*Unofficial* England ODI team thread

[Richard]

Yeh, you're right, an economy rate of 4.94 in the modern game is awful isn't it, 4.85 in 2008 as a whole as well, awful. Question, do you actually check anything before you post it? Or do you just filter through your encyclopedic cricketing knowledge and hope that you stumble upon something that scarcely resembles the truth? Only bowled well in NZ?

West Indies in England: 3 Matches, 5 wickets at an average of 28 with a strike rate of 33, and an economy of 5.00
England in Sri Lanka: 5 Matches, 11 wickets at an average of 19 with a strike ratte of 24 and an economy of 4.64
England in New Zealand: 5 Matches, 8 wickets at an average of 25 with a strike rate of 25 and an economy of 5.42
New Zealand in England: 5 Matches, 7 wickets at an average of 21 with a strike rate of 35 and an economy of 3.58
South Africa in England: 5 Matches, 8 wickets at an average of 18 with a strike rate of 24 and an economy of 4.37

The only series' where he's averaged over 30 with the ball are his first series against Pakistan where he was thrown in way too early, then the 2 series against India at home and away, and away he finished with far better figures than Andrew Flintoff, and he bowled very well. Ishant Sharma's figures were only slightly better than Broads, and they're his home conditions.

I'm sure none of those stats will be valid though, as it's not numbers that make a player, it's watching the games and using your superior cricketing knowledge that wins arguments............

OK, let's try that on a match-by-match basis rather than blurring the picture with overall figures. I actually agree with you that the only stuff that really matters is from the 2007 summer onwards (ie, his first 6 games aren't relevant). So...
9-20-3 - very good
10-49-2 - pretty poor but not diabolical
9-71-0 - awful
8-27-0 - good
9-54-1 - very poor
9-34-1 - good
10-51-4 - not especially outstanding, but not dreadful either
10-84-1 - absolutely woeful
9.4-46-2 - poor
10-44-0 - OK-ish
10-54-2 - poor
8.3-42-2 - poor
8-26-2 - good
10-54-2 - poor
9.1-36-3 - good
9-26-3 - very good
3-32-0 - very poor
10-32-3 - very good
10-75-2 - extremely poor
6-41-0 - extremely poor
Then there was the NZ home series where he was consistently good to excellent.
10-61-1 - very poor
10-23-5 - outstanding
6-28-0 - poor but not dreadful
6.1-33-1 - poor
1-0-1 - 1 over can never be here nor there
10-74-0 - extremely poor
10-55-4 - decent effort
9-36-1 - good
6-49-1 - extremely poor
8.4-54-1 - very poor

So, that's 4 very good, 5 good, 3 OK, 7 poor and 10 very poor. Plus a full series (4 games, as 1 was reduced to a 24-over match) of good. I can't get so thrilled about Broad's ODI bowling as some, I'm afraid.

And no, an economy-rate of close to 5-an-over is unacceptable, whatever the time. Even in the modern (1990s and 2000s) era of ODIs, good bowlers still don't go for anywhere near that much. 4.2-4.3-an-over is the sort of economy-rate good bowlers will be going for, and exceptional ones under 4. Whereas in older ODIs (the 1970s and 1980s) any good bowler had to have a rate a fair way under 4.

 

[Richard]

Yeah, his actual numbers of runs demonstrate that. But hitting out down the order in ODIs is also a specialist role, as Albie Morkel has demonstrated in recent times. There are batsmen and then there are people who can score at a strike rate of over 200 and win you a match you should previously have lost. Mascarenhas is the latter and he can and has won matches for England with the bat. Considering the team will inevitably already have 6 or 7 batsmen, it's a bonus you can't ignore. And according to the NZers on here he's been extremely impressive with the bat for Otago recently.

The point I'm making is that Mascarenhas must be a 10-over bowler if he's to play ODIs. Yes, he can indeed bat at perhaps seven and prove very useful in smashing late very quick runs. However, his bowling comes first and it's his bowling that especially interests me.

If he can bowl well, I'd have him in the ODI side 100% regardless of his batting. The fact that he can also smash some very quick runs at the end means any excellence at bowling is magnified manifestly. But I don't want him in the side if he's not bowling well, because that'll damage his long-term prospects.

