VVS Laxman...is he really that good?

[Swervy]

laxman is crap..........

here we go!!!!! nookie you have been relatively quiet recently

 

[nookie_lk]

yeah...was busy at work...

 

[Richard]

here we go!!!!! nookie you have been relatively quiet recently

Here we go?

Where do we go?

 

[Swervy]

Here we go?

Where do we go?

normally down a street called 'Sri Lanka can do no wrong' in the suburb called 'Utter Rubbish'

 

[nookie_lk]

ha..ha..cant stop laughing...

 

[Swervy]

ha..ha..cant stop laughing...

 

[Richard]

normally down a street called 'Sri Lanka can do no wrong' in the suburb called 'Utter Rubbish'

Oh.

 

[tooextracool]

Because of the very simple reason that if he bats in the middle he's got the best chance of playing his most important role, despite losing the chance of playing a role anyone else can play every bit as effectively.

2 things....
1) there hasnt been anyone whos managed to average nearly 50 opening the batting, so i dont see how you can say that there are other players who can do his job as effectively
2) hes been given the most important role to do time and time again and hasnt done it half as effectively as was expected of him. in fact he tends to do that middle order role far more effectively when he has a start than when he comes in to face his first ball in the middle overs.

Whether or not he's happier batting at the top where he can glean as many runs as he wants - it's sure big hypocrisy of him when he continuously asserts that his first objective is to make India win. Either that or he doesn't really understand the situation very well, and actually thinks he benefits the team more as an opener.

of course when i say the same thing about him opening the batting in tests you say the opposite. the fact is that hes been tried at 4 and hasnt done well enough, the team knows that, he knows that and the selectors know that and hes been better off opening the batting.

 

[tooextracool]

No, I can't say it for certain. But given that the wicket wasn't quite as seam-friendly, I can say that it was less likely.

and you cant say whether or not it was more likely that he would succeed had he batted at 4 when he failed at the top.

Yes, because the fact that he got 2 wickets in his last 11 balls, when batsmen were throwing caution to the winds, suggests that he didn't bowl all that impressively and didn't make the attack massively better than it was in NWS2002.

yes and if they were throwing caution to the wind its quite likely that it effected his ER too. and i can imagine how you could say that chandana bowled as well in the nws as murali did in the wc game.

No, it wouldn't - because if you think about it, I was talking about the first 20 overs of the match, not of both innings.
In the 50th over of the match, which was Chaminda's first, there was no seam-movement left in the wicket. He did, however, bowl very well including a beautifully pitched nip-backer (swing, not seam) to bowl Sehwag with his 1st ball.

rubbish there was swing and seam movement even in the 2nd innings

Oh, a bit, I'll give you that, but his figures up to 45.4 overs suggested he hadn't made a significant, match-changing, difference.

no he hadnt made a match- changing difference but he made the attack that india played in that world cup game considerably better. which shows that tendulkars innings at 4 wasnt as poor as you make it out to be. he bowled as well as he always does, but the batsmen,tendulkar in particular played him exceedingly well.

Well, Razzaq was actually even more economical than Wasim, but yes, Shoaib and Waqar were hammered all over the park - because they bowled exceptionally poorly. Wasim, meanwhile, merely bowled poorly..

nope waqar and shoaib bowled poorly and wasim and razzaq bowled well, you fail to look at the quality of the batting that smashed them around or the flatness of the wicket.

And if Waqar and Shoaib had bowled better he wouldn't have been able to score anywhere near as quickly as he did, even if he had batted every bit as well.

yes of course if they bowled better he wouldnt have but they didnt bowl half as badly as you make it out to be.

No, Ganguly kept backing away and making straight balls into wide ones, the logical thing to do if someone is bowling very straight.

nope flintoff bowled wide outside the off stump , i remember that clearly.

I would be astonished if Pakistan had won that game the way they bowled, whoever the lucky batsmen happened to be.

no if tendulkar wasnt opening that batting and smashing good balls all over the park its highly unlikely that they would have bowled half as badly in the first place.

No, they would almost certainly not have lost given how abysmally most of the Pakistanis bowled.
If Tendulkar had batted four in the final, India would have had a slightly better chance if you ask me.

then why hasnt he been able to play successful innings all that often in the 2nd innings in the past then?i dont see how you can say that they would have had a better chance when tendulkar has more often than not failed while chasing totals at 4.

