The Ashes won't be close

[Richard]

or rather one series. in his last series against australia he averaged 31, which is certainly not 'troubling them'.

No, it's not - who apart from Vaughan did (Butcher's average of 31 for that series was extremely flattering, he was dropped at least 5 times in the First and Fifth Tests)?
Butcher, unlike most players, has had a single good series against Australia.
Who else has?
Thorpe and Vaughan.

 

[Richard]

wow 3 significant innings in a 5 match series, give him a medal for averaging 35, which is below his career average and far below what hes been averaging since his return.
and your problem is compounded further by the fact that it was 2 good innings.

31* on a raging turner wasn't a bad innings.
Thorpe was exceptionally poor most of the time, yes, but quite simply he had it coming - he couldn't go on averaging 61 forever.

so how much of that series did you watch? key wasnt exposed as anything, he still looked to have plenty of potential.

Yep, and he probably always will look to - but he needs to start producing it soon, he can't expect many more chances.
And Butcher is undoubtedly the better player at present.

and with flintoff, well you need to get over it, because hes had 2 consecutive good summers, and id back him to have no 3.

Yet the South African bowlers, none of whom played the whole series are anything amazing, certainly showed he wasn't as good as he was against New Zealand and West Indies.

 

[Richard]

His problem was the game at Lilac Hill when he bashed his head on the advertising board, and although it was a declaration game the umpires were using the one day wide rule.

It was a meaningless 12-a-side game that had no consequence to anything.

 

[Richard]

no they arent too many actually, thorpe you can say whatever you want about him, but he has everything except a safe pair of hands.

Since his recall he has, yes, but he used to be a far better catcher than he has been recently.

 

[Richard]

people who havent watched both of them bowl, yes.

And people who have, too.

 

[sledger]

No, that's the worst option of the lot IMO - our batsmen will likely crumble no matter what, and a flat pitch gives none of our bowlers a chance to knock-over Australia.

yes i would tend to agree there, have to say though that there is the slight chance that it could work on one occasion with a bit of luck.

 

[Richard]

another thing of notice, is that gillespie off late has been extremely inconsistent- hes either been extremely good or extremely poor, with the latter outnumbering the former, if thats the weakest link to exploit in the bowling.

Oh, there's no of-late about it, it's been the case throughout his career, amazingly enough I was just thinking about that yesterday...
First 3 Tests: 4 wickets at 46
Next 10 Tests: 46 at 19.15
Next 18 months, just a single Test (0-43) due to the horiffic injury
5 Tests after his recovery: 25 wickets at 18.52
Next couple: 8 at 37.37
Next 3: 17 at 20.47
Next 10: 26 at 42.46
Next 8: 36 at 20.13
Next 9: 28 at 36.54 (with 3 against Ban and Zim in between - removed, obviously)
Next 6: 28 at 18
Next 6: 14 at 41.28
Suggests he's due a good period sometime pretty darn soon, unfortunately...

 

[psxpro]

"MacGill is quite capable of being every bit as poor as anyone England might call-up to back-up Giles"

He is capable of taking a lot of wickets too, on a turning pitch, England would get even more hammered since Aus's second spinner mcgill is better than giles

 

[sledger]

macgill is better than a lot of some teams first choice spinners, were it not for warne he would be a mainstay in the aussie side,

 

[Richard]

"MacGill is quite capable of being every bit as poor as anyone England might call-up to back-up Giles"

He is capable of taking a lot of wickets too, on a turning pitch, England would get even more hammered since Aus's second spinner mcgill is better than giles

MacGill is capable of taking wickets for few enough runs (turning pitch or not) only extremely rarely.
MacGill tends to bowl extremely poorly, regardless of the pitch, far more often than not.
And anyone who thinks he's better than Giles needs their heads seriously examined.

 

[Richard]

macgill is better than a lot of some teams first choice spinners, were it not for warne he would be a mainstay in the aussie side,

He would have been for a time, yes... but then he'd have been found-out, because he'd not have been in and out of the side, and he'd have been dropped for good, probably with a Test-match average in the 35-7 region.

 

[psxpro]

MacGill is capable of taking wickets for few enough runs (turning pitch or not) only extremely rarely.
MacGill tends to bowl extremely poorly, regardless of the pitch, far more often than not.
And anyone who thinks he's better than Giles needs their heads seriously examined.

Mcgill does bowl some rubbish sometimes but there is no doubt he is more dangerous than giles and Any team would pick mcgill over giles.
It doesn't matter in tests how you bowl, its how many wickets you get for how many runs

 

[luckyeddie]

Mcgill does bowl some rubbish sometimes but there is no doubt he is more dangerous than giles and Any team would pick mcgill over giles.
It doesn't matter in tests how you bowl, its how many wickets you get for how many runs

Naturally - a leggie who gives the ball a huge rip is likely to bowl some rubbish (Warne is for the most part an exception) but is also to 'have his day'.

Giles is far and away the best twirly we have in England at the moment - the fact that there might be a dozen Aussies with better credentials is totally irrelevant.

 

[Richard]

Mcgill does bowl some rubbish sometimes but there is no doubt he is more dangerous than giles and Any team would pick mcgill over giles.

Maybe they would, but it'd be a mistake.
On a non-turner, it might just be best to pick MacGill, because there's a bigger chance of him bowling wicket-taking deliveries; it's not, of course, that likely and it's almost certain MacGill will be more expensive.
But on a turner you'd be totally insane to pick MacGill ahead of Giles.

 

[Richard]

Giles is far and away the best twirly we have in England at the moment - the fact that there might be a dozen Aussies with better credentials is totally irrelevant.

There is one Australian who is better than Giles - Warne.
And I'd not go so far as to say he's far-and-away the best; Croft is only marginally if at all inferior.

 

[age_master]

Maybe they would, but it'd be a mistake.
On a non-turner, it might just be best to pick MacGill, because there's a bigger chance of him bowling wicket-taking deliveries; it's not, of course, that likely and it's almost certain MacGill will be more expensive.
But on a turner you'd be totally insane to pick MacGill ahead of Giles.

no Macgill wins , with Giles averaging 37 in tests, 34 in ODI's, 29 in FC and 25 in list A

MacGill averages 29 in tests, 17.5 in ODI's, 39 in FC and 22 in OD.

me might bowl a fair bit of rubbish but he takes wickets and is a far superior bowler to Giles. batting on the other hand...

 

[psxpro]

Maybe they would, but it'd be a mistake.
On a non-turner, it might just be best to pick MacGill, because there's a bigger chance of him bowling wicket-taking deliveries; it's not, of course, that likely and it's almost certain MacGill will be more expensive.
But on a turner you'd be totally insane to pick MacGill ahead of Giles.

And you are insane to suggest giles is a better bowler than mcgill. Mcgill takes lots of wickets and his international carrer proves that.
If warne wasn't around mcgill would get more games would be one of the best spinners around imo.

 

[luckyeddie]

And you are insane to suggest giles is a better bowler than mcgill. Mcgill takes lots of wickets and his international carrer proves that.
If warne wasn't around mcgill would get more games would be one of the best spinners around imo.

You reckon without Brad 'Lippy' Hogg, GLA*

*Greatest Living Australian

 

[marc71178]

It was a meaningless 12-a-side game that had no consequence to anything.

If it had no consequence how come there was s much criticism of Harmison for his bowling in it?

Just because you don't think it had consequence, doesn't mean it didn't.

 

[marc71178]

Croft is only marginally if at all inferior.

Croft's record shows he is far inferior.