Yuvraj Singh and Andy Symonds

[marc71178]

If Chopra hasn't played against teams, how can you say someone else has done better than him against them?!

 

[tooextracool]

And 17 in Pakistan... albeit one of the wickets offered some seam-movement but that still didn't impact on either of his dismissals. Against England and Sri Lanka Das mightn't have done especially well but he still did better than Chopra has.

err no in his only series at home chopra averages 46, which is considerably better than das' performances against SL and england and even australia at home. and mind you that england attack of james ormond,richard dawson,hoggard,giles and white was just about as bad as NZ's attack in india. and just like das failed on seaming wickets, so did chopra on the only seaming wicket of the tour in pakistan. he did well in the first test.

The surfaces in South Africa certainly offered something to the seam-bowlers, so did those in Australia in 1999\2000 and Zimbabwe. Hence Das and Ramesh have something more to excuse them than Chopra did in Australia.

except that das and ramesh averaged some 10 runs less than chopra did and didnt have any successful partnerships either.

It doesn't matter who thinks he does and who thinks he doesn't - the point is so far he hasn't demonstrated any decent run-scoring ability.

why because that just shows how false you claims are? and as i have said earlier, if you have watched him play(which i doubt you have) he has shown that he can score runs and that he has a good temperament, albeit only until hes in the 40s. besides players like waugh and attapattu were considerably worse in showing run scoring ability and they were retained, so why shouldnt he?

You could make a case for almost everyone having potential, and certainly some who hardly anyone thinks has potential can have bags of the stuff.
The important thing is whether selectors think he's got potential, and that results in whether or not he gets more chances than he's earnt.

no he has been part of a successful partnership, arguably the best indian partnership in over a decade. if that isnt potential then what is?

Because he's already been given a fair chance and blown it. That's the point. He showed the potential by averaging 50 domestically, was given the chance and didn't repeat the feat at international level..

no he hasnt thats the point im making....hes shown more potential than steve waugh, marvan attapattu,flintoff and several others and yet hasnt been given as many chances as they got in the side. why were players like waugh,tendulkar etc retained despite blowing it then?

And because there has been one instance of a player who I've said is rubbish turning himself into one who isn't rubbish that automatically means I have to be wrong on everything else, even though the fact is I'm hardly ever wrong... hardly any players have ever done what I have said they are incapable of and anyone who names the anomalies in this trend and tries to prove they mean something is clutching at straws.

along with the mark richardsons and the jacob orams

And it doesn't matter what Chopra averages at home, the surfaces all over have been little different to those in those two games and so what matters is his overall average, which is inferior to both Das and Ramesh and even Dasgupta.
No-one can gurantee anything but so far I've been proven right - Chopra's shot-selection hasn't been good enough for Test-cricket.

and as i have shown earlier das's average should only have been half of what it was had he not played so many games against zimbabwe. chopra has been unfortunate enough to not play against that attack, because if he had he would probably be averaging in the 40s

No, he hasn't failed against Bangladesh, he scored 51 for once out. That just means he hasn't had big success. And even if he had failed against them, it still wouldn't have had much impact on his average and certainly wouldn't drag it down to Chopra's level..

of course you didnt see that match either did you?
das failed in the first innings when most of his teammates cashed in when he scored only 29 and then in the 2nd innings chasing a low score he scored an unbeaten 22. and no it wouldnt have dragged it down to chopras level but if he hadnt played those 6 tests against zimbabwe he would have dragged it down to mark ealhams level.

No, you have a ridiculously high opinion of the latter set.
There is at least one person who has stated his agreement with me, one who has stated disagreement (clearly without looking at the facts) and most others haven't commented so you can't claim that everyone except me agrees with you.

rubbish..the person who apparently agreed with you only said that blignaut was as good as brad williams and bracken....the fact is that blignaut happens to be the 2nd best bowler in his set while williams and bracken are right at the bottom of their set.and he never once said that bowlers like the strangs,friend, watambwa and the rest were as good as bowlers like akhtar,gillespie,tuffey,oram etc.only a fool would say that.