 

[honestbharani]

I think Laxman is a very good batsman if he is allowed to bat at no.3 consistently for India. That is the position that suits him the most.


And about Tendulkar batting at no.4, I think the major factor to be considered is the team itself and its balance. The whole idea of playing 7 batters and asking Rahul to keep wickets is to allow the openers a licence to go for the kill right at the start and right up until the Pakistan tour, Sachin was always playing his shots in ODIs, even if he had cut down on them in the tests. So, till then, it didn't really matter because Sachin was pretty much doing what Sourav would and could have done at the top of the order. But somehow in the Asia Cup, I get the feeling that he has decided to cut down the shots even in ODIs. Even Harsha Bhogle, a very respected cricket analyst in India, has pointed out to the fact that India didn't try to blaze away in any of their matches. Going after the bowling in the first 15 has been an essential part of India's success story in the ODIs and not doing that might have cost India the Asia Cup. So, my point is that if Sachin is not willing to go back to his attacking ways, then maybe for the better of the side, he should come down to no.4, because he can play the spinners as well as anyone and he plays pace exceptionally well too. And he can rotate the strike really well. Obviously, one cannot judge from just one tournament, so we will have to wait till the ICC Champions trophy before passing a judgement on whether Sachin has actually changed his ODI style of play or if it was just a one tournament thing.

 

[Richard]

there hasnt been anyone whos managed to average nearly 50 opening the batting, so i dont see how you can say that there are other players who can do his job as effectively

Because I wasn't talking about averaging 50 - I was talking about flaying it in the first 15.
Because that's an opener's principal job. Tendulkar, however, has more important ones.

hes been given the most important role to do time and time again and hasnt done it half as effectively as was expected of him. in fact he tends to do that middle order role far more effectively when he has a start than when he comes in to face his first ball in the middle overs.

Except, of course, on the considerable number of occasions when he's out inside the first 20 overs.
If he were given more chances to play the roles especited of him, I don't doubt that he'd be more than good enough to do it.

of course when i say the same thing about him opening the batting in tests you say the opposite. the fact is that hes been tried at 4 and hasnt done well enough, the team knows that, he knows that and the selectors know that and hes been better off opening the batting.

No, I don't say "he wouldn't like it", I say "I think he'd be far less successful". Difference? Ah, yes, that would be the exact-sameness that you want to be there so you say it is.
Why, if everyone knows it, has the team always looked more solid with him batting at four?

 

[Richard]

and you cant say whether or not it was more likely that he would succeed had he batted at 4 when he failed at the top.

I can, I have, and I've said why.

yes and if they were throwing caution to the wind its quite likely that it effected his ER too. and i can imagine how you could say that chandana bowled as well in the nws as murali did in the wc game.

Can you? Just shows how wild your imagination can run, then.
Though aside from that 32-over slog Chandana's ER for the tournament was actually lower than Murali's for that game. Not that one match is comparable with six, so don't even start.
Oh, he bowled pretty well before that (7-22-1), but he didn't make a massive difference.

rubbish there was swing and seam movement even in the 2nd innings

The seam-movement had gone by the second-innings.
That wasn't exactly difficult to tell, for anyone who watched properly.
Of course swing can be attained with a new-ball by anyone who can use it properly.

no he hadnt made a match- changing difference but he made the attack that india played in that world cup game considerably better. which shows that tendulkars innings at 4 wasnt as poor as you make it out to be. he bowled as well as he always does, but the batsmen,tendulkar in particular played him exceedingly well.

I presume you mean Tendulkar's innings at one, given that this is where he batted in the Cup game.
Murali made the Sri Lankan bowling a bit better. And Tendulkar's innings wasn't poor at all - but it wasn't a massive achievement to score so highly against a largely abysmal attack.

nope waqar and shoaib bowled poorly and wasim and razzaq bowled well, you fail to look at the quality of the batting that smashed them around or the flatness of the wicket.

And regardless of the quality of batsman or wicket, bowling well is still perfectly possible, as shown by, amongst many others, Vaas (10-34-2) and Nissanka (6-49-0). A wicket good enough for a very poor bowler to go for 8-an-over and a good bowler still goes for just 3.4 (bowling at the death, I might add).
Wasim and Razzaq bowled better than Waqar and Shoaib, they did not bowl especially well.

yes of course if they bowled better he wouldnt have but they didnt bowl half as badly as you make it out to be.

