I don't have anything against him, he's a good player, but I don't find him as good as Inzamam.tooextracool said:
Yeah, I was trying to confuse people - you, of course, are usually able to spot that sort of thing.
No, I came to the conclusion that he was better than Hayden.tooextracool said:
Oh, you mean like his brilliant, match-winning, back-to-the-wall centuries in Sri Lanka and India? Two in each tour with the team down, I might add? Yeah, he's a bully with inflated stats for sure.Richard said:
Go on then, remove 50% of his test record and see if his average drops under 21.Richard said:
ok richard refresh my memory of some more challenging test innings that inzamam has scored other than his twin centuries in sri lanka last year when australia were on the ropes, his twin hundreds in india (especailly his 104 in chennai) and quite recently his 142 in the boxing day test when australia were in a bit of trouble.Richard said:
al the excuses, dont you get the point that the only reason why players like butcher performed against SA back then were because SA performed poorly. you can come up with as many excuses as you want, only a fool would say that england were remotely near as good as SA in 98.Richard said:
any team that falls to pieces when it matters most is clearly not good enough, especially considering that they were falling to pieces when they were playing in england.Richard said:
because a side does not consist of 3 players?Richard said:
by whom? which of those fantastic bowlers from WI and pakistan were good enough to bowl them?Richard said:
hoggard is definetly not poor, and at least hes capable of swinging the ball and being relatively accurate. which is definetly not what i can say about fidel edwards( who id be surprised if hes ever bowled more than 1 ball every over that wasnt too short let alone the accuracy) and mohammad sami.Richard said:
and yet you claim that that side was one of the best in the worldRichard said:
.whos relatively poor records against the 3 best bowling attacks obviously make him better.Richard said:
or rather you posted something without thinking, in the attempt to try and save face from another argument, and then took it back extremely quickly. not the first time you've done that.Richard said:
so really had you decided to compare anwar to langer you would have come out with langer on top or possibly equal. and then compared hayden to wasti and come out with hayden on top. which really goes to show how much those 1 on 1 player comparisons are really worth.Richard said:
Why is it poor batting to fail to pick a change in length but not to pick a change in movement? A batsman who was playing Warne well would pick the one that goes straight on and not play for the turn. McGrath can get anyone (including Lara, Tendulkar etc... anyone) with his variations in length. He bowls an uncomfortable length which is difficult to play and gets the batsman in two minds about whether to go on the front or the back foot and induces a mistake. Another common tactic of his is when he gets batsmen to play away from their bodies by bowling a naggingly accurate line in the corridor just outside off-stump and moving the ball around in the air and off the wicket. If they leave every ball he bowls one on off stump, and then after they defend that he bowls one outside off moving away and they try and defend that and get an edge. I don't know how many times I've seen McGrath get this exact wicket, but it's alot.Richard said:
A flat pitch will not offer much in the way of lateral movement or turn, and as such bowlers have to use different strategies to get wickets. I have no idea what you are on about here. The whole point of talking about bowling on flat wickets is that there isn't much that bowlers can do in terms of moving it around, so they have to use alternative strategies - which often means beating the batsman with pace or subtle variations and inducing a poor stroke. Frustrating the batsman is also a common tactic on flat pitches, used by Warne and McGrath in particular to great effect. The very reason why McGrath is such a good player on flat wickets is that he doesn't rely on seaming the ball a mile or swinging it around a corner to get his wickets. He is accurate and can squeeze enough movement out of any pitch to get wickets, which is why he is the most successful bowler of his era.Richard said:
Again, this is completely wrong. You do not determine the best bowler by how much they move the ball. By this standard the best spinner in the world is Macgill and the best pacer in the world is Vaas. You determine the best bowler by how often they get batsman out and how well they can handle changes in match situation and playing conditions. McGrath is a proven bowler in all conditions against all opposition, and he particularly thrives in comparison to other bowlers on pitches which do not offer significant amounts of lateral movement.Richard said:
Further evidence that you haven't been watching them recently. During the Australian tour Shoaib struggled to break 150 at all, and I watched entire spells of his bowling where he failed to do so. Lee has recently bowled entire spells where every ball aside from the first 2 or 3 was above 150, and entire overs above 155 at the height of his spells. He's also broken 160 (100 mph) with consecutive balls in his last ODI.Richard said:
oh what rubbish, are you saying that if someone bowls 1 inswinger against someone whos susceptible against it hes bound to get him out? no at the most he might make him feel uncomfortable thats just about it.Richard said:
doubt it, i highly doubt the chances of edwards bowling one on target and getting to swing in on the same ball happening once every few overs.Richard said:
as shown by pakistan who got humiliated by australia, zimbabwe and SA.Richard said: