England Performance Squad

[Richard]

There's absolutely no way Salisbury was a worse bowler than Mahmood, nor did he bowl worse in his Tests. It needs to be remembered that - as I've mentioned before - Mahmood's figures are massively flattering. He'd have averaged 70-odd but for bowling at tailenders. Similarly, if Salisbury had bowled regularly at tailenders he'd probably have averaged in the 30s, because they wouldn't have been able to read him as top-order players could - easily.

Salisbury was a good to excellent county bowler for over a decade; Mahmood will never, ever come close to doing that. Obviously that's irrelevant to their Test performances, but at least Salisbury earnt his selection, Mahmood never remotely did.

Mohammad Sami and Powell are arguable but both have played for even longer than Mahmood did. They're in a class of their own in those who've had considerable Test careeres and done absolutely diabolically. Mahmood might well have been even worse had he had such an inexplicably long career and not been constantly bowling at tails.

 

[tooextracool]

There's absolutely no way Salisbury was a worse bowler than Mahmood, nor did he bowl worse in his Tests. It needs to be remembered that - as I've mentioned before - Mahmood's figures are massively flattering. He'd have averaged 70-odd but for bowling at tailenders. Similarly, if Salisbury had bowled regularly at tailenders he'd probably have averaged in the 30s, because they wouldn't have been able to read him as top-order players could - easily.

Salisbury was a good to excellent county bowler for over a decade; Mahmood will never, ever come close to doing that. Obviously that's irrelevant to their Test performances, but at least Salisbury earnt his selection, Mahmood never remotely did.

Mohammad Sami and Powell are arguable but both have played for even longer than Mahmood did. They're in a class of their own in those who've had considerable Test careeres and done absolutely diabolically. Mahmood might well have been even worse had he had such an inexplicably long career and not been constantly bowling at tails.

Err did you even bother to watch Salisbury bowl when he played? I couldnt care less about his county record, which is an absolute aberration because of the fact that county players played him like tailenders, however having watched Salisbury bowl in test match cricket, it was not only patently obvious that he was not test class but he is also without doubt the worst bowler I have seen bowl and that includes Schofield, Upashanta, Mahmood and yes even Nathan Hauritz. Its not just the fact that he was poor, he was picked in conditions that were supposed to be favorable to him- He toured the subcontinent twice and managed to take 1 wicket on a track where Murali took 16 at the Oval in 98 (and that was the wicket of Murali himself).

Mahmood was poor, but to suggest that he is the worst test bowler ever is well just ignorant. IMO there are rubbish bowlers (And there is no doubt that Mahmood falls in this category) and then there is Salisbury. If you watched Bryce McGain bowl in the recent test against SA, imagine the exact same performance for 15 tests in a row and thats what Salisbury managed to accomplish.

 

[Richard]

It isn't though. Salisbury may have offered absolutely no penetration - but all he ever did was bowl the exact same harmless ball over and again. Then he dropped them short sometimes, and bowled the odd Full-Toss. Which of course are easy to hit.

Salisbury had control which Mahmood could only dream of. The thing about Salisbury was that the areas he bowled were simply completely harmless. The only way you were ever going to get out was to make a mistake.

And no, county batsmen did not and never have played like Test match tailenders. There are plenty of crap batsmen in county cricket but there are also a fair number of decent ones and a few quite good ones. Mahmood knocking-over Test match tails is infinitely easier than Salisbury taking 50 or 60 wickets in a season 8 or 9 times or however many he's done it.

BTW I watched not too far short of every ball of Salisbury's 3 Tests in 1998 and his 3 in 2000/01. Never really watched him much before that.

 

[BoyBrumby]

It isn't though. Salisbury may have offered absolutely no penetration - but all he ever did was bowl the exact same harmless ball over and again. Then he dropped them short sometimes, and bowled the odd Full-Toss. Which of course are easy to hit.

Salisbury had control which Mahmood could only dream of. The thing about Salisbury was that the areas he bowled were simply completely harmless. The only way you were ever going to get out was to make a mistake.

And no, county batsmen did not and never have played like Test match tailenders. There are plenty of crap batsmen in county cricket but there are also a fair number of decent ones and a few quite good ones. Mahmood knocking-over Test match tails is infinitely easier than Salisbury taking 50 or 60 wickets in a season 8 or 9 times or however many he's done it.

BTW I watched not too far short of every ball of Salisbury's 3 Tests in 1998 and his 3 in 2000/01. Never really watched him much before that.

Salisbury had control? Heard it all now. Routinely bowled a "4" ball every over or other over.

Plus his & Mahmood's FC averages are more or less exactly the same (Sajid's is about .4 of a run better) so I'm not sure why you're holding his county career up as evidence of his abilities.

 

[tooextracool]

It isn't though. Salisbury may have offered absolutely no penetration - but all he ever did was bowl the exact same harmless ball over and again. Then he dropped them short sometimes, and bowled the odd Full-Toss. Which of course are easy to hit.

Salisbury had control which Mahmood could only dream of. The thing about Salisbury was that the areas he bowled were simply completely harmless. The only way you were ever going to get out was to make a mistake.

