England 30 man squad for icc championships

[Richard]

gee i wonder why?perhaps theres a conenction with the number of good finger spinners declining in the last 30 years?

Except that the number of good wristspinners hasn't declined - if you'd read what I said, you'd notice that I said there have been few in any era, there have been few in this one.

barnes, grimmett, o reilly and benaud all played in the era of uncovered wickets, so to use them in your argument is stupid. qadir averaged more than 45 outside home so that should suggest something. murali as ive said earlier is not an orthodox wrist spinner and cant be considered part of the group and id like to see times when warne actually bowled well without help from the pitch and the batsmen......

So you really reckon that wickets on which Warne can't turn it on happen often, then? None of the pitches typical to the Australian Test-grounds suit fingerspinners except The SCG and Warne's taken bags of wickets on all of them. Warne can turn it on anything, if you'd actually watched properly you'd see that without needing to look that closely.
Murali, if you actually look closely, doesn't put any more revs on his off-break than MacGill does on his leg-break. If Murali bowled leg-breaks, he would indeed be incomparable, but because he bowls something else, something that if most people tried to bowl would barely spin it at all, he can be considered normal in amount of spin.
Even in the uncovered-wicket era, it didn't rain all the time and some of the pitches Benaud, especially, played on offered as little help to the bowlers as a good wicket today. The fact is, he turned it on anything and so did Grimmett, O'Reilly and Barnes.
Even though fingerspinners' wickets occurred far more regularly in their day, it doesn't change the fact that they are members of a very small group, those of Test-class (ie "great") wristspinners. And, funnily enough, that's all I've said, I've not said that "they prove anything because they didn't play on uncovered wickets".

 

[Richard]

oh this coming from someone that said"the pitch started seaming and swinging all over the place when ramprakash came into bat and then stopped seaming as soon as he got out"

No, I never said anything of the sort.

incidentally i managed to watch some highlights off that 1st test match and guess what, one again our very own richard distorts the facts.
the ball that got ramprakash had much to do with his inept batting rather than brilliant bowling.....if you would have indeed watched that game you would have seen that ramprakash could indeed have left that ball alone, it was a short delivery that cut in a bit but was still sufficiently wide outside off stump. yet however our brilliant ramprakash managed to poke at the ball and dragged it onto the stumps.
of course that had a lot to do with the bowling ability of chris drum didnt it?

And if you'd watched the first-day you'd have seen that Drum was seaming it all over the place. Because any fool could have done so on that pitch.
Oh, yes, Ramprakash could have left the ball alone, I never said anything otherwise. Because I did watch it - much closer than you have clearly watched your highlights. It wasn't a "poke" at all - just like the dismissal in the very next innings, it was an attempted full-blooded force. In both instances, the ball came back and hit the inside-edge. In fact, there was another ball which did a similar thing in the Basin Reserve first-innings, where the inside-edge missed the stumps.
And you didn't know any of that, I can almost gurantee.

 

[Richard]

you guess wrong..Qadir could spin the ball a lot.

then again, there does appear to be a lot of guess work in what you say Richard

Really? Care to give some examples?
Where I cannot say anything with certainty, it makes sense to guess.
And if Abdul Qadir spun the ball so much, it is very strange that his overseas record is so poor as it is.
It is much more typical to a subcontinental home-baser than an all-conquering wristspinner.

 

[Richard]

this is total rubbish. anyone who watched the first test would have seen that the only 'considerable turn' came from the footholds rather than from the pitch and the 2nd test pitch was actually a lot quicker than the first test pitch.

So that is why Banks turned two past Strauss' outside-edge on the first-day, then?
There is no use watching matches unless you watch them properly, and it is very, very clear now that you do such a thing very rarely.

 

[Richard]

this is starting to get really annoying now. im about as certain as certain can be about the perth wicket and it didnt offer any turn at all. as i have shown earlier the cricinfo match report came up with this "The bowling of Daniel Vettori (6/87) was of an electrically high standard, his flight and guile impeccable in relatively unhelpful conditions. "

And I trust what I watched, including Vettori turning plenty of balls considerably, more than I trust CricInfo reports or tooextracool reports.

for you to come here and make false claims like this to suit yourself is just plain ridiculous let alone insulting the finest performance of daniel vettori. ask anyone else who watched that match on here and they'll tell you the same.

