How do you feel about Shane Warne?

[DaRick]

He may well be the best legspinner of all time (Bill O' Reilly may've been better; if that was the case, then he must've been a joy to watch).

 

[Engle]

In a team selected to play on covered wickets, you need no spinners.

In a team selected to play on uncovered wickets, you need spinners.

It's as simple as that.

It's as brainless to pick a team for both pitch-types as it is to pick a combined Test and ODI team. Change the pitch from covered to uncovered, and you're changing one hell of a massive variable in the game.

Show me an example on this board (or any other) or a book or any media, where All-Time XI's are picked based on covered or uncovered wickets.

 

[silentstriker]

Show me an example on this board (or any other) or a book or any media, where All-Time XI's are picked based on covered or uncovered wickets.

Maybe someone has or hasn't, but just because people don't, that doesn't mean they shouldn't.

To be honest though, good all time pace bowlers can be very lethal on uncovered wickets. I'd back a Curtly Ambrose to run wild with the type of bounce he'd get. You'd just have to close your eyes and swing.

 

[Burgey]

In a team selected to play on covered wickets, you need no spinners.

In a team selected to play on uncovered wickets, you need spinners.

It's as simple as that.

It's as brainless to pick a team for both pitch-types as it is to pick a combined Test and ODI team. Change the pitch from covered to uncovered, and you're changing one hell of a massive variable in the game.

But they cover the wickets on the subcontinent, and they turn don't they? Are you saying don't play a spinner there?
Depends where you're playing doesn't it? I wouldn't have Warne in my all time XI to play Australia on a WACA pitch from 1971, but he'd be in the reckoning to play on an SCG pitch from the mid-80s.
Both of those wickets were covered.

 

[Burgey]

you can read up some of my posts on him in my tribute thread to Shane Warne... He is easily the best cricketer I have met in terms of approachability.

I'll go back and have a look at them. Thanks for that mate.

Indeed... You can say the same about bowling offspin through a wrist spinners' action and adding in the doosra. Look at how hard it is... Saqlain has totally gone off the boil, Harbhajan hasn't turned his offie in God knows how long, and the others are nowhere to be seen. Spin bowling is treated way too easily here. Go to the nets and try to land a few at the same spot with varying degrees of turn, length and speed. You don't have to even bowl it, just stand there and try to put the ball there.... This is what I used to tell kids from my old school, who thought spin bowling was just running up and throwing it up to the batter for a few overs while the pacers were resting. This attitude could cost us quite a few spinners, this and the fact that they are bringing in boundaries everywhere and bats are becoming powerful and more powerful (I mean, did Afridi even time one shot of his yesterday???)... Way to destroy the spinner.....

AWTA

That is such a ridiculous statement but I'll excuse you because you werent watching the game in the 80s

FYI, a LOT of people got thorughly sick and tired of seeing teams copying the WI model - this involved using a constant stream of pace bowlers to batter the opposition into submission or, when things inevitably didnt go their way due to lack of variation, slowing the game down through ridiculously slow over rates or a proliferation of bouncers that people couldnt get a bat on.

Fortunately, administrators took heed and introduced minimum overs in the day, placed a limit on the number of bouncers and the cricket ball definitely became less bowler friendly (reduction in seam height, etc)

All of these moves were designed to bring spin bowling back into the game as it was becoming repetitve and friggin' boring

That's so. In the 80s, there was a school of thought that if cricket went down the all-pace-attack way, the game would cease to be if the playing conditions were kept the same as they were then.

 

[honestbharani]

That's true, obviously. But I'd say if spin ceased to be bowled, cricket would live on, whilst the same thing would categorically not be true of seam.

Seam |= spin, sure. But equally, seam >>> spin.

I don't think cricket will live without spinners, personally. We will juz have to agree to disagree... 10 years of Holding/Roberts/Garner/Marshall/Croft is not going to degrade the value that spinners have brought over 100s of years of the game......

 

[Top_Cat]

That's so. In the 80s, there was a school of thought that if cricket went down the all-pace-attack way, the game would cease to be if the playing conditions were kept the same as they were then.

Exactly. I remember that being said too. Warne brought spin (and ***y) back but it wasn't a pure accident.

 

[honestbharani]

Maybe someone has or hasn't, but just because people don't, that doesn't mean they shouldn't.

To be honest though, good all time pace bowlers can be very lethal on uncovered wickets. I'd back a Curtly Ambrose to run wild with the type of bounce he'd get. You'd just have to close your eyes and swing.

So how effective were the RSA pace battery in the last test at Kanpur again?????????????????????????

 

[social]

In a team selected to play on covered wickets, you need no spinners.

In a team selected to play on uncovered wickets, you need spinners.

It's as simple as that.

It's as brainless to pick a team for both pitch-types as it is to pick a combined Test and ODI team. Change the pitch from covered to uncovered, and you're changing one hell of a massive variable in the game.

How about you pick your all-time X1 for covered wickets with the only criteria being that you're not allowed to pick a spinner

You're allowed first choice of everybody

I'll have the leftovers plus choice of venues for a 5 test series

We'll then take a poll as to the result

 

[_Ed_]

Dunno really. Hate the bloke, but there is no denying his greatness as a player.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

He's also a source of entertainment for me, stories of his ***ual escapades are always good for a laugh.

 

[bond21]

so what if you hate him?

i dont like tom cruise and i think he is an exceptional actor...