Rubbish, in ODIs Chaminda has largely been a model of consistency and that's why his record is by some distance better than Oram's over a much longer career.

lets look at his performances in the last 1.5 yrs then shall we?
in the vb series....
1/49(10),3/36(10),0/47(7),1/29(6),0/54(9),2/54(10),1/45(8)

indeed the only good game he had in that series was the 2nd one because for most of that series he went for more than 5 and sometimes over 6

then in the wc.....
vs NZ seamer friendly wicket so it doesnt count.....0/22(7)
vs WI again seamer friendly wicket so dont count......4/22(10)
vs SA went at 4.83.......0/33(7)
vs Aus went at 7.38......0/59(8)
vs india ahh finally we have a good performance......2/34(10)
v aus again seamer friendly wicket so dont count......3/34(10)

then in 2004 vs aus

0/19(3),3/48(10),3/34(9),1/45(10)

indeed the only good performance he had in that series was in the 3rd game according to your theory.

and the asia cup(so far)
vs ind.....2/51(10)

for obvious reasons ive left out performances agianst minnow countries and the games in dambulla.

so as we can all see,vaas has been only as successul as oram and therefore applying richards theorem we find that vaas was a useless seamer pitch bully.

Which, as I've stated, were not part of a trend..

the same trend that vaas followed you might say....

There have been so few quality leg (or, more accurately, wrist) spinners in the game's history that that's a totally ridiculous ascertation.
There have only been 2 in the last 40 years (Warne and Muralitharan).

yes quite obviously because the wickets have been more suited to leg spin than to finger spinners!!
and as we all know bowlers like abdul qadir,anil kumble and richie benaud were all rubbish leg spinners!

Yes, it is - what matters is not how many play but how many are successful. And the sum total is... six or seven at most. And believe it or not, there do happen to be a few non-international grounds, certainly in England and probably elsewhere, that do offer help for the fingerspinners.
Spinners who have achieved any semblence of success in English domestic cricket are: Jason Brown, Graeme Swann, Robert Croft, Ashley Giles, Gareth Batty. Only two of these have career averages even under 30. In England there are three grounds which regularly produce fingerspin-friendly surfaces: Wantage Road, Sophia Gardens and New Road. Only one has hosted international cricket outside World Cups and even then it amounts to just a handful of ODIs, never more than one a year.
Most fingerspinners who ply their trade away from the subcontinent and West Indies are benefactors of poor selection.

yes and since leg spinners are capable of bowling on any ground you'd think that they would have tried to bowl leg spin then!
and i can assure you that there are very few grounds in NZ and SA that offer turn for the spinners.

No, I said reflexes superior to peers would make someone a great batsman. But what makes great batsmen isn't superior reflexes - it's other superior factors. Reflexes of all remotely good batsmen are equal - as proved by the fact Bradman's eyes weren't superior to anyone else's.
And I never said Rhodes didn't have great reflexes, about as good as you can get in fact.
I simply said they weren't any better than the millions of other club-standard batsmen around The World. And Rhodes' batting is most certainly better than club standard!

i dont know what cricket you watch...create a straw poll to see whether anyone believes that rhodes' reflexes were just about as good as anyone elses and we'll see the results.
and believe me superior reflexes doesnt necessarily= better batsman, as you yourself have said that it has more to do with concentration and a little bit with technique than anything else. someone like chopra may have great reflexes but he might lack in terms of mental concentration as opposed to other players.

Yes, and if not then the ball wasn't wicket-taking, it was just very good.
Anything which seams, turns or bounces unevenly is of course dependant on the amount which the pitch is offering - the difference is seam and turn are widely considered to be "fair" advantages - uneven bounce is much more widely interpreted as "unfair" - if I had a quid for every time I've heard someone say something along the lines of "well, swing and seam's one thing, indifferent bounce is quite another" I'd be a rich man. And hence any good wicket must be even in bounce and the less uneven bounce we see the better off cricket will be.!

no the point is that just like that ball off hoggards was unplayable by some and playable by others there have been occasions when seam and swing have made deliveries too good for some yet playable by others.

You will be able to find-out an accurate summary of every Kirsten dismissal in at least the last 6 years if you look hard enough. And believe me, he won't have got caught at short-leg very often.

if there is then you will clearly see that kirsten and fleming have both been caught at short leg and silly point quite often...

