If he had a good series, he wouldnt not have been dropped in favor of Symonds.
My point was that 4 Australian batsmen- Langer, Gilchrist, Symonds and Hodge spent most of the series in the pavillion. Theres not much to disagree about it because that was the case as the Aussies were continually bailed out by Ponting, Hussey and Hayden. At the end of the day Lee averaging 24 and Bracken averaging 24 arent really match winning contributions. Incidentally your 8th best batsman is shane warne and he averaged single figures.
8th best in that series mate. You knew what I meant.
Really? I find it ironic that you think that those 2 bowlers didnt have dominant series yet day in and day out at that time you were hyping up how much more mature B.lee had become as a bowler for averaging 32 and leading the attack. Incidentally no other pace bowler on either side managed to average in the 20s in that series, Mcgrath and Bracken averaged 40 odd. Certainly seems strange then that on what were apparently seam friendly bowling attacks, no seam bowler managed to have a dominant series, and the best bowler in terms of averages was actually a spinner in Shane Warne.....
I've already explained why the bowling was bad enough. Like i said the bowling was spearheaded by Hoggard, which in these conditions was always going to cause problems for England given that hes not the sort of bowler who can run through batting lineups on flat wickets. At the end of the day theres not one England bowler than can stand up and say i did a great job, because no one did, certainly Harmison and Anderson are more likely to be dropped if anything and Flintoff was injured for most of this series. Just because a bunch of players had good averages it doesnt mean that the standard of cricket was spectacular. Otherwise you can include series against Bangladesh and zimbabwe and do the exact same thing.
Mediocrity? If the SA bowlers were mediocre in that series, id hate to think what the Australian bowlers were given that the SA fast bowlers not only outperformed but outaveraged the Australian bowlers.
But that is how batting typically works though. Batsmen that average 40 don't usually score around that mark on every occassion - out of ten innings, they'll usually get about one ton, three four half centuries and the rest average scores. Usually a not out or two in there somewhere as well. The ton is going to look out of place so you'd want to remove it, but then their average is going to look ordinary.
Whenever someone does make a match-winning contribution though, you write it off as an anomoly anyway, so it wouldn't matter.tooextracool said:
Just on Brad Hodge, he was dropped because of a technical flaw. As such it was exposed by SA, pollock i believe exposed his weakness in Melbourne against full deliveries outside the off stump.
I think the difference in your example is that the player also scored 3-4 half centuries in the same series. I think its completely different from 203*, 41,7,24,6 and 27* which suggests that he was a complete failure for the rest of the series. Another example is Brian Lara against England in 2004: 23,0,0,8 , 36,33, 400* and averaged 83. Its not any different from Hodge's innings because Hodge too scored his 200 on a very flat wicket. At the end of the day neither batsmen can come out saying that they had a successful series when they've failed for all bar inning of the series.
Yes he was dropped for his technical flaw, which i mentioned in my last post. Again how on earth can you say that he had a succesful series when he had his technique exposed?
No i dont. A match winning contribution is exactly that, it wins one match. It doesnt however mean that because a player made one match winning contribution and is non existent for the rest we can say that he had a good series.A good series involves playing well for most of the series, not just in one innings.
And you have to score more runs than the opposition to win a Test match.
Yes or conversely you're bowlers have to take 20 wickets cheaper than the opposition. I have no doubt that a fully fit Nel,Ntini, Steyn, Pollock, Kallis and Harris could win at least one test match down under, especially if they had the benefit of the toss.
You greatly over-rate this Australian side if you think that the West Indies side of the 80s would not have beaten this side comfortably.
Since when is Harris part of a world-beating attack? For that matter, since when is Steyn part of that attack? And Kallis?
Im pointing out all the bowlers that constitute their best attack. Im not saying that the likes of Pollock, Kallis and Harris are world beating, but they form part of a very good attack. Steyn has been consistently part of the SA bowling attack since the tour of NZ, and he has some serious potential bowling outswingers at hostile pace.
Did you actually watch him bowl or did you just read the scorecard? He's better than Petersen, yes, but hell even I'm better than Petersen. I'd still take Boje or Botha over him any day of the week if I had the choice. The pitch suited him perfectly and he was ineffective for the most part.TEC said:
That's really unlike you TEC. Very rarely do you ever jump on a player after only one test. I really don't think Harris has been that good, and if he bowled in Australia without those delicious footmarks he'd received this test, I dare say he would have been smashed to all parts.
Harris hasn't even finished his first Test! What has he done to state that he belongs, let along play against Australia? An attack is as good as the sum of its parts.
Or that India or Pakistan could get 3 draws?!
would have been a fascinating battle....in my opinion, the windies would have won...