True, it was a response to something Richard had said earlier about Smith vs. Broad being a pure test of patience. Standing alone, it does seem a rather ridiculous comparison
Harris is similar to Giles in my book. Doesnt turn the ball loads, but when the pitch is in his favor turns it enough to be a threat. Panesar has the longer fingers to turn the ball more, but he always bowls at exactly the same pace(about 87ks). There is little variation. Ok so I can understand that as a spinner you need to be persistent and all of that, but a little variation in pace, flight etc is always a good thing. Vettori does it, Giles did it consistently as well. Panesar has the potential to be a much better bowler but he needs to work on tossing the ball up a bit more. It is the reason why he failed in ODIs when he got the chance and its also the reason why he has never got a single stumping in test match cricket (nor is likely to anytime in the near future)Classic that
Panesar does occasionally beat batsmen in the flight, more often than i have seen Harris do so anyway. Harris in India appeared unable to turn a ball at all, even on the third-test pitch doctored to precisely that ends.
Well until about May I would have suggested Ramprakash but Ramps under all the pressure of getting his 100th 100 has ended up returning to his former un-glory days of failing under pressure. At this point in time, I would prefer Shah to get his long deserved chance, although I am not sure he would succeed. Rob Key would be another option. In the future though, as I have suggested in another thread Id like Flintoff to replace a batsmen and bat at number 7 with a keeper at 6.
Sadly, until Jones and Flintoff (or Tremlett regains his best form) are fully match-fit, he is the best option at this point. Having Hoggard, Sidebottom and Anderson for example in the same side is a recipe for disaster in non-swinging conditions.
That may very well happen as there is plenty of talent in that England top 6. Its unfortunate however how all of them have been under performing for well over a year now.
I would suggest that another reason Panesar never gets stumpings is that his pace makes it impractical to regularly come down the pitch at him.
Well that is exactly the point though. He bowls too flat. You cant really bowl quick as well as flight the ball, those are inherent contradictions.
Did Rob Key really fail though? He was the pick of the batsmen against the WI in his most recent stint and while he didnt do great things in the series against SA, he didnt even play out the whole series. His 83 in the series was an excellent performance and he was playing brilliantly until he danced down the track against Boje in the first test for his 41. I dont think he was proven conclusively to be not good enough, and 2 bad tests against SA and one good one wont change that.
He still only averaged 31. There's truth in what you say, and Key has said previously that he feels he was dropped just when he felt he was getting to terms with test cricket. But unlike Prior, he's not doing especially well in county cricket at the moment. So there is a case to recall Key, it's just that i feel the case for Prior is more convincing.
Maybe so. That's quite some if, though, for my money, given that Anderson is not massively better than he was in 2003 and could do virtually nothing of the sort that series.
Just out of interest, given how much you harp on about it regarding other English summers(
), what were the balls like in 2003? Did they offer much swing to anyone? I think I remember a pretty useful spell of swing bowling by Kallis in that series actually, but I don't remember anyone doing it consistently.The ball swung for pretty much everyone at Headingly. Bicknell was essentially selected for that reason and that was the same ground at which Kallis managed a 6fer. For the rest of the series though there was no swing, just some up and down wickets and occasional seam movement. Bicknell of course was the only one who managed to somehwat swing the cherry at the Oval IIRC.Just out of interest, given how much you harp on about it regarding other English summers(
To be fair, Martin Bicknell could swing a brick.
I'm not sure if it's actually more swing as such. It'll move more before it reaches the batsman, yes, but in reality the ball just starts going earlier. Whilst the ball moves more from its original path, it's easier to play because the batsman will pick up the swing earlier - that's without even factoring in that the slower pace of the ball will give him more time to adjust as well, regardless of swing.
If it moves more before it reaches the batsmen, isnt that more swing? My point though is that the slower you bowl, the more likely you are to swing it. Its almost like the inverse of reverse swing, even though Jones has claimed that he has been able to get the ball to reverse at 65mph. Yes the batsmen will be able to negate swing if they had more time to react to it or the ball starts to swing earlier and that is essentially why Bicknell would probably have never cut it at the test match level. Thats not a mark against bicknell who did his job admirably against SA that summer but IMO his pace meant that he was always likely to swing the ball.
I sincerely hope this comment is based on recent form, as there is absolutely no chance that Hashim Amla is even comparable to Michael Vaughan as a Test batsman.
Hashim Amla has only really had three good series out of the 11 he's played, most other times he's either failed outright or scored a half century and averaged in the twenties or thirties. Two of those series and three of his four Test centuries have came against New Zealand and I beleive he benefitted very heavily from several dropped catches during his 176* and 103 in the 2007/08 series. Admittedly his technique has improved since his initial foray into Test cricket but I still don't rate him as much of a Test batsman as he's never shown me that he is capable of scoring runs in difficult situations.
I rate Ashwell Prince very highly, in my eyes he is a solid customer who can fight for runs when the going is tough and capatalise when the bowling is wayward or the pitch is flat. I really do think he has the potential to average around 45 for South Africa, he just needs to be hungrier for his runs. I think it's very unfair to say that he "has been out of sorts for a long time now". He debuted too early and was rightfully discarded for a couple of years, but since 2005 he's been averaging over 45 in the middle order and over 50 at home.
If it is then its a great signing for both teams. He needs opportunities and he has some real ability.
TBH I don't know what more he has to do to convince you. He's never going to repeat 2002 and 2002/03 (not that those series were anywhere near as good as the number of let-offs he had made them look, but he still made several chanceless massive scores, yes). Vaughan in 2007, against both teams, played well. Same against NZ in the opening series of this summer. No-one is going to score 70 or 80 + every time they come to the crease. Vaughan has made the odd massive score and the odd other important contribution (at least one of which was a not-out). He's done absolutely fine for me, and I'd not remotely question his place based on his non-opening form in the last year.
