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What would you do if...

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
Suppose you are the captain of a cricket team.. You have a very talented top order batsman in your side, a match winner (say someone like Kevin Pieterson or Michael Clarke) who hasn't scored a century in the last two years.

However, he still averages about 45 during the last 2 years because he has been scoring half centuries pretty consistently. He is not at his best form, not at his peak, he struggles during the early phase of his innings, but somehow struggles hard and manages to score an 80 or 64 from time to time. Meaning he is not in woeful form and is not a walking wicket either.

You have batsmen in your first class teams who are currently in better form, scoring centuries and averaging over 50.


The reason I am asking this is currently I am in this situation while playing the game International Cricket Captain 2009.

I am now in 2014 and Umar Akmal is 48 test matches old. He averages 46 with the bat, but hasn't scored a test century in the last 2 years. I have had to drop him from the ODI side but he has been scoring half centuries pretty consistently (12 half centuries from 16 test matches) in the last 2 years (though at a strike rate of 40 or less, and if I try to make him play a bit aggressively, he gets out, meaning he is not at his best form by any means). He is my number 4-5 batsman but I have a lot of young players now who are averaging well over 50 and are in sublime form. I am not sure what to do.
 
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Burgey

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Suppose you are the captain of a cricket team.. You have a very talented top order batsman in your side, a match winner (say someone like Kevin Pieterson or Michael Clarke) who hasn't scored a century in the last two years.

However, he still averages about 45 during the last 2 years because he has been scoring half centuries pretty consistently. He is not at his best form, not at his peak, he struggles during the early phase of his innings, but somehow struggles hard and manages to score an 80 or 64 from time to time. Meaning he is not in woeful form and is not a walking wicket either.

You have batsmen in your first class teams who are currently in better form, scoring centuries and averaging over 50.


The reason I am asking this is currently I am in this situation while playing the game International Cricket Captain 2009.

I am now in 2014 and Umar Akmal is 48 test matches old. He averages 46 with the bat, but hasn't scored a test century in the last 2 years. I have had to drop him from the ODI side but he has been scoring half centuries pretty consistently (12 half centuries from 16 test matches) in the last 2 years (though at a strike rate of 40 or less, and if I try to make him play a bit aggressively, he gets out, meaning he is not at his best form by any means). He is my number 4-5 batsman but I have a lot of young players now who are averaging well over 50 and are in sublime form. I am not sure what to do.
I'd be checking his bank account.
 

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
From an ICC perspective, stick with Akmal; I tend to find that at the end of the day a good player out of form is a better option than a poor player in good form - particularly applicable to batsmen. An innings or two of substance can turn his form from 1-2 stars to 3-4 and you're away.

From a real life perspective, I guess theres a similar case to retaining the Pietersens and Clarkes in that class is permanent and form is temporary. Unless those first class players averaging 50 have made a compelling case for selection, I'd maintain a batsman averaging 45 in a test match environment. Is 50 on flat tracks against domestic bowlers better than 45 on test match wickets against international opposition?
 

outbreak

First Class Debutant
In icc2010 id drop him play him in seconds and give him some batting practice. Although consitently making 50-80 isnt that bad if you have a better player to take his spot though drop him
 

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
In icc2010 id drop him play him in seconds and give him some batting practice. Although consitently making 50-80 isnt that bad if you have a better player to take his spot though drop him
If hes selected Akmal for 48 tests I assume hes playing an international career as Pakistan (rather than an English domestic side) where you can't set players to appear for the second team.
 

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
I'd be checking his bank account.
Please keep this topic free from these wisecracks. If you want to talk about match fixing, there is already a topic in Cricket Chat and I would suggest you take it there.

If you are not interested in what this topic is about, thats great, you dont have to post here. But at least let the rest of us who are here have a decent discussion without such lame posts.

Thanks
 

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. But I was not talking about Cricket Captain specifically. The situation in Cricket Captain led me to think about the broader issue in test cricket which is, how important is it for a top order batsman to score centuries, to convert those 70s to 100s? and how long would you back a top order batsman who hasnt scored a 100 in almost 2 years..but has scored quite a few 50s??
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
Made that post just in time. Was just coming in here to move it to the cricket games sub-forum.

Obviously its better to have a player that consistently gets to 70 and gets out than one who consistently gets out for 20-30. That said, I tend to subscribe to the theory that in one very significant sense, it's a worse offence to your team to get out once set and adjusted to the bowling than it is to get knocked over when new to the wicket. You've done the hard work, and the team really needs you to capitalise on it when given the opportunity.

It's a fairly hard question to answer in the abstract, because there are always specifics that need to be taken into account - how regular and in what circumstances are his 50s, when and how has he thrown starts away, and probably most importantly, what are your other options in terms of available players? Without those details, you can't give a sensible answer.
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
Please keep this topic free from these wisecracks. If you want to talk about match fixing, there is already a topic in Cricket Chat and I would suggest you take it there.

If you are not interested in what this topic is about, thats great, you dont have to post here. But at least let the rest of us who are here have a decent discussion without such lame posts.

Thanks
Was a fair enough joke, given the suggested scenario. If we don't keep some sense of gallows humour about this situation, we'll all be in tears. If such jibes become persistent or are just blatantly dragging a comment/conversation that has nothing to do with the situation into it, that is a bit different, but meanwhile, let's move on.
 