However, as I say, I seem to have mistaken quite the extent to which he didn't bowl well last season, and even if I hadn't, he's now corrected it quite firmly with his work for Otago.

As I say, provided he goes well in the early FP games in 2009, his continued falling below the Luke Wrights, Gareth Battys etc. will be a firebombing-the-ECB-offices offence.

 

[Richard]

Lol, this is the first time I've ventured into a discussion with him, but from my short time reading these forums I've seen him involved in many a 'discussion' and using the same method of arguing every time, basically backing his arguments up with his encyclopedic cricketing memories. It's an interesting method to say the least. As a newbie outsider it comes across as incredible levels of arrogance from where I'm sitting, and I thought I'd met the most arrogant person ever at PlanetCricket forums with Ben (wfdu_Ben91 on here), but Dickers blows him completely out of the water, he'd be much loved posting like this at Planetcricket :L

Well if one is not to use one's own memories of what's happened, what precisely do you use? It's not possible to replay every game on here to show your meaning.

There are times when I'll use arrogance as a tool to show the inferiority of someone who doesn't have a clue what they're on about. However, the example you state above is not a remotely arrogant attitude, and it's bizarre TSTL to have it called such.

 

[Uppercut]

Lol, this is the first time I've ventured into a discussion with him, but from my short time reading these forums I've seen him involved in many a 'discussion' and using the same method of arguing every time, basically backing his arguments up with his encyclopedic cricketing memories. It's an interesting method to say the least. As a newbie outsider it comes across as incredible levels of arrogance from where I'm sitting, and I thought I'd met the most arrogant person ever at PlanetCricket forums with Ben (wfdu_Ben91 on here), but Dickers blows him completely out of the water, he'd be much loved posting like this at Planetcricket :L

Also, I've edited the post to include the economy rates also.

There's a few here who agree with you, I'd say on the whole Dicko knows his cricket pretty well. There's a few crackpot theories but you just learn to agree to disagree on those. You don't have to argue with him or change your point of view to his, he's not being massively controversial. He's just saying that he thinks Broad's not quite so good an ODI bowler as seems to be commonly thought to be the case.

 

[Jigga988]

OK, let's try that on a match-by-match basis rather than blurring the picture with overall figures. I actually agree with you that the only stuff that really matters is from the 2007 summer onwards (ie, his first 6 games) aren't relevant. So...
9-20-3 - very good
10-49-2 - pretty poor but not diabolical
9-71-0 - awful
8-27-0 - good
9-54-1 - very poor
9-34-1 - good
10-51-4 - not especially outstanding, but not dreadful either
10-84-1 - absolutely woeful
9.4-46-2 - poor
10-44-0 - OK-ish
10-54-2 - poor
8.3-42-2 - poor
8-26-2 - good
10-54-2 - poor
9.1-36-3 - good
9-26-3 - very good
3-32-0 - very poor
10-32-3 - very good
10-75-2 - extremely poor
6-41-0 - extremely poor
Then there was the NZ home series where he was consistently good to excellent.
10-61-1 - very poor
10-23-5 - outstanding
6-28-0 - poor but not dreadful
6.1-33-1 - poor
1-0-1 - 1 over can never be here nor there
10-74-0 - extremely poor
10-55-4 - decent effort
9-36-1 - good
6-49-1 - extremely poor
8.4-54-1 - very poor

So, that's 4 very good, 5 good, 3 OK, 7 poor and 10 very poor. Plus one full series of good. I can't get so thrilled about Broad's ODI bowling as some, I'm afraid.

And no, an economy-rate of close to 5-an-over is unacceptable, whatever the time. Even in the modern (1990s and 2000s) era of ODIs, good bowlers still go for 4.2-4.3-an-over, and exceptional ones under 4.

If you're going to break it down like that then surely you need the match figures in context, some of those figures could've been good on some of those tracks... I apologise in advance if you have done that though I would imagine you havn't....

Ha, at the figures in bold, and from that you don't seem to take much emphasis on wickets and also Broad bowls at the death where as the Mascheranas' of the World will never do that...

Btw, Foster plays a Chanderpaul type role for Essex in 50 over cricket and does it well, can be extremely innovative to score boundaries and contributed to our success in the one day arena... in any case, his keeping is as good if not better than Ambrose and miles better than Prior... don't see why you think Ambrose is the better boundary hitter, havn't really seen evidence of this in county or international level, though he wasn't really given the chance in the latter. Would have Davies and Foster in OD team ahead of any other keeper atm....

