Here's an idea for Englands ODI squad!!

[FRAZ]

Richard man , There is quite a sub continental touch in your writings . Any ways be kool . peace !!!

 

[Richard]

oh really mr 'katich cant play spin(despite scoring prolifically against murali and kumble) at the international level because he struggled against brown and swann in county cricket

Scoring prolifically, yes, in all of, oh, 2 Test-matches.

i can generalise too you know

Yes, I know, you rely on generalisations far too much, you don't have to tell me that but it's good to know you're man enough to admit it.

rubbish....can you come up with another method to get a quality batsmen out more than 25% of the time ?

Er, swing the ball away from the bat; turn it away from the bat; turn it into the pads; swing it into the pads; seam it in both directions; turn it with drift...
That enough for you?

 

[Richard]

and the reason why a quality batsmen like lara wasnt able to cope with it was because he was totally unprepared for it...which all comes down to the fact that he was outthought

No, it comes down to the fact that he lost sight of it at a crucial point.

b/s.....no one can go from being a proven success to a proven failure....if someone starts off well and then fails later on its obvious that there was always a weakness that just wasnt explored half as much. hence he wasnt proven in the first place.

Er, yes, and if you had read properly you'd see that I said exactly that.
All the same, someone who has success for, say, 3 years then fails non-stop would have been assumed by most people to have been a proven success.

 

[Richard]

and the fact that 25% isnt in the minority means what?

What ludicrousness is this?
So if you have 25 of one and 75 of another, the 25 is in the minority.
Yes, right, that explains a lot.

 

[Richard]

it hasnt? so what exactly were you on about when you said that mcgrath and pollock didnt deserve more than half of their 800 odd wickets then? if both mcgrath and pollock have been able to get so many wickets by methods against your theory of how a quality bowler does in fact get wickets then surely you are missing something?
seems to me like it happens far more often that you would like it to.

Or rather - yes, you guessed it - they are anomalies. And hence you and others have to bring them up whenever something like this crops-up.
And I don't see why they deserve credit because batsmen tend to play poor strokes against them far more regularly than they do against other bowlers who are very accurate too.

 

[Richard]

so you just refuse to change your inital opinion about a bowler, irrespective of how well he has managed to disprove your theories with his on field performances then?
harmison anyone?

No, Harmison has not managed to disprove anything I think of him.
He has not managed to take wickets through good deliveries.
And that's all I've ever said about him.
I've not said "he'll not get good figures against his name in Test-cricket" because that would be an extremely foolish claim because it is never possible to gurantee that only good bowling will get good figures.

 

[Richard]

and you could then do the double bluff and get the inswinger going for one more delivery....either way batsmen can be unprepared for it

When does it become double-bluff?
On the 50th in-swinger?
The fact is, if you bowl in-swinger after in-swinger but the batsman knows you have the ability to take it away too, he's not outthought, he's just outbowled, because he can't possibly be expected to guess when the change is coming.
The bowler has the advantage and he should take advantage of that.

 

[Richard]

because as we know, mike brearly got his leadership skills from you.

And I've said that...?????

 

[Richard]

and how much of this helps in deciding how a wicket is playing? its quite likely that an ex cricketer who gets a close up view of it and who has played on every wicket possible would have no problems deciding whether a wicket is flat or turner or seamers wicket. you on the other hand could distort information, not remember it or just be under the misunderstanding based on the facts that you only watched it on tv.

And of course watching how a wicket is playing on TV doesn't qualify you to judge how it's playing, oh, no, not at all.
And no-one can truly know how a wicket is going to play just by looking at it. Sometimes you can make a pretty safe guess, but the only way to know for certain is to watch cricket being played on it.
And I've done plenty of that.

 

[Richard]

I have played the game. Applying pressure on the batsman with good, accurate bowling is something that is attempted at every level of cricket, that's why when I hear a commentator talking about the bowler putting the batsman under pressure I understand what he is talking about.

So do I.
And it doesn't change the fact that I think they're wrong because in my experience good batsmen don't feel pressure just because of a slow scoring-rate anywhere near as often as they do feel it.

 

[Richard]

which shows how foolish your theories really are....the build up affects every batsmen just like it did in the lara-flintoff case. if that wasnt the case then why do certain bowlers like pollock and mcgrath get more wickets with decent deliveries while bowlers like vaas dont get the same number of wickets despite bowling similar deliveries , yet without any buildup?