 

[tooextracool]

can I remind you that big turning wickets are no good for any bowler if there is no pace in the wicket...bounce for the spinner is just as lethal..and this is a reason why a finger spinner can do well on a wicket with little turn( when combined with subtle variations in flight and angle)

There is a lot more to the art of spin bowling than big turn

yes that is absolutely correct.....vettori in his prime was a master of drift,flight and bounce rather than turn. what richard doesnt realise is that the best spinners(doesnt matter which ones) were capable of using those qualities to the best of their potential on wickets that didnt offer much turn.

 

[tooextracool]

No, in that he did better in those series than Chopra has done in his career.

no in that you compare das's performances at home to chopras overall performances....

 

[tooextracool]

Yes, it does - and that theory is rock-solid, as demonstrated by the fact that wicket was a big turner and so have been just about every other wicket in which fingerspinners have got big wicket-bags in the history of the game.
They used to occur rather more in the past, though.

yes you can make that statement without even watching that game....brilliant deduction richard sherlock.
if you had watched the game you would have seen that there was barely any turn in that wicket, just a bit more bounce. and as i said earlier warne himself only managed 2 wickets in that entire match.

And that's not as ridiculous as you're trying to make it sound - as I've mentioned, it's happened before, eg The Oval 1997 (Tufnell), Kolkata and Chennai 2001 (Harbhajan Singh) being examples.
No matter how good Warne or any other wristspinner is, they are not going to bowl well every single innings and inevitably there are going to be occasions where fingerspinners outbowl them.
There are anomalies in almost every pattern.

and there have been occasions that i have brought up where finger spinners have been successful on non turning wickets.....

 

[Richard]

If Chopra hasn't played against teams, how can you say someone else has done better than him against them?!

I didn't say that - I said he did better against these teams than Chopra has done in his career.

 

[Richard]

yes you can make that statement without even watching that game....brilliant deduction richard sherlock.
if you had watched the game you would have seen that there was barely any turn in that wicket, just a bit more bounce. and as i said earlier warne himself only managed 2 wickets in that entire match.

And as I said earlier that means sod-all - Warne underperformed, wowee. Miller took 5 in New Zealand's second-innings and even Wiseman managed 3-49 in Australia's first. There was, in Wisden's reporter's words "turn and a tricky, tennis-ball bounce". So forgive me if I don't trust anyone who says there wasn't much turn, especially given their determination to show the falsity that fingerspinners can threaten when the ball isn't turning.

and there have been occasions that i have brought up where finger spinners have been successful on non turning wickets.....

Let's see them, then. I can assure you they'll amount to probably less than 1% of the time.

 

[Richard]

yes that is absolutely correct.....vettori in his prime was a master of drift,flight and bounce rather than turn. what richard doesnt realise is that the best spinners(doesnt matter which ones) were capable of using those qualities to the best of their potential on wickets that didnt offer much turn.

No, they weren't, because good batsmen were never troubled by these qualities in themselves.
Loop and drift are very useful as compliments to turn but they don't cause decent batsmen much trouble in themselves.
And I've shown time and again that bounce doesn't.

 

[Richard]

no in that you compare das's performances at home to chopras overall performances....

Yes, because, believe it or not, they are comparable.

 

[tooextracool]

And as I said earlier that means sod-all - Warne underperformed, wowee. Miller took 5 in New Zealand's second-innings and even Wiseman managed 3-49 in Australia's first. There was, in Wisden's reporter's words "turn and a tricky, tennis-ball bounce". So forgive me if I don't trust anyone who says there wasn't much turn, especially given their determination to show the falsity that fingerspinners can threaten when the ball isn't turning.

rubbish....miller and wiseman didnt even play in that match in perth.

Let's see them, then. I can assure you they'll amount to probably less than 1% of the time.

ive already shown plenty to you, but you've gone on calling them anomalies,exceptions and on blatant turners without even seeing any of those games

 

[tooextracool]

Yes, because, believe it or not, they are comparable.

performances against zimbabwe dont count....
regardless even if you did count them you would see that chopra averages 46 while das averages 38.

