***Official*** West Indies in England

[James_W]

Pollard to gun it.

 

[oitoitoi]

broad picks up another soft one, awful shot that, was never on.

razzaq just added to his hundred with 1-10 off his first 2 overs opening the bowling.

 

[wpdavid]

MOTM is a tricky call unless Ramdin does something extraordinary.

 

[James_W]

Taylor to gun it.. ?

 

[King Pietersen]

Ramdin gone. Nice catch from Prior, made it look more difficult than it was though tbh. Prior for MOTM for me, really enjoyed his innings.

 

[wfdu_ben91]

You don't believe that an ODi average of 35 in the modern era is pretty average/mediocre? How many of the superb batsmen of this era, that play properly in ODi's average 35 or less? Not many of them, Jayawardene's pretty much the only non-opening aggressive batsman who you'd regard in the top 25 batsmen of his era, to average 35 or less. All the top ODI proper batsmen average comfortably over 35. Tendulkar, Hayden, Ganguly, Kallis, Pietersen, Hussey, Chanderpaul, Lara, Symonds, Ponting etc etc all average comfortably above 35. There aren't many top class ODI batsmen averaging 35 or less.

Herschelle Gibbs? Adam Gilchrist? Sanath Jayasuriya? Nathan Astle? Stephen Flemming? Younis Khan? Andy Flower?

 

[oitoitoi]

They shouldn't give MOTM awards in games of this quality, instead there should be a public humiliation for the worst performance, shiv may have scored slowly but at least he scored i suppose. Dimi's had a bit of a mare, our good friend runako could get violent so probably best to leave him alone, Gayle for getting out to such a horrid shot?

 

[BoyBrumby]

No-one ever got rich overestimating England, but think this one is done now.

Not a great advert for the longer limited over format as it stands either.

 

[TT Boy]

Herschelle Gibbs? Adam Gilchrist? Sanath Jayasuriya? Nathan Astle? Stephen Flemming? Younis Khan? Andy Flower?

ODI cricket?

Wouldn't take Flem or Flower either.

 

[oitoitoi]

Herschelle Gibbs? Adam Gilchrist? Sanath Jayasuriya? Nathan Astle? Stephen Flemming? Younis Khan? Andy Flower?

Sangakkarra and Aravinda De Silva too.

It's a combination of strike rate, average, the role they play in the side. To say that no one who averaged below 35 could be a top class ODI bat is ludicrous. In fairness until recently you could take away his scores against india and be left with a very average batsmen in Younis Khan's case. Was never that convinced with Fleming as a OD player.

 

[wfdu_ben91]

Virender Sehwag and Steve Waugh aswell.

 

[King Pietersen]

Gibbs, Gilchrist and Jayasuriya all have very good strike rates, and are pinch hitters at the top of the order, making their average of 35 far better, as they made their runs quickly. Astle was a pretty average ODI batsman, he was decent but I'd say his average in ODI cricket pretty much sums him up as an ODi player. Fleming had talent but didn't prove that in International cricket, his Test record is very poor considering his talent. Younis Khan is a mediocre ODi batsman, as was Andy Flower. There's not 1 top ODi batsman from the modern era averaging 35 or less without having that high strike rate or opening the innings. The large majority of the top, top players average 40+ or very close to 40, making 35 and less, pretty mediocre in my eyes, except in the case of the Gilchrist-esque players where their strike rates made up for the lower levels of consistency.

 

[TT Boy]

Gibbs, Gilchrist and Jayasuriya all have very good strike rates, and are pinch hitters at the top of the order, making their average of 35 far better, as they made their runs quickly. Astle was a pretty average ODI batsman, he was decent but I'd say his average in ODI cricket pretty much sums him up as an ODi player. Fleming had talent but didn't prove that in International cricket, his Test record is very poor considering his talent. Younis Khan is a mediocre ODi batsman, as was Andy Flower. There's not 1 top ODi batsman from the modern era averaging 35 or less without having that high strike rate or opening the innings. The large majority of the top, top players average 40+ or very close to 40, making 35 and less, pretty mediocre in my eyes, except in the case of Gilchrist where his strike rate made up for the inconsistency.

