To be fair I would say he isn't even the best in NZ as Boult is brilliant.I think the fact that you can argue that he is not in the top 5 at present shows what a healthy state fast bowling is in right now.
I rate him, but still don't think he will be as good as Bond and Jack Cowie.Can be as good as anyone NZ have had bar Hadlee as long as he stays fit and focussed. The guy is a quality bowler and his partnership with Boult is one of the best new ball pairs around at the moment. The fact you can comfortably mention them alongside the Aussie, SA and England new ball pairs says it all.
Not only is Southee a quality bowler he remains a dangerous lower order slogger too which will help if/when he loses form as extra runs might keep his place a bit longer.
eh can we not do stuff like this? Being not terrible at cricket is nice but it wasn't long ago we were on the receiving end of the dismissiveness from overconfident chest beating fans of other countries. Need to be good winners.I really can't believe that Anderson is still rated so highly - the guy averages 36 away from England. Give him a Kookaburra and he's not much better than Ishant
He might not ever be quite as good as those two, but if he stays fit he'll take more than 3 times as many wickets as the two of them combined.I rate him, but still don't think he will be as good as Bond and Jack Cowie.
Yeah but there's no "top tier" prerequisite for being the 5th best bowler in the world. There just has to be no more than four blokes better than you.don't get me wrong, I don't think he's a bad bowler, but he isn't a top tier bowler like he is made out to be a lot of the time. I'd put him around the Siddle/Morkel etc. level of being good bowlers, but nothing particularly special.
Steyn
Philander
Morkel
Harris
Johnson
Pattinson
Broad
Anderson
Junaid
Siddle
NB: List not exhaustive
Siddle's an ideal 3rd seamer for the Australian attack, but I wouldn't say he's a better bowler than Southee. As an individual bowler, Southee is well ahead - more tools to take wickets on all surfaces, as he's shown over the past couple of years.I probably would have Siddle ahead of Southee though. Just. Both ahead of Broad and Morkel.
You can tell he struggled with it, all the other bowlers are grouped by country.You know Benchy doesn't rate a bowler if he thinks Siddle is better than him.
If you're emphasising current form (as I have been), yes. Southee has been ridiculously good over the past 18-24 months, and Anderson has been poor for the last 9 Tests he's played.You can tell he struggled with it, all the other bowlers are grouped by country.
EDIT: I wonder though, should Anderson really be hurt that badly by a bad one-and-a-half series?
The similarity is sort of the problem, though. When two bowlers do really similar things, my natural inclination is to go for the more "proven" one unless they've just been out-and-out gun from the top.Tim Southee bowling in Sri Lanka.
I think Southee coming from bowling crap, and Anderson coming from his awesome 2010-2012 period clouds things a bit. Southee has really improved, and with Anderson dropping back somewhat over recent months, I think it's a very close run thing.
I'm not arguing Anderson's crap, by any means. Just that Southee has become very, very good at a similar style of bowling.