Here's an idea for Englands ODI squad!!

[Richard]

id like to hear what these faults were that he showed....

Err, sort of not looking comfortable when the ball was moving off the pitch at 50mph or so.
A bit like Alec Stewart, for instance.

id like to see proof that he actually struggled against spin in the first place....even i can make up stuff and say that in the last 3 years he didnt show any problems against spin in domestic cricket.

Look at the matches I've referred to.
He actually made a score in one of them - he batted long enough (dropped twice off Brown) to look very, very unconvincing indeed.
If you don't want to believe me, fine, but why on Earth would I want to make-up the notion of a player who I rate very highly indeed having a weakness that he didn't in fact have?

like the time about the run rates and wickets in ODI cricket, marc will tell you more about that.....

And I've explained why I haven't stated both sides of the argument there.

so therefore any bowler who pick up wickets when there is no seam or swing should be considered lucky then?

No, not if they used cutters or turn.

oh no more often than not they just keep playing and missing, edging it and getting it to go safely or sometimes even managing to adjust to the swing and playing it. indeed its far more likely that a few balls later the bowler picks up a wicket off a ball that didnt swing or move off the seam but was just outside the off stump......

Yes, but that doesn't make it good bowling.

 

[Richard]

exactly, your method requires that you bowl ball after bowl in the hope that a batsman will make a mistake, therefore by your counts the bowler doesnt deserve credit in the first place. which is the same thing as a bowler bowling short and into the body, which is far more likely to get wickets if you ask me when there is no seam or swing......

If you ask me cutters and reverse-swing are the better tactic.
They get quality batsmen out far more in my experience.

 

[Richard]

because it requires impeccable accuracy, and there have been only a few bowlers who have been able to be that accurate and have pace/height....harmison certainly seems to be improving leaps and bounds in terms of accuracy of late....

Yes, which is why he got smashed all over the park for much of the first 3 West Indies Tests.

 

[Richard]

nope harmison has taken wickets by bowling genuinely good deliveries ie wickets that have moved off the seam and by getting extra bounce off wickets, neither of which can be avoided easily by any means.
regardless certain bowlers get wickets off balls that move away from the batsman just outside the off stump...technically the batsman could just have left the ball alone so the bowler didnt deserve the wicket in that case too

Oh, Harmison has taken the odd wicket with good deliveries, yes - occasionally he's even swung the ball (Gayle Bridgetown second-innings, Tuffey Lord's first-innings, for instances).
Most of them have come with deliveries that have gone straight on and have had the line or length misplayed.

 

[Richard]

oh you can be outthought not just by inswing/outswing, you can be outthought by line and length. it might not happen very frequently but when it happens the bowler must be credited for it...

So, you can bowl a line or length the batsman isn't expecting you to.
The riposte to that is fairly simple.
You play that particular ball, rather than premeditating based on previous balls.

 

[Richard]

oh yes of course you couldnt tell when i said that "brearly got his captaincy skill from you" that i was joking.....

Yes, I could tell - well noticed.
Of course, the best way to respond to the "I noticed the sarcasm" was with some more sarcasm.
Seeing if I'd "notice" it, were you?

 

[Richard]

or rather you need to look at a combination of both to be the best judge of how a wicket is playing.....of course you could simply judge how well a wicket is playing by watching it, but someone who does both is far more likely to be right than you are.....

So someone who has predicted how the pitch will play is more likely to be able to judge how it has actually played than someone who hasn't.
OK...

and where have i said that predicting how a pitch plays is all that matters? its a combination of both.....

What? A combination of predicting how it'll play and seeing how it does play?
Why do you need to predict how it'll play when you can wait and see.

 

[Richard]

oh you see it quite often on wickets that offer bounce or from bowlers like harmison who get bounce off wickets.....assuming of course you do have a short leg/silly point....

Mostly when a short-leg is placed you see it being a waste of a fielder.
Often when there's no short-leg balls go there at catchable height and people get the misinterpretation that the bounce could have resulted in a wicket.
How many of Harmison's Test-wickets in the last 7 months have come due to the ball bouncing more than expected?

 

[Richard]

Wow, 15 posts in a row in the one thread, that has to be some sort of record....

Doubt it.
I've had things in the region of that before now, so has tooextracool.

 

[Richard]

You don't seem to realise that a poor stroke is not always just a batsmen failing badly, it can be induced by the bowler.