 

[King Pietersen]

Good bowlers go for 4.2-4.3 do they? So none of these are good or exceptional OD bowlers then (these are their stats from their last 12 months)?

Nathan Bracken: 4.58 runs an over
Andrew Flintoff: 4.46 runs an over
Nuwan Kulasekara: 4.45 runs an over
Mitchell Johnson: 4.98 runs an over
Ishant Sharma: 5.92 runs an over
Kyle Mills: 4.64 runs an over
Makhaya Ntini: 5.23 runs an over
Dale Steyn: 4.84 runs an over
Harbhajan Singh: 4.65 runs an over
Jerome Taylor: 4.41 runs an over
Brett Lee: 4.64 runs an over
Umar Gul: 5.05 runs an over
Jacques Kallis: 5.07 runs an over
Sohail Tanvir: 5.33 runs an over

Seems Broad's economy of 4.69 in the last 12 months isn't too bad after all. Also, if your theory was correct, there are only 5-6 good ODi bowlers in the world, with only 3-4 exceptional ODi bowlers, the only ones I found that had an economy under 4 were Andre Nel, Stuart Clark (3 games against Bangladesh), Jacob Oram and James Hopes. Cracking theory that.

 

[Jigga988]

The point I'm making is that Mascarenhas must be a 10-over bowler if he's to play ODIs. Yes, he can indeed bat at perhaps seven and prove very useful in smashing late very quick runs. However, his bowling comes first and it's his bowling that especially interests me.

If he can bowl well, I'd have him in the ODI side 100% regardless of his batting. The fact that he can also smash some very quick runs at the end means any excellence at bowling is magnified manifestly. But I don't want him in the side if he's not bowling well, because that'll damage his long-term prospects.

However, as I say, I seem to have mistaken quite the extent to which he didn't bowl well last season, and even if I hadn't, he's now corrected it quite firmly with his work for Otago.

As I say, provided he goes well in the early FP games in 2009, his continued falling below the Luke Wrights, Gareth Battys etc. will be a firebombing-the-ECB-offices offence.

Would prefer Dimi to Wright, but if you're gonna drop Anderson then I'd much rather see Napier replace him... Dimi often bowls at the easiest of times and this warps his figures somewhat, where as Napier opens the bowling for Essex, and not sure if he does it in NZ, and bowls in the death, and if you add that to the fact that Napier is more adapt at hitting the big shots why not throw him in...

If you were to put in Dimi instead of Jimmy, who's gonna open the bowling with Broad? Don't think Freddy can do it... In addition to that who will close out the match with Freddy, Broad has proved he can be very expensive in pressure situations - just ask Yuvraj - Napes is the man for the job!

 

[Uppercut]

Ha, at the figures in bold, and from that you don't seem to take much emphasis on wickets and also Broad bowls at the death where as the Mascheranas' of the World will never do that...

Dimi bowls at the death for Hampshire regularly. England pigeon-holed him as a middle-overs-filling all-rounder, but in truth he's a quality front-line seamer in all forms of the game.

 

[Uppercut]

Dimi often bowls at the easiest of times and this warps his figures somewhat

No he doesn't... what makes you think that? Dimi's our new-ball man.

Check out Napier and Mascarenhas's respective records, btw.

 

[Jigga988]

Dimi bowls at the death for Hampshire regularly. England pigeon-holed him as a middle-overs-filling all-rounder, but in truth he's a quality front-line seamer in all forms of the game.

Well, Broad's one day figures before entering the international game also showed he was a quality bowler at the death but that hasn't held water in the international circuit, tbh, couldn't imagine Mascheranas having all that much success at the death, if he is to play he should do his bowling in the middle overs...

 

[Uppercut]

Well, Broad's one day figures before entering the international game also showed he was a quality bowler at the death but that hasn't held water in the international circuit, tbh, couldn't imagine Mascheranas having all that much success at the death, if he is to play he should do his bowling in the middle overs...

Uhm, well, Bracken's one day figures before entering the international game also showed he was a quality bowler at the death but that has held water in the international circuit.

