McGrath Vs Akram!

[Sanz]

can i ask..what is your opinion on what the 'modern era' actually is.

Post Packer era.

 

[Swervy]

well i think if you asked a tailender what they would prefer to face, i would say they would always prefer not facing a fast bowler who swings the ball about, they just dont have the technique to deal with it(and someone like Tuffers would probably been bricking himself too much), so yeah in that situation i would give the ball to Akram.

however,vs top class batsman where i want to put intense pressure on the batsman,who will probably want to start getting the scoreboard moving, I would give the ball to Mcgrath. I think he was always more likely to get you the vital wickets early on in the innings

 

[Swervy]

Post Packer era.

so did you ever see Marshall or Hadlee(or indeed I would also rate Imran Khan higher than Akram) in the 80's...i think if you did, you might be of a slightly different opinion

 

[Sanz]

Yes I did and In my opinion, Akram was a better player.

 

[Swervy]

Yes I did and In my opinion, Akram was a better player.

each to their own I guess(no matter how baffled I am at that)

 

[Sanz]

however,vs top class batsman where i want to put intense pressure on the batsman,who will probably want to start getting the scoreboard moving, I would give the ball to Mcgrath. I think he was always more likely to get you the vital wickets early on in the innings

Let Wasim Bowl with Australian Fielders, He will give you more wickets than Mcgrath against any order. Wasim always had pathetic fielders to support him. Look at the no. of wickets he got on his own (LBW & Bowled).

 

[ReallyCrazy]

Mcgrath has played the majority of his matches (74 out of 185) in australia. The conditions are great for his kind of bowling added w/ the home advantage. He averages just 20.25 (SR: 32.2, econ: 3.76) at home. This has no doubt had an effect in his overall performance.

Wasim played most of his matches away from home. He played mostly at sharjah where its not that good for bowling but he still excelled.

If we see Mcgrath playing 350 games, we will see that his SR has soared upto 40 and his econ is 5.

There is not much separating the two in the stats but you got to admit Mcgrath has had some advantage. Wasim was the more talented and skilled of the two. He was an aggressive and innovative bowler and wanted a wicket off every ball. This caused him to be erratic at times and he got hit. But that is part of his game. It also helped him get two hatricks both in ODIs and tests. Mcgrath on the other hand just bowls the same old thing and hopes the batter will make a mistake. I am not taking anything away from mcgrath, im just saying wasim was better.

and before anyone calls me biased, i wanna say taht im an indian and to my utter disaapointment, i have witnessed wasim destroying the indian team on many occassions.

 

[ReallyCrazy]

Let Wasim Bowl with Australian Fielders, He will give you more wickets than Mcgrath against any order. Wasim always had pathetic fielders to support him. Look at the no. of wickets he got on his own (LBW & Bowled).

good point sanz. i heard somewhere that the most common line in the scorecard is "lbw bowled wasim" Also, I think in both the hatricks that wasim took in ODIs, he got all 3 by getting them bowled! Wasim Akram in his prime vs Mcgrath in his prime...wasim wins it easily IMO.

 

[Swervy]

Let Wasim Bowl with Australian Fielders, He will give you more wickets than Mcgrath against any order. Wasim always had pathetic fielders to support him. Look at the no. of wickets he got on his own (LBW & Bowled).

well getting wickets via LBW's and Bowled is no more valid than getting wickets with catches. Akram was a different kind of bowler (left arm swinger) to McGrath (right arm seam).

Have a look at a list of the batsmen Akram got out,vs a list of the batsmen McGrath has got out. (Stats Guru on cricinfo)

Akram...(half decent batsman only here)got glorified slogger Srikanth out 9 times,Grant Flower 7,Azaruddin 5,Houghton 5,Jayawardene 5,Ranatunga 5,Slater 5,Atherton 4,boon 4,haynes 4,Greatbach 4,healy 4,King Viv 4,Steve waugh 4

McGrath...Atherton 19,Lara 13,Adams 12,S.campbell 11,Stewart 10,Butcher 9,Hussain 8,Kirsten 8,Cairns 6,Kallis 6,Sohail 5,Chanderpaul 5,crawley 5,Ijaz Ahmed 5,Laxman 5,Ramprakash 5,Thorpe 5,Dippenaar 4,Ganguly 4,Inzy 4,Dave Richardson 4,Anwar 4,trescothick 4,Vaughan 4,Younis khan 4

The quality of players that McGrath repeatedly has got out in his career is so much better than those that Akram has got out. if you look at the full list you will see how many players Akram got out were just in the tail end.

it would be interesting to see what the top order partnerships have been vs McGrath compared to Akram

 

[Sanz]

RC - to be fair to Mcgrath, I think he has bowled consistently well all over the world I think bowling away/home/flat track/Fast track etc shouldn't be used as a criteria while comparing great bowlers.