Insulting the finest performance? Don't be so totally absurd.
I've never said Vettori didn't bowl extremely well in that innings, and to insult his performance I'd have to say as such.
If anyone is actually reading this and watched the respective game, more closely than tooextracool (not that that's especially difficult), I'm asking you: did that WACA wicket turn for Vettori?

 

[Swervy]

Really? Care to give some examples?
Where I cannot say anything with certainty, it makes sense to guess.
And if Abdul Qadir spun the ball so much, it is very strange that his overseas record is so poor as it is.
It is much more typical to a subcontinental home-baser than an all-conquering wristspinner.

so you want me to give specific examples of a bowler who played his best cricket 15 or 20 years ago.....ok one example was in 87 at the Oval when he tore England apart, which was the best piece of spin bowling I had ever seen up to that point...from what I can remember he was really ripping it,and the fact that the Oval pitch did aid bounce he was unstoppable.

He had struggled earlier in that series fo a couple of reasons, a) the pace attack for Pakistan tended to do the bulk of the work that series and b) it was an extremely wet summer that year

Abdul Qadir for me is the second best leggie I have ever seen, when on top of his game, he had a brilliant googly and his flight was impeccable

 

[tooextracool]

It was a shortish ball, yes, but it was no more than stomach height and it seamed back.
While he wouldn't have got into trouble if he hadn't tried to force it, the fact is if it hadn't seamed it would probably have shot through the covers for four

it was a rubbish shot and he deserved to be given out. there were similar balls bowled to players who were in easily and easily negoiated by them. how you can say that ramprakash was out because of the pitch seaming around is beyond me because if anyone plays a shot like that he whether or not it seamed or not to a ball short and wide outside the off stump,he deserves to be out.

and judging by what followed there'd probably have been plenty more to add to that, Ramprakash would probably have scored about 110-120 and he'd probably still be in the side now.

yes of course, the same ramprakash who averaged 31 on the flattest of wickets in india would have gone on to score 110-120! now you're being blatantly stupid.

 

[tooextracool]

So that is why Banks turned two past Strauss' outside-edge on the first-day, then?
There is no use watching matches unless you watch them properly, and it is very, very clear now that you do such a thing very rarely.

are you a fool? didnt i mention that giles had more rough to work with because he was bowling from around the wicket to the left handers? the fact is that as always there is more rough outside the right handers' leg stump(left handers off stump) and if you watched the match as closely as you suggest i do you would see that both those deliveries turned from the rough.

 

[Richard]

once again you try to conveniently distort facts to suit yourself.....if indeed you had watched the series in india you would have seen that in the first test srinath didnt even play and the pitch was completely flat.so ramprakash got to play 2 debutants,both of whom struggled to make it into the side after that and yet managed to fail. in the 2nd test when england managed to score 407 and even foster cashed in ramprakash failed again. in SL however vaughan had to play time and time again in spinner friendly conditions against the best spin bowler in the world and he still came out with the best average from the english side and averaged 5 runs more than what ramprakash did in india....but of course in ramprakash's case it is OK but in vaughans case it is failure!

Ramprakash's failure at Mohali had nothing to do with either of the debutants - the first-innings was purely a brilliant catch and the second was Kumble.
In the Second Test, first-innings, Foster scored a whole 3 runs more than Ramprakash. Both played reasonable first-innings and the failure of both in the second-innings means nothing as the search for quick runs was the priority. The only batsmen who cashed-in in that innings were White (dropped by Dasgupta off about the easiest chance you could see) and Trescothick (plumb lbw on 38, Robinson made one of many poor decisions that match). Butcher also made a pretty good 51 out of that 407.
But for let-offs England wouldn't have made anywhere near the number of runs they made in that first-innings.
Vaughan played far better at Kandy than Ramprakash did at any stage in the winter 2001\02. I've never said anything else. He was far worse than Ramprakash at Galle and SSC, though.

incidentally the attack that vaughan played in the WI was just about as good as the attack that vaughan played in NZ so i see how you've conveniently ignore that as well.