 

[tooextracool]

No, they weren't, because good batsmen were never troubled by these qualities in themselves.
Loop and drift are very useful as compliments to turn but they don't cause decent batsmen much trouble in themselves.
And I've shown time and again that bounce doesn't.

you havent shown anything....you have been proven wrong time and time again yet you come back for more.
any quality spinner uses bounce to good effect, and the best use both drift and flight to brilliant effect. any expert on cricket would tell you that.

 

[marc71178]

I didn't say that - I said he did better against these teams than Chopra has done in his career.

No, you said (post number 235 of this thread):

Against England and Sri Lanka Das mightn't have done especially well but he still did better than Chopra has.

 

[Richard]

Yes, and you misinterpreted it.
What I meant was that Das had done better against Sri Lanka and England than Chopra has in his entire career.

 

[Richard]

rubbish....miller and wiseman didnt even play in that match in perth.

And i wasn't talking about the game at The WACA, I was talking about Eden Park. As you will be able to see if you follow the sequence:

The one in New Zealand must have, yes - because, believe it or not, a fingerspinner got lots of wickets on it, and fingerspinners don't tend to get lots of wickets against quality batting-line-ups on wickets that don't turn lots!

of course because it goes against your imaginary theory that they cant do well unless there is turn

Yes, it does - and that theory is rock-solid, as demonstrated by the fact that wicket was a big turner and so have been just about every other wicket in which fingerspinners have got big wicket-bags in the history of the game.
They used to occur rather more in the past, though.

yes you can make that statement without even watching that game....brilliant deduction richard sherlock.
if you had watched the game you would have seen that there was barely any turn in that wicket, just a bit more bounce. and as i said earlier warne himself only managed 2 wickets in that entire match.

And as I said earlier that means sod-all - Warne underperformed, wowee. Miller took 5 in New Zealand's second-innings and even Wiseman managed 3-49 in Australia's first. There was, in Wisden's reporter's words "turn and a tricky, tennis-ball bounce". So forgive me if I don't trust anyone who says there wasn't much turn, especially given their determination to show the falsity that fingerspinners can threaten when the ball isn't turning.

So, as you should have realised, I was talking about the Eden Park wicket - and you should also have realised it because I stated that you were wrong to assume I didn't watch the WACA game. I can make deductions about the Eden Park wicket (and read Wisden to confirm) and I can use my eyes to analyse the WACA match.

ive already shown plenty to you, but you've gone on calling them anomalies,exceptions and on blatant turners without even seeing any of those games

You have not shown plenty - you have attempted to show a few, and I have shown instead that they were all on blatant turners, without needing in some cases to have watched them.
Of course, it is inevitable that there must have been some game, somewhere, where a fingerspinner got some wickets on a pitch that hasn't offered turn - after all, that sort of wicket has existed for about 70 years. However, if we think about the number of games that have been played we can see that these are exceptions\anomalies.

This particular post seems to demonstrate that you are losing the thread... maybe you should read more carefully before making your next series of replies.

 

[Richard]

performances against zimbabwe dont count....
regardless even if you did count them you would see that chopra averages 46 while das averages 38.

Two incorrect generalisations used here:
One, which I've already shown to be incorrect, is that Zimbabwe's attack is inferior to all others except Bangladesh.
The other is that conditions in the subcontinent are not comparable to others. They are.
This post again seems to demonstrate something of losing the thread.

 

[Richard]

you havent shown anything....you have been proven wrong time and time again yet you come back for more.
any quality spinner uses bounce to good effect, and the best use both drift and flight to brilliant effect. any expert on cricket would tell you that.

No, I have not been proven wrong time and again - indeed, my relentlessness seems to have driven you to distraction in this thread. You have mixed posts, and are now resorting to "you have been proven wrong because I said so". Despite the fact I have provided answers to anything anyone has come-up with.

If anyone thinks a quality spinner uses flight to achieve loop and drift and make themselves dangerous with these in themselves they are no expert on cricket.
Because we've seen, almost without fail, that significant turn is a neccesity to defeat top-class batsmen and get them out cheaply, regularly.
I'd like to see some examples of spinners who've got good career records despite playing regularly in conditions that render them unable to turn the ball.
Of course, it goes without saying that the more bounce you get, the more dangerous any sideways-movement becomes.
But neither extravagant (but consistent) bounce, or loop, or drift, are a dangerous weapon to decent batsmen when they are used without turn. They are simply additional pieces of an armoury that make turn more dangerous.

