Laxman -- Highly overrated!

[Richard]

Yep, as he has been on a few occasions in the poor period.
Let's hope that sometime he'll go back to being consistent.

 

[honestbharani]

I would say he has been reasonably consistent this series. He played well in the only innings he got at Mohali. He was not at his fluent best but he still grinded out a 50. He got a first baller in Kolkata and it is my little theory that when class batters get the odd first baller, we should not blame them and instead give credit to the bowler. He was hit in the second inning but still came back to further the team cause and lost his wicket in pursuit of quick runs, hardly his fault as he played as the situation demanded. And he played a very good knock today.

 

[SJS]

What I hope is that he's not gone back to those old days...

No Richard.

Laxman is a paradox. He is a far better player than his performance shows. There are reasons for this which have been discussed threadbare. He has himself to blame for much of it but not all of it. Once we accept him for what he is, a dazzling stroke player who is ranked very high by all the top cricketers of the world (you and I matter less than the past and present cricketers who with no exception rate him as a superb batsman) but still infuriates because with all this talk about how good he is, he still appears to have a record not as dazzling as his strokes or his reviews.

So lets first look at his record.

1. Conversion rate. :
With 7 centuries from the 29 times he crossed 50 in test matches, his conversion rate is under 24.1 which is the lowest in this Indian team.
Sehwag 52.6
Sachin 45.3
Dravid 35.7
Ganguly 30.6

He certainly has a problem here. I would guess (its purely a guess mind you) that the hunger is less.

In his favour on this, a minor point, conversion rates are generaly lower for batsmen lower down the batting order. Not always but generally for obvious reasons.

2. Getting low scores while being in good nick :
Just close your eyes and look back. How many times have you really seen him struggle whil at the crease. Not many (although there have been a few). When Sachin is out of form or Ganguly, you can see it and then when they get out you try and analyse what went wrong and what the bowlers did to get them out.

In Laxman's case, most of the time he seems to batting so comfortably with the bowlers seem to be having no effect on him and , pooof, he just goes. Just like that. The number of times that he has got out in his 20', 30's, 40's etc when he has never been beaten and got out ever so casually (or so it appears to the bystander) is ridiculously high. This is why I call him infuriating. Because of this, he has not just done himself injustice, he has acquired a "careless', 'lazy' 'casual' tag attached to his attitude. Everyone who knows him says it isnt so but on so very many occasions he has this happened that he cant escape this blame. So, inspite of his many really remarkable innings he does not appear 'reliable' as , say, Dravid does. When Dravid first got his tag of the Wall, he was not scoring as prodigiously and as consistently as he is doing in the last 2-3 years but he always looked as if he NEVER wanted to get out and the opposition will really need to prise him out.

Laxman seems so unpredictable. When he will play the next harmless delivery casually into the hands of extra cover, is so difficult to say.

This is his second MAJOR problem.

3. Not taking responsibility :
Again, I must say this is how it appears and may not be the case.
He has had some amazing partnerships with Dravid and also with others. Also he has played some very good tail end knocks in the company of the likes of Kumble and other tail enders. However, when in such situations, he has never appeared to take on the role of the BOSSMAN. I have not seen him, ever to farm the bowling. Yesterday with Harbhajan, Balaji and Kumble was not the only time that Laxman played much fewer deliveries than the tail enders he was playing with. It happens again and again.

For such a senior cricketer as Laxman, and for someone who has led in first class cricket for so long, I find it a terrible attitude. I just dont understand why. He seems to play his game in the same mode irrespective of whether the batsman at the other end is Dravid/Sachin or Bhajji/Kumble.

It is infuriating as everything else about this highly gifted but enigmatic Indian batsman.

 

[Robertinho]

MY THEORY

Gilchrist has batted in 203 of his 209 ODI matches. In that 203, there are 49 innings where Gilchrist has been dismissed for 10 or less, and Australia has lost 16 of those 49 matches. That's right. 32.65% of Australia's ODI defeats when Gilchrist makes a sub-ten score are because of Gilchrist. Oh, did I mention 50% were aginst South Africa? Oh yes of course - 31.25 percent of those 10 or less scores were DUCKS. That's right - and 9 of those 10 or less scores were before the year 2000. Believe it or not, that is 56.2% of Gilchrist's sub-10 ODI innings where Australia has lost WERE BEFORE 2000.

Hey. Don't argue with the stats man!

