They might not have been international standard batsman, but DeFreitas and Cork did not suck as bowlers. Cork in particular was a very canny swing bowler who could move the ball both ways and bowl with consistent accuracy. You don't get over 100 Test wickets @ under 30 without being a very capable bowler. His batting was merely a useful ad on.
Yeah and if only we picked the best bowler in county cricket through the entire decade for more than a couple of tests against a rampant Aussie side in 93 when we were making about 4 changes a match until we dragged him back aged 35 for a couple at the end. Caddick, Gough and Bicknell would have been a very useful attack.
It actually is. Thanks for that, I honestly didn't realise. It may have been mentioned before but I never noticed. That really is an odd anomaly that he performed for England most during Ashes averaging 42.4 in 12 matches vs Aus. Don't you find that weird when he averaged low 20s vs SA, WI and NZ? Strange.
I do mean Russell who was left out because of his supposed inferior batting.
Yeah and Russell averaged 27 anyway and was a vastly superior keeper. It never made any sense.
Hence the "weren't any better than #8's at Test level". Cork, DeFreitas and even (in certain conditions) Croft were all Test standard with the ball (and Tudor might've been had he not been screwed by injuries/clocked by Lee), but none of them could be considered all-rounders and the fact that they were said a lot.
They were all in and around the Swann standard with the bat which was a number 8 who ended up at 9 because Broad was better than him at the time they played.
Don't think it's a coincidence the one period they were competent (the 04/05 era and 09-12) England were at their best.
No I agree the current side is poor because of a lack of talent, but even then we've still bit helped ourselves, picking roy to open for example, and almost never picking batsmen when they were in red hot form (burns last summer, meant he had to come through 2 difficult away series when first trying to get to grips with test cricket
most of them now locked away
not sure we can accuse them of being reluctant to try new openers. they've trialled every single opener with an english passport who showed a jot of form in the past 6/7 years. its not their fault that most of them were hopeless.
Jennings was persisted with for far too long.
Before the time of most in this thread but I believe there's an Atherton V Hayden thread. Maybe just Hussain V Hayden, they all tended to blur into one
As I remember it a previous forum member had the theory that Matthew Hayden wouldn't have been a Test class batsman in any other era because it was batsman friendly and he had certain weaknesses. Atherton and Hussain on the other hand were deemed to be Test class batsman. On the back of that someone said that by default it must mean that Hussain > Hayden. I don't think he ever actually made that statement (maybe). It was more "people reading what they want to read rather than what was written."
There were loads of people he didn't like. I've never been concerned by such things. Most people at that time were pretty anonymous. It was hard to tell who was serious and who was on a wind up. I was a bit of both at the time, but trash posting on forums these days is rather old hat. The insults and one liners just don't work.