Most underrated and overrated players in the world?

[Son Of Coco]

My brother didn't play any part in the luck test - he was just a pawn.
And satirising things which have absolutely no comparison won't get you anywhere.
It's not really possible to use statistical research for bowling.

Really? That's a very strange viewpoint. There is a comparison, your theory on luck with batsmen and your theory on luck with bowlers are equally as baseless and flawed. If there's no possibility of using statistical research for bowling then nothing you have mentioned in relation to it can be quantified, therefore you have absolutely nothing concrete to base your ideas on.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Yet that sort of generalisation overlooks the most important fact - the very deliveries that have taken the wickets.

And as I said above, THAT sort of generalisation overlooks a possibly more important fact - what's happened beforehand. I've seen a hell of a lot of McGrath's wickets from the very start of his career, and there's a lot of good ones in there. I doubt the amount of times he got lucky would be a significant percentage of his career.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Do you understand the difference between what is commonly described as "pressure" and clear confusion?
Bowling outswinger-inswinger-outswinger-outswinger-outswinger-inswinger-outswinger or something like that is always going to give the batsman precisely zero chance of knowing what's coming next, and he can never cover all eventualities so he can't be expected to avoid dismissal and if he's dismissed he can't be said to have played a poor stroke.
Someone who's just landing the ball on the same spot, restricting the scoring etc. is not making life at all difficult, given that limitless-over cricket does not require a fast scoring-rate. And that's all McGrath does.

Ah, he moves it around a bit too Richard, something you must know having seen/read about him playing.

 

[Son Of Coco]

You can't move the ball off the seam (dangerously often) if the pitch isn't giving you the chance.
And you certainly can't extract uneven bounce unless the pitch is offering it to you.
And just because McGrath bounces higher than most bowlers doesn't make him more dangerous - do you see him getting loads of top-edged Hooks and Cuts?

Richard, there's not a pitch in the world that won't move at all if you continuously land it on the seam. On a wicket that isn't doing much, moving it a few times a day is enough to be 'dangerously often'.

Combined with his accuracy the extra bounce McGrath gets does make him more dangerous because he can pitch it up a bit further and still get it short of a length, making it harder for a batsman to judge whether he should be playing at it or not. More bounce doesn't mean pitching it shorter - which is probably why you don't see the top-edged hooks and cuts you're talking about, he's not pitching it short enough, in general, for the batsman to be considering those shots in the first place.

Ridiculously uneven bounce is the wicket's fault - yes, but getting one to bounce a little extra every so often can also be a product of landing the ball on the seam. If you do this often enough (and it's something McGrath does with metronomic regularity) then something will happen. When you get the seam as upright as these guys again you'll get results.

I thought you were a bowler mate, but it seems as though you know very little about bowling - I'd like to say it surprises me, but as I said...we've talked before.

 

[marc71178]

Why does it have to work equally both ways?

Well McGrath has superb career figures - means you're contradicting yourself.

 

[marc71178]

I don't know for certain, no, no-one does.

What about those that have played the game at that level?

But what I've seen does tend to suggest there's nowhere near as much as plenty - including those commenting with the benefit of hindsight - suggest.

How the hell do you work that out?

These people have experienced it, yet you still say they haven't...

 

[tooextracool]

It's not at all unusual for match-reports to describe, even if not in so many words, that there was something that was clearly a nothing delivery.

so lets see them then, match reports of a few games that show that EVERY mcgrath wicket was from a non wicket taking delivery.

 

[tooextracool]

I'm not - his economy-rate after WC99 was 4.38-an-over - check it if you don't believe me.

who the hell are you talking about? geoff allott has never had a series before or after the wc where he had an ER of below 4.40 let alone a whole period.

Good figures are good figures.
If he's been hammered every time he played on a non-seaming track it'll even tracks like those out.

and it did, because his career ER was complete rubbish. and please the same person who says that oram can only bowl on seamer friendly wickets in ODIs and is therefore useless now says that good figures are good figures, whether or not the pitch is seamer friendly

God knows - you like to throw that one on several players.
If you're referring to Bichel - funny, did Bichel play more before and after WC2003 than Allott did before and after WC99? Yes, funnily enough. Did he suffer a debilitating injury that very clearly affected his bowling according to everyone who watched? No in Bichel's case, yes in Allott's.
He was pretty rubbish before the World Cup but he'd played so little that one single competition made-up a lot of his career and meant that overall his record was not bad. Then he got injured.

no the point is that you make him out to be this great player based on 1 series on seamer friendly pitches, no matter how rubbish he was before. and as ive explained the fact that his test record was poor too would suggest that he hadnt improved as a bowler, simply benefited from seamer friendly wickets. we can only look at his record and say that he was rubbish, 1 series on seamer friendly wickets proves nothing, let alone putting him down as one of the great players of the decade.