Why couldn't he bowl at the death? He's extremely accurate and has nerves of steel.

 

[King Pietersen]

I wouldn't mind seeing Napier and Dimi in the side tbh, Napier could come in as a bowling all-rounder to replace Jimmy if he doesn't perform against West Indies. Napier's probably got more pace than Jimmy as well, was operating at over 90mph everytime I saw him on TV last year. He and Dimi could really unleash in the batting powerplay as well, batting all the way down would help fix the customary England collapse problem as well, maybe we'd be less reliant on KP if we batted all the way down to 11!

 

[Richard]

Good bowlers go for 4.2-4.3 do they? So none of these are good or exceptional OD bowlers then (these are their stats from their last 12 months)?

Nathan Bracken: 4.58 runs an over
Andrew Flintoff: 4.46 runs an over
Nuwan Kulasekara: 4.45 runs an over
Mitchell Johnson: 4.98 runs an over
Ishant Sharma: 5.92 runs an over
Kyle Mills: 4.64 runs an over
Makhaya Ntini: 5.23 runs an over
Dale Steyn: 4.84 runs an over
Harbhajan Singh: 4.65 runs an over
Jerome Taylor: 4.41 runs an over
Brett Lee: 4.64 runs an over
Umar Gul: 5.05 runs an over
Jacques Kallis: 5.07 runs an over
Sohail Tanvir: 5.33 runs an over

Seems Broad's economy of 4.69 in the last 12 months isn't too bad after all. Also, if your theory was correct, there are only 5-6 good ODi bowlers in the world, with only 3-4 exceptional ODi bowlers, the only ones I found that had an economy under 4 were Andre Nel, Stuart Clark (3 games against Bangladesh), Jacob Oram and James Hopes. Cracking theory that.

That just shows there hasn't been a lot of good ODI bowling of late - which isn't terribly surprising. Bracken has been conspired completely against by his captains (not entirely their fault, the weakness of the rest of Australia's attack has to an extent forced their hand) and has had to bowl almost exclusively in Powerplays and at the death. Extreme circumstances.

Flintoff, Kulasekera and (surprisingly to me) Taylor are all just about acceptable, they're hardly a mile over the 4.3-4.4 mark. And Flintoff has had to cope with very similar situations to Bracken's. If those two bowled more overs with the field back in the middle of the innings their ERs would be about 4.1-4.2-an-over. Maybe less.

Johnson, Mills and Lee are bowlers whose value lies in extreme wicket-taking rather than especially outstanding economy. They earn their coin as decent bowlers via that.

Sharma (to date), Steyn, Umar Gul, Kallis and most certainly Sohail Tanvir are all absolutely rubbish ODI bowlers. Harbhajan Singh, who's normally an excellent one, has been below-par in a few recent games but I'm sure he'll be back before too long.

See, there's reasons for most things if you look hard enough. Although I'm rather surprised anyone would contend that Sharma, Steyn, Umar Gul, Kallis or Sohail Tanvir are any crack at ODI bowling.

 

[Richard]

If you're going to break it down like that then surely you need the match figures in context, some of those figures could've been good on some of those tracks... I apologise in advance if you have done that though I would imagine you havn't....

Ha, at the figures in bold, and from that you don't seem to take much emphasis on wickets and also Broad bowls at the death where as the Mascheranas' of the World will never do that...

Broad actually doesn't bowl at the death all that often, and certainly doing so didn't affect his figures in either of the games you boldened. He'd done the same before.

And yes, of course games need to be taken in context but going for 6-7-8-an-over is poor regardless of so much as one other thing in the game. No two ways about.

Btw, Foster plays a Chanderpaul type role for Essex in 50 over cricket and does it well, can be extremely innovative to score boundaries and contributed to our success in the one day arena... in any case, his keeping is as good if not better than Ambrose and miles better than Prior... don't see why you think Ambrose is the better boundary hitter, havn't really seen evidence of this in county or international level, though he wasn't really given the chance in the latter. Would have Davies and Foster in OD team ahead of any other keeper atm....

I can't say I've ever seen Foster do anything of great note in his entire OD career TBH. Ambrose is clearly a better OD batsman, even though he isn't suited to the slog-at-the-end role (as our esteemed Master Cribb has pointed-out earlier). England really need a wicketkeeper to bat in the top-order.