Yes, they did - they had to have done. Any fool could work that out.
To go for 7-an-over you have to have bowled very, very poorly indeed.

nope flintoff bowled wide outside the off stump , i remember that clearly.

No, as per usual you remember faultily. Flintoff rarely strayed, Ganguly hammered it all over everywhere by using his feet.

no if tendulkar wasnt opening that batting and smashing good balls all over the park its highly unlikely that they would have bowled half as badly in the first place.

Except that no-one can smash good balls all over the park.
Bowl at or just outside off consistently (not something any of those bowlers have proved incapable of) and no-one can score very fast without a very large amount of luck.
Tendulkar might have been hitting some balls for four that he wouldn't on another day, but that doesn't mean much. The bowling was poor, get over it.

then why hasnt he been able to play successful innings all that often in the 2nd innings in the past then?i dont see how you can say that they would have had a better chance when tendulkar has more often than not failed while chasing totals at 4.

Because they would most likely have gone faster in the first 15, not lost early wickets, and Tendulkar might have done something he's not done before.

 

[tooextracool]

Because I wasn't talking about averaging 50 - I was talking about flaying it in the first 15.
Because that's an opener's principal job. Tendulkar, however, has more important ones.

no wrong again, the best openers tend to score heavily in the first 15 and convert those starts into big scores. tendulkar could do both, hence hes better of opening the batting.

Except, of course, on the considerable number of occasions when he's out inside the first 20 overs.
If he were given more chances to play the roles especited of him, I don't doubt that he'd be more than good enough to do it.

hes already been given enough chances and hasnt been able to do it.....

No, I don't say "he wouldn't like it", I say "I think he'd be far less successful". Difference? Ah, yes, that would be the exact-sameness that you want to be there so you say it is.
Why, if everyone knows it, has the team always looked more solid with him batting at four?

and everyone knows it that if he opens the batting successfully in tests the team would once again be more solid.

 

[tooextracool]

I can, I have, and I've said why.

and if you read carefully ive said why not.

Can you? Just shows how wild your imagination can run, then.
Though aside from that 32-over slog Chandana's ER for the tournament was actually lower than Murali's for that game. Not that one match is comparable with six, so don't even start.
Oh, he bowled pretty well before that (7-22-1), but he didn't make a massive difference.

and if you looked at his performances against the common team(ie india) in the respective series you would see that chandana's ER is 5.06 a whole .46 more than what muralis was in that game.
and i think those who've watched both of them in the respective series know who the better bowler is, and it is by far murali.

The seam-movement had gone by the second-innings.
That wasn't exactly difficult to tell, for anyone who watched properly.
Of course swing can be attained with a new-ball by anyone who can use it properly.

no it had not, there was both swing and seam movement for at least the first 15 overs in the 2nd innings.

I presume you mean Tendulkar's innings at one, given that this is where he batted in the Cup game.
Murali made the Sri Lankan bowling a bit better. And Tendulkar's innings wasn't poor at all - but it wasn't a massive achievement to score so highly against a largely abysmal attack.

the point is that any attack that includes vaas and murali both going for under 5 an over cant be an abysmal attack.

And regardless of the quality of batsman or wicket, bowling well is still perfectly possible, as shown by, amongst many others, Vaas (10-34-2) and Nissanka (6-49-0). A wicket good enough for a very poor bowler to go for 8-an-over and a good bowler still goes for just 3.4 (bowling at the death, I might add).
Wasim and Razzaq bowled better than Waqar and Shoaib, they did not bowl especially well..

they were 2 completely different games with 2 completely different innings from tendulkar. one was while chasing a total while the other was while setting one.

Yes, they did - they had to have done. Any fool could work that out.
To go for 7-an-over you have to have bowled very, very poorly indeed.

no its quite conceivable that someone like tendulkar could have smashed the good or decent balls that they bowled all over the park and as a result had them change their line and length.

No, as per usual you remember faultily. Flintoff rarely strayed, Ganguly hammered it all over everywhere by using his feet.

no you seem to be confusing me with yourself....i remember clearly flintoff straying all over the place.

Except that no-one can smash good balls all over the park.
Bowl at or just outside off consistently (not something any of those bowlers have proved incapable of) and no-one can score very fast without a very large amount of luck.
Tendulkar might have been hitting some balls for four that he wouldn't on another day, but that doesn't mean much. The bowling was poor, get over it.

b/s how many times in the past have we seen tendulkar pull balls that are just short of good length for 6? and he did have some amount of luck, yes the dropped catch that he survived.