G.I.Joe

International Coach
Would keep him and look at the other batsmen to make the big ones. Why drop someone who's averaging 45?
 

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
It's a fairly hard question to answer in the abstract, because there are always specifics that need to be taken into account - how regular and in what circumstances are his 50s, when and how has he thrown starts away, and probably most importantly, what are your other options in terms of available players? Without those details, you can't give a sensible answer.
Yes I understand. So let me ask you a specific question. Kevin Pieterson has not scored a century in 15 months.. there are calls to drop him from the side. What if he had scored 6-7 half centuries, not the most fluent knocks, patchy ones but a 60 odd nonetheless. Would you drop him?
See the thing is, players like Pieterson, who have a wonderful track record behind them, who bat as high as 3 or 4, who are so important to their side's batting, is there a higher standard for them? Is scoring 60s and 70s good enough for them or as the leading batsman of the side, they have to score that 100 every now and then?
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
Again though, there are the other factors that are always going to be specific to a case and need to be considered in making that decision. How did he look making his half-centuries? How did he get out (was it good bowling or brainfart shots)? Who would come in for him if you did drop him, and how are the rest of the line up performing in comparison? I don't think there's a simple rule of thumb for this kind of scenario.
 

vcs

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I think it is important to get the occasional hundred. Obviously, you don't want a Marcus North scenario, but converting the starts into substantial match-winning efforts is important IMO. Even if you aren't winning matches because your team is very poor, a batsman who plays the big ones proves that he has the concentration and application to thrive in Test cricket.

This is my gripe with Umar Akmal from what I've seen of him so far (and I think Black_Warrior has made this point before)... he seems to have several shots for each ball and looks to play them all. Too much of a T20 mentality IMO.

I'd make an exception for a Laxman/Martyn type player if they have gone through a period of not getting a 100 though, because of their batting position and the fact that they usually show up when their team needs it the most.
 

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
From an ICC perspective, stick with Akmal; I tend to find that at the end of the day a good player out of form is a better option than a poor player in good form - particularly applicable to batsmen. An innings or two of substance can turn his form from 1-2 stars to 3-4 and you're away.

From a real life perspective, I guess theres a similar case to retaining the Pietersens and Clarkes in that class is permanent and form is temporary. Unless those first class players averaging 50 have made a compelling case for selection, I'd maintain a batsman averaging 45 in a test match environment. Is 50 on flat tracks against domestic bowlers better than 45 on test match wickets against international opposition?
Nah, a team of ordinary individuals who are all in form would be better than with a team of 5 - 6 match winners on poor form. The tried and tested example, SL ODI side that won 1996 WC. Only de Silva was regarded as a match winner (Vaas, Jayasuriya, Murali were very early in the career, ofcourse Jaya was known for his big hitting by then). But they decimated everyone they came in their way to a title, and the reason was to have a squad of players who were in form. Even lesser bowlers like Wickremasinghe, Dharmasena and Jayasuriya were in form as well as lesser batsmen like Mahanama and Tillekaratne. Everybody played well when they were needed. So would always take the player on scorching form over the one who is out of form.
 

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
But its not necessarily poor form though... if someone is getting those 60s or 70s, its not poor form really but just not a hundred thats all..

This brings me to my next point about Mohammad Yousuf. He is a highly rated player by many cricketers, commentators, and fans on cricketweb. I have had discussions about him on this forum with many people, the last one being with Hurricane...

Now I know that he is a good player, looks solid when set, times the ball well and just looks very charming as a player when he gets going. But my gripe has always been, since he became a regular, the few centuries he scores.

In 2006, the year he broke that record, he scored about 9 centuries but that has been the only year he scored so many 100s. Other than that, he has always had the knack of throwing it away after a 72.

Now in the last one year, since he made his comeback from ICL, he has player 11 test matches, a couple of 50s and just 1 century. How should that be assessed??

In the third test match against England, he scored a 56 and supported Azhar Ali who got a 91. Lot of people talked about how he made the difference in the batting. Well compared to the batting performances in the first test match, it was great but still..is 56 really all that big a deal? for someone who averages 52, and is supposed to be the best batsman in the side? Yes Azhar Ali getting a half century is a big deal..because he is a lesser player...

So if someone keeps playing like that, say 1 or 2 hundreds in 2 years, with 5-6 half centuries to go with it, how do you assess this player? Especially if he is someone who averages over 50 and is expected to do much more?
 

Top_Cat

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Suppose you are the captain of a cricket team..
The reason I am asking this is currently I am in this situation while playing the game International Cricket Captain 2009.
Not analogous situations in my book. The responses depend on whether you're asking it as a general question about form/consistency or whether you want to do well in the game. As someone who's played a lot of various ICC games, what you do in real life vs ICC are often completely different. Sometimes, what you have to do in ICC is completely counter-intuitive.
 
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Spudsy2061

U19 Cricketer
Keep him. 45 is good to average as most batsman who are future hall of famers are hard pressed to average 50. He scores good scores and he will make the breakthrough eventually. If those 40-60s start to turn into 20-30s then reconsider. Tendulkar went through a century-less slump and he answered with a 200+ to break it. Keep him in the side.
 

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