Shoaib Akhtar = awesome

[tooextracool]

And the same thing exactly applies to New Zealand - only for them it was three of the flattest wickets and lots of rain.
Like I've said several times, it all depends on your perspective - I simply put it that almost everyone loses in Sri Lanka and India if the pitches are spin-friendly, that almost everyone loses home and away to Australia and that almost everyone loses to Pakistan when Akhtar bowls well.
So therefore you've basically got that they lost once in New Zealand because Chris Martin bowled really well and failed to level the series in Pakistan, and drew in England by virtue partly of some poor luck and an almost belief-defying collapse from a virtually unassailable position in The Fifth Test.
Which is hardly, for mine, indicative of a poor side.
Of course, some see it totally differently - you, for instance.

oh no, i mean collapses arent an indication of a poor side. neither of course is the fact that they are incapable of winning anywhere in the world except at home against rubbish opposition. the number of excuses that you have made such as 'almost everyone loses to pakistan when akhtar bowls well' and 'almost everyone loses in india and SL is indicative of how bad a team they are and how much of a fool you are making of yourself.

 

[tooextracool]

Because I see no reason for it - simple as that.
If someone fails away from home because of obviously changed conditions it's reasonable to put it down to that, but otherwise as far as I'm concerned it's just coincidence..

yes YOU see no reason for it. i mean if mckenzie averaged 0.99 in test cricket away from home you'd still be saying that he deserves a place in the side. of course the fact that hes failed in every home series in his entire career suggests that its all coincidence too. yet if someone like chopra does the same for 2 series we'll never hear the end of it.

No, he averaged below 40 - but nonetheless the fact is he's scored runs -not always big runs - against spinners on several occasions, and yes, he's failed against them too. I did not claim he was amongst the best players of spin going around, simply that he was not so poor against it that it'll stop him having a successful Test-career.

of course not, im sure SA could use players who average less than 20 in the sub continent. its no wonder they got hammered in pakistan, SL and india.

And as far as I'm concerned that's not totally meaningless - he scored the runs because he played well in those matches.

because as we all know, scoring runs against the mighty zimbabwe, SL(without murali) and WI attacks(along with a depleted NZ attack from 5 years ago) at home shows us how brilliant a player he is. no matter how badly he failed in NZ, SL, england and pakistan.

And we all know that the realistic likelihood of that is zero.

just like the likelyhood of SA playing better than they actually are.

 

[tooextracool]

And if you ask me those people were making surmisations based on incorrect ideas and were fortunate to be proven right.

no i mean we should all hail the likes of mckenzie, dippenaar, nel and rudolph and compare them to the likes of rhodes, cullinan, donald and cronje. how long before you realise that you've already been proven wrong about a year ago infact?

 

[tooextracool]

Funnily enough, Ramprakash and Hick's records (on paper) aren't the best, are they? Averages of 26 and 30, yes, brilliant. You've got to get away from this idea that "on paper" means at the domestic level..

as opposed to dippenaar and mckenzie who cant buy a run away from home.

I don't expect them to take 20 wickets in the first 2 Tests, but I do in the final one - and they did - because Boje exposed their batsmen's general weaknesses against the turning ball. So they should have drawn the first 2 and won the final one.

and ive said one million times, NZ bowled well and hence deserved to win. just because you have a half decent batting lineup, it doesnt mean that they will be able to play any bowling lineup comfortably no matter how well they bowl

 

[tooextracool]

Or rather that's the most common definition of it.
Sometimes it's used in "match spell" to refer to a match of bowling.

yes and since the most common definition is not your definition it must be wrong. i've never heard it used as 'match spell' by anyone other than someone deluded.

Or rather had Boje not got the pitch to suit him.
Martin simply doesn't need a pitch to suit him - he just needs to be doing something he hardly ever does..

yes and what are the odds of a spinner friendly wicket in NZ.....very small indeed.