 

[SJS]

MY THEORY

Gilchrist has batted in 203 of his 209 ODI matches. In that 203, there are 49 innings where Gilchrist has been dismissed for 10 or less, and Australia has lost 16 of those 49 matches. That's right. 32.65% of Australia's ODI defeats when Gilchrist makes a sub-ten score are because of Gilchrist. Oh, did I mention 50% were aginst South Africa? Oh yes of course - 31.25 percent of those 10 or less scores were DUCKS. That's right - and 9 of those 10 or less scores were before the year 2000. Believe it or not, that is 56.2% of Gilchrist's sub-10 ODI innings where Australia has lost WERE BEFORE 2000.

Hey. Don't argue with the stats man!

You are right.

Though except giving the conversion rate of his peers this was not really about stats.

If you read the post that is. I dont think you did.

 

[Robertinho]

Haha what? Okay, obviously you missed my point, I'll explain myself. It was completely irrelevant, simply highlighting the obscurity of these stats that have been pulled out (by pulling out some of my own ).

 

[Richard]

(you and I matter less than the past and present cricketers who with no exception rate him as a superb batsman)

I don't know about that at all - from where I'm standing both you and I are equally good if not better judges of the game than some international players.

So lets first look at his record.

1. Conversion rate. :
With 7 centuries from the 29 times he crossed 50 in test matches, his conversion rate is under 24.1 which is the lowest in this Indian team.
Sehwag 52.6
Sachin 45.3
Dravid 35.7
Ganguly 30.6

He certainly has a problem here. I would guess (its purely a guess mind you) that the hunger is less.

In his favour on this, a minor point, conversion rates are generaly lower for batsmen lower down the batting order. Not always but generally for obvious reasons.

I think it's important you break these stats down into the three periods I've set-out.
In the Kolkata-SCG period his conversion-rate mightn't have been flash, but the number of times he got out early and allowed momentum to build you can count on 1 hand. I will always maintain that it's a bigger crime to get 0, 3, 7, 13, 2, 1 than to get 20, 32, 19, 41, 26, 29, and I just don't understand why so many people think otherwise. Simply, the more runs the better. Yes, half-centuries (particularly 70s and above) have to be scored, but average is the really important thing.

2. Getting low scores while being in good nick :
Just close your eyes and look back. How many times have you really seen him struggle whil at the crease. Not many (although there have been a few). When Sachin is out of form or Ganguly, you can see it and then when they get out you try and analyse what went wrong and what the bowlers did to get them out.

In Laxman's case, most of the time he seems to batting so comfortably with the bowlers seem to be having no effect on him and , pooof, he just goes. Just like that. The number of times that he has got out in his 20', 30's, 40's etc when he has never been beaten and got out ever so casually (or so it appears to the bystander) is ridiculously high. This is why I call him infuriating. Because of this, he has not just done himself injustice, he has acquired a "careless', 'lazy' 'casual' tag attached to his attitude. Everyone who knows him says it isnt so but on so very many occasions he has this happened that he cant escape this blame. So, inspite of his many really remarkable innings he does not appear 'reliable' as , say, Dravid does. When Dravid first got his tag of the Wall, he was not scoring as prodigiously and as consistently as he is doing in the last 2-3 years but he always looked as if he NEVER wanted to get out and the opposition will really need to prise him out.

Laxman seems so unpredictable. When he will play the next harmless delivery casually into the hands of extra cover, is so difficult to say.

There are simply batsmen like this. David Gower is another classic example - it's just the way they are. So, so easy is it to dismiss them as "lazy" or similar because they so rarely look in poor nick. Vaughan is another, who never looks out of nick but often gets out having hammered a couple off the middle.
I've never, ever believed it's fair, because so often we hear people who know them personally say they're not lazy people. It's just the way they are - their shot-selection isn't as good as Tendulkar\Dravid. For someone like Gary Kirsten, the fact that he plays a cut into the hands of cover isn't a major sin, because he always looks as though it's just around the corner. But for the Gower\Laxman type, every single poor stroke is taken as an insult, because they make it look easy in a way most of us can only dream of. Yet looks are so deceiving in this case. Laxman and Gower are no better than Kirsten\Stephen Waugh at scoring runs, they're just better at making the runs they do score look easy.

 

[neutralguy]

laxman has been known to perform only against aussies and is pretty much useless against other teams.this has been known long before and i wonder why the selectors have been still persisting witth him.

 

[Richard]

So useless that between Kolkata 2000\01 and SCG 2003\04 he averaged 39.25 against England, 51 against New Zealand, 50 against South Africa and 82 against West Indies?
Yes, he averaged 96.50 against Australia and saved his absolute best for them but he certainly was not poor against the rest either.