Oh, I certainly do - a drive at an away-swinging Carrot-Ball is a poor stroke, but it's still good bowling.
Of course a poor stroke can be induced by the bowler - otherwise all wickets bowlers deserved credit for would be RUDs.

 

[Richard]

The problem with the theory about waiting long enough is that you actually have to be around long enough (i.e not get out) on these occasions to score runs. Personally, I think if you did a 'Geoffrey Boycott' in the modern game you wouldn't be around too long if it started costing your team victories, test cricket used to be a win, lose or draw scenario, and while it technically still is, the pressure is on now to have a bit of a go and look at trying to win instead of letting the match run to a draw.

What I'm basically saying Richard is that you're 19 now, and some of the stuff you're making comments on happened when you were about 6........even if you were 12 or 13 it wouldn't make any difference, what you know about the game either then or now wouldn't be a decent substitute for experience in that situation. So basically, you've got possibly 3-4 years experience behind you of senior level cricket (at most - which wouldn't make any difference anyway), you may have watched a lot of videos (or not - I don't know), but saying that there's no reason why a cricket buff who's possibly watched a whole catalogue of games on TV for the last 4 or 5 years couldn't know more than commentators who have played the game (and watched just as many games, if not more) sounds incredibly arrogant to me.

On the otherhand, you could be entirely correct, and in a few years we'll find out that what you said wasn't off the mark at all.......you are, after all, entitled to your opinion.

Well I can never be proved correct in the "good batsmen don't feel pressure because of a slow scoring-rate" - it's something that I've heard in commentary since commentary began. Yes, that does include stuff in the days of not losing coming before winning.
All I can do is try to keep watching and working-out what I seem to be true.
In any case, even in today's cricket World - 500 in 170 overs might be perceived to be worse than 450 in 130, but IMO that will give you the best chance of the game.
I mean, it really is almost ridiculous that sides are making 500 and still not being anywhere near safe from defeat, because they're not batting long enough.
Even if winning is now more important than not losing, scoring ridiculously fast doesn't always give you the best chance of winning.
A side knowing they've got nothing other than a draw to play for can never have it's importance underestimated IMO.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

However, what harm are we actually doing to anyone?

Making people read your back and forth babble in just about every thread in CC!

 

[Richard]

But we're not making them do anything of the sort.
(Well, maybe we are making you, Corey, Rich, James, Andre and Neil read it, Neil has never fully conveyed to me how moderation works)
If they want to read it, they can - if they don't, they don't have to.
Unless we're wasting bandwidth by going totally around in circles, how are we doing anything wrong?

 

[steds]

Making people read your back and forth babble in just about every thread in CC!

meh, it's just reached the point where we ignore them

 

[Richard]

Exactly.

 

[tooextracool]

Mostly when a short-leg is placed you see it being a waste of a fielder.
Often when there's no short-leg balls go there at catchable height and people get the misinterpretation that the bounce could have resulted in a wicket.
How many of Harmison's Test-wickets in the last 7 months have come due to the ball bouncing more than expected?

quite a few actually, that is what makes harmison such a deadly bowler, his ability to get bounce of the most docile wickets....

 

[tooextracool]

So someone who has predicted how the pitch will play is more likely to be able to judge how it has actually played than someone who hasn't.
OK....
What? A combination of predicting how it'll play and seeing how it does play?
Why do you need to predict how it'll play when you can wait and see.

nope someone who can get a close look at the wicket is likely to know more about the wicket than someone who doesnt....not that it really matters because most people can make out how a wicket plays by just watching, but experts who get to do both can never be wrong.

 

[tooextracool]

Yes, I could tell - well noticed.
Of course, the best way to respond to the "I noticed the sarcasm" was with some more sarcasm.
Seeing if I'd "notice" it, were you?

oh yes and a brilliant sarcastic comment too...."and i've said that??"

 

[tooextracool]

So, you can bowl a line or length the batsman isn't expecting you to.
The riposte to that is fairly simple.
You play that particular ball, rather than premeditating based on previous balls.

except that its not just that easy.....

 

[tooextracool]

Oh, Harmison has taken the odd wicket with good deliveries, yes - occasionally he's even swung the ball (Gayle Bridgetown second-innings, Tuffey Lord's first-innings, for instances).
Most of them have come with deliveries that have gone straight on and have had the line or length misplayed.

hes got several off them from awkward bounce and a few of them from angling the ball away from the left hander with a hint of seam movement....