By facing relatively unchallenging bowling. Simple as. Either that or, of course, they bowled worse to him that they did to the rest - I wouldn't know, not having seen the match.

facing unchallenging bowling? you just said that ntini, pollock etc were accurateand of course we all know that boje bowled well. stop with your rubbish, hes an FTB its a proven fact. you didnt watch the game, i did. and i can assure you that all the bowlers bowled the way that they usually do in similar conditions.

Yes, it would - but had Ntini, Terbrugge and Boje been expensive before Pollock started to get hammered, too?
Why you keep claiming "whether the rest were accurate or not doesn't matter" I'm not sure, because it does matter - if they'd bowled more accurately, I'm almost certain Styris would not have made anywhere near 170. Whether Cairns and Oram would have made their runs is less questionable.

what part of ntini and boje are never accurate outside of conditions that suit them do you not understand? the reason why they were inaccurate was because they are rubbish bowlers who are always inaccurate. hence if they are ever accurate outside conditions that suit them it is an anomaly. theres no 'if' about it. initially you said that all that was needed to get styris out was accurate. after ive more than proven to you that pollock was bowling as well as he usually does, you are talking about the other bowlers. i guess styris can survive pollock despite his accuracy. regardless, im pretty sure that the likes of terbrugge and ntini had much better figures before cairns and oram came into bat.

 

[tooextracool]

Whatever, if you say so - this is never going to end, really, because there's no logical end to it.

no it wont, because you are too deluded to understand the meaning of the word 'logical'

 

[tooextracool]

By referring to him in conjuncture with Ntini, whose figures are good at home and rubbish away, you were implying it - whether deliberately or not.

no i said that they were both rubbish away from home. of course you suffer from dyslexia and take that to mean that dippennaar is brilliant at home.

He's managing to average 23 against England because there have been poor shots aplenty - I am amazed you can't see that. I didn't really watch the NZ series in 2000\01, it's possible that he bowled well of course, but bowling well in one home series doesn't really denote being a home-success-away-failure.

no you are the one that hasnt been watching the england series. even though england have played poor strokes you would have noticed that ntini has actually been the pick of the bowlers of the SA side. hes got tresco out twice this series by exploiting his weakness with good deliveries, certainly the delivery that got vaughan out in durban werent poor ones either. neither of course were the deliveries to flintoff and jones in the first test. with regard to the 00/01 series vs NZ, im quite sure he bowled well in that one too.

And if India's batsmen were still suffering from outside-subcontinent-blues why, then, did they manage to score so many stacks of runs in quite a few of the matches in the period including series' in South Africa, West Indies, England and Australia?

well done with including australia, even though it was 2 years after the period in question. how much did they score in SA again? they came across an extremely flat wicket in the first wicket, which they nearly screwed up until sehwag and tendulkar came to the crease and saved them. didnt help them in the 2nd inning as they were dismissed for 200 odd. then of course in the 2nd test they nearly managed to follow on at 119/8 until laxman and kumble got them to 201. of course they manged to draw that game with the help of some bad light and some good dravid batting. in the next test, unofficial or not, they managed to lose by an innings. quite a brilliant team that. all that with SA having only one real bowling threat in pollock.
in the WI they played the first test on a lifeless guyana wicket, and with the rain had no result. in the 2nd test they somehow managed to pull off a victory possibly because the WI batting was so poor that they allowed khan and nehra to get 9 wickets in the game. nonetheless it wasnt really the greatest batting performances by india and they nearly ended up losing when they were 56/4 in the 2nd inning.
then in barbados they disgraced themselves further with their 102 and 296 and somehow managed to let sanford get figures of 3/20 in the first inning(not like the likes of cuffy and dillon are far better either).
then they managed to score runs in antigua, gee why does that surprise me before they further disgraced themselves in jamaica. quite brilliant batting performances those.