Really?

 

[grecian]

They shouldn't give MOTM awards in games of this quality, instead there should be a public humiliation for the worst performance, shiv may have scored slowly but at least he scored i suppose. Dimi's had a bit of a mare, our good friend runako could get violent so probably best to leave him alone, Gayle for getting out to such a horrid shot?

*sighs*

Anyway, very decent performance from England again, Prior, Shah, Bopara all batted well, all would be worthy of MotM. The bowlers have chipped in with wickets at the right time, it has been a trifle dull. Yet I'm sure if other teams had done this they would have been "awesome". whilst England are doing it, it must be the oppo being crap.

Has been deathly dull for the last couple of hours, but one-sided contests generally are.

 

[King Pietersen]

Really?

Well, aggressive opening batsmen that hit over the top and take on the fielding restrictions, playing a more risky game with a high strike rate, allowing for that slightly lower average. There aren't many genuinely good ODi players that didn't play in this mould, with averages of 35 and under.

 

[oitoitoi]

Younis Khan is a mediocre ODi batsman, as was Andy Flower

If they're mediocre I dread to think what you think of this English set up. These days Younis is world class, Andy Flower was one of the best middle overs batsmen ever. Nathan Astle could destroy any team (in a generation of far better attacks too) on his day.

 

[GIMH]

*sighs*

Anyway, very decent performance from England again, Prior, Shah, Bopara all batted well, all would be worthy of MotM. The bowlers have chipped in with wickets at the right time, it has been a trifle dull. Yet I'm sure if other teams had done this they would have been "awesome". whilst England are doing it, it must be the oppo being crap.

Has been deathly dull for the last couple of hours, but one-sided contests generally are.

Jesus grecian, do you want people to actually praise England?

 

[wfdu_ben91]

Gibbs, Gilchrist and Jayasuriya all have very good strike rates, and are pinch hitters at the top of the order, making their average of 35 far better, as they made their runs quickly. Astle was a pretty average ODI batsman, he was decent but I'd say his average in ODI cricket pretty much sums him up as an ODi player. Fleming had talent but didn't prove that in International cricket, his Test record is very poor considering his talent. Younis Khan is a mediocre ODi batsman, as was Andy Flower. There's not 1 top ODi batsman from the modern era averaging 35 or less without having that high strike rate or opening the innings. The large majority of the top, top players average 40+ or very close to 40, making 35 and less, pretty mediocre in my eyes, except in the case of the Gilchrist-esque players where their strike rates made up for the lower levels of consistency.

Mate, in aspect to the contrasting forms of the game - averaging 40 in ODI cricket is like averaging 50 in Test Cricket and you can't expect every batsman to average over 40 otherwise the average ODI score would be 375, especially with the strikerates.

Andy Flower was also not a mediocre ODI batsman.

 

[King Pietersen]

I don't see what's wrong with the use of the word mediocre. None of these players were greats of the generation, and didn't produce the goods regularly enough to become the top batsmen, so therefore in my eyes they're pretty mediocre. You look at the list of the 10-15 best ODI batsmen of this era, and I'd bet that most of them average comfortably over 35, or have a top strike rate. You won't get many with an average of 35 or under and a lowish strike rate that are regarded as top class ODi players.

I'm not expecting everyone to be averaging over 40 either, just I believe that to be regarded as one of the top players, you have to average at least 38, or have a high strike rate alongisde an average in the mid 30's. There's nothing wrong with being a mediocre player, they're still decent players, just not the best, therefore I consider them mediocre. It's not like I'm calling them crap players for averaging 35 and under.

 

[TT Boy]

If they're mediocre I dread to think what you think of this English set up. These days Younis is world class, Andy Flower was one of the best middle overs batsmen ever. Nathan Astle could destroy any team (in a generation of far better attacks too) on his day.

Again, in ODI cricket?

And if Flower was "the best", you would think he would score more than 4 ODI centuries in over 200 games...