Yes, and Vaughan by-and-large failed both times. Point being?
And if you in fact meant "that Ramprakash played in NZ" then yes, Vaughan failed except in the final innings (in far better conditions than at any stage in NZ) and Ramprakash failed too.

oh yes 2 can play at this game.....
if you look at ramprakash from the first ashes test match to the end of his career, you will see that he passed 50 only twice as well....incidentally in the same number of tests as vaughan

Yes, so 21 innings is the same as 18, now, then? Not massively different, but not the same, and it's innings not matches that count.
And the original point of order that you were trying to use the Vaughan period to say something about was a single Ramprakash series.
Now have I ever said that Ramprakash's 2001\02 was sub-par? No. So the fact that I say Vaughan's 2003-2003\04 was, by-and-large, isn't of significance.

 

[tooextracool]

And I trust what I watched, including Vettori turning plenty of balls considerably, more than I trust CricInfo reports or tooextracool reports.

no you either
a) didnt watch the game at all and are making false claims to try and suit your argument
or
b) did watch the game and still trying desperately to save your argument despite knowing that vettori didnt have the conditions to his favour in that match.

Insulting the finest performance? Don't be so totally absurd.
I've never said Vettori didn't bowl extremely well in that innings, and to insult his performance I'd have to say as such.

nope to put his brilliant performances down to the pitch is just plain ridiculous.

If anyone is actually reading this and watched the respective game, more closely than tooextracool (not that that's especially difficult), I'm asking you: did that WACA wicket turn for Vettori?

oh yes of course because cricinfo is always wrong isnt it? the fact that both cricinfo and i happen to agree on something it says that it must be true. quite frankly even if some forum member happened to agree with me you'd still say that he wasnt watching the game closely enough.

 

[tooextracool]

Ramprakash's failure at Mohali had nothing to do with either of the debutants - the first-innings was purely a brilliant catch and the second was Kumble.

what part of 'the mohali pitch was totally flat' do you not understand? the fact is that getting out to kumble is not justifiable because the pitch wasnt even turning in the first place.a failure is a failure, and quite frankly thats ramprakash's middle name.

In the Second Test, first-innings, Foster scored a whole 3 runs more than Ramprakash. Both played reasonable first-innings

of course the fact that foster played twice as many balls doesnt mean a thing?of course those balls were vital to the 105 run partnership.

and the failure of both in the second-innings means nothing as the search for quick runs was the priority. The only batsmen who cashed-in in that innings were White (dropped by Dasgupta off about the easiest chance you could see) and Trescothick (plumb lbw on 38, Robinson made one of many poor decisions that match). Butcher also made a pretty good 51 out of that 407.

why does it not mean anything?failure at any point is not justifable especially if you've failed throughout the series which is what ramprakash did. he had the chance, all he had to do was play a knock similar to what he did in the first innings.

Vaughan played far better at Kandy than Ramprakash did at any stage in the winter 2001\02. I've never said anything else. He was far worse than Ramprakash at Galle and SSC, though.

yet of course vaughan's overall series performances must be classified a failre despite playing a match saving 100 and 50 at kandy while ramprakash who was 2nd only to flintoff in terms of being the worst batsman, his overall series performances should be OK.

Yes, and Vaughan by-and-large failed both times. Point being?

by and large you say? did ramprakash fail 'by and large'? ramprakash failed as badly as failure could be in that series in NZ, i dont remember him scoring a 100 in any of the tests , and quite frankly the WI bowling attack was better than that NZ bowling attack in the respective series anyways.

And if you in fact meant "that Ramprakash played in NZ" then yes, Vaughan failed except in the final innings (in far better conditions than at any stage in NZ) and Ramprakash failed too.

no ramprakash got the flattest of conditions at mohali just like vaughan did in that final test in the WI. while ramprakash fialed to deliver vaughan did.

And the original point of order that you were trying to use the Vaughan period to say something about was a single Ramprakash series.
Now have I ever said that Ramprakash's 2001\02 was sub-par? No. So the fact that I say Vaughan's 2003-2003\04 was, by-and-large, isn't of significance.

no you called vaughan's performances in 2003 as failures, yet when ramprakash did far worse than him against similar attacks you justify his failures by saying the pitch was poor or that he was extremely unlucky(and calling his performances OK). and btw if you had watched even a small amount of that WI tour you would have seen how unlucky vaughan was with the umpiring decisions.

 

[tooextracool]

No, I never said anything of the sort

thats what you said....marc saw it too.

