Anderson vs. Neesham

[Flem274*]

I've got no idea how some of you have come to the conclusion Neesham is a downhill skier and Anderson plays tough knocks.

One of them has played important knocks and the other is a master of sparkling 30s and 40s before throwing it away. I think Neesh's efforts in the West Indies get undersold a lot. His ton in the first test came at a crucial point where we could have folded for a mediocre 350 but instead he took us to 500. In the 3rd test he came in at 4 down for just over 100 odd and nursed us through to a total, then in the second innings he was a good foil to Kane after coming in at about 4/130 and helping to set the total.

1st Test: West Indies v New Zealand at Kingston, Jun 8-11, 2014 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
3rd Test: West Indies v New Zealand at Bridgetown, Jun 26-30, 2014 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

Ability wise with the bat they're pretty similar. Neesham's defence is leakier but his strokeplay is more fluent. The main difference is Jimmy is ruthless. Both only know one way but when Neesham is in he puts you to the sword, whereas Anderson doesn't.

Anderson is a much better bowler. Neesham has potential but is coming from a very low base level. If they're contesting for the #6 spot though then it's the batting that matters and Neesham is comfortably ahead.

 

[SteveNZ]

Anderson is a much better bowler. Neesham has potential but is coming from a very low base level. If they're contesting for the #6 spot though then it's the batting that matters and Neesham is comfortably ahead.

I still don't subscribe to this. Neesham's FC bowling record is comfortably better than Anderson's. Unfortunately at present, Jimmy is fighting battles with his action - no idea where they've come from but 12-18 months ago, he was doing a lot of damage for Otago at 140km, swinging it and hitting a length.

 

[Kippax]

I've got no idea how some of you have come to the conclusion Neesham is a downhill skier and Anderson plays tough knocks.

Latham has no off side game btw.

 

[Dan]

I've got no idea how some of you have come to the conclusion Neesham is a downhill skier and Anderson plays tough knocks.

Yeah I never tried to argue that Anderson plays tough, gritty knocks

 

[Blocky]

If Neesham could bowl like he has in his last spell constantly, Anderson wouldn't be a figure with either bat or ball.

 

[Flem274*]

Latham has no off side game btw.

That sounds like something Hurricane said a while back?

In Hurricane's defence, Latham did love a good fiddle outside off at the time but yeah Latham is *** on the drive.

 

[cnerd123]

I'm a biologist with a mild interest in sport.

Injuries usually happen in the normal range of motion. Think of a spring: A force applied to a tight spring with a shorter range of motion vs a spring with a longer range of motion: Neither is more like to snap unless the the force extends to the longer range of motion. Even if that force does extend, it's still just as likely to snap the spring that extends to the longer range.

I believe that a healthy range of motion for a person (dictated by their limb proportions) is a good thing to maintain but that usually happens with exercise anyway. Obviously arthritic joints are bad, but I don't think that hyperflexible joints are necessarily good.

As far as I'm aware, there has not been a single scientific publication concluding that stretching prevents injury.

The proven method of injury prevention is to strengthen the muscles in the area. Strengthening the hamstrings has been proven to prevent injuries. Stretching hasn't, and in some cases could make it worse.

I also believe that tight hamstrings are often weak hamstrings: There's neurological compensation preventing a person from completing that range of motion as a self-preventative against injury because of its weakness.

Anyway, way off topic and I'm on my phone catching a flight tomorrow.

Yoga isn't just stretching. It builds muscular strength over a wider range of motions.

Like your spring analogy - yoga increases it's range of motion. It means that it takes a longer stretch to cause a snap than it wouldn't for the string with a smaller range of motion. This means it can withstand a wider range of twists and turns without failure.

So yea, as you said, it won't necessarily make him stronger, but it does reduce the chance of a bad twist or unexpected turn from injuring him. Guys like Watson and Anderson look like guys with fairly limited range of movement anyways, so will benefit from yoga more than an average person.

 

[hendrix]

Latham has no off side game btw.

Allow me to straw man this a little:
Shikar Dhawan and Hamish Rutherford have more off side game than Latham.

This is due to the fact that they stay leg side of the ball.

Latham can cut, cover drive and off drive. Yeah, they're perhaps not as good as his on drive and sweep, for example. But it's weird to say he has no offside game.

 

[hendrix]

Yoga isn't just stretching. It builds muscular strength over a wider range of motions.

Like your spring analogy - yoga increases it's range of motion. It means that it takes a longer stretch to cause a snap than it wouldn't for the string with a smaller range of motion. This means it can withstand a wider range of twists and turns without failure.

So yea, as you said, it won't necessarily make him stronger, but it does reduce the chance of a bad twist or unexpected turn from injuring him. Guys like Watson and Anderson look like guys with fairly limited range of movement anyways, so will benefit from yoga more than an average person.

The point about the spring analogy is that it requires a force to extend the spring. The spring's range of motion is irrelevant, it's down to whether it's strong enough to withstand that force.

I don't know what Watson and Anderson's range of motion is like.

If yoga builds strength then that's a good thing. I just don't believe that increasing flexibility reduces the risk of injury, and all of the science agrees with me.

 

[Hurricane]

I've got no idea how some of you have come to the conclusion Neesham is a downhill skier and Anderson plays tough knocks.

One of them has played important knocks and the other is a master of sparkling 30s and 40s before throwing it away. I think Neesh's efforts in the West Indies get undersold a lot. His ton in the first test came at a crucial point where we could have folded for a mediocre 350 but instead he took us to 500. In the 3rd test he came in at 4 down for just over 100 odd and nursed us through to a total, then in the second innings he was a good foil to Kane after coming in at about 4/130 and helping to set the total.