I also hate paris hilton with a passion but i think shes exceptional TRAILOR TRASH

 

[Richard]

How about you pick your all-time X1 for covered wickets with the only criteria being that you're not allowed to pick a spinner

You're allowed first choice of everybody

I'll have the leftovers plus choice of venues for a 5 test series

We'll then take a poll as to the result

I couldn't care less if some people think Lillee-Warne-Ambrose-Muralitharan would outdo Marshall-Donald-Hadlee-Imran on a (normal) covered wicket against an identical batting-line-up. They wouldn't, and anyone who thinks they would just doesn't really have a clue.

 

[_Ed_]

i dont like tom cruise and i think he is an exceptional actor..

You do? Wow. I don't know anyone else who thinks that.

 

[Richard]

But they cover the wickets on the subcontinent, and they turn don't they? Are you saying don't play a spinner there?
Depends where you're playing doesn't it? I wouldn't have Warne in my all time XI to play Australia on a WACA pitch from 1971, but he'd be in the reckoning to play on an SCG pitch from the mid-80s.
Both of those wickets were covered.

Obviously, but in the post-covered-wickets era turning surfaces are in a very small minority. There are (or at least there were until recently) still a decent number in India, there are still a decent number in Sri Lanka, and normally you'd expect one at The SCG.

Even on a turning pitch at such a ground an all-seam attack of Marshall, Donald, Hadlee and Imran Khan would probably outbowl even the best spinners. When you consider that these grounds are a very, very small minority, it's just a no-brainer that given covered wickets you don't need spinners, IMO.

 

[Ikki]

You do? Wow. I don't know anyone else who thinks that.

Here's another. Tom Cruise is a great actor. Vanilla Sunshine, Born on the 4th of July, Magnolia, Jerry Maguire, A Few Good Men, Collateral, Minority Report....rent them and have a good weekend.

 

[Richard]

I don't think cricket will live without spinners, personally. We will juz have to agree to disagree... 10 years of Holding/Roberts/Garner/Marshall/Croft is not going to degrade the value that spinners have brought over 100s of years of the game......

But the years up to 1970 were played under totally different circumstances. Since pitches were covered in this country, only the very, very best spinners have been able to have success everywhere. Even someone as good as Kumble struggled for most of his career outside India.

Had Warne and Muralitharan not happened (as could easily have been the case - say Warne had been good at AFL, which was his first love, and Murali had been wrongly no-balled out of the game as so nearly happened) then we'd have seen spin be virtually non-existant since the mid-1970s. As it is, people still think the Roberts-Holding-Garner-Croft \ Marshall-Holding-Garner-Patterson \ etc. etc. thing was just an interlude. That's wrong. The Warne\Murali era was just an interlude.

Unless uncovered pitches are brought back (which is extremely unlikely) spin will go back to being a very, very peripheral art when these two are gone from the game. And who knows - this time it could be for much longer than it was between the mid-1970s and early-1990s.

 

[_Ed_]

Here's another. Tom Cruise is a great actor. Vanilla Sunshine, Born on the 4th of July, Magnolia, Jerry Maguire, A Few Good Men, Collateral, Minority Report....rent them and have a good weekend.

Have to admit I've seen only about half of those, but wasn't impressed by his performance in any of them.

 

[Richard]

Show me an example on this board (or any other) or a book or any media, where All-Time XI's are picked based on covered or uncovered wickets.

Maybe someone has or hasn't, but just because people don't, that doesn't mean they shouldn't.

Exactly. It's plain madness to pick a team thinking they'd play some games on covered, some on uncovered wickets. The two are completely and totally incomparable.

To be honest though, good all time pace bowlers can be very lethal on uncovered wickets. I'd back a Curtly Ambrose to run wild with the type of bounce he'd get. You'd just have to close your eyes and swing.

However, this isn't neccessarily true. Generally, seam-bowlers could not operate on uncovered wickets, as they could not keep their footing. That is one of the reasons I dislike the idea - it seems to me to have been as much of a disadvanage to seam-bowlers as it was an advantage to spinners. I don't object to the advantage to spinners - they are lesser-grade bowlers than seamers and need this if they're going to be as effective as seamers. But I don't like the idea that the seamers are taken out of the game.

And rest assured, if you did what they did in this country in 1987(?) and had uncovered wickets which covered the seam-bowler's run-up and followthrough and allowed him to operate, that really would be bordering on the dangerous.

 

[social]

I couldn't care less if some people think Lillee-Warne-Ambrose-Muralitharan would outdo Marshall-Donald-Hadlee-Imran on a (normal) covered wicket against an identical batting-line-up. They wouldn't, and anyone who thinks they would just doesn't really have a clue.

I've given you every advantage - first choice of virtually every player (batsmen (not identical lineups) keepers and seam bowlers) in the entire history of cricket, and you come up with your usual throw away line and act as if it is some type of fact.

Bottom line is that if the match was played at Kandy, Galle etc etc etc in 40 degree heat with 90 per cent humidity, there would come a time when your fast bowlers would be begging my team's captain to declare and then your batsman would have to face bowlers capable of bowling all day on wickets where they average in the teens

No contest buddy

 

[Richard]

Kandy, UIMM, rarely sees such flying temperatures as it's at sufficient altitude to escape them.

Obviously, there's very rare circumstances where such things as heat will disrupt seam-bowlers. However, no, you'll never see a circumstance where Marshall, Donald, Hadlee and Imran are begging for a declaration having been whammed for 500+. Never.

Nonetheless, why not? It'll be interesting to see who's got a clue and who hasn't. But I won't be accepting that Warne or Murali are even close to these bowlers, under all but the very rarest circumstances.

If you tour around this planet, playing on 10 cricket grounds per country, Marshall-Donald-Hadlee-Imran will outperform a four-man attack containing a spinner or spinners on all bar a tiny number of occasions.