 

[Richard]

yes quite obviously because the wickets have been more suited to leg spin than to finger spinners!!
and as we all know bowlers like abdul qadir,anil kumble and richie benaud were all rubbish leg spinners!

Fine, amend that to three (Kumble is hardly an orthodox wristspinner). What I mean is that, since Benaud (ie the last 40 years - which is what I said), Abdul Qadir, Warne and Murali have been the only decent wristspinners.

yes and since leg spinners are capable of bowling on any ground you'd think that they would have tried to bowl leg spin then!
and i can assure you that there are very few grounds in NZ and SA that offer turn for the spinners.

You'd think so, would you? Despite the fact that in the limited-overs cricket that dominates recreational cricket provides the need for accuracy above all else - better accurate fingerspinner than inaccurate wristspinner. Hence, the fingerspinner is much the most developed bowler, because everyone knows that controlled wristspin is a rare gift.

i dont know what cricket you watch...create a straw poll to see whether anyone believes that rhodes' reflexes were just about as good as anyone elses and we'll see the results.
and believe me superior reflexes doesnt necessarily= better batsman, as you yourself have said that it has more to do with concentration and a little bit with technique than anything else. someone like chopra may have great reflexes but he might lack in terms of mental concentration as opposed to other players.

I don't give a damn who believes what about Rhodes' reflexes - the fact is, if they were superior to everyone else, he would be a superior batsman to everyone else. And he wasn't. Because the best batsman of all-time had reflexes exactly comparable to millions of others. There is a peak for reflex success, and all batsmen of decent club standard reach that peak.

no the point is that just like that ball off hoggards was unplayable by some and playable by others there have been occasions when seam and swing have made deliveries too good for some yet playable by others.

No, it was not playable - all you can hope to do at a good ball is play-and-miss - sometimes you will, sometimes you will nick it.
If you nick it, there's no discredit to you, if you play-and-miss, you forget it and live to fight another day.
The point I am making is that you cannot expect every good ball to be wicket-taking, but once one is then the batsman does not deserve discredit.

if there is then you will clearly see that kirsten and fleming have both been caught at short leg and silly point quite often...

No, I won't, because believe me, they're both far too good batsmen for that to be the case.

 

[Richard]

err no in his only series at home chopra averages 46, which is considerably better than das' performances against SL and england and even australia at home. and mind you that england attack of james ormond,richard dawson,hoggard,giles and white was just about as bad as NZ's attack in india. and just like das failed on seaming wickets, so did chopra on the only seaming wicket of the tour in pakistan. he did well in the first test.

That England attack, incidentally, was far more testing than any Chopra has yet faced: Giles, turning it in the last two Tests; Hoggard, bowling well in excellent conditions for seam and swing in the Third; White, capable of bowling well in any conditions; Flintoff, bowling uncharecteristically well in the Third. Ormond and Dawson are rubbish, yes, but not that much more rubbish than the cannon-fodder Chopra's faced in his career.
Chopra in his two series in the subcontinent has done no better than Das did in his home series and that in Sri Lanka. Das, both in the subcontinent and outside it, has faced far more challenging circumstances (harder conditions despite mostly equally poor bowling) than Chopra and still done better.

except that das and ramesh averaged some 10 runs less than chopra did and didnt have any successful partnerships either.

And they almost certainly would have had successful partnerships had Sehwag scored the way he has when opening with them.
And yes - the outside-subcontinent surfaces offered something more to the bowlers in Ramesh and Das' cases (South Africa) - hence the reason for them averaging some 10 less than Chopra (Australia).

why because that just shows how false you claims are? and as i have said earlier, if you have watched him play(which i doubt you have) he has shown that he can score runs and that he has a good temperament, albeit only until hes in the 40s. besides players like waugh and attapattu were considerably worse in showing run scoring ability and they were retained, so why shouldnt he?

