I actually wonder whether RP Singh has more potential than Irfan Pathan. Their records against Test-class teams are both poor, but Pathan appears to have more control. On the other hand, RP Singh can move the red ball more. I've not seen him generate as much reverse swing as conventional swing. Even when he has, it has often been in the middle of a dross-ridden spell.RP Singh gets the ball to swing both conventional and reverse. Now I know there are problems with his accuracy and ability to bowl cutters when the ball is not swinging but he bowls at a decent pace and for my money has done a decent while not tremendous job for India after being made to lead the attack with very little experience. I am not convinced about him just yet, but I feel that he has far more potential that Irfan Pathan who IMO is merely a poor mans James Franklin.
Here are my definitive thoughts on RP Singh from a few months back (except now I think that Anderson is better):
http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/showpost.php?p=1523190&postcount=1138
I never said that he couldn't move the red ball, I just made a general statement that moving the red ball is more difficult than moving the white ball. TBH, I've never seen Praveen Kumar with a red ball, which is why I didn't try to make any inferences about his ability to move it.Now if Praveen Kumar cannot swing the red ball, I cannot on earth fathom how a bowler that bowls at barely 130ks can manage to take 8 5 wicket hauls at an avg of 21.5 in 25 FC games in India. I very much doubt that he cant swing the red ball and the only way we will know whether or not he can is by playing him at the test level. The only worrying attribute is his pace, but if he is a smart bowler who can bowl cutters and and slower balls, I think he will be just fine.
Yeah. I support him (to an extent), but I find little to fault in your statement.As far as Mitchell is concerned, the lad averages almost 32 in FC cricket. Someone in Australia should have bothered showing up to watch FC cricket to see whether he could actually swing the red cherry before drafting him into the test side.
I'm unsure whether they actually are. While they have made some bizarre calls (playing Brad Williams in Colombo, persisting with an out-of-form Jason Gillespie, mishandling the careers of both Simon Katich and Darren Lehmann, etc.), they have made some pretty inspired ones, too (debuting Stuart Clark, marginalising Shaun Tait where possible, persisting with Mark Taylor in 1996/97). There have been surprisingly few duds selected in the Australian side - even then, most of them were selected for decent reasons (injury, horses-for-courses, retirements, etc.)Australian selectors are really amongst the worst in the world and I shudder to think what might have happened had they been in charge of a team like NZ.
FWIW, Johnson averages 33 in Tests and 26 in ODI's. Not great and he could certainly do with a rest to give others a go (i.e - a brief dropping), but not definitively poor, either.