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Are England really favourites for CT17?

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
I wonder how many 300+ scores SA will need to concede before the idea their bowling attack is inherently better than ours fades away?

Took it as a given because so many other people did I think. Then they turned up. Rabada is a class act. Rest of the pace attack not so much. Phelukwayo, Morris and Parnell are not scary and not better than England's ODI seamers.
No it's not a great bowling attack and I have had the same conversation in another thread recently. The reason for these assessments ultimately has to do with the different formats. South Africa have demonstrated in the last 6-7 months, the best test pace attack that have demolished New Zealand, Australia and Sri Lanka. That's still fresh in people's minds. So when they think of a tournament such as CT, they still think of South Africa being a strong bowling unit.

After Australia, India has the best LO attack today.
 

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
The problem with our LO attack has been that we have not had a bowler who can run through sides. Not many teams do but we seem to struggle to get bowlers who can pick even 3-fers regularly. So while our bowling is strong in the sense that it can defend reasonable to good scores, I wont say it is #2 in the world or anything.

Plus the LO attacks are hard to judge as teams seem to try so many different combinations in the bilateral series.
 

91Jmay

International Coach
There aren't any scary LO bowling attacks, and to be frank I doubt there ever will be again. Aus have probably the best and they got slapped around by a pretty ordinary ODI side today.
 

StephenZA

Hall of Fame Member
I wonder how many 300+ scores SA will need to concede before the idea their bowling attack is inherently better than ours fades away?

Took it as a given because so many other people did I think. Then they turned up. Rabada is a class act. Rest of the pace attack not so much. Phelukwayo, Morris and Parnell are not scary and not better than England's ODI seamers.
Morris can be a really good attacking bowling option and has a decent yorker. Phehlukwayo is a good stock bowler, does well if the surface is dry and his off-cutter's can come off. Parnell is well.... Parnell. Inconsistent.

This is why Morkel has to play. Gives SA 3 quality bowlers with Morris being pretty good and Phehlukwayo a decent middle innings bowler.
 

91Jmay

International Coach
Morris can be a really good attacking bowling option and has a decent yorker. Phehlukwayo is a good stock bowler, does well if the surface is dry and his off-cutter's can come off. Parnell is well.... Parnell. Inconsistent.

This is why Morkel has to play. Gives SA 3 quality bowlers with Morris being pretty good and Phehlukwayo a decent middle innings bowler.
Sorry but Morkel isn't a quality ODI bowler. Rabada the only quality one, Tahir is good but won't be a big factor in this tournament. Phehlukwayo is bang average, Morris is decent.

It's a meh attack. Would be ahead of England's because of Rabada but the rest aren't much better at all.
 
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Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
No on runs through sides in ODI cricket..unless you get totally different conditions on some rare occasions. Given the pitches to expect in CT, I doubt we will be seeing any of that.

India have a varied bowling attack, that can restrict. Their seamers like Bumrah who have the variety required for death overs. That can ultimately make a difference of 50-60 runs which decides the game.

In the 1st England-South Africa ODI, England were 198/5 after 34 overs. South Africa bowled well at first but obviously did not have the skill set for the back end of the innings and England ended up scoring 340 instead of say 260-270.
 

StephenZA

Hall of Fame Member
Sorry but Morkel isn't a quality ODI bowler. Rabada the only quality one, Tahir is good but won't be a big factor in this tournament. Phehlukwayo is bang average, Morris is decent.

It's a meh attack. Would be ahead of England's because of Rabada but the rest aren't much better at all.
Morkel? Morkel is an excellent ODI bowler... better than his test bowling. His back of a length style at pace is far more difficult to hit around in LO than in Test cricket. And since he has developed the ability to bowl the yorker decently he has become a bit of a handful at times. Morkel was SA's best limited overalls bowler for quite awhile until Abbot came a long for that short period. Totally disagree on that one...
As for Tahir I am always seeing him being written off and then he suddenly does well.... hopefully that continues, it depends how the teams play him though but that is another thing that I have heard for the last 5 years.
 

91Jmay

International Coach
Morkel? Morkel is an excellent ODI bowler... better than his test bowling. His back of a length style at pace is far more difficult to hit around in LO than in Test cricket. And since he has developed the ability to bowl the yorker decently he has become a bit of a handful at times. Morkel was SA's best limited overalls bowler for quite awhile until Abbot came a long for that short period. Totally disagree on that one...
As for Tahir I am always seeing him being written off and then he suddenly does well.... hopefully that continues, it depends how the teams play him though but that is another thing that I have heard for the last 5 years.
Tahir has never bowled in England apart from last game where he was pumped. Not writing him off as clearly he is a very good bowler but I think it's fair to say English pitches are flattest in the world (or as flat as any other) and the groundsman for Edgbaston has said he won't be letting the ball spin like the last CT that was over here.

Morkel is a good bowler but again he has played 5 ODIs since 1st of Jan 2016, taking 5 wickets at 42s with an RPO of 6.2
 

StephenZA

Hall of Fame Member
Tahir has never bowled in England apart from last game where he was pumped. Not writing him off as clearly he is a very good bowler but I think it's fair to say English pitches are flattest in the world (or as flat as any other) and the groundsman for Edgbaston has said he won't be letting the ball spin like the last CT that was over here.

Morkel is a good bowler but again he has played 5 ODIs since 1st of Jan 2016, taking 5 wickets at 42s with an RPO of 6.2
Tahir does not use much spin... he is a wicket to wicket bowler that tends to rush the batsmen. He plays in SA where we do have an occasional spinning wicket but things tend to be flat as well.

As for Morkel, he is just coming off an injury, if you want to say he is not going to be good enough because of the last 6 months, I say that he will only get better.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
Surely if he's coming off an injury and needs match overs to get better he'd not have missed the first 2 games in this series though?
 

StephenZA

Hall of Fame Member
Surely if he's coming off an injury and needs match overs to get better he'd not have missed the first 2 games in this series though?
I do think he needs match time and I am surprised that he has not been given it.... but the point is that if you going to only consider the last 6 months and 5 LO matches of his career then consider he was coming back from injury.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
I do think he needs match time and I am surprised that he has not been given it.... but the point is that if you going to only consider the last 6 months and 5 LO matches of his career then consider he was coming back from injury.
It's not 6 months though is it? He's not played in almost a year so calling it just coming off an injury does seem a little bit stretching the truth. Far too many question marks over him at this stage.
 

vcs

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Isn't Tahir the number 1 ranked ODI bowler at the moment?
Yeah. He's absolutely world class in shorter formats and like Ajmal was for a while, easily the best spinner in the world in limited overs (except his action is legit as well).
 

srbhkshk

International Captain
Yeah. He's absolutely world class in shorter formats and like Ajmal was for a while, easily the best spinner in the world in limited overs (except his action is legit as well).
Sucks against India, Australia and England though and that I suspect is the reason why he is not being given enough respect. In a way it's fair too since those 3 are the top LOI sides apart from SA.
 
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Victor Ian

International Coach
I don't like this. How am I meant to take a ODI tournament seriously when England are favourites? Is this proof of the multiverse?
 

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