And no, county batsmen did not and never have played like Test match tailenders. There are plenty of crap batsmen in county cricket but there are also a fair number of decent ones and a few quite good ones. Mahmood knocking-over Test match tails is infinitely easier than Salisbury taking 50 or 60 wickets in a season 8 or 9 times or however many he's done it.

BTW I watched not too far short of every ball of Salisbury's 3 Tests in 1998 and his 3 in 2000/01. Never really watched him much before that.

I can confess, I havent watched Salisbury bowl in FC cricket, however you need to exclude his FC performances from his test performances. His average in tests is over twice that of his FC record. (I'd be surprised if any bowler played 15 odd tests and had a higher average than his)

Getting back to the way he bowled in test cricket, as I said earlier, Salisbury didnt lack penetration, he was just plain awful. Sorry he bowled a long hop at least once an over, he couldnt use drift or loop, he had absolutely no accuracy, and his googly was poorly disguised. He never had a cat in hells chance of having a successful test match career.
You speak of Salisbury as though all he ever did was bowl at top order batsmen, the basic fact is that he bowled at tailenders plenty of times and was incapable of getting any of them out. At least with Mahmood, he bowled the odd jaffa and gave you some hope, with Salisbury it was a poor, inaccurate bowler with no variation, and the inability of beating good batsmen in even the most favorable conditions. If he showed this ability at the FC level, Im not sure how he did it, because he was just so poor at the international level that it beggared belief. Id have had more faith in his batting ability, which was 'promising', than his bowling at any point of his career.

 

[aussie]

Remember Salisbury bowling in PAK 2000. He really was average, it always surprised me how county players like him who look so bad in test cricket. Can do so well in FC so consistently.

 

[Pothas]

lol wut

you could at least troll with a little more conviction

 

[Richard]

Salisbury had control? Heard it all now. Routinely bowled a "4" ball every over or other over.

Every other over, maybe. Every over, certainly not. And let's face it, if you're being hit for four maybe every 4 overs (I'd say on average batsmen only put maybe 1 in 2 four-balls away) that's not too bad if you're not going for many singles in between. Salisbury did, of course, so his economy-rate wasn't great, but he was absolutely nowhere close to being as wayward as Mahmood was\is.

Salisbury's problem was that the area he bowled was unthreatening, so an economy-rate which was unspectacular (rather than poor) resulted in an astronomical average.

Plus his & Mahmood's FC averages are more or less exactly the same (Sajid's is about .4 of a run better) so I'm not sure why you're holding his county career up as evidence of his abilities.

Because Mahmood has been crap for a good few years; Salisbury was good for several years and crap on several others.

Mahmood has never remotely convinced in county cricket. Witness the fact that more of the Lancashire supporters than not on here are hoping and wishing that he gets excluded from the team. D'you really think Surrey or Sussex (or even now Warwickshire) were often wishing that with Salisbury?

 

[Richard]

I can confess, I havent watched Salisbury bowl in FC cricket, however you need to exclude his FC performances from his test performances. His average in tests is over twice that of his FC record. (I'd be surprised if any bowler played 15 odd tests and had a higher average than his)

Of course you do. The point is though that his domestic career easily trumps Mahmood's.

Getting back to the way he bowled in test cricket, as I said earlier, Salisbury didnt lack penetration, he was just plain awful. Sorry he bowled a long hop at least once an over, he couldnt use drift or loop, he had absolutely no accuracy, and his googly was poorly disguised. He never had a cat in hells chance of having a successful test match career.

Of course he didn't - I'm not claiming he did. Salisbury's method was never, ever going to work at Test level. He did indeed lack penetration however - that's why his only 2 wickets in his last 6 Tests were both utter gimmes (the first of Murali; the second just before a declaration).

That he lacked penetration was what made his average so astronomical. His economy-rate was merely below-average; his strike-rate was utterly diabolical. I don't, as I say, remember him bowling Long-Hops as frequently as every other over, though it's true that certain batsmen (never more so than Hansie Cronje in 1998) knew how to attack him without great danger, and his very predictability made that easy.

Salisbury was infinitely more accurate than Mahmood, I am not changing my viewpoint there.

You speak of Salisbury as though all he ever did was bowl at top order batsmen, the basic fact is that he bowled at tailenders plenty of times and was incapable of getting any of them out.

I don't remember him doing so on very many occasions in 1998 or 2000/01 TBH.

 

[Goughy]

Salisbury's problem was that the area he bowled was unthreatening, so an economy-rate which was unspectacular (rather than poor) resulted in an astronomical average.

3rd worst Test economy rate of any player that debuted in the 20th century.

Thats a lot of cricketers and that is 'poor'

 

[Pothas]

Think that is pretty conclusive, out of interest who are the two worse?

 

[Goughy]

Think that is pretty conclusive, out of interest who are the two worse?

Chetan Sharma and Ashantha de Mel.

Both seamers, so Salisbury had the worst econ of any spin bowler that debuted in the 20th C