Exactly - but the most revealing stat of the series was not the scoreline, but the number of runs each team averaged per wicket - South Africa 44.something, England 35.something.
Almost everyone agreed that South Africa were the better side that series.?

and your point is? so they averaged more runs per wicket, how the hell does that make a difference. yes so SA scored a hell of a lot more in the tests that they won, again that doesnt make a difference. the fact is that the SA side was rubbish enough to draw with a side that had anderson as its leading fast bowler.

Or rather being hammered on turning pitches in India and SL should be claimed as almost inevitable, given that almost everyone does.
Not being able to beat England in 2003 as I've said above was not conclusive, and not being able to beat Pakistan in The Second Test was simply a nearly-feat - because they came pretty darn close.
Anyhow, this is done elsewhere - there really is no point having two different posts on exactly the same thing, it's just a waste of both our time.

a nearly feat? yes they nearly lost. you speak of it as though they clearly had the upper hand and were unlucky to not win the game. pakistan needed about 60 odd runs with 4 wickets left. and they had a partnership going with 2 set batsmen. the fact that they were on even page with a pakistan side that had abdul razzaq opening the bowling says enough. IMO had akhtar(or any other fast bowler) played SA would have lost and lost hansomely like they did in the first test.

 

[tooextracool]

No-one can ever deserve to be credited with winning a Test-match upon beating Bangladesh.

yes well done in making yourself look even more foolish. im quite sure no one deserves to beat bangladesh.

 

[tooextracool]

And you never know - if they were to beat England I might just be proven right.

yes im sure that if england play poorly(which they have) you would be proven right. yet of course when SA played poorly against NZ you suggested that they underperformed. well done sherlock.

 

[Richard]

yes hence these once in a blue moon spells cancel out and we have an even result, which is in fact what happened and deservedly so. had they however not played on a turner, SA would have lost the series.

And the way I look at it the turner was more "inevitable" than Martin being picked (let alone being picked and bowling well) so therefore New Zealand gained a more unexpected advantage.

yes and you can make such claims without even watching the series cant you? as has already been shown before they were hammered to greater extents for their rubbish bowling by quality batsman.

Exactly, they were hammered when they were bowling rubbish - in The Second Test. In the other 2, though, they weren't.

 

[Richard]

oh no, i mean collapses arent an indication of a poor side. neither of course is the fact that they are incapable of winning anywhere in the world except at home against rubbish opposition. the number of excuses that you have made such as 'almost everyone loses to pakistan when akhtar bowls well' and 'almost everyone loses in india and SL is indicative of how bad a team they are and how much of a fool you are making of yourself.

So it's not true to say either, now, is it?
You know and I know and everyone else who's studied the situation knows that most of the time both of the two happen. As is it that everyone loses to Australia.
Maybe they're incapable of winning anywhere but at home against rubbish opposition - perhaps that's because all the opposition they've played at home in recent years, except Australia, have been rubbish away from home?

 

[Richard]

yes YOU see no reason for it. i mean if mckenzie averaged 0.99 in test cricket away from home you'd still be saying that he deserves a place in the side. of course the fact that hes failed in every home series in his entire career suggests that its all coincidence too. yet if someone like chopra does the same for 2 series we'll never hear the end of it.

No, I'd never criticise someone for failing away from home unless there was an obvious reason for it. If it meant a poor overall average I'd say it meant a poor overall average.
Personally I'd say McKenzie's away average of 39.11 in the period where he played well at home as well means something - you, on the other hand, would simply say that scoring runs in Zimbabwe doesn't matter.
What you see as good-home-poor-away I see simply as an indication that most of his poor period has come in away Tests.

of course not, im sure SA could use players who average less than 20 in the sub continent. its no wonder they got hammered in pakistan, SL and india.

Losing 1-0 in two-Test series hardly qualifies as "being hammered", more beaten relatively convincingly (except in Pakistan).
And given that they'll not visit the subcontinent for God-knows-how-long now I don't actually see that it's immidiately relevant.

because as we all know, scoring runs against the mighty zimbabwe, SL(without murali) and WI attacks(along with a depleted NZ attack from 5 years ago) at home shows us how brilliant a player he is. no matter how badly he failed in NZ, SL, england and pakistan.

