Hayden or Anwar?

[Ikki]

I only accept I'm wrong where I've been wrong though. And I've never seen any reason to believe I am so in this case.

For the year 2001 - same year they played Australia:

Average, S/R
Donald: 26, 58
Pollock: 21, 56
Kallis: 26, 61

Donald is a tick worse than his usual self, whilst Pollock and Kallis are actually better than their career stats. And these will also have suffered taking a knock from Hayden and co.

EDIT: should add that they played at the end of 2001 and into the first week of January.

Before the series:

Average, S/R
Donald: 24, 57
Pollock: 19, 53
Kallis: 24, 58

So as you can see, these 3 went into it on fire.

 

[Richard]

You gotta love the assessment

It was a very good attack before the 2 series against Aus and it was a very good attack afterwards.

Just so happened they turned into a bad attack when Hayden faced them.

I disagree, I don't feel they were. Look at the India series prior to that series, few of the bowlers were especially impressive.

Look at the series after; they were so unconvincing, even against Sri Lanka at home, that Stephen Elworthy and Andrew Hall became front-line bowlers.

 

[Richard]

For the year 2001 - same year they played Australia:

Average, S/R
Donald: 26, 58
Pollock: 21, 56
Kallis: 26, 61

Donald is a tick worse than his usual self, whilst Pollock and Kallis are actually better than their career stats. And these will also have suffered taking a knock from Hayden and co.

EDIT: should add that they played at the end of 2001 and into the first week of January.

Before the series:

Average, S/R
Donald: 24, 57
Pollock: 19, 53
Kallis: 24, 58

So as you can see, these 3 went into it on fire.

They didn't. Donald didn't even play in 2001\02 (played in 2000\01) before the Aus series. He was clearly no longer much of a bowler in it. Pollock was clearly no longer a good bowler on flat pitches in 2001\02, and his record in the few Tests before the Australia series and the hundreds of ones after that demonstrates this all too vividly.

Here are Kallis' matches in 2000\01:
36-118-2
28-61-1
25.5-26-2
15-31-0
13-48-1
19-54-3
He then had a largely good series in West Indies, but had been almost equally ineffective against England in 1999\2000, and had bowled sparingly though well in India later on.

Kallis has never been a top-ranking bowler, more someone who'd always have the odd really good series and be a mostly defensive operative at other times.

Here are his matches in 2002\03
28-75-3
30.1-110-7
23-52-2
18-69-1

Hardly outstanding at all.

 

[nightprowler10]

Pollock averaged 21.38 in 2001 and 26.20 in 2002.
Donald averaged 26.45 in 2001 and 101.50 in 2002.
Hayward averaged 38.15 in 2001 and 20.93 in 2002.
Ntini averaged 47.69 in 2001 and 24.40 in 2002.
Klusener averaged 40.39 in 2001 and did not play in 2002.
Kallis averaged 26.66 in 2001 and 26.90 in 2002.

Some of your points are correct, Alan Donald fell away drastically in 2002 while Ntini, Hayward and Klusener were all rubbish in 2001.

Other than that, argue your heart out Richard.

Hmm, perhaps Richard isn't that far off the mark this time around.

 

[Perm]

Hmm, perhaps Richard isn't that far off the mark this time around.

He made a couple of good points, but you can't disguise the fact that most of them had sub 30 averages.

 

[Ikki]

They didn't. Donald didn't even play in 2001\02 (played in 2000\01) before the Aus series. He was clearly no longer much of a bowler in it. Pollock was clearly no longer a good bowler on flat pitches in 2001\02, and his record in the few Tests before the Australia series and the hundreds of ones after that demonstrates this all too vividly.

Here are Kallis' matches in 2000\01:
36-118-2
28-61-1
25.5-26-2
15-31-0
13-48-1
19-54-3
He then had a largely good series in West Indies, but had been almost equally ineffective against England in 1999\2000, and had bowled sparingly though well in India later on.

Kallis has never been a top-ranking bowler, more someone who'd always have the odd really good series and be a mostly defensive operative at other times.

Here are his matches in 2002\03
28-75-3
30.1-110-7
23-52-2
18-69-1

Hardly outstanding at all.

What are you talking about?

