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Dale Steyn vs Wasim Akram vs Curtly Ambrose

Better Test Match Bowler

  • Curtly Ambrose

    Votes: 11 40.7%
  • Dale Steyn

    Votes: 16 59.3%
  • Wasim Akram

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    27
  • Poll closed .

Mr Miyagi

Banned
Imran averages around 20 at home but over 25 in England. One would assume that his fast-medium swing bowling would be suited to England more than Pakistan but that's how it is.
Steyn has suffered neutral umpires at home :ph34r:

But I am sure Pakistan started producing favourable conditions for Imran, Wasim and Waqar as against the spinners who were better looked after before Nawaz emerged.
 
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trundler

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Steyn has suffered neutral umpires at home :ph34r:

But I am sure Pakistan started producing favourable conditions for Imran, Wasim and Waqar as against the spinners who were better looked after before Nawaz emerged.
God bless Shakoor Rana :laugh:
The umpiring thing must even out because other countries had **** umpires too.
 

Bolo

State Captain
I am splitting them by your use of sentences and where my reply edit ceased and your post continued :P
The link you provided suggests it is runs scored rather than time at the crease that determines if a batsman is set. Assuming equal averages, batsmen will be be coming in more frequently but will also get off the mark more quickly for a team with higher SRs- batsmen are set for an equal amount of time in this way of calculating.
 

Mr Miyagi

Banned
The link you provided suggests it is runs scored rather than time at the crease that determines if a batsman is set. Assuming equal averages, batsmen will be be coming in more frequently but will also get off the mark more quickly for a team with higher SRs- batsmen are set for an equal amount of time in this way of calculating.

So you want to see a similar trend for time at the crease too between balls faced and runs scored to demonstrate that bowler sr also benefits from where bowling average does?
 
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Bolo

State Captain
Not particularly. We know batsmen will spend less time at the crease if a team is striking faster. I doubt there is a way to measure if the impact is meaningful. A pressure impact as a result of tight bowling from the other end will also generate positive results. It would be an enormous study to compare these two, which nobody is going to undertake, and I doubt it would give a meaningful answer anyway.
 

Mr Miyagi

Banned
Not particularly. We know batsmen will spend less time at the crease if a team is striking faster. I doubt there is a way to measure if the impact is meaningful. A pressure impact as a result of tight bowling from the other end will also generate positive results. It would be an enormous study to compare these two, which nobody is going to undertake, and I doubt it would give a meaningful answer anyway.
I've heard this too, but I seriously question it outside limited overs of course.

If a bowler bowls cheaply even while not taking wickets, he is doing the team a favour as against giving runs away, we can both agree there; but if he isn't taking wickets (unless trying to stall scoring for a draw), he is doing the team a disservice to try and win as he isn't bringing a new batsman out for all the bowlers to target including himself.

Gavin Larsen may bowl in tests with a fabulous E/R of 2.1, but his SR was over 80. So his mid 28 average while looking good, didn't do much for the team. Compare to Thommo, similar average at 28, but a SR of 52 (this is 5 overs difference give or take, plus the overs the rest of the bowlers bowl in the time it takes to bowl those 5 additional overs).

He was leaking runs at 3.18, but he took wickets and brought more new batsmen to the crease.

As a bowling partner, I'd take Thommo any day of the week.
 
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Bolo

State Captain
I've heard this, but I seriously question it.

If a bowler bowls cheaply, he is doing the team a favour as against giving runs away, but if he isn't taking wickets, (unless trying to stall scoring for a draw), he is doing the team a disservice to try and win as he isn't bringing a new batsman out for all the bowlers to target including himself.

Gavin Larsen may bowl in tests with a fabulous E/R of 2.1, but his SR was over 80. So his mid 28 average while looking good, didn't do much for the team. Compare to Thommo, similar average at 28, but a SR of 52. (this is 5 overs difference give or take, plus the overs the rest of the bowler bowl in the time it takes to bowl those 5 additional overs).

He was leaking runs, but he took wickets and brought more new batsmen to the crease.

I'd take Thommo any day of the week.
Take thommo because he is actually taking wickets. As for who is helping his teammates take wickets more (excluding their WPM) hard to say. Pressure build up is very real on every body but the most insanely patient bats. You can see it in games. My feeling is that you are right, but to an extremely limited degree. No way to test this though.
 

Mr Miyagi

Banned
Take thommo because he is actually taking wickets. As for who is helping his teammates take wickets more (excluding their WPM) hard to say. Pressure build up is very real on every body but the most insanely patient bats. You can see it in games. My feeling is that you are right, but to an extremely limited degree. No way to test this though.
I doubt it is all that limited. The difficult part is proving who got the better benefit from it between players without going through the scorecards.

If it is accepted that the easiest time to get a batsman out is in his first 20 runs or 40 balls, (draw the lines in the sand wherever you like), then as a matter of reason, a bowler's career record will benefit more from bowling to an unset batsman that he did not cause the wicket to bring out.

All bowlers get this benefit, the question is how many times did they make the breakthrough themselves, and how often was it a team mate.
 
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Bolo

State Captain
You are comparing two competing effects and speculating that not only is one greater, but that it is significantly greater. Without any data to support this, it is too speculative for me.
 

Mr Miyagi

Banned
You are comparing two competing effects and speculating that not only is one greater, but that it is significantly greater. Without any data to support this, it is too speculative for me.
Two competing effects? I am only talking about one. The rest of the team's bowling ability to take wickets.
 
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Mr Miyagi

Banned
Pressure created via restriction of runs vs batsmen spending less time at the crease
Oh - bowlers with low E/R, my apologies. Yeah - I really don't buy into that anywhere near as many do. In my experience teams typically just bat until they have enough runs if bowlers aren't taking wickets and batsmen up the ante more when looking to declare.

Hugely different in limited overs cricket, though.

There's been many bowlers with low e/r not be able to take wickets. Richard de Groen was painful enough for NZC fans.
 
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TheJediBrah

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Yeah you can just bowl wide of off stump all day and finish with 15-10-10-0 and you're really economical but haven't really achieved much. Kallis used to do this a few times that i saw toward the end of his career. Just seemed like a pointless waste of time.
 

Mr Miyagi

Banned
Yeah you can just bowl wide of off stump all day and finish with 15-10-10-0 and you're really economical but haven't really achieved much. Kallis used to do this a few times that i saw toward the end of his career. Just seemed like a pointless waste of time.
It is a bit different for a 5th bowler doing that to get through those overs as cheaply as possible for the good of the team when the big 4 come back on to bowl them out, but if an opening bowler is doing it like you say, the team has a major problem.

Just looking at Sobers and Kallis, Sobers seems to fit this bill more than Kallis to be honest, and Sobers bowled more. But almost every team would be happy to have either as a 5th option.
 
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Bolo

State Captain
It was tactical from Kallis. Late career he only bowled when batsmen were set and the ball wasn't doing much. Either the batsmen take risks, or they don't score. This kills time until the ball starts reversing/ new ball arrives etc., and also gives the better bowlers a chance to rest up. He would probably have got wickets faster by bowling more aggressive lines, but they would have been much more expensive- weak bowler bowling at the worst time to get cheap wickets.
 

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