Or rather it could simply show us that his failing in SL had more to do with being forced to bat totally out of position and that for most of the series in England and all of the ones in Pakistan and New Zealand he was in a phrase of his Test-career where he was very poor home or away.
I've not actually claimed him to be a brilliant player at all, incidentally, simply not one to be written-off the way you'd have it.

just like the likelyhood of SA playing better than they actually are.

I'd say they've played better this series than they played in India or Sri Lanka - not much of a surprise, really.

 

[Richard]

no i mean we should all hail the likes of mckenzie, dippenaar, nel and rudolph and compare them to the likes of rhodes, cullinan, donald and cronje. how long before you realise that you've already been proven wrong about a year ago infact?

And of course none of them can be given the time to improve that Donald and Rhodes, especially, were given? Not to mention Kallis.

 

[Richard]

as opposed to dippenaar and mckenzie who cant buy a run away from home.

Or rather Dippenaar who frankly can't buy a run against anyone except Bangladesh and McKenzie who is discussed elsewhere.

and ive said one million times, NZ bowled well and hence deserved to win. just because you have a half decent batting lineup, it doesnt mean that they will be able to play any bowling lineup comfortably no matter how well they bowl

No, it doesn't - it does, however, mean that to get bowled-out by mainly Chris Martin will come as a disappointment.

 

[Richard]

yes and since the most common definition is not your definition it must be wrong. i've never heard it used as 'match spell' by anyone other than someone deluded.

Honestly, what ridiculous lengths will you go to to score points (and lengthen posts totally unneccesarily) - I've used the term many, many times, with all sorts of people, and no-one (you included) has ever objected before.
By "spell" I was referring to the match - can't we just leave the bloody thing at that?

yes and what are the odds of a spinner friendly wicket in NZ.....very small indeed.

Except that Basin Reserve has produced a few, especially in recent years.

facing unchallenging bowling? you just said that ntini, pollock etc were accurateand of course we all know that boje bowled well. stop with your rubbish, hes an FTB its a proven fact. you didnt watch the game, i did. and i can assure you that all the bowlers bowled the way that they usually do in similar conditions.

So Pollock, Ntini, Nel and Boje all bowled accurately and Boje was penetrative, in other words.
And Styris scored runs because everyone will score runs every now and then.

what part of ntini and boje are never accurate outside of conditions that suit them do you not understand? the reason why they were inaccurate was because they are rubbish bowlers who are always inaccurate. hence if they are ever accurate outside conditions that suit them it is an anomaly. theres no 'if' about it. initially you said that all that was needed to get styris out was accurate. after ive more than proven to you that pollock was bowling as well as he usually does, you are talking about the other bowlers. i guess styris can survive pollock despite his accuracy. regardless, im pretty sure that the likes of terbrugge and ntini had much better figures before cairns and oram came into bat.

Right, for posterity's sake - before Cairns came to the wicket the figures were:
Pollock 23 for 65
Ntini 24 for 71
Boje 9 for 36
Kallis 15 for 68
Terbrugge 16 for 65
So we can see that while all of them suffered from the Cairns\Oram onslaught, Pollock and Ntini actually had economical figures before it.
And what an absurd notion that bowlers only bowl accurately when the conditions suit them! Despite, I suppose, Ntini's combined ER in the three subcontinent tours of 2003-2004 being less than 3-an-over? Or his ER in New Zealand (with not a seaming pitch in sight) that was also under 3 (despite, as we've just found-out, it being seriously damaged by the Cairns\Oram partnership)?
Ntini and Boje both have some games where they bowl accurately, some where they spray it all over the place. They only offer penetration when there's seam or turn (or poor batting) but that's a totally different matter.

 

[Richard]

no it wont, because you are too deluded to understand the meaning of the word 'logical'

Yes, of course.
"Deluded" seems to be becoming a watchword - noticed how monotonous you were becoming, have you?

