How good a pair are Harmison and Flintoff ?

[SpeedKing]

Exactly.
They may have been saying in during our tour there - and I somehow doubt they were saying it during their tour here.
Until, that is, he took that 12 for 126 as the series drew to a close.
Because before then, they'd very clearly worked him out.

Oh Yeah, How does this make sense??????

You first figure out someone and totally know how to play him then he ends up getting 12 for 126 against them. alot of figuring out they did. didn't they Richard?

 

[Richard]

End-of-series - happens all the time, especially with Harmison.
Even in South Africa, he got 2 wickets in the dying throes of England's Test-match bowling.
If you watched the first 5-and-5\6ths innings of England-West Indies you'd see clearly that they'd worked him out and would categorically not be comparing him to Ambrose.

 

[SpeedKing]

End-of-series - happens all the time, especially with Harmison.
Even in South Africa, he got 2 wickets in the dying throes of England's Test-match bowling.
If you watched the first 5-and-5\6ths innings of England-West Indies you'd see clearly that they'd worked him out and would categorically not be comparing him to Ambrose.

He took 16 wickets in the first 2 matches in that series

 

[Richard]

No, he took 3.
Then another 2 in most of the Old Trafford match... before he cleaned-up the end of the second-innings.

 

[SpeedKing]

No, he took 3.
Then another 2 in most of the Old Trafford match... before he cleaned-up the end of the second-innings.

You are talking about West Indies in England series, i thought you were talking about the England-West Indies series as you stated. Slight misunderstanding

 

[Richard]

OK, I'll try and clarify:
A few West Indian batsmen apparently compared Harmison to Ambrose in the first meeting (in WI). After the first 5-and-3\4 innings of the return trip, I somehow doubt they were doing so any more.
Then he got 12 for 126 in the last 1-and-1\4 innings.

 

[marc71178]

A few West Indian batsmen apparently compared Harmison to Ambrose in the first meeting (in WI).

What they actually said was that the bowler he most reminded them of was Ambrose, which is actually a different thing.

 

[Richard]

And somehow I doubt anyone would have compared Harmison to Ambrose up to his last 2.4 overs or something like that at Old Trafford.

 

[SJS]

Lot of credit for England's resurgence goes to Harmison and Flintoff (as bowlers).

Are Harmison and Flintoff a better pair for England than Gough and Caddick were ?

If so, how far do we go til we find a better pair ?

That was my thread starter five years ago. I dont know whether we still have the answers particularly to the second question.

 

[Richard]

Funny thing I guess is that Harmison and Flintoff have in essence never really been "a pair". They've never been noted for bowling lengthy spells together in tandem.

What's more, Flintoff has turned-out brilliant but such a letdown and Harmison has turned-out nowhere near Test-class... which many people who overestimated him have viewed as a letdown.

What's more, I CBA re-reading the entire 5 pages of this thread, but I wonder if it contains any comments of mine about Flintoff - who, for those relatively few who remain from 2004, may remember I was still far from convinced about back then.

 

[Richard]

Thats why I think its a bit hasty to write off the current era for the lack great bowlers..it will be in 5 years or so when we can look back at now and make that judgement

I have every bit as low an opinion of the class of bowling of 2004 now as I did in 2004.

 

[GIMH]

The sort of label I hate with a passion.
Helping to win matches sometimes and helping lose them at others.

"Match-winning performance" is a theoretical term - it would imply taking every wicket, bowled or caught-and-bowled, facing every ball and allowing no piece of fielding to be done by anyone else.
What you are looking for in a player is to make a contribution to swinging the match in your favour - all good players are capable of doing that.
Inconsistent players make large contributions to losing as many matches as they make to winning and frankly there's no difference between 2-2 and 0-0 - the series result is the same.

It's shorter - and less to the point, and less accurate.
The 'performance of high significance, fundamental in swinging the game his team's way' is a far better one.

No-one has ever "proved" or even shown any reason why judging players on what they have earnt rather than what is against their name in the scorebook is incorrect.
The reason I am so commonly "proved wrong" in the eyes o so many "reasonable-thinking" individuals is mainly because they misinterpret that I have said I don't think someone will do what I judge on for saying I don't think they'll do what they judge on.
For instance, I've never said Harmison won't get good figures in Test-cricket, I've said he hasn't so far earnt many. But because most people judge success or failure on scorebook figures, in their eyes I've been proven wrong.

A couple of weeks ago Richard, I mentioned that you used to write your posts like this.
You denied it and said you didn't.
Here is my proof.
I'm glad you don't write them like this anymore

 

[James_W]

Funny thing I guess is that Harmison and Flintoff have in essence never really been "a pair". They've never been noted for bowling lengthy spells together in tandem.

What's more, Flintoff has turned-out brilliant but such a letdown and Harmison has turned-out nowhere near Test-class... which many people who overestimated him have viewed as a letdown.

What's more, I CBA re-reading the entire 5 pages of this thread, but I wonder if it contains any comments of mine about Flintoff - who, for those relatively few who remain from 2004, may remember I was still far from convinced about back then.

Pffffff bit harsh surely? At his best he has shown he is test-class, it's just we've not seen his best as often as his worst...

 

[zaremba]

A couple of weeks ago Richard, I mentioned that you used to write your posts like this.
You denied it and said you didn't.
Here is my proof.
I'm glad you don't write them like this anymore

Very true.
He did say this, Richard.
You denied it.
And now he's provided the evidence.
Will you back down?
I doubt it.
Let's see.

 

[Richard]

A couple of weeks ago Richard, I mentioned that you used to write your posts like this.
You denied it and said you didn't.
Here is my proof.
I'm glad you don't write them like this anymore

Nah, I didn't. You said I wrote every sentence on a new line - those posts demonstrate that I did nothing of the sort (although I did use a new paragraph for every sentence in all examples, for effect purposes). What I didn't do then was put two lines between paragraphs - just one.

You could find hundreds of my old posts where I used no line-breaks.

 

[GIMH]

Yeah, I worded it badly.
But you knew what I meant.
Just being a pedant IMO.

 

[Richard]

I knew what you meant, yeah - the point was, you had slightly misread what I used to do.

 

[GIMH]

Ind33d but still - much prefer the way your posts are presented now

 

[Richard]

Pffffff bit harsh surely? At his best he has shown he is test-class, it's just we've not seen his best as often as his worst...

We saw his best in early-2004, in the Caribbean and at home to New Zealand. He bowled with more accuracy than usual, and batsmen played copious numbers of poor strokes. Against better batting, said "best" would've been nowhere near so effective - and he has produced it on odd occasions since (and even once or twice before), mostly returning figures like 28-63-2 or so.

That is 7 Tests out of... I can't remember how many exactly, but a lot. In all the others pretty much, we've seen his worst.

 

[Richard]

Ind33d but still - much prefer the way your posts are presented now

Me too - I'd thought "shall I change to the norm" about 50 times before but always came-up with the answer "well I've done it this way for ages so why bother changing now?"

The massive break that was June to December '06 provided the ideal opportunity to change, and I took it.