FC matches 12
BBI=3/5 (good, but..)
Bowling average: 47.15
Economy rate=3.93
BBM: 5/173
SR=71.8
So basically, outside of maybe two games all up, we have a fast bowler who can barely bowl in a straight line, almost averages 50 with the ball, and has a strikerate of 70. Yet people such as Mark Richardson were creaming their pants at the prospect of him opening up our bowling. Not to mention the "anyone who bowls under 140kmh sucks" brigade, usually led by two certain posters on this forum and countless talkback callers, have this guy as their poster boy.
Sorry this is my first ever post o is probably out of line but i want to express my opinion to people who hopefully will appreciate it...
First Class
Season Balls Mdns Runs Wkts BB Ave
2007-08 432 11 275 3 1-65 91.66
2008-09 1866 42 1234 29 3-5 42.55
List A
Season Balls Mdns Runs Wkts BB Ave SRate Econ
2007-08 (New Zealand) 30 0 55 0 11.00
2008-09 (New Zealand) 410 5 411 13 3-72 31.61 31.53 6.01
From this and what i have heard from credible sources in Hawkes Bay you can see that McClenaghan had a terrible first season - one that many wouldnt bounce back from. From what i have been told throughout the season and through attending games i have heard that he changed his action from a Mitchell Johnson type action to a more fluent on over the winter and lost 15 kgs of his frame from the previous season just to help improve his cricket and perform better on the park.
Now maybe its just me but some one who can go away over the winter after this kind of debut season (including the pumbling he took from stephen fleming in his debut in List A - which i saw first had on a sunny basin reserve day infront of a packed crowd) and can come out and produce these figures comparitively and draw the attention of the nation selectors to getselected fo the emerging players game where incidently he took 5 - 36. and then selection for the NZ A side on the back of that - should we not be praising him instead of asking him to get up to first class standard.
DOes his ablility to improve that much over one off season show that he will be driven to improve further?? maybe its just me but it seems as though he is the kind of player who will do what ever it takes to improve?
New Zealand Emerging Players v England Lions, 1st day Report | Cricket News | Cricinfo Extracover | Cricinfo.com link for the game
Tour Match: New Zealand Emerging Players v England Lions at Lincoln, Feb 25-26, 2009 | Cricket Scorecard | Cricinfo.com link for the score card
that has 6 wickets against England A - including 2 in the previous 2 day game and 2 for 96 in the NZ A game which is 10 wickets at an average around and probably less than 20 in basically 2 FC games vs international standard players who are better than nz domestic players....
Does this not show that he has more to offer than you are giving him credit for?
I would also like to pose the question to the readers of this forum - How many of you have seen McClenaghan Play??
I myself have seen him play 6 times 3 times in napier 2 times in wellington and 1 time in new plymouth.
ANd from my experiences of watching these games i would also go as far as to say that he creates more chances than any bowler i saw comparatively (alot of dropped catches) which could be why he is being talked up??
Yes he has been shown up by experienced players - often getting carried away and trying too much but may i say unless you have seen a player live more than once please reframe from commenting on their standard..
would like to leave you with this link to show that he cant not be of FC standard - note the amount of games played comparitively and where he would have been if all the games had been played.
New Zealand Cricket - MVP Points
thanks for reading i hope this is constructive to the discussion
Willow1