No, he might have been.
On the other hand, if he'd played more Tests and not suffered a debilitating injury, his Test-record might have improved.

why would it have had? he never showed any improvement in tests even before the injury. and he never looked like taking wickets in tests, even while he was destroying sides in ODIs. no allott was rubbish period.

And will you stop trying to attach any meaning to the post-1999 games when his career quite clearly fits into two phrases in which he could take wickets in ODIs and could also bowl not-too-expensively and in which he couldn't do either..

and will you stop looking at 1 series on seamer friendly wickets to make him out as a great bowler? look at any other ODI series or any other test series instead.

Have you ever thought that looking at things as a whole is more often than not very misleading, and that breaking down careers and identifying patterns is the thing that any true analyst of the game needs to be able to do?

yes which is what ive done with allott, ive removed the part where he had any amount of success and looked at the rest of it. hes been rubbish for all the rest of it and the pattern continues in both form of the game. hence he was never going to amount to anything.

No, everyone on here would tell you that David Hoitink knows quite a bit about cricket, especially in Australia.

the same people on here who you've claimed know nothing about cricket? on several occasions when ive asked you to take a poll of how many people agree with your opinion, you've said that what other people on here think is irrelevant. hence if other people think that any random idiot that you like knows quite a bit, is also irrelevant.

Maybe it is if you've never seen them bat before - if you have seen them bat before and they looked decidedly poor against spin, it isn't.

maybe you should have seen him bat since then. if you are so shallow to think that someone is useless against spin based on 2 games against rubbish spinners from 5 years agol then you are the idiot that you've made yourself out to be. id much rather use a performance against murali in SL and kumble on a sydney turner to judge a players prowess against spin, than use a performance against salisbury.

 

[tooextracool]

I've claimed that he's not bowled anywhere near as well in 2001-05 as is assumed looking at the statistics.

please how long ago did you say that only fools would consider a bowler like mcgrath who takes his wickets by luck a great bowler?
or are you gonna deny that you've ever said it, so that i find that comment and make you look like a fool again?

 

[tooextracool]

Do you understand the difference between what is commonly described as "pressure" and clear confusion?
Bowling outswinger-inswinger-outswinger-outswinger-outswinger-inswinger-outswinger or something like that is always going to give the batsman precisely zero chance of knowing what's coming next, and he can never cover all eventualities so he can't be expected to avoid dismissal and if he's dismissed he can't be said to have played a poor stroke.
Someone who's just landing the ball on the same spot, restricting the scoring etc. is not making life at all difficult, given that limitless-over cricket does not require a fast scoring-rate. And that's all McGrath does.

and you are a fool if you think that pressure is all about restricting the scoring rate.
ive said it a million times, pressure is about creating chances, playing and missing and just creating doubt in the batsman's mind. like it or not the only reason bicknell got that wicket from an inswinger was because of pressure, the same reason why mcgrath gets about half his wickets.
and its fairly obvious, no matter how stupid you are, that you play a shot against a ball if you're not sure what its going to do. not just let it go and hope that it is an outswinger. and you can often tell from the angle and seam position as to what the ball is going to do.

 

[tooextracool]

Of course he does - and on a seaming or uneven pitch there is no better bowler than McGrath.
But when the pitch offers neither, he only takes wickets because the batsmen play poor strokes.

further evidence that you dont watch cricket. there is absolutely no wicket that doesnt offer any seam movement. every wicket offers something, and the fact is that with mcgraths accuracy, that little seam movement is more than enough to get the outside or inside edge.

 

[tooextracool]

No, McGrath cannot bowl good deliveries where others can't.
He just gets poor strokes where others don't.
His typical dismissal on a flat wicket is an innocous delivery outside off-stump that is played at when it should have been left and either edged of hit to an infielder. Or an innocous straight ball that has been blocked a million times and is missed this time.

you really are getting desperate arent you. a million people have seen mcgrath bowl wicket taking deliveries on wickets where everyone else has looked innocuous. you my friend are blind.

 

[twctopcat]

Look at some footage, read some reports - you'll see it's true.

You don't think i haven't?? I watch Mcgrath and Australia whenever i can and trust me he seams it every time, him and gillespie for that matter. I'm not trying to play devils advocate i'm just telling you what i saw with my own eyes, and not what some match report said that's for damn sure.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

You don't think i haven't?? I watch Mcgrath and Australia whenever i can and trust me he seams it every time, him and gillespie for that matter. I'm not trying to play devils advocate i'm just telling you what i saw with my own eyes, and not what some match report said that's for damn sure.