I have watched all of his Tests from Australia onwards. He has shown he can sometimes make it to the 40s. That, to me, isn't showing especial potential. He's had his fair share - now IMO it's time to give someone else a go.
Waugh, Atapattu and suchlike were retained because their selectors believed in them - whether it appeared right or wrong, it was proven right. The Indian selectors have chosen not to take that gamble - they have given Chopra his fair chance and nothing more. Because it is a gamble - not all players given a run beyond what they have earnt have repaid the selectors.

no he has been part of a successful partnership, arguably the best indian partnership in over a decade. if that isnt potential then what is?

If that is potential what isn't? Being part of a partnership, as I've said God-knows-how-many times now, doesn't mean you've done well if your average is still poor and most of the partnership has been made by your partner.

no he hasnt thats the point im making....hes shown more potential than steve waugh, marvan attapattu,flintoff and several others and yet hasnt been given as many chances as they got in the side. why were players like waugh,tendulkar etc retained despite blowing it then?

He has shown potential if you ask you - if you ask me, he hasn't shown the potential to be anywhere near as good as the three examples you give. See above, as you've repeated the same question.

 

[Richard]

along with the mark richardsons and the jacob orams

Mark Richardson, who has scored lots of runs on wickets that have offered something to the seamers, yes, sure, he's proven me wrong.
And Jacob Oram, whose one person has constantly tried to use to prove me wrong and so far has failed miserably.

and as i have shown earlier das's average should only have been half of what it was had he not played so many games against zimbabwe. chopra has been unfortunate enough to not play against that attack, because if he had he would probably be averaging in the 40s

As I've stated, you are using the assumption that Zimbabwe's attack is inferior to all, when in fact it is every bit as strong as those which Chopra has faced.

of course you didnt see that match either did you?
das failed in the first innings when most of his teammates cashed in when he scored only 29 and then in the 2nd innings chasing a low score he scored an unbeaten 22. and no it wouldnt have dragged it down to chopras level but if he hadnt played those 6 tests against zimbabwe he would have dragged it down to mark ealhams level.

No, I didn't see it - and I didn't need to to know what happened.
The fact is Das scored 51 for once out - it doesn't matter how many runs anyone else scored - that is a reasonable performance. And it is perfectly sufficient to avoid the disgrace of failing against Bangladesh - so I'm sorry, but you can't throw that one at him.
Oh, and if Chopra hadn't played every innings in which he scored a decent score his average would be at Andre Nel's level. Haven't you got the picture yet - you can't cherry-pick out stuff unless it's an exception. Das' runs against Zimbabwe and Chopra's lack of runs in his entire career have been against comparable attacks.

rubbish..the person who apparently agreed with you only said that blignaut was as good as brad williams and bracken....the fact is that blignaut happens to be the 2nd best bowler in his set while williams and bracken are right at the bottom of their set.and he never once said that bowlers like the strangs,friend, watambwa and the rest were as good as bowlers like akhtar,gillespie,tuffey,oram etc.only a fool would say that.

lets look at his performances in the last 1.5 yrs then shall we?
in the vb series....
1/49(10),3/36(10),0/47(7),1/29(6),0/54(9),2/54(10),1/45(8)

indeed the only good game he had in that series was the 2nd one because for most of that series he went for more than 5 and sometimes over 6

then in the wc.....
vs NZ seamer friendly wicket so it doesnt count.....0/22(7)
vs WI again seamer friendly wicket so dont count......4/22(10)
vs SA went at 4.83.......0/33(7)
vs Aus went at 7.38......0/59(8)
vs india ahh finally we have a good performance......2/34(10)
v aus again seamer friendly wicket so dont count......3/34(10)

then in 2004 vs aus

0/19(3),3/48(10),3/34(9),1/45(10)

indeed the only good performance he had in that series was in the 3rd game according to your theory.

and the asia cup(so far)
vs ind.....2/51(10)

for obvious reasons ive left out performances agianst minnow countries and the games in dambulla.

so as we can all see,vaas has been only as successul as oram and therefore applying richards theorem we find that vaas was a useless seamer pitch bully.

And of course, despite the fact that I mentioned Vaas' career is far longer than Oram, we can only look at the last 1.5 years... because that suits you best.
It's interesting, however, that we find Vaas is much best at exploiting seaming conditions when previously it has been insisted by you that he can only exploit dry, dusty ones.

the same trend that vaas followed you might say....

In a short part of Vaas' long career, maybe.