• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Facing Quality Players : Challenging Conditions : Match Situations

anil1405

International Captain
On an overall basis how exactly would you rate a player? If you had to take all the three factors into consideration how much weightage would you give while rating him (on a scale of 100).

There have been lot of discussions recently about a players average giving an impression that too much is being emphasised on the average (or stats alone), or how he fared against other ATG players (which is a big factor) but there are other aspects too which weren’t being highlighted enough.


Facing quality players = Sachin, Lara, Ponting et al. against the likes of McGrath, Steyn, Ambrose, Wasim, Murali et al. and vice versa

Challenging conditions = how the pitch is behaving, Sub-continent players performance on bouncy and swinging conditions and vice versa, the amount of swing and seam off the pitch and how the bowlers are performance on flat decks.

Match situation = Inzamam’s face-saving 138* against Bangladesh. The conditions and opposition players were not threatening but the match situation was pretty challenging.
 

anil1405

International Captain
I am leaning more towards a 40:40:20. As much as facing quality players is important, the conditions also dictate the ability of a player to showcase his skills and adapt to the conditions and that imo is as important as facing quality players.
 

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I think it's genuinely hard to have a set formula, as good as having one would be. Mostly because we'll have our fave players/ performances which we'll look at with rose coloured glasses. But certainly worth having a crack at it.
 

DriveClub

International Regular
The tie breaker would be an eating contest. Who can eat the most number of pies in 1 hour is the winner
 

anil1405

International Captain
I think it's genuinely hard to have a set formula, as good as having one would be. Mostly because we'll have our fave players/ performances which we'll look at with rose coloured glasses. But certainly worth having a crack at it.
Thats quite possible but trying to understand why they rate the players they do (beyond stats) would be interesting.
 

Teja.

Global Moderator
I think pitch conditions can be by far the most difficult of the three. Dravid is the best I've seen in responding to broken/unpredictable conditions. It's not the most important though because the vast majority of condiitons don't deviate far too much from standard.
 

Magrat Garlick

Global Moderator
When rating Test players I place a high value both on performing in different conditions and against different styles of attack. It's what makes the game great.

Unfortunately there's so much opportunity for cherry picking that it's hard to do this consistently, as previous posters have noted
 

trundler

Request Your Custom Title Now!
"Facing quality players" can be dodgy because how a bowling attack/batting lineup actually performs can often not line up with their reputations as individuals.
Lindwall was past it when he played with Davidson who at the time hadn't yet turned his career around. 50 years from now somebody could look at over the hill Ponting and Hussey, Clarke and long hop machine Smith and call it a quality batting line up.

Tricky conditions isn't straightforward either. Some of those old timey day 4 Sabina Park pitches looked like a lottery and actually dangerous to bat on.
 

trundler

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I haven't seen someone make adjustments mid-game like Asif and Smith though.

Pressure knocks should count for a lot though imo.
 

trundler

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Just waiting for a Smith double ton in SA, really. Those twin 140s checked all 3 boxes too.
 

anil1405

International Captain
"Facing quality players" can be dodgy because how a bowling attack/batting lineup actually performs can often not line up with their reputations as individuals.
The other side of it is that there are so many batsmen, for example, who would play a quality bowler by his reputation instead of facing the actual delivery. Off course these batsmen are most likely not the ATGs but overall it adds to the reputation of that bowler.
 

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Just waiting for a Smith double ton in SA, really. Those twin 140s checked all 3 boxes too.
Not exactly sure when Australia is next due to tour there tbh, but when they do he'll have a ****load to prove, which thus far in his career has never boded well for the opposing bowlers.
 

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
"Quality" is condition dependent. Venkathapathy Raju was a quality spinner on Indian wickets, but dross in other conditions. On wickets with variable bounce there is no other bowler as dangerous as Anil Kumble in recent times. On slow low wickets, when it swung, Vaas was probably the best to exploit the conditions. Without knowing exact conditions it is difficult to judge whether facing a attack or a bowler is quality stuff or not.

For example in 2000/1 IND - SL matches Murali took a bucket load of wickets, and he took little bit more in 2006 tour. But the 2006 tour was played on dustbowls, where as the former was played on fastest wickets that was seen in SL for a while. The threat from Murali or Vaas differed in those tours even within the same country.
 

Shady Slim

International Coach
"Quality" is condition dependent. Venkathapathy Raju was a quality spinner on Indian wickets, but dross in other conditions. On wickets with variable bounce there is no other bowler as dangerous as Anil Kumble in recent times. On slow low wickets, when it swung, Vaas was probably the best to exploit the conditions. Without knowing exact conditions it is difficult to judge whether facing a attack or a bowler is quality stuff or not.

For example in 2000/1 IND - SL matches Murali took a bucket load of wickets, and he took little bit more in 2006 tour. But the 2006 tour was played on dustbowls, where as the former was played on fastest wickets that was seen in SL for a while. The threat from Murali or Vaas differed in those tours even within the same country.
this piques my interest in another discussion that i think is worth having ya know - bowlers that seem to excel in conditions that are traditionally anathema to their bowling style

nathan lyon on aussie pitches is an example, chaminda vaas on subcontinent pitches is another one - both found a way to adapt bowling styles to pitch types regarded as a graveyard for their contemporaries
 

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
One of my close friends' best friend is a guy named Venkatapathy Raju. We played cricket together at an office competition. He was also from the then undivided AP but he was a seamer. I was the keeper and I could not help myself and kept laughting every time he came on to bowl and our umpire had to yell his name to the tournament scorer sitting at the boundary. Got some dirty looks from him but luckily took some good catches off his bowling and therefore, he did not react anymore than that. :laugh:
 

Top