honestbharani
Whatever it takes!!!
Yeah, we need to discuss this.
What exactly do people mean by "quality" wickets? The April edition of "Cricinfo" magazine defined "quality" wickets as that of bonafide batsmen (guys who can/have scored test hundreds) who were dismissed for less than their career average at that point. Simplistic enough, because they only considered the top 7. So what happens when someone like Lara bats at 8, which he did against Australia once when he was down with chicken pox? It is quite often that a player gets injured during the course of the match and therefore bats lower down the order, because he had not been on the field long enough. So, does an injured batsman not count as a quality wicket? But then again, with guys like Lara, Ponting, Dravid, Kallis, Inzy, Sachin etc.... ARen't these guys better than most other batsmen even when they are injured? That is one problem.
The next problem is, if we go by the methodology adopted by cricinfo, we are not differentiating between wickets that a bowler actually earns and wickets that a bowler just gets, due to an unforced error from a batsman (to borrow a term from tennis). In the Aus Vs Bangladesh thread, Got_Spin claimed that even though MacGill took 8 wickets, they were not "quality" wickets. If they weren't "quality" wickets, why did the likes of Lee, Gillespie, Clark and most astoundingly of all, Warne, struggle to get them out? Surely, it is not as simple as that.
For instance, let us consider two wickets that Warne has taken recently. ONe was Rafique today morning, and the other is Andrew Strauss in the Ashes. Rafique had taken 3 boundaries of Warne's earlier over and Warne threw the first one up outside the offstump. Rafique left it alone as there was a sweeper cover now and playing the shot might have been risky. The ball turned big, as it usually does when Warne bowls it. The very next ball, Warne anticipated an aggressive response from Rafique and bowled quicker, flatter and at the stumps. Sure enough, Rafique went for the sweep and was out plumb LBW. Contrast that with how he got Strauss out. Everyone AND THEIR MOTHER know that Warne turns the ball a long way, esp. into left handers from around the wicket. And yet, when Warney pitched one slightly short of a spinners' good length, Strauss moved across all 3 stumps and left the ball all alone to crash into his stumps. AS a kid here in India, one is always taught not to leave the ball when the stumps are exposed against a bowler who turns the ball big. IT was such a rookie mistake. So, which wicket would have given Warne more satisfaction? Sure, since it was the AShes and since it was an important wicket, he might rate Strauss' wicket higher, but in terms of using his skill, wouldn't Rafique's wicket give him more satisfaction, because it was a wicket that HE TOOK than one the batter gave away, which is what Strauss did?
And to what extent can we consider the wickets taken against the minnows as "cheap" wickets? Surely, they can't be cheaper than the tailenders of the other test playing nations? I would rather see Pathan get the wickets of Ashraful, Bashar and Omar than say, the wickets of Hoggard, Ali and Mahmood. Surely these things have to be taken into account. EVeryone is easily rubbishing off Pathan's efforts against Bangladesh, but it was only one and a half years ago. It was almost the same side, and it WAS a flat wicket. Even Zaheer Khan scored a 75 there. So why are his wickets taken against them so easily disposed of? I mean, I guess these guys have lesser ability than the top order batsmen of the more experienced test playing nations, but just because of that, can we rubbish wickets taken against them? England in the mid 90s, for instance, were extremely poor players of spin in general. So should Warne's wickets against them during that period not count for anything as well? I would like to know all your views here, esp. the views of those who have been watching the game for a long while now, like LuckyEddie, SJS and a few others...
PS: Please, PLEASE, do not turn this into a Warne Vs Murali debate. If anything, you guys can argue that Warne's wickets against Eng in mid 90s are just as important as his wickets against India and that Murali's wickets against Bangladesh and Zim are just as important as his wickets against Pakistan, for instance...
What exactly do people mean by "quality" wickets? The April edition of "Cricinfo" magazine defined "quality" wickets as that of bonafide batsmen (guys who can/have scored test hundreds) who were dismissed for less than their career average at that point. Simplistic enough, because they only considered the top 7. So what happens when someone like Lara bats at 8, which he did against Australia once when he was down with chicken pox? It is quite often that a player gets injured during the course of the match and therefore bats lower down the order, because he had not been on the field long enough. So, does an injured batsman not count as a quality wicket? But then again, with guys like Lara, Ponting, Dravid, Kallis, Inzy, Sachin etc.... ARen't these guys better than most other batsmen even when they are injured? That is one problem.
The next problem is, if we go by the methodology adopted by cricinfo, we are not differentiating between wickets that a bowler actually earns and wickets that a bowler just gets, due to an unforced error from a batsman (to borrow a term from tennis). In the Aus Vs Bangladesh thread, Got_Spin claimed that even though MacGill took 8 wickets, they were not "quality" wickets. If they weren't "quality" wickets, why did the likes of Lee, Gillespie, Clark and most astoundingly of all, Warne, struggle to get them out? Surely, it is not as simple as that.
For instance, let us consider two wickets that Warne has taken recently. ONe was Rafique today morning, and the other is Andrew Strauss in the Ashes. Rafique had taken 3 boundaries of Warne's earlier over and Warne threw the first one up outside the offstump. Rafique left it alone as there was a sweeper cover now and playing the shot might have been risky. The ball turned big, as it usually does when Warne bowls it. The very next ball, Warne anticipated an aggressive response from Rafique and bowled quicker, flatter and at the stumps. Sure enough, Rafique went for the sweep and was out plumb LBW. Contrast that with how he got Strauss out. Everyone AND THEIR MOTHER know that Warne turns the ball a long way, esp. into left handers from around the wicket. And yet, when Warney pitched one slightly short of a spinners' good length, Strauss moved across all 3 stumps and left the ball all alone to crash into his stumps. AS a kid here in India, one is always taught not to leave the ball when the stumps are exposed against a bowler who turns the ball big. IT was such a rookie mistake. So, which wicket would have given Warne more satisfaction? Sure, since it was the AShes and since it was an important wicket, he might rate Strauss' wicket higher, but in terms of using his skill, wouldn't Rafique's wicket give him more satisfaction, because it was a wicket that HE TOOK than one the batter gave away, which is what Strauss did?
And to what extent can we consider the wickets taken against the minnows as "cheap" wickets? Surely, they can't be cheaper than the tailenders of the other test playing nations? I would rather see Pathan get the wickets of Ashraful, Bashar and Omar than say, the wickets of Hoggard, Ali and Mahmood. Surely these things have to be taken into account. EVeryone is easily rubbishing off Pathan's efforts against Bangladesh, but it was only one and a half years ago. It was almost the same side, and it WAS a flat wicket. Even Zaheer Khan scored a 75 there. So why are his wickets taken against them so easily disposed of? I mean, I guess these guys have lesser ability than the top order batsmen of the more experienced test playing nations, but just because of that, can we rubbish wickets taken against them? England in the mid 90s, for instance, were extremely poor players of spin in general. So should Warne's wickets against them during that period not count for anything as well? I would like to know all your views here, esp. the views of those who have been watching the game for a long while now, like LuckyEddie, SJS and a few others...
PS: Please, PLEASE, do not turn this into a Warne Vs Murali debate. If anything, you guys can argue that Warne's wickets against Eng in mid 90s are just as important as his wickets against India and that Murali's wickets against Bangladesh and Zim are just as important as his wickets against Pakistan, for instance...