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Test Class

Beleg

International Regular
Ntini, Nel, Umar Gul, and Asif are better batsmen than Ashraful, Bashar, Hossain, Kappali!

Rafique and Murtaza are worse than Sami, Sajid Mahmood and your random Kiwi.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Dwayne Leverock is a better bowler than Andrew Strauss too.

Does that mean Bermuda are Test-class?
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Yawer has always been a critic of people saying Bangladesh are not Test-class, because of the fact that some of their best players are better than some of the worst from Test-class teams.

The issue is not, as I always say, over value of wickets\runs. The issue is that a team should be good enough to play at the level required, and Bangladesh are patently not good enough to play at Test level. They're as woefully substandard as South Africa were in the 19th-century.
 

Athlai

Not Terrible
I usually just state nonsensical things and assume people will understand what I really mean.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Haha, I understand fully what he means, and so will people who've read his thoughts on the matter before.

Might be a bit confusing for n00bs tho. :p
 

Athlai

Not Terrible
Total waste of a thread IMO, if you aren't willing to actually argue your point then I see no reason to create a thread. The opening statement merely claims that some shocking Test bowlers are better batsman than some Bangers batsman, not really arguing any point at all. Yet I guess some of us n00bs opinions just don't matter. :happy:

Bangladesh to be competitive (string one or two wins together and actually deserve it) in 5 years IMO.
 

Manee

Cricketer Of The Year
Dwayne Leverock is a better bowler than Andrew Strauss too.
It is difficult to compare a spinner to a medium pace bowler. Let's not make sweeping judgements either - remember, you cannot judge a bowler who you haven't seen at length.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
TBH I've seen Strauss at such little length that I don't even know whether he's a medium-pacer (probably more medium-slow if he's a seamer TBH) or a spinner. :p
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
He's been compared to the Wasim Akram of the 1960s.
I dont know how good Wasim Akram was in the 1960's? Depends on which part of 1960's though. In the first half of the decade he couldn't have been much of a bowler. In 1969, at about three years of age ....maybe.... just maybe
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
I hear on the quiet that Kyle Mills is a better test bowler than Kevin Pietersen, though personally I doubt there is any truth in that.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Yawer has always been a critic of people saying Bangladesh are not Test-class, because of the fact that some of their best players are better than some of the worst from Test-class teams.

The issue is not, as I always say, over value of wickets\runs. The issue is that a team should be good enough to play at the level required, and Bangladesh are patently not good enough to play at Test level. They're as woefully substandard as South Africa were in the 19th-century.
The point is though that say a hat-trick of wickets consisting of, off the top of my head, Dhoni, Kumble and Zaheer will perhaps receive more attention than one against Bangladesh with Nafees, Ashraful and Bashar, simply because the second one was against Bangladesh.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Of course it will, and that's quite right. A hat-trick against Bangladesh deserves approximately the same amount of attention as one against Western Australia, consisting of Hussey, Campbell and Langer or Goodwin, Katich and Gilchrist - though obviously it'll be higher-calibre players being dismissed in the WA case.

The issue of "Test class", I repeat, is not about the issue of calibre of players or team output on a one-off basis - it's about whether a team's long-term performance is good enough to merit status.

Bangladesh have never come close to being good enough to play Test cricket, therefore I do not consider so much as a single match involving them worthy of the "Test" tag, even if they have competed with Test-class teams 5 or 6 times and even if 3 or 4 of their players have sometimes looked like they are or might develop into Test-class cricketers.

Test status, the meriting of, should not be judged on a case-by-case basis.
 

Beleg

International Regular
Bangladesh have been accorded test status by the appropriate regulatory authority. In order to present a valid picture of a player's performance at 'test' level, it is necessary to provide a complete set of statistics

Statistics are used an indicators of a player's success. Of course, the problems inherent in that approach are obvious. We are trying to put something in absolute terms which is extremely subjective.

The definition of a 'good' ball differs from person to person. A ball pitches at middle, seams and beats the bat as well as the off-stump due to the work imparted on it by the bowler. It's a display of a bowler's skill. The next ball pitches outside off, it is a half-volley - the batsman lofts it up in the air, the timing is perfect, the placement isn't and he gets caught out at long-off. The scorebook would show a wicket in the wickets column, however, that wicket is not an indication of the bowler's ability to out-perform the batsman but is born out of an error on the batsman's part.

Therein lies the biggest problem with using statistics as a measure of skill (implicit in questions such as 'who is better'). However, let us assume for a moment that, broadly speaking, bowling skill is directly propotional to wicket-taking ability. This assumption allows us to use the number of wickets (statistics) as a direct measure of a bowler's ability.

The brings me to my next point - cherry-picking of suitable statistics.

