Monty

[Goughy]

All of this is right.

Its Richards 'Black or White, but I am Right' world

You see, what Richard doesnt understand is there is much more to a set of bowling figures than the number of overs, maidens, runs and wickets, but we all know that he doesnt beleive in the concept of building pressure etc.

TBF, Monty isnt a great pressure builder. I have seldom, if ever seen a SLA get cut as much as he does.

He is a decent bowler that has done a good job so far but he doesnt possess the control over his length to indicate top quaility as of yet.

If he sorted out a kink or 2 in his action then he has potential

[Scaly piscine]

Yea he drops short regularly, at the top level (whether it be Tests or ODIs) I can't remember him ever having bowled a really throttling spell, like a 7-2-8-x or something except for on the absolute dustbowl in England where they lost to SL. Even someone like Mascarenhas or Yardy has bowled the odd spell like that.

[Richard]

There is a lot more to spin bowling, than simply how much you can turn the ball. If there is not big turn in a pitch, thats when you use slight variations, whether that be in speed, flight, being good enough to bowl to a certain plan, changing your angles, generally thinking about the game.

There's a lot more to spin-bowling than just spinning the ball, but if you don't do that, none of the other things you can do as a spinner are much use really.

[Richard]

^^ But we get relatively lengthy descriptions of poor performances, or "lucky" ones - at least a sentence or two explaining it, ie. "WI batsmen inexplicably padded up to straight ones" (perhaps they were at sea and unable to read his variations?).

That's the thing, though, they didn't. Barely a single ball in that match got off the straight. There wasn't any variation - it was simply that they were (for no good reason) playing for turn that wasn't there.

More of them than not were tailenders, too.

But one of the best bowling performances of the kid's life gets cut down to "bowled well, until Gilchrist got after him" - and incidently when Gilchrist DID get after him, he did exactly what a good attacking spinner should do, and kept his head up, put his hand up for another over, and kept on throwing it up in an attempt to get the wicket.

Well he did bowl well - what else do you want me to say? Had Gilchrist hit his first ball straight up and been taken, MSP's figures for that match would have been excellent.

I'm probably fine with your overall assessment, but your blow by blow of each match sounds a bit like you have a conclusion and then go to find evidence to back it up, rather than reviewing the evidence and then reaching a conclusion.

As I've said many times, there's just no point doing that. In any case, if the evidence didn't back me up I'd change my view, simple as.

[umop 3p!sdn]

I think he is a good test player, for the ODI and 20/20 format I don't think he is a good enough alround player. He needs to contribute more with the bat and in the field.

[Athlai]

He's a good little bowler, but hardly looks like the next Warne. Overrated but still quite good.

He's not the Messiah, just a very naughty boy.

[Richard]

(Click the smiley TBH)

[Athlai]

Yeah love that quote.

[Richard]

I was just baffled that that was the second time that quote had been used in conjunction with MSP (note Pete's post one below the previously-linked one).

For one, I hadn't a clue what the two of them were on about that time.

[Athlai]

I was just baffled that that was the second time that quote had been used in conjunction with MSP (note Pete's post one below the previously-linked one).

For one, I hadn't a clue what the two of them were on about that time.

I'd assume its because he is celebrated like the next spinning messiah. And we're cool.

Two main reasons.

[GIMH]

Love Monty as a Test player. Whether he's overrated or not is hard to define, as SJS would say, but I think he adds a lot of value to the England side and on recent form is the best test fignerspinner around (ie Harbajan hasn't been playing Tests of late).

Wouldn't let him near the ODI side anymore though.