Because they would most likely have gone faster in the first 15, not lost early wickets, and Tendulkar might have done something he's not done before.

if he hasnt done it before its more likely that he wouldnt have done it again!

 

[Deja moo]

Horses for courses...play Laxman only vs Australia. Dont let Ganguly captain the side in finals. Mohammad Kaif should learn to bowl. Anil Kumble should be reminded every second over that containing the run rate in ODIs is not his sole purpose, taking wickets would help too. Harbhajan should be supplied with a nail cutter. Zaheer Khan should never bowl the first over in any game. Yuvraj should be sent to the spin academy to learn to play spin.

 

[FRAZ]

Who is Laxman ?

 

[Richard]

no wrong again, the best openers tend to score heavily in the first 15 and convert those starts into big scores. tendulkar could do both, hence hes better of opening the batting.

No, that just means he's a good opener.
It doesn't mean he's best-off opening the batting.

hes already been given enough chances and hasnt been able to do it.....

So all that ability he has is totally meaningless, then?

and everyone knows it that if he opens the batting successfully in tests the team would once again be more solid.

Yes, of course they do.
Even though the two game-forms are incomparable.

 

[Richard]

and if you read carefully ive said why not.

And I've said why I don't agree.

and if you looked at his performances against the common team(ie india) in the respective series you would see that chandana's ER is 5.06 a whole .46 more than what muralis was in that game.
and i think those who've watched both of them in the respective series know who the better bowler is, and it is by far murali.

And when have I been insane enough to suggest that Chandana is anywhere near as good as Murali? Murali is infinately more accurate.
It is just a typical suggestion of yours, showing, as I said, how wild your imagination runs sometimes.

no it had not, there was both swing and seam movement for at least the first 15 overs in the 2nd innings.

Wrong.

the point is that any attack that includes vaas and murali both going for under 5 an over cant be an abysmal attack.

Yes, it can, because the rest can be so appalling that you don't need to hammer Chaminda or Murali.

they were 2 completely different games with 2 completely different innings from tendulkar. one was while chasing a total while the other was while setting one.

Err, yes, I noticed that. When have I ever compared these two games?

no its quite conceivable that someone like tendulkar could have smashed the good or decent balls that they bowled all over the park and as a result had them change their line and length.

No, it's not - because no-one, no matter how good, can smash decent balls all over the park regularly. Except, of course, by backing away and using the feet, none of which I remember Tendulkar doing much. He didn't need to. He just fed on the steady supply of trash deliveries.

no you seem to be confusing me with yourself....i remember clearly flintoff straying all over the place.

And you remember faultily - I've got the video of that match, and I watch it quite a lot.
So forgive me for being sure of the knowledge that, once again, you are stating that something happened in a way it didn't.

b/s how many times in the past have we seen tendulkar pull balls that are just short of good length for 6? and he did have some amount of luck, yes the dropped catch that he survived.

Even if Razzaq had taken the catch it wouldn't change the fact that Shoaib and Waqar bowled very, very poorly and were hammered, because that happened by and large before the catch.
We have seen Tendulkar pull just-short-of-good-length balls for six every now and then - and when he does, it means fairly conclusively that it was a ball he could easily score off - hence a bad ball.
Just because it wouldn't be a bad ball on some other occasions is irrelevant.

if he hasnt done it before its more likely that he wouldnt have done it again!

Possible, but not certain.
He might have "risen to the occasion".

 

[Richard]

Horses for courses...play Laxman only vs Australia. Dont let Ganguly captain the side in finals. Mohammad Kaif should learn to bowl. Anil Kumble should be reminded every second over that containing the run rate in ODIs is not his sole purpose, taking wickets would help too. Harbhajan should be supplied with a nail cutter. Zaheer Khan should never bowl the first over in any game. Yuvraj should be sent to the spin academy to learn to play spin.

Some good suggestions there...
Trouble is, learning to bowl (well) isn't something I can see Kaif doing.
Cut the "the first over" from the Zaheer part, you might be getting somewhere.
I'm sure Kumble is trying to do both, though - it's just sometimes (especially away from home) he gets pitches that don't aid him taking wickets.
His big advantage is his pace, allowing him to have a much better chance of bowling economically than other bowlers who spin it as little as him.

 

[Richard]

Who is Laxman ?

I think a goat-farmer from Ulyan Bataar could tell you that.
To coin a Craig phrase.