Because some bowlers are lucky, some aren't.
And it's only the "that can't possibly be the case, the bowler must deserve credit for everything good he has against his name" mentality that means most people can't understand that.

and once again you forget to examing the situation well enough. it was a coincidence that lara suddenly had problems against flintoffs short pitch bowling but hasnt in the past. the fact is that flintoff bowled 3-4 short and fast deliveries at lara first up, something that lara has never been comfortable with and then pitched it up. i doubt that any other bowler has used the same strategy at the same pace in the past.

On every single one of the 197 occasions he's come to the crease in Test-cricket, yes, that's likely.
Sorry, but Lara has never had problems with short-pitched bowling, at any stage of his innings, he's far too good for any of that rubbish, whatever it might help your theories to observe.

here you go again...just deny something that you cant prove otherwise. im sure that even you know that every batsmen feels pressure, just because there have been a few innings where the best players have somehow managed to fight their way around it without playing poor shots doesnt mean that they dont feel the pressure at all. if they didnt then we wouldnt have seen so many cases where quality batsmen felt pressure and then played a poor shot.

Except that anyone who watched properly rather than rely on assumptions would see that, while of course it's true that every batsman feels pressure, the good ones more often than not don't feel it just because of a slow scoring-rate.
For every instnace where it's happened, it's remembered well. Every time it doesn't, it's not remembered well by most people.

if pressure didnt exist then quality batsmen should be getting out playing poor shots to poor bowlers too, when the fact is that they seem to do it far more often against quality ones.

And what a stupid suggestion that would be - pressure doesn't exist - and that you have to even try to put it onto my keyboard suggests you're running-out of options for the umpteenth time.

actually thats pretty much what you have done above.....regardless i have no clue what your talking about at the moment, explain yourself and i'll argue it quite comfortable because i have never had problems arguing against b/s.

No, but you have had all sorts of problems arguing against me, and that's why you've had to resort to all the garbage you've churned-out in the last 3 months.

 

[Richard]

Yes, to really understand the game you need experience.

And I have it - lots, and lots, and lots of watching, and plenty of playing, just at a pretty poor level.

Incorrect, it does happen, you just can't accept it.

Oh, no, it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as you'd like to think - it's just you remember when it does, and not when it doesn't.
Which is wholly understandible, because the more memorable things (ie a wicket) are far more often remembered than the less (ie a dot-ball).

 

[Richard]

Which means you know more about it than people who've played the game to a high level - more about what actually happens during a game?

Didn't think so.

Didn't you?
Well, then, I ask once again - what can you learn by watching from a playing position that you can't learn from a watching-only position?

 

[luckyeddie]

Didn't you?
Well, then, I ask once again - what can you learn by watching from a playing position that you can't learn from a watching-only position?

One word - Communication

 

[Richard]

Not as interesting as the match that is actually happening at the time - that is the important thing, not something that happened 18 months ago.

So from now on all commentators will be banned from referring to instances in matches other than the one currently being covered.
Because according to Marc Robbins, it is not of sufficient interest.

 

[Richard]

One word - Communication

Communication of what?
Cricketing ideas?
Which cannot be picked-up by watching them being carried-out?

 

[Richard]

Not accurately no.

Until you've done it in front of so many people you don't know what it is really like - I've experienced that to a lesser extent (2-3000 people) - and it is nothing like I expected.

Where have you played in front of 2000-3000 people?
Anyway, how's that impossible to appreciate if you've been amongst the 15,000 and shared the emotions of those you're watching?

 

[luckyeddie]

Communication of what?
Cricketing ideas?
Which cannot be picked-up by watching them being carried-out?

Certain things in life have to be experienced - or we would all be learning how to drive from reading a book or watching others.

How to actually communicate with your peers is something you have to try for yourself. You mentioned a couple of days ago that you thought that you would fare particularly well in a man-management scenario. How do you know? By watching others or by trying it yourself?

 

[marc71178]

Scoring prolifically, yes, in all of, oh, 2 Test-matches.

Erm last time I checked, he'd only played 9 games, and 2 of those are against sides with no spinners.

So 2 out of 7, not a bad initial strike-rate.

 

[marc71178]

So from now on all commentators will be banned from referring to instances in matches other than the one currently being covered.
Because according to Marc Robbins, it is not of sufficient interest.

Which is not what I said.

What is important during the game, is the game that is going on - the outgoing player is gone, and the fact he was dismissed in similar fashion in previous games is not the key issue.