Exactly. I've watched every test McGrath has bowled in since the 2001 Ashes (or close to it at least), and I've yet to see a pitch he hasn't been able to extract movement from. The Adelaide test against New Zealand this summer is a perfect example - one of the flattest decks I've ever seen in a test, and his performance was masterful. The way he dismissed Astle will stick in my mind for a long time.

 

[Richard]

McGrath is a smart and cunning bowler and deserves all the credit that he gets for those kind of wickets. McGrath time and time again out-thinks the batsmen with clever use of seam even on the flattest of wickets. Because he doesn't give the batsmen much to attack with his unerring line and exxagerated bounce, batsmen get frustrated and end up gloving having been worked over by McGrath.

You ave got to give the man credit because he has great stamina and is able to bowl long spells were batsmen are constantly under pressure. If you had not realised that pressure gets you wickets, then you haven't learned anything from the way Ashley Giles got is wickets last summer. He just kept wheeling away at a distinct line for long spells, like McGraths does.

You cannot just keep calling a player very lucky because yo do not like them.

Nothing to do with it, I don't like or dislike players.
Ashley Giles last summer, meanwhile, got wickets for the same reason he always gets them - because the pitches, unusually in England, helped him (at least they did in the Third NZ, First WI and Second WI Tests - apart from that he didn't do much).
No bowler can force frustration upon the batsmen and if they are frustrated simply by a slow scoring-rate when it doesn't matter at all then that's very poor indeed on their part.

 

[Richard]

These sort of statements indicate that you know next to nothing about the game.

If you had ever seen McGrath bowl live, you would realise that he is quicker than he looks, gets steep bounce and hones in relentlessly on a batsman's weakness.

Richard, you should stop this line of argument whilst you still have some credibility.

I've plenty, thanks very much.
I've seen McGrath bowl live plenty of times, and he never beats batsmen for pace (same way virtually no-one ever does), or bounce (like virtually no-one ever does).
And I also know that there are some batsmen who have a weakness for not being able to leave enough deliveries - which doesn't say anything about him.

 

[Richard]

Oh no Richard, they are totally a matter of opinion. You seem to be focused on the shot itself whilst ignoring what's gone on before it. A bowler can set a batsman up to play a shot that appears to be absolutely awful, it's part of the art of bowling. You keep saying that a batsman with the right mental attitude shouldn't fall to a bowler like McGrath, but I doubt there's a batsman going around that hasn't at some stage or another......and some of the supposed best of this era have done so repeatedly.

What's a bad shot to you, is a well thought out set up to someone else. I'm not sure you're aware enough to pick up on what's being planned....and I'm not saying batsman never play bad shots to get out - but you have to look at what's happened beforehand to make that judgement. Declaring your opinion on something as 'fact' doesn't make it so.

A bad shot is a bad shot, regardless of what's gone before. If you've been fooled, fine, but like I say - I've never seen McGrath fool a batsman with the outswinger\inswinger tactic or similar.
Worrying about what has gone before is a bad attitude. Worrying about a slow scoring-rate is a bad attitude.

 

[Richard]

Yet a batsman rarely ever scores heavily off him.....go figure.

Exactly - but they do keep him out and score heavily off the attack as a whole.
They manage to score heavily when he's bowled at them, despite the fact that they hardly ever manage to score quickly off him.
So therefore they aren't feeling pressurised by the fact that he's bowling at them.

 

[Richard]

Really? That's a very strange viewpoint. There is a comparison, your theory on luck with batsmen and your theory on luck with bowlers are equally as baseless and flawed. If there's no possibility of using statistical research for bowling then nothing you have mentioned in relation to it can be quantified, therefore you have absolutely nothing concrete to base your ideas on.

I do - the fact that I've watched him take wickets and read descriptions of wickets he's got when I haven't been able to watch.
There's no statistic you can use to remove luck from a bowler - because it's totally impossible to get rid of every edged run, every missed bad delivery - all it's possible to do is look at the wickets they have got and work-out whether they were from deliveries that deserved them.

 

[Richard]

And as I said above, THAT sort of generalisation overlooks a possibly more important fact - what's happened beforehand. I've seen a hell of a lot of McGrath's wickets from the very start of his career, and there's a lot of good ones in there. I doubt the amount of times he got lucky would be a significant percentage of his career.

Depends on how many seaming or uneven wickets he played on before 2001 - all I can say is since 2001 he's played mostly on flat wickets and has rarely taken wickets with good deliveries.