Giles retires

[Steulen]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/england/6938329.stm

Apparently the end of the road for the Ashes-winning Wheelie-bin

Never one of the highest rated cricketers in the world, but a vital cog in the Fletcher-era England team. A dependable #8 batsman, useful bowler...and showing character too, once every while.

 

[biased indian]

some one whom i never liked..............
may be for bowling on the legside to tendulkar

ya he had a good ashes in england............
and will mostly be remebered for it

 

[stumpski]

Unfortunate in that in his last Test his drop of Ricky Ponting may well have cost England the Adelaide Test. Don't think it would have altered the outcome of the series but might at least have saved us from a 5-0.

And England are still seeking his replacement at # 8.

 

[Matteh]

Saw it coming when he started doing the commentary bits recently. Shame to see a dependable England player and a long-term Warwickshire player have to retire through injury.

 

[age_master]

Can't say im too dissapointed, solid cricket at FC level but never cut it in the tests.

 

[chaminda_00]

Crap player never should have played so many Test. Any bowler picked for his batting is just dire.

 

[cover drive man]

Crap player never should have played so many Test. Any bowler picked for his batting is just dire.

What I was going to say.

 

[ScreaM]

Well he didn't do what he said he would do and get the selectors to choose him over Panesar.

after being replace in the 3rd test at the WACA in the ashes

 

[Steulen]

Not that I'm a fan of Giles or anything, but I think y'all are treating him a bit harshly.

You see the problems England now has with four out-and-out bowlers making up a tail starting at #8. At the very least, Giles was better than a tailender and he understood the importance of hanging around.

Whether that offset his lack a bite as a bowler is up for debate, admittedly.

 

[chaminda_00]

Meh, Tremlett can bat, so can Plunklett and Mahmood when they put their brains to it. There no reason why they can't pick a bowler who bats if they want. They picked a useless bowler for so long, so why not just keep picking those retards.

 

[pietersenrocks]

wat a poor end 2 a fighting career

 

[Gloucefan]

Meh, Tremlett can bat, so can Plunklett and Mahmood when they put their brains to it. There no reason why they can't pick a bowler who bats if they want. They picked a useless bowler for so long, so why not just keep picking those retards.

They can score runs but they not in the same class as Giles with the bat. He knew how to bat well enough when only the tail was left but he also knew how to hang around long enough to back up a genuine batsman. None of the above have that skill yet.

 

[Richard]

My word some people don't have a clue.

Yes, he played many Tests he should not have done, but he was very, very far from a "crap" "useless" etc. bowler. As I've said ad nauseum, on a turning pitch he was usually a real handful, and you can't really ask too much more of a fingerspinner than that.

Giles played his part in successes many times, and to say he'll be best remembered for The Ashes is ignorant too - he played a small part in it compared to the Flintoffs and Joneses.

That he was picked on non-turning pitches so many times because of the "you need variation" rubbish does not, in my mind, reflect anything on him.

 

[iamdavid]

Was a very useful lower order bat (a FC average in the high twenties and a few FC hundreds clearly put him a bit above the likes of Mahmood, Plunkett, Tremlett, etc) and for all the flak his bowling copped...he was between the decline of Phill Tufnell and the rise of Panesar the best spinner in England and during that 5 year period he made the most of what god gave him.

 

[Gloucefan]

Well said.

A crap or useless bowler doesn't have a first class average of 29 and a list A average of 25. No he isn't a fantastic bowling talent but did a very good job for England to the best of his abilities.

His stats reflect the fact that he was asked to bowl defensively on none turning wickets many times. As Richard said, not his fault.

 

[Richard]

Well said.

A crap or useless bowler doesn't have a first class average of 29 and a list A average of 25. No he isn't a fantastic bowling talent but did a very good job for England to the best of his abilities.

His stats reflect the fact that he was asked to bowl defensively on none turning wickets many times. As Scaly said, not his fault.

You're dead to me, son.

 

[open365]

Pretty poor international bowler, but at least he was better than Croft,Batty, Dawson and co.

I must say i never realised his domestic stats are as good as they are before this thread.

 

[Prince EWS]

Crap player never should have played so many Test. Any bowler picked for his batting is just dire.

How often exactly was he picked because of his batting, though?

It has been much publicised that this was the reason for his selection in the 2006-07 Ashes series (and although anyone who saw the tour matches will actually tell you otherwise - ie. how Panesar was looking completely innocuous and how Giles was actually bowling quite well - I'll concede it as a truth for the sake of argument), but how often other than that was it true? AFAIK, he was selected, for the most part anyway, because he was England's best spinner at the time. He was never consistently outperformed by any spinners in English first class cricket during his test career to my knowledge, and those who called for his head generally wanted another batsman or another fast bowler to take his place.

Secondly, this business of "bowlers picked for their batting" became a neccessary evil the day Alec Stewart retired. England locked themselves into picking a batsman - that is, someone selected in a specialist batsman's position - for his bowling: Andrew Flintoff. Flintoff has never in his test career ever been a justified selection in the England test team on his batting alone, so if England were to persist with him batting 6, a counter-balancing player at 8 was required. All the talk of Giles balancing the side all those years wasn't just a Fletcheristic idea focused on multi-skilled players - it was simply common sense once England had decided to pick only 5 batsmen.

I was never a fan of Giles, but his role in balancing the side was often a key one, and the quality of his bowling has been far-too-often played down simply because he can bat a bit.

 

[Richard]

I was never a fan of Giles, but his role in balancing the side was often a key one, and the quality of his bowling has been far-too-often played down simply because he can bat a bit.

Abso-bloody-lutely, happens with all sorts of bowlers very often.

 

[pietersenrocks]

Giles was a very useful spinner.......N' he was da best in England..in his time......he dun well for England .. cos we dint had any other quality spinner......N' stats dun shows everything.....he has performed wen it matters.......he was fantastic in d Ashes2005 .. most glorious series for England...And boy he skored a pretty gud half-century...2 save da last Test too...