And if you'd watched the first-day you'd have seen that Drum was seaming it all over the place. Because any fool could have done so on that pitch.
Oh, yes, Ramprakash could have left the ball alone, I never said anything otherwise. Because I did watch it - much closer than you have clearly watched your highlights. It wasn't a "poke" at all - just like the dismissal in the very next innings, it was an attempted full-blooded force. In both instances, the ball came back and hit the inside-edge. In fact, there was another ball which did a similar thing in the Basin Reserve first-innings, where the inside-edge missed the stumps.
And you didn't know any of that, I can almost gurantee.

no it was a forceful push, not a full blooded stroke, regardless it was a stupid stroke to play given the conditions. and quite frankly anyone who played a stroke like that deserved to get out.

 

[tooextracool]

Except that the number of good wristspinners hasn't declined - if you'd read what I said, you'd notice that I said there have been few in any era, there have been few in this one.

theres been one orthodox wrist spinner who has been successful all over the world in the last 30 years. but id like to see times when he was successful outside of turning wickets and poor batting.

So you really reckon that wickets on which Warne can't turn it on happen often, then? None of the pitches typical to the Australian Test-grounds suit fingerspinners except The SCG and Warne's taken bags of wickets on all of them.

that doesnt say much, quite frankly there have been several occasions where those wickets have offered turn, particularly during the last 2 days and quite frankly some of those wickets would probably have to do with poor batting anyways. how about specific examples now? and lets hope you dont come up with the same stupid example like you did last time......old trafford 93 was it? where peter such took 6/67 in the first innings

Warne can turn it on anything, if you'd actually watched properly you'd see that without needing to look that closely.

oh he can, but not significantly i can assure you. you are a fool if you believe that spin bowling is all about turn, even warne has realised that towards the end of his career and doesnt actually turn it as ferociously as he used to.

Murali, if you actually look closely, doesn't put any more revs on his off-break than MacGill does on his leg-break. If Murali bowled leg-breaks, he would indeed be incomparable, but because he bowls something else, something that if most people tried to bowl would barely spin it at all,
he can be considered normal in amount of spin.

that is the point...the fact that he does something totally different, largely due to the deformed wrist makes him incomparable to everyone else and cant be put in the same category as some of the other wrist spinners. the fact that you need a bowler with a deformity to prove your point goes to show how desperate your claim really is.

Even in the uncovered-wicket era, it didn't rain all the time and some of the pitches Benaud, especially, played on offered as little help to the bowlers as a good wicket today. The fact is, he turned it on anything and so did Grimmett, O'Reilly and Barnes.

its amazing how someone can continue with such rubbish. when i came up with gibbs and underwood ou said that they both played in the days of uncovered wickets so their records cant be considered. yet you do the same with grimmett,barnes and o'reilly. amazing that. personally i recommend that you cut the b/s and stop twisting your own points around.

Even though fingerspinners' wickets occurred far more regularly in their day, it doesn't change the fact that they are members of a very small group, those of Test-class (ie "great") wristspinners. And, funnily enough, that's all I've said, I've not said that "they prove anything because they didn't play on uncovered wickets".

and as i have shown earlier there have been several wrist spinners that have done well outside the sub continent as well. in fact more than the number of successful wrist spinners

 

[marc71178]

While he wouldn't have got into trouble if he hadn't tried to force it, the fact is if it hadn't seamed it would probably have shot through the covers for four, and judging by what followed there'd probably have been plenty more to add to that, Ramprakash would probably have scored about 110-120 and he'd probably still be in the side now.

Or, more plausibly given his countless failures he'd have got out next ball and gone on to end his career in the mediocrity of County Cricket (as he deserves to)

 

[marc71178]

So that is why Banks turned two past Strauss' outside-edge on the first-day, then?

2 whole balls.

That's clearly the same as the number Giles got to turn.

 

[Richard]

no you either
a) didnt watch the game at all and are making false claims to try and suit your argument
or
b) did watch the game and still trying desperately to save your argument despite knowing that vettori didnt have the conditions to his favour in that match.

Well I certainly watched the match, whether you believe it or not is irrelevant. And I certainly don't need any desperacy to save anything, because there is nothing to save. I saw that Vettori turned the ball quite a bit in that game, my Western Australian friends told me soon after that The WACA typically produces a turner once every 4 years - not surprising given that it's a very, very dry climate.

nope to put his brilliant performances down to the pitch is just plain ridiculous.

