Ashes

[morgieb]

Originally Posted by vcs

I don't understand how Hughes has such an amazing FC record with a weakness against the short ball.. isn't Australia exactly the place where such a weakness would get ruthlessly exposed and exploited? From what I've seen of him, he seems very partial to the cut shot so I'd hardly call him weak against the short pitched stuff..

Yeah, but the bowlers who could potentially exploit are not playing FC cricket (Tait, Nannes) or are in the Australian side (Johnson). Also people like Hick and Bevan had short-ball issues and they had great FC records.

[Prince EWS]

Bevan's short-ball issue is a myth.

[Flem274*]

Why's that mate?

Like my new quote in the sig btw?

[social]

Originally Posted by Spark

Yeah, that's what makes it so bizarre. Dale Steyn has a wicked bouncer as Michael Hussey will attest, and Morne Morkel is more like a tree than a normal human being WRT height. I suppose it doesn't help that the former was off-colour and the other was in "bowl ****" mode.

The Saffers bowled a traditional line at a left-handers off stump and he murdered them

Flintoff, and it was really he alone, bowled at his body and cramped him up before he got out to a couple of pretty average deliveries

Reckon it's a bit of a myth tbh and he just needed to make small adjustments to his leg stump game which, in all likelihood, he's done to a degree as he pummelled fc attacks in Oz shortly thereafter

IMO, the selectors missed a big opportunity to play him against India as the lower bounce would've suited him down to the ground

[vcs]

I don't know, maybe people are extrapolating a weakness to the short ball from the one working over that he received from Flintoff (and TBF, Flintoff is ideally suited for a body barrage). Maybe it's more a case of drying up his scoring areas (behind square on the offside) and eventually getting him out? I don't know, I'm just asking. Just curious because pretty much every Australian batsmen is good on the cut and the pull.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Flem274*

Why's that mate?

Like my new quote in the sig btw?

All my posts before late 2008 were tainted with terrible bias.

Context is important too.

Instead of naming names which would only fuel a feud, I'll use myself as an example. If you got me alone in a corner, I'd tell you that I think, as of right now, Vusi Sibanda is a better opening batsman than Virender Sehwag. It's an "interesting" opinion to say the least which nearly everyone would disagree with, and if I tried to argue it, I'd lose emphatically. Does it mean it's wrong? Well, to be fair, probably. Not certainly though, and such an opinion, void of a true statistical case behind it is something missing from CW completely now. The different criteria people use to analyse how well someone will perform in the future is what makes discussing cricket more interesting than other sport, and I feel we're losing that on CC by dumbing it down into a standard accepted criteria.

[morgieb]

I'm not even sure if it was Flintoff that exploited it that much. Yes, he did exploit it in tests, but Harmison recognised it first imo. If Harmison had ****ed off earlier, Hughes might well have done much better.

[morgieb]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

All my posts before late 2008 were tainted with terrible bias.

Context is important too.

Still better than talking about throwing stuff in backyard cricket.

Oh, wait.....

But still, I haven't really seen you as biased. Sehwag also was out of touch by then, so the view wasn't as ridiculous as it sounds. Still pretty ridiculous, mind.

[social]

Originally Posted by vcs

I don't know, maybe people are extrapolating a weakness to the short ball from the one working over that he received from Flintoff (and TBF, Flintoff is ideally suited for a body barrage). Maybe it's more a case of drying up his scoring areas (behind square on the offside) and eventually getting him out? I don't know, I'm just asking. Just curious because pretty much every Australian batsmen is good on the cut and the pull.

That's pretty much what happened and then the Oz selectors dropped him because the side needed another bowler and the "theory" gained legs from there

[Noble One]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

Bevan's short-ball issue is a myth.

Tend to agree, it is the worst label that is attached to Bevan.

Michael Bevan failed at Test level for a variety of reasons, the fact he was dismissed by short pitching bowling on a couple of occasions is not the reason. Most of it appeared to be a mental thing. Bevan had his initial failings (so did Hayden, Langer and Martyn), but he was never allowed to settle into the Test side as a proper batsman. By all interviews and autobiographies of the time, it seems the Australian experiment with playing Bevan as a spin-bowler really messed up his attitude.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by morgieb

Still better than talking about throwing stuff in backyard cricket.

Oh, wait.....

But still, I haven't really seen you as biased. Sehwag also was out of touch by then, so the view wasn't as ridiculous as it sounds. Still pretty ridiculous, mind.

I wasn't really biased towards different countries as such - I just rated players who played in a style I liked watching more highly than I should, and the more a player deviated from that, the less I rated them. It made me under-rate players like Sehwag and Hayden a lot and over-rate players like Sibanda, Vaughan, Ganga etc.

I'm a lot better at separating what I like watching from what's actually effective these days. It wasn't really as much of a bad prediction as an example of how my cricket theories and ideas have evolved.

[morgieb]

Still reckon Hughes will be fine if picked for the Ashes. With Freddie gone and Harmison not on tour I can't see Hughes being affected as much with the short ball.

[morgieb]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

I wasn't really biased towards different countries as such - I rated players who played in a style I liked watching more highly than I should, and the more a player deviated from that, the less I rated them. It made me under-rate players like Sehwag and Hayden a lot and over-rate players like Sibanda, Vaughan, Ganga etc.

Hmmm...you under-rate Hayden? Some people here don't think he's test standard ffs.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by morgieb

Hmmm...you under-rate Hayden? Some people here don't think he's test standard ffs.

I used to be in the aussie/Richard category when it came to Hayden .. well maybe not quite that extreme I was close. Hated watching him, and that made me biased when it came to rating him. I've learnt to put that sort of stuff aside now though.

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by social

That's pretty much what happened and then the Oz selectors dropped him because the side needed another bowler and the "theory" gained legs from there

Nah, the bollocks theory that gained legs is that Watson was brought in for his bowling. Overs bowled by him on his recall as an all-rounder? 3.

Hughes looked like he'd been totally sorted out and he doesn't have the basics to fall back on when out of nick, what with having a technique that's on the retarded side of quirky.