 

[Richard]

yes well done in making yourself look even more foolish. im quite sure no one deserves to beat bangladesh.

Anyone deserves to beat them provided they don't play totally woefully.
They don't, however, deserve to be credited with a Test-match win upon beating them - something as far as I'm aware you agree on, given that you like me always remove Bangladesh games where Test and ODI performance is being discussed.

 

[marc71178]

noticed how monotonous you were becoming, have you?

Need to stop talking to yourself.

 

[Richard]

yes im sure that if england play poorly(which they have) you would be proven right. yet of course when SA played poorly against NZ you suggested that they underperformed. well done sherlock.

It is a simple matter of who is adjudged to be the more talented side. I've always believed that the potential of South Africa is greater than that of England, simple as. I also believed it about New Zealand.
Some people (you, for instance) believe otherwise - so as far as you're concerned if SA draw or win the other side has underperformed.

 

[Richard]

no i said that they were both rubbish away from home. of course you suffer from dyslexia and take that to mean that dippennaar is brilliant at home.

And of course no-one else would do that, would they? So now everyone is dyslexic.

no you are the one that hasnt been watching the england series. even though england have played poor strokes you would have noticed that ntini has actually been the pick of the bowlers of the SA side. hes got tresco out twice this series by exploiting his weakness with good deliveries, certainly the delivery that got vaughan out in durban werent poor ones either. neither of course were the deliveries to flintoff and jones in the first test. with regard to the 00/01 series vs NZ, im quite sure he bowled well in that one too.

So he's bowled OK (not as well as his figures suggest) in two home series - wow.

well done with including australia, even though it was 2 years after the period in question. how much did they score in SA again? they came across an extremely flat wicket in the first wicket, which they nearly screwed up until sehwag and tendulkar came to the crease and saved them. didnt help them in the 2nd inning as they were dismissed for 200 odd. then of course in the 2nd test they nearly managed to follow on at 119/8 until laxman and kumble got them to 201. of course they manged to draw that game with the help of some bad light and some good dravid batting. in the next test, unofficial or not, they managed to lose by an innings. quite a brilliant team that. all that with SA having only one real bowling threat in pollock.
in the WI they played the first test on a lifeless guyana wicket, and with the rain had no result. in the 2nd test they somehow managed to pull off a victory possibly because the WI batting was so poor that they allowed khan and nehra to get 9 wickets in the game. nonetheless it wasnt really the greatest batting performances by india and they nearly ended up losing when they were 56/4 in the 2nd inning.
then in barbados they disgraced themselves further with their 102 and 296 and somehow managed to let sanford get figures of 3/20 in the first inning(not like the likes of cuffy and dillon are far better either).
then they managed to score runs in antigua, gee why does that surprise me before they further disgraced themselves in jamaica. quite brilliant batting performances those.

In other words they exploited the flat wickets when they came along.
Even though they managed to lose some games (4 more than they won - including the "unofficial" one) due to their by-and-large terrible bowling, they still batted well for the most part on flat wickets (and once Sehwag and Tendulkar on a slightly seaming one).
Which, funnily enough, is precisely what I said they'd done.

and your point is? so they averaged more runs per wicket, how the hell does that make a difference. yes so SA scored a hell of a lot more in the tests that they won, again that doesnt make a difference. the fact is that the SA side was rubbish enough to draw with a side that had anderson as its leading fast bowler.

And the fact is they were much the better side and under most circumstances would probably have won that series.

a nearly feat? yes they nearly lost. you speak of it as though they clearly had the upper hand and were unlucky to not win the game. pakistan needed about 60 odd runs with 4 wickets left. and they had a partnership going with 2 set batsmen. the fact that they were on even page with a pakistan side that had abdul razzaq opening the bowling says enough. IMO had akhtar(or any other fast bowler) played SA would have lost and lost hansomely like they did in the first test.

Quite possibly they would. If there'd been a bit more play possible, though, I'd back SA not Pak to have won that Second Test.