Richard believes that Bangladesh's results on the cricketing field do not merit their inclusion among the cricketing playing elite. (Success is being judged by wins/losses) That's a fair opinion, and there is a lot of evidence to support that. However, a lot of posters assume and state, that because the team performance has not been up to the standard expected, the skill displayed by the opposition players against the individual Bangladeshis is also, by default, inferior to that on display against the other test nations. They feel that this warrants an exclusion of these performances from the players portfolio when judging their 'skill'. The oxymoronic nature of this assumption, and indeed the tendency on this board to exclude statistics against presumably 'non-test class' becomes evident when you do a comparison of the skill needed to displace Ashraful's off-stump as opposed to Chris Martin's bails.

Hence, I am afraid but I have to disagree with Richard strongly - a judgement of a player's inherent skill is all about the 'calibre of players' they are up against, amongst other things.*


* - Pitch composition, climatic conditions etc.
 

Beleg

International Regular
Total waste of a thread IMO, if you aren't willing to actually argue your point then I see no reason to create a thread. The opening statement merely claims that some shocking Test bowlers are better batsman than some Bangers batsman, not really arguing any point at all. Yet I guess some of us n00bs opinions just don't matter. :happy:

Bangladesh to be competitive (string one or two wins together and actually deserve it) in 5 years IMO.
If you can't see the point inherent in the first post than perhaps you should let those who can do the talking?
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Bangladesh have been accorded test status by the appropriate regulatory authority. In order to present a valid picture of a player's performance at 'test' level, it is necessary to provide a complete set of statistics

Statistics are used an indicators of a player's success. Of course, the problems inherent in that approach are obvious. We are trying to put something in absolute terms which is extremely subjective.

The definition of a 'good' ball differs from person to person. A ball pitches at middle, seams and beats the bat as well as the off-stump due to the work imparted on it by the bowler. It's a display of a bowler's skill. The next ball pitches outside off, it is a half-volley - the batsman lofts it up in the air, the timing is perfect, the placement isn't and he gets caught out at long-off. The scorebook would show a wicket in the wickets column, however, that wicket is not an indication of the bowler's ability to out-perform the batsman but is born out of an error on the batsman's part.

Therein lies the biggest problem with using statistics as a measure of skill (implicit in questions such as 'who is better'). However, let us assume for a moment that, broadly speaking, bowling skill is directly propotional to wicket-taking ability. This assumption allows us to use the number of wickets (statistics) as a direct measure of a bowler's ability.

The brings me to my next point - cherry-picking of suitable statistics.

Richard believes that Bangladesh's results on the cricketing field do not merit their inclusion among the cricketing playing elite. (Success is being judged by wins/losses) That's a fair opinion, and there is a lot of evidence to support that. However, a lot of posters assume and state, that because the team performance has not been up to the standard expected, the skill displayed by the opposition players against the individual Bangladeshis is also, by default, inferior to that on display against the other test nations. They feel that this warrants an exclusion of these performances from the players portfolio when judging their 'skill'. The oxymoronic nature of this assumption, and indeed the tendency on this board to exclude statistics against presumably 'non-test class' becomes evident when you do a comparison of the skill needed to displace Ashraful's off-stump as opposed to Chris Martin's bails.

Hence, I am afraid but I have to disagree with Richard strongly - a judgement of a player's inherent skill is all about the 'calibre of players' they are up against, amongst other things.*


* - Pitch composition, climatic conditions etc.
I've long said that Test cricket is not the only level of the game that requires consideration when judging a player. Of course, other stuff counts. Especially when Test deeds are roughly equal.

However, I do not feel, and never will, that Bangladesh between 2000 and 2008 should be a Test-playing team. I do not feel that the ICC Rest Of World XI of 2005/06 should be either - the reasons are totally different, but the outcome is the same - and hence I don't take any notice of this match when I'm considering Test deeds. Nor do I take any notice of Bangladesh.

When judging the skill of a player, Test cricket is not the only thing that requires consideration. However, when judging anything relating to Test cricket, Bangladesh circa 2000-2008 (possibly beyond, we wait to see), as well as a few other teams at various points in their officially-recognised Test-playing times, do not count for a thing to me. Because their team should not be playing games classed as Tests as far as I'm concerned. And I do not feel that just because I$C$C say they are a Test-playing team, that this means I have to consider them equals of all other Test-playing teams.

BTW, I certainly don't judge Bangladesh's Test worthiness purely on wins, draws and losses. It's all about how those results come about. The vast majority of Bangladesh's matches agains Test-class teams have resulted in not merely defeats, but flattenings. If they were constantly losing by 60 or 70 runs, or losing some heavily, drawing some and winning occasionally, I'd certainly think of them as Test-class.
 

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