Here it is:

Kallis

Donald

Pollock

As you can see, for that year, Donald played 5, Pollock 11 and Kallis 11. This is how they went that year following the test series with Australia.

 

[Goughy]

I disagree, I don't feel they were. Look at the India series prior to that series, few of the bowlers were especially impressive.

Look at the series after; they were so unconvincing, even against Sri Lanka at home, that Stephen Elworthy and Andrew Hall became front-line bowlers.

You are talking about the India series where they had to face supposedly one of the strongest batting line ups in recent history.

They won that series and repeatedly bowled India out for under 265 in the '3 match' series.

Maybe a batting lineup of Laxman, Ganguly, Dravid, Tendulkar, Sehwag etc offered them easy wickets?

Then in the 2 series (ignoring Bangladesh) after Aus they had TEAM bowling averages of 22.2 and 20.5. Remember thats team average, meaning it is all the bowlers from the best to the worst combined.

Those numbers are scary good.

 

[Goughy]

From the beginning of 2001 to the end of 2002, South Africa won 12 Tests and lost 1 (Ignoring the Aus games).

How a team can do that with a supposed crappy attack is beyond me.

There is no logical conclusion to draw from the weight of evidence apart from the fact that at the period in question the Australians (Hayden included) were a different class to the rest of the world and were capable of destroying excellent attacks

 

[nightprowler10]

He made a couple of good points,

Which is pretty good for him.

 

[iamdavid]

I have been searching hard for many days but couldn't find a single international innings by Hayden against Glenn McGrath and Craig McDermott (with or without a third seamer of note)

Dunno if this counts as an international but hey, innings by Hayden against Glenn McGrath and Craig McDermott without a third seamer of note

http://www1.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1994-95/OD_TOURNEYS/WSC/AUS_AUS-A_WSC_OD6_11DEC1994.html

 

[Richard]

You are talking about the India series where they had to face supposedly one of the strongest batting line ups in recent history.

They won that series and repeatedly bowled India out for under 265 in the '3 match' series.

Maybe a batting lineup of Laxman, Ganguly, Dravid, Tendulkar, Sehwag etc offered them easy wickets?

Then in the 2 series (ignoring Bangladesh) after Aus they had TEAM bowling averages of 22.2 and 20.5. Remember thats team average, meaning it is all the bowlers from the best to the worst combined.

Those numbers are scary good.

Ntini had a terrible series against India, routinely conceding 4, sometimes even 5, an-over, and taking 6 wickets in the 3 matches. Pollock clearly struggled bowling at batsmen on flat pitches (tore through them on the few occasions there was something in the pitch and dismissed tailenders for fun). Mornantau Hayward was hardly outstanding either. Kallis and Klusener certainly offered little threat. Donald didn't even play.

 

[Perm]

Dunno if this counts as an international but hey, innings by Hayden against Glenn McGrath and Craig McDermott without a third seamer of note

http://www1.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1994-95/OD_TOURNEYS/WSC/AUS_AUS-A_WSC_OD6_11DEC1994.html

Look at his strike rate, a far cry from the Hayden of today.

 

[Richard]

From the beginning of 2001 to the end of 2002, South Africa won 12 Tests and lost 1 (Ignoring the Aus games).

How a team can do that with a supposed crappy attack is beyond me.

There is no logical conclusion to draw from the weight of evidence apart from the fact that at the period in question the Australians (Hayden included) were a different class to the rest of the world and were capable of destroying excellent attacks

The conclusion is simple; there was virtually nothing in the pitches the Australia Tests were played on; there was sometimes something (not always mind) in the pitches the other Tests were played on.

The South African attack was most certainly not crappy, at all, but it did depend on there being something in the pitch. When there wasn't, pretty much in all 6 Tests against Australia, and on several occasions against other teams, they struggled.

 

[iamdavid]

You could say the same about Gordon Greenidge, no-one called him technically poor, and he averaged 47 for most of his Test career against attacks mostly infinitely better than Hayden has ever faced.

Anwar, likewise, averaged fairly similar against probably even better attacks. If Hayden would be remotely capable of scoring 43 and 118 against Donald, de Villiers, Pollock and Klusener (pretty indisputably the best seam-attack since Marshall, Holding, Garner and Walsh in 84\85) I'll eat my computer.

