Selfish mother ****ers

[Zinzan]

the poisonous trio. anderson, broad and swann.

You been reading KP's book?

 

[ImpatientLime]

You been reading KP's book?

heh.

something to it, especially for the seamers. so unnecessarily defensive with their fields at times.

 

[Coronis]

I've always had a high regard for Chanderpaul, but buggering off to an awards ceremony in the middle of your innings takes some beating.

Apart from that, Boycott opens the batting from both ends, bats 3, captains the team, and at the end of the day takes the time to explain how great he was.

Who the hell schedules a major awards ceremony during a first class match?

 

[Dan]

1. Geoffrey Boycott *
2. Sunil Gavaskar
3. Jimmy Anderson
4. Sachin Tendulkar
4. Brian Lara
6. Dean Jones
7. Shiv Chanderpaul
8.
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Harbhajan Singh
11. Sydney Barnes

Really no idea who should take the gloves.

 

[TheJediBrah]

heh.

something to it, especially for the seamers. so unnecessarily defensive with their fields at times.

I've always sided with KP on that one. I find it very easy to believe Anderson, Broad, Swann and Prior being bullying ****s. KP may be selfish and divisive but I'd take him over those guys any day.

 

[Victor Ian]

1. Geoffrey Boycott *
2. Sunil Gavaskar
3. Jimmy Anderson
4. Sachin Tendulkar
4. Brian Lara
6. Dean Jones
7. Shiv Chanderpaul
8.
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Harbhajan Singh
11. Sydney Barnes

Really no idea who should take the gloves.

YOU TAKE THAT BACK!

Jones vomited his left foot and ended up in hospital for the team. When was he ever selfish? He scored quickly and rotated the strike plenty.

 

[Zinzan]

1. Geoffrey Boycott *
2. Sunil Gavaskar
3. Jimmy Anderson
4. Sachin Tendulkar
4. Brian Lara
6. Dean Jones
7. Shiv Chanderpaul
8.
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Harbhajan Singh
11. Sydney Barnes

Really no idea who should take the gloves.

Socially speaking within the team set-up (as opposed to on the field where he was actually a good & gritty team-man), Adam Parore to take the gloves.

I remember Astle in particular saying Parore was a bit of a ***** in his autobiography.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Is it really true that those particular three English bowlers personally protected their averages, or is it not more true that both Strauss and Cook played a particularly dull variant of defensive cricket: basically bat the opposition out of the game then bog them down and frustrate them.

 

[AndrewB]

Is it really true that those particular three English bowlers personally protected their averages, or is it not more true that both Strauss and Cook played a particularly dull variant of defensive cricket: basically bat the opposition out of the game then bog them down and frustrate them.

Swann has the best strike rate of any post-war English spin bowler (with 5+ wickets).

 

[S.Kennedy]

Swann has the best strike rate of any post-war English spin bowler (with 5+ wickets).

Well it, protecting bowling stats, is an accusation associated more with Anderson and to a lesser extent Broad, but the original poster included Swann for some reason.

 

[Slifer]

1. Geoffrey Boycott *
2. Sunil Gavaskar
3. Jimmy Anderson
4. Sachin Tendulkar
4. Brian Lara
6. Dean Jones
7. Shiv Chanderpaul
8.
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Harbhajan Singh
11. Sydney Barnes

Really no idea who should take the gloves.

I hope including Lara is not based on one stupid innings. Lara had 4 yes 4 not outs in a 131 test career and in any of his big daddy knocks he could've exposed the tail, remained not out and protect his stats. Lara outside of cricket was probably a primadona, but on the field he was anything but selfish.

 

[Burgey]

Well it, protecting bowling stats, is an accusation associated more with Anderson and to a lesser extent Broad, but the original poster included Swann for some reason.

I haven't really thought of Anderson and Broad as selfish. They're just poor humans.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I hope including Lara is not based on one stupid innings. Lara had 4 yes 4 not outs in a 131 test career and in any of his big daddy knocks he could've exposed the tail, remained not out and protect his stats. Lara outside of cricket was probably a primadona, but on the field he was anything but selfish.

You really think it's that easy to just decide to expose the tail and get a guaranteed not out? How often do you think that actually happens?

 

[Victor Ian]

I'm still peeved that Dean Jones is just being thrown into a team for no particular reason. Am I forgetting a particular reason that you could call him selfish?

 

[Bijed]

Honestly never thought Steve Waugh was selfish. His whole mode of operating as a leader was to encourage others to believe in their abilities.

I mean McGrath went from being a complete bunny to a more accomplished bunny during his career. Going from averaging 2 a season to averaging 10+ might not sound much, but it means he was batting 5 times longer later in his career than he was earlier.

In addition, Waugh's teams contained a tail of Gilchrist (!), Warne, Lee/Kaspa/Bichel, Gillespie and McGrath. There was never really cause to shield any of them from the strike, because all of them apart from McGrath all could have been legit #8s with the bat. Waugh's philosophy was to put his faith in them and from a team perspective it worked. Think Waugh has been unfairly tarnished as someone chasing the red ink when in fact he believed in his players.

It's a bit of a situational thing, though, isn't it? There are times where every single run you can eke out of a tail-end partnership is going to be crucial, and times when it'll be less so. In cases of the former, you really should be focusing on shielding who's a far worse batsman than yourself, especially someone like McGrath who's batting ability peaked at 'adequate number 11'. If the match situation isn't so tight, by all means encourage the rabbit at the other end to believe in their abilities.

Also, would we be so willing to defend someone on these grounds if it wasn't someone so well respected and accomplished as Steve Waugh? I mean say, for example, Ian Bell exposed Panesar when the match was fairly even, maybe a bit against England (say they're slightly behind coming to the end of their first innings) and Panesar got out. Bell is asked about this in an interview at the end of the days play:

Michael Atherton: "Ian, there have been comments by various members of the media that you could maybe your approach to batting at the end of the innings maybe wasn't ideal given the situation, with your number 11 at the crease and still trailing."

Ian Bell: "Uh, yeah, well, I wanted to give Monty the opportunity to show belief in his abilities."

Most of us would, at that point, say something along the lines of "**** off Ian."

That said, I don't actually disagree with you re Waugh, just I think that rather than being a selfish batsman, he could be argued as selfish in the sense that he was sometimes too eager to play to his philosophy at the expense of pragmatism.

 

[stephen]

Bloody Steven Smith, selfishly scoring all of Australia's runs. Can't he let some other bloke score a hundred every now and then? Selfish bastard.

 

[Slifer]

You really think it's that easy to just decide to expose the tail and get a guaranteed not out? How often do you think that actually happens?

Bro Chanders a teammate and contemporary of Lara was rightfully labelled a selfish player, one of the reasons being that he never protected the tail when batting and appeared to play to be notout. Lara on the other hand was the complete opposite.

 

[Victor Ian]

To set Steve Waugh apart from the other selfish bastards is the fact that this was not something he did alone. He encouraged the whole team to play this way. He expected Ponting, Gilly and the other recognised batsmen to bat with the tail as normal and not try to protect them. So it was definitely not done to protect his average, rather it was done as some kind of tactic. Perhaps someone had recognised that once you start protecting the tail, you slow down scoring by a lot so that by the time you are out you have the same score but with a lot more wasted time.

 

[FBU]

Flintoff, half the time you couldn't get the ball out of his hands. Lords 2006 Panesar only 27 overs going at 1.81 with 2 wickets. Flintoff 51 overs in the innings.

 

[S.Kennedy]

If it was the Flintoff of 2003 - 2005, you would be foolish to take the ball from him.