1st Test: West Indies v New Zealand at Kingston, Jun 8-11, 2014 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
3rd Test: West Indies v New Zealand at Bridgetown, Jun 26-30, 2014 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

Ability wise with the bat they're pretty similar. Neesham's defence is leakier but his strokeplay is more fluent. The main difference is Jimmy is ruthless. Both only know one way but when Neesham is in he puts you to the sword, whereas Anderson doesn't.

Anderson is a much better bowler. Neesham has potential but is coming from a very low base level. If they're contesting for the #6 spot though then it's the batting that matters and Neesham is comfortably ahead.

I credited him with those 3rd test knocks I think in my post but would like him to prove he has grit a bit more. He needed to come through yesterday for example and he didn't.

Anderson is the more accomplished FC batsman as Jimmy's test numbers have inflated his FC average by the way and that impacts my view that Corey is the better batsman. And even if I am wrong and Neesham is a better bat than Corey there is no way that Jimmy is good enough to have an average in the 40s. He has been playing above himself and you folk are rating him because of the numbers he has put up and not his true ability.

Neesham avg 47.66
Kane avg 41.89
Brendon avg 39.24

Jimmy's average is too high for how good he is and it will dip down into the thirties and when it does some people will jump off the bandwagon.

 

[Flem274*]

That's fair apart from the numbers bit. I rate him because as far as hyper-aggressive #6 batsmen go, he's brilliant. Unlike most chumps who get picked as swashbucklers down the order he combines power with timing and the ability to stroke rather than bash the ball. He only (intentionally) goes aerial through the leg side and straight as well, but also happily plays all round the wicket along the carpet. He's also ruthless once he's in.

He's not going to block out a draw any time soon but that's pretty clearly not what McHesson want him or Anderson in the team for.

He's not going to finish with an average near 47 unless he gives away bowling, does a Richardson/Styris and works hard on his defence but I can see it being high 30s if he bats behind a powerful middle order (Twatto has a career average in the mid 30s and he's been mud for years). Atm he's about as raw as Baz when Baz first played test cricket but has more classical strokeplay than the bottom hand shoveller Baz was. Baz has worked hard on both his defense and his top hand on the drive and his career average doesn't reflect the batsman he is now. Big Daddy Kane's average doesn't reflect the player he is now either because it includes the Kane who was averaging less than 30 before his 3rd or 4th test ton.

Predictions are pure guesswork at this point but if Neesham tightens his defensive setup then he will be good enough to play for New Zealand as a batsman alone. This also applies to Anderson, though Anderson also needs to kick on with starts.

The good thing is they must both be pushing each other to get better by knowing if they have a few bad games the other will get picked.

 

[Hurricane]

That's fair apart from the numbers bit. I rate him because as far as hyper-aggressive #6 batsmen go, he's brilliant. Unlike most chumps who get picked as swashbucklers down the order he combines power with timing and the ability to stroke rather than bash the ball. He only (intentionally) goes aerial through the leg side and straight as well, but also happily plays all round the wicket along the carpet. He's also ruthless once he's in.

He's not going to block out a draw any time soon but that's pretty clearly not what McHesson want him or Anderson in the team for.

He's not going to finish with an average near 47 unless he gives away bowling, does a Richardson/Styris and works hard on his defence but I can see it being high 30s if he bats behind a powerful middle order (Twatto has a career average in the mid 30s and he's been mud for years). Atm he's about as raw as Baz when Baz first played test cricket but has more classical strokeplay than the bottom hand shoveller Baz was. Baz has worked hard on both his defense and his top hand on the drive and his career average doesn't reflect the batsman he is now. Big Daddy Kane's average doesn't reflect the player he is now either because it includes the Kane who was averaging less than 30 before his 3rd or 4th test ton.

Predictions are pure guesswork at this point but if Neesham tightens his defensive setup then he will be good enough to play for New Zealand as a batsman alone. This also applies to Anderson, though Anderson also needs to kick on with starts.

The good thing is they must both be pushing each other to get better by knowing if they have a few bad games the other will get picked.

I am not happy with this post. How am I supposed to take exception with it when it is so reasonable.

 

[Flem274*]

!

You'll have to lift your game. CricketWeb activity thrives because no one ever admits defeat.

 

[NZTailender]

I've always thought of Anderson as being more Williamson-like in some respects and Neesham more McCullum-like, in terms of 'style' or technique. Before they both played Tests I would've predicted Neesham would end up with a batting average of 25-30 and Anderson 35-40 as bowling all-rounder & batting all-rounder respectively. I think this was in part due to having only seen Neesham in L/O and the general hype of Anderson since he was 16 about his technique and ability.

 

[Blocky]

Jesus, the logic of some people

"Well, Neesham's first class average is only better than Anderson's because it's inflated by his test average"

So.. you want us to penalise a guy in comparison because he's performed better at the level that actually matters?

 

[Hurricane]

There is nothing wrong with my logic but I am not going to chase my tail trying to satisfy you that it is correct.

 

[Blocky]

Chris Harris made a lot more runs in domestic cricket than most, tell me about his test cricket feats? That's why your logic is completely flawed.

 

[Hurricane]

Chris Harris made a lot more runs in domestic cricket than most, tell me about his test cricket feats? That's why your logic is completely flawed.

Well at least you are showing you understand my point. That is something I guess.

I will post my final thoughts on Neesham at the end of this test however his inning today has been noted.