 

[Richard]

Would prefer Dimi to Wright, but if you're gonna drop Anderson then I'd much rather see Napier replace him... Dimi often bowls at the easiest of times and this warps his figures somewhat, where as Napier opens the bowling for Essex, and not sure if he does it in NZ, and bowls in the death, and if you add that to the fact that Napier is more adapt at hitting the big shots why not throw him in...

If you were to put in Dimi instead of Jimmy, who's gonna open the bowling with Broad? Don't think Freddy can do it... In addition to that who will close out the match with Freddy, Broad has proved he can be very expensive in pressure situations - just ask Yuvraj - Napes is the man for the job!

Mascarenhas is actually a very capable new-ball and Powerplay bowler. The only time I don't want Mascarenhas bowling is the last 10 overs. He's a better bowler than Graham Napier under any circumstances.

If neccessary, though, of course Flintoff can open the bowling. In fact I'm always much happiest to see him doing so - on the occasions he's on top of his game (ie, the majority) that means you're almost guaranteed to keep the oppo quiet for his first 5 (or however many you give him) overs. You can't do much about things from then on, but IMO using him at the start is the most constructive use of his talents.

 

[Jigga988]

Uhm, well, Bracken's one day figures before entering the international game also showed he was a quality bowler at the death but that has held water in the international circuit.

Why couldn't he bowl at the death? He's extremely accurate and has nerves of steel.

Yes, but as a medium pacer when you're off line you're all the more susceptible to getting hit and against the likes of Chanderpaul and other great innovators it's a lot easier to throw out a lap sweep or a reverse sweep against you as Tendulkar done a couple times when Dimi was playing against India in 07. The Bracken thing is a bit messed up, Broad and Dimi are a lot more alike in terms of skill level at the death than Bracken and Dimi, therefore Dimi is more likely to achieve similar to what Broad has done in ODI level than Bracks...

 

[Richard]

Dimi bowls at the death for Hampshire regularly. England pigeon-holed him as a middle-overs-filling all-rounder, but in truth he's a quality front-line seamer in all forms of the game.

All the same, I'd say Mascarenhas is wasted at the end of the innings. His great skill is bowling at the start and in the middle of the innings. It disappoints me to see him being asked (even if by himself) to be a death-bowler.

I've just said it about Flintoff and will say it again - you've got to think about how to make the most constructive use of Mascarenhas' talents. The one place that doesn't do that is the death.

 

[Pup Clarke]

I actually find it quite ironic that Richard carefully browses batting performances looking for dropped catches etc to make a point of how the innings wasn't as good as first seemed, and then just completely dismisses perfectly acceptable bowling figures of 10-44 as OK'ish without going into depth about how that particular bowler bowled...

 

[Richard]

How on Earth is calling something OK-ish "completely dismissing"? It's telling it like it is - an acceptable performance.

Are you seriously telling me Broad bowled particularly well in that ODI?

 

[Jigga988]

That just shows there hasn't been a lot of good ODI bowling of late - which isn't terribly surprising. Bracken has been conspired completely against by his captains (not entirely their fault, the weakness of the rest of Australia's attack has to an extent forced their hand) and has had to bowl almost exclusively in Powerplays and at the death. Extreme circumstances.

Flintoff, Kulasekera and (surprisingly to me) Taylor are all just about acceptable, they're hardly a mile over the 4.3-4.4 mark. And Flintoff has had to cope with very similar situations to Bracken's. If those two bowled more overs with the field back in the middle of the innings their ERs would be about 4.1-4.2-an-over. Maybe less.

Johnson, Mills and Lee are bowlers whose value lies in extreme wicket-taking rather than especially outstanding economy. They earn their coin as decent bowlers via that.

Sharma (to date), Steyn, Umar Gul, Kallis and most certainly Sohail Tanvir are all absolutely rubbish ODI bowlers. Harbhajan Singh, who's normally an excellent one, has been below-par in a few recent games but I'm sure he'll be back before too long.

See, there's reasons for most things if you look hard enough. Although I'm rather surprised anyone would contend that Sharma, Steyn, Umar Gul, Kallis or Sohail Tanvir are any crack at ODI bowling.

Mills value lies in taking wickets? You might want to re-evaluate that one.