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Placing our bets on "Test Cricket's Young Fab Four"

Which of these "Young Fabbies" will make it the biggest?


  • Total voters
    46
  • Poll closed .

Blocky

Banned
Ah yes, taking Swann's last ever series and considering that a good token as to "top spinners bowling at Smith/Warner"

Why does Smith's third/fourth innings record suck so much?
 

Spark

Global Moderator
Smith in third/fourth innings, 1 century in 42 innings,
Warner - 7 centuries in 50 innings.
Have you paid the slightest attention to where those innings actually came?

I'll take 1st innings hundreds over actual downhill skiing tons every time.
 

Blocky

Banned
Ah yes, the infamous opening batsmen having the easiest conditions to bat within.

You bat first, 100 times out of 100 in Australia due to how easy the conditions are until the final day (usually, but even that's dried up out of Aussie cricket)

You have to invent so many narratives to answer as to why Smith relies on big centuries against neutered bowling attacks in easy conditions; It's just not worth arguing, let's see what happens in India, it won't be pretty.
 

Spark

Global Moderator
Ah yes, the infamous opening batsmen having the easiest conditions to bat within.

You bat first, 100 times out of 100 in Australia due to how easy the conditions are until the final day (usually, but even that's dried up out of Aussie cricket)

You have to invent so many narratives to answer as to why Smith relies on big centuries against neutered bowling attacks in easy conditions; It's just not worth arguing, let's see what happens in India, it won't be pretty.
Yes, opening batsmen do indeed have very easy conditions to deal with on the third day with a 200 run lead which is how basically all (literally all?) of Warner's 3rd innings tons have come.
 

Spark

Global Moderator
This is literally the dumbest argument I've seen on this forums in a while, what the ****.
 

cnerd123

likes this
Don't be fooled by KW's average as that query is very general.

Here's a much more telling stat for me.

If we can all agree that since 2000 the best 5 tests sides have been Australia, England, South Africa, India & Pakistan (in no order), this is where Root & Smith really show their worth, with Kohli not far behind.

In fact Root & Smith have the best records against top quality opposition of all batsmen since 2000s, both averaging over 55. Meanwhile, against top opposition Kohli averages 51 & KW way down below 40.

In KW's case, he generally relies on murdering relatively weak Windies and SL attacks, and he did admittedly do well on some roads in Australia in 2015.(Not so well in the more difficult deck in the Adelaide Test though).
This bothers me too

The bowling and conditions England faced in BD were extremely challenging and they should be credited for all the runs they scored there

The Adelaide Test was tough for all batsmen involved. 20 wickets fell with only 3 batsmen crossing 50 and a highest score of 66. KW got two good deliveries. To even hint that this shows his failing as a batsman is ridiculous.

Any attempt to look at a batsman scoring runs and saying 'Well yea but those conditions were easy' strikes me as being so disingenuous. It as though it's not possible for the batsman to make it look it easy simply by being so good. It's ignoring the fact that he faced tough spells of bowling in order to still be other there when the bowlers got tired/conditions got easier so he could score big. Kohli weathered tons of tough spells in India just now from England. The 40-odd in the 4th innings in the draw was sheer skill, and he survived several spells from England's quicks and Adil Rashid. But the narrative has now become him capitalizing on ****** bowling and dropped catches. Yes he did that, but he also survived really tough scenarios, and thus was able to cash in when it got easier.


All of this analysis by statistics stuff is just being done so badly. Judging how good the bowlers are based on career records and not how they bowled. Judging how tough conditions were based on end scorecards and, again, not observing what happened. Acting as though teams that lose a lot never put up a challenge. Not giving players credit for doing well, but focusing on when they failed.

It seems the only performances that 'matter' under this means of analysis is when one batsman scores an extremely high % of the runs scored in an innings, or when on bowled returns crazy good figures in comparison to his teammates. And even that's ridiculous sometimes. Rahul's 199 doesn't become less of an innings because Nair scored a 300. Jadeja taking a 7-fer in the 4 innings doesn't mean he bowled so much better than the wicketless Ashwin did.

This is such lazy analysis and I expect a lot better from CWers tbh.
 

Slifer

International Captain
This is literally the dumbest argument I've seen on this forums in a while, what the ****.
Dude dont waste your time. That zinzan character seemed reasonable enough, but this blocky fella idk what to say. I honestly think he is just trying to wind you all up. Not me though. No amount of nonsensical arguments is gonna change what's plain as day ie smith is the man atm.
 

Blocky

Banned
Spark's logical fallacy arguments strike again.

Smith is poor in the third/fourth innings, it's the same monkey on the back that Waugh had forever. He doesn't know how to fight when it matters against attacks that are difficult. He's in a side that loses as much as it wins, and yet has more talent arguably at it's disposal than any side not named South Africa.
 

TheJediBrah

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Ah yes, taking Swann's last ever series and considering that a good token as to "top spinners bowling at Smith/Warner"

Why does Smith's third/fourth innings record suck so much?
Steve Smith gets out throwing his wicket away for declaration runs more than any player I've ever seen before. It actually gets frustrating when he does it because you just know there's no way the bowlers are going to get him out.
 

Spark

Global Moderator
Spark's logical fallacy arguments strike again.

Smith is poor in the third/fourth innings, it's the same monkey on the back that Waugh had forever. He doesn't know how to fight when it matters against attacks that are difficult. He's in a side that loses as much as it wins, and yet has more talent arguably at it's disposal than any side not named South Africa.
You literally cited Warner's third innings record as "standing up when it matters", as opposed to some of the most obvious cashing-in-when-the-going-is-good anyone has seen. You have no standing to be lecturing anyone on anything related to Australian cricket here.
 

Blocky

Banned
You literally cited Warner's third innings record as "standing up when it matters". You have no standing to be lecturing anyone on anything related to Australian cricket here.
His third/fourth innings record is amazing in comparison to Smith, it's also a hallmark of a guy who can bat you to wins, not just set up matches. Warner is actually arguably far more important to Australia, because generally if he's not finding runs at the top, you struggle bigtime (South African series, Sri Lanka series)
 

Spark

Global Moderator
His third/fourth innings record is amazing in comparison to Smith, it's also a hallmark of a guy who can bat you to wins, not just set up matches. Warner is actually arguably far more important to Australia, because generally if he's not finding runs at the top, you struggle bigtime (South African series, Sri Lanka series)
Yeah actually I think Australia would do okay even if Warner failed every time we had a 200 run first innings lead. Amazingly, I prefer to focus on the guy who helped get that lead in the first place.
 

Blocky

Banned
Steve Smith gets out throwing his wicket away for declaration runs more than any player I've ever seen before. It actually gets frustrating when he does it because you just know there's no way the bowlers are going to get him out.
LOL

Oh you mean like today where everyone else was striking at 75-80 and he was going along at 55-60 for most of his innings, building to a not out ton.

Not worth the argument. You're like Mark Nicholas.
 

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