If I am an Indian batsman I would prefer to face Wasim Akram than Mcgrath simply because Mcgrath plays for a team which doesn't give you many chances in the field.

 

[Swervy]

Mcgrath has played the majority of his matches (74 out of 185) in australia. The conditions are great for his kind of bowling added w/ the home advantage. He averages just 20.25 (SR: 32.2, econ: 3.76) at home. This has no doubt had an effect in his overall performance.

since when has 74 out of 185 been a majority?

and i also take it you really are only talking about ODI cricket, a format of the game in which the majority of games are worth jack ****.

If i am ever going to judge a bowler it will always be in the test arena first.

and i dont mean to generalise, but really have India ever been that good at playing bowlers of Akrams pace anyway

 

[Swervy]

RC - to be fair to Mcgrath, I think he has bowled consistently well all over the world I think bowling away/home/flat track/Fast track etc shouldn't be used as a criteria while comparing great bowlers.

If I am an Indian batsman I would prefer to face Wasim Akram than Mcgrath simply because Mcgrath plays for a team which doesn't give you many chances in the field.

exactly..its no use using 'what if's ' to justify an arguement. who knows what would have happened if Akram had have played for Australia and had fielders of their quality..it is/was never going to happen so it entirely pointless saying it

 

[Sanz]

well getting wickets via LBW's and Bowled is no more valid than getting wickets with catches. Akram was a different kind of bowler (left arm swinger) to McGrath (right arm seam).

It is when your fielders are known for dropping lollypops.

You can keep harping about the quality of players Mcgrath has got, but If he is so good then he should have been able to get rid of tails equally well.

 

[Sanz]

exactly..its no use using 'what if's ' to justify an arguement. who knows what would have happened if Akram had have played for Australia and had fielders of their quality..it is/was never going to happen so it entirely pointless saying it

And I am never going to Play for Indian team either, so let's remove the second paragraph from my post.

 

[Swervy]

It is when your fielders are known for dropping lollypops.

You can keep harping about the quality of players Mcgrath has got, but If he is so good then he should have been able to get rid of tails equally well.

i am sorry but i think most people would value the wicket of Lara,Atherton et al over Ambrose,Walsh,Ian Bishop,Danny Morrison,Franklyn Rose etc

look at the list on stats guru, i think you will find that McGrath was pretty good at getting the tail out as well, although Australia have had some pretty good weapons at doing that as well, like Warne and Gillespie and Lee, so the share of the tail work has been passed around quite a lot with Australia

 

[Sanz]

i am sorry but i think most people would value the wicket of Lara,Atherton et al over Ambrose,Walsh,Ian Bishop,Danny Morrison,Franklyn Rose etc.
look at the list on stats guru, i think you will find that McGrath was pretty good at getting the tail out as well, although Australia have had some pretty good weapons at doing that as well, like Warne and Gillespie and Lee, so the share of the tail work has been passed around quite a lot with Australia

Yeah look at the Statsguru -

Arthers has played 20+ tests against Australia(with Mcgrath) as opposed 7-8 test against Pakistan(with Akram)

Lara has played 20 Tests against Australia as opposed to 7 against Pakistan.

Why dont you read the AVG. column in that list.

 

[Swervy]

Yeah look at the Statsguru -

Arthers has played 20+ tests against Australia(with Mcgrath) as opposed 7-8 test against Pakistan(with Akram)

Lara has played 20 Tests against Australia as opposed to 7 against Pakistan.

Why dont you read the AVG. column in that list.

yeah and I think youll find that the average score of each batsman when dismissed by either player was exactly the same.

 

[marc71178]

Arthers has played 20+ tests against Australia(with Mcgrath) as opposed 7-8 test against Pakistan(with Akram)

Lara has played 20 Tests against Australia as opposed to 7 against Pakistan.

Which suggests Pakistan haven't played against the stronger players so much, which must mean his record isn't as good as it's against weaker players?

 

[Sanz]

yeah and I think youll find that the average score of each batsman when dismissed by either player was exactly the same.

Okay let us put it this way - Brian Lara averages about 30 when Akram Plays for Pakistan whereas he averages about 46 when Mcgrath plays for Australia.

 

[Sanz]

Which suggests Pakistan haven't played against the stronger players so much, which must mean his record isn't as good as it's against weaker players?

Are you calling WI a strong Team ??