His brilliant performance, like any fingerspinner, needed a turning pitch to get credit.
Otherwise, as a fingerspinner, you'll never get any credit for your good performances because they won't get wickets.

oh yes of course because cricinfo is always wrong isnt it? the fact that both cricinfo and i happen to agree on something it says that it must be true. quite frankly even if some forum member happened to agree with me you'd still say that he wasnt watching the game closely enough.

Of course, it must be true - because you so much want it to be.
I'm afraid I'm not going to change my memory to suit you.

 

[Richard]

2 whole balls.

That's clearly the same as the number Giles got to turn.

Banks didn't turn as many as Giles, no - because he didn't bowl as many.
No-one is going to turn every ball, but Banks' ratio of deliveries that hit the pitch to deliveries that turned will have been roughly the same as Giles' - because they typically impart a comparable amount of spin.

 

[Richard]

thats what you said....marc saw it too.

And you were both wrong.
I said the pitch had been seaming all game, including when Ramprakash came to the wicket. The ball which dismissed him was just about the last of the game which moved off the seam.
I did not say it started moving off the seam when he came in having not done so all game.

no it was a forceful push, not a full blooded stroke, regardless it was a stupid stroke to play given the conditions. and quite frankly anyone who played a stroke like that deserved to get out.

In spite of the fact that many, many people play similar strokes all the time and don't get out?
Given that the conditions were easing all the time it wasn't as stupid as it might have been on the first or second day.

 

[Richard]

Or, more plausibly given his countless failures he'd have got out next ball and gone on to end his career in the mediocrity of County Cricket (as he deserves to)

Anyone who managed to get out to much of the bowling which followed his dismissal would have achieved an extraordinary feat!

 

[Richard]

what part of 'the mohali pitch was totally flat' do you not understand? the fact is that getting out to kumble is not justifiable because the pitch wasnt even turning in the first place.a failure is a failure, and quite frankly thats ramprakash's middle name.

No, it wasn't justifiable, it was a poor stroke, but the match had gone and many, many good batsmen have made the same mistake against Kumble.
Say "failure is Ramprakash's middle-name" enough times, you might make it true one day! Doubt it, though.

of course the fact that foster played twice as many balls doesnt mean a thing?of course those balls were vital to the 105 run partnership.

Oh, they were vital, definately, but they don't mean he played a particularly better innings than Ramprakash - because it's runs, not balls faced, that say how good an innings is.

why does it not mean anything?failure at any point is not justifable especially if you've failed throughout the series which is what ramprakash did. he had the chance, all he had to do was play a knock similar to what he did in the first innings.

Ramprakash had failed twice through his own fault previously in that series (once when the game was gone and once when the innings was crashing around him) and a failure where the team needs quick runs means nothing because you can't play like you'd play when you're trying to score as many as possible when the rate is irrelevant.

yet of course vaughan's overall series performances must be classified a failre despite playing a match saving 100 and 50 at kandy while ramprakash who was 2nd only to flintoff in terms of being the worst batsman, his overall series performances should be OK.

And I've never said Vaughan's overall series performance in Sri Lanka should be classified as failure, I've said the period in which it happened should be.

by and large you say? did ramprakash fail 'by and large'? ramprakash failed as badly as failure could be in that series in NZ, i dont remember him scoring a 100 in any of the tests , and quite frankly the WI bowling attack was better than that NZ bowling attack in the respective series anyways.

No, it wasn't, they were both relatively poor attacks that most people could score against given reasonable batting conditions. On the one occasion Vaughan got reasonable batting conditions, he scored. Ramprakash didn't get reasonable batting conditions in a single one of his innings. Not to say that he's absolved of blame for all his dismissals.

no ramprakash got the flattest of conditions at mohali just like vaughan did in that final test in the WI. while ramprakash fialed to deliver vaughan did.

And while Vaughan got no phenominal catch or match-over situation Ramprakash got both.

no you called vaughan's performances in 2003 as failures, yet when ramprakash did far worse than him against similar attacks you justify his failures by saying the pitch was poor or that he was extremely unlucky(and calling his performances OK). and btw if you had watched even a small amount of that WI tour you would have seen how unlucky vaughan was with the umpiring decisions.

Vaughan was given lbw to Sanford in the Queen's Park Oval second-innings - wow. That's sure as hell a series of bad luck. Anything that he did get can be seen as a cathartic levelling after his 2002 of luck.
I've never tried to justify all of Ramprakash's failings, but you need to recognise that there is mitigation for some of them, and total mitigation for others.