Never called Anwar techincally poor, just pointing out his technique was not pristine he did have some quite well-known flaws. Then again so did Steve Waugh, Jayasuria, Ganguly and plenty of other quality players.

And I'm quite sure on his day Hayden would be capable of dominating the said attack, he's had his problem with quality seam attacks but he's also shown on several occasions he can play big innings against them.
Question is just the likelyhood of him doing so, compared to Anwar.

 

[Richard]

What are you talking about?

Here it is:

Kallis

Donald

Pollock

As you can see, for that year, Donald played 5, Pollock 11 and Kallis 11. This is how they went that year following the test series with Australia.

You mean the year preceding, presumably.

Donald played just 5 Tests, doing reasonably well but clearly not being the force of old, anyone who watched the Tests (and those of the previous season, for that matter) could tell that.

Kallis you've made the mistake of looking at overall average and including Bangladesh, both of which give a false impression of how he bowled. Kallis has never been an outstanding bowler, he just had a fine series in West Indies.

Pollock, meanwhile, has been for an age someone who depends on friendly conditions. He got them - sometimes (and he struggled when he didn't) - in some of the previous Tests. Not once did he get them against Australia. Had he done so, he'd have had Hayden for breakfast.

 

[Richard]

Never called Anwar techincally poor, just pointing out his technique was not pristine he did have some quite well-known flaws. Then again so did Steve Waugh, Jayasuria, Ganguly and plenty of other quality players.

And I'm quite sure on his day Hayden would be capable of dominating the said attack, he's had his problem with quality seam attacks but he's also shown on several occasions he can play big innings against them.

I don't think he has. I think he'd not stand a chance against such an attack, especially on a seaming surface, 19 times out of 20 (and the 20th would be in the inevitable event that they had a bad off-day).

Sure, more batsmen than not would have some element of trouble with that attack, but I'd back many, including Anwar, to do better than Hayden.

 

[Perm]

Pollock averaged 21.38 in 2001 and 26.20 in 2002.
Donald averaged 26.45 in 2001 and 101.50 in 2002.
Hayward averaged 38.15 in 2001 and 20.93 in 2002.
Ntini averaged 47.69 in 2001 and 24.40 in 2002.
Klusener averaged 40.39 in 2001 and did not play in 2002.
Kallis averaged 26.66 in 2001 and 26.90 in 2002.

Some of your points are correct, Alan Donald fell away drastically in 2002 while Ntini, Hayward and Klusener were all rubbish in 2001.

Other than that, argue your heart out Richard.

Not worthy of a response it seems.

 

[iamdavid]

Ntini was rubbish at that time, Donald was nothing but a shadow of a once brilliant bowler, Pollock was not much good on flat pitches by then, Kallis likewise, Klusener was past his best, and Hayward for all his potential never managed to be that good.

That, like almost all other attacks since 2001\02 that Hayden's faced, was wholly average.

Just about agree with you there, Hayden did play marvelously that summer, well enough to suggest he could've scored runs against just about anyone.

However the South African attack was not all it was billed up to be, Donald if I recall right only played 3 of the 6 tests and while far from roobish he was clearly struggling for rythym and match fitness.
Klusner was tripe.
Pollock looked all at sea in Australia but by the return series in South Africa he had refound his feet and looked dangerous again, that his figures werent that good is a credit to Australia.
Ntini hadnt found his feet at test level yet.
Kallis like Pollock was rubbish in Australia but by the end of the return series in South Africa was bowling very well and gave the Australians some serious greif.
Pretorious and Nel played a test each if I recall correctly and both were wayward and not overly threatening, Nel not yet the bowler he is nowdays.
Similar story with Andrew Hall, one test, ineffective.

 

[Richard]

Not worthy of a response it seems.

I pretty much have responded to the points you raise in that post, even if not directly quoting from it.

 

[Richard]

Pollock looked all at sea in Australia but by the return series in South Africa he had refound his feet and looked dangerous again, that his figures werent that good is a credit to Australia.

Pollock missed all three home Tests, not that I reckon he'd have got much out of any of the surfaces had he played, as they were all very flat.