Rank the test sides

[aussie]

I'm not asking for help, but if you need help understanding why your brand of "facts" are ridiculed from all four corners of the Globe I'll see what I can do.

Do you have quadruplets situated in all four corners of the globe?. Since as i said, you are the only person i know on CW who loses hair when stats are used in a cricket debate.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Do you have quadruplets situated in all four corners of the globe?. Since as i said, you are the only person i know on CW who loses hair when stats are used in a cricket debate.

Who said anything about stats?

 

[SJS]

I think there is a tendency to under-rate (even ridicule) a player like Dravid because

a) India has someone like Tendulkar early in his career and later Sehwag and then Yuvraj and Dhoni to compare batting styles and strike rates with completely ignoring the usefulness of someone like Dravid in the middle.

b) There is a tendency to rate those who hit sixes as higher than someone who hits along the ground thus Ganguly is considered a better one day batsman because he hits big sixes.​

Speaking of Ganguly, his stats make an interesting comparison with Dravid

[B]PLAYER	Matches	Runs	Avg	Str Rate[/B]

Ganguly	311	11363	41	73.7

Dravid	333	10585	39.5	71.2

Not as big a difference in strike Rates as one has an image of.

Dravid would have played much fewer matches had he not kept wickets for as many as 73 games as the designated keeper.

By the way, Dravid's 84 victims behind the stumps dont fare as badly (at 1.17 per match) with some regular keepers.

[B]Wicket keeper	M's/I's	Victims	Rate[/B]
			
Dravid       	72	84	1.17
McCullum	152	174	1.14
Sangakarra	250	281	1.12
Mongia      	140	154	1.10
Taibu        	108	107	0.99
Stewart     	170	163	0.96
Flower       	213	165	0.77
Parore       	179	136	0.76

Interestingly, Dhoni in his first 72 matches also has exactly 84 victims.

This is just by the way and not to show Dravid as a great keeper but to show that for a non regular keeper he did a decent job behind the stumps something people tend to forget when they take up the cause of many modest keepers only because they can bat well.

 

[Uppercut]

I think there is a tendency to under-rate (even ridicule) a player like Dravid because

a) India has someone like Tendulkar early in his career and later Sehwag and then Yuvraj and Dhoni to compare batting styles and strike rates with completely ignoring the usefulness of someone like Dravid in the middle.

b) There is a tendency to rate those who hit sixes as higher than someone who hits along the ground thus Ganguly is considered a better one day batsman because he hits big sixes.​

Speaking of Ganguly, his stats make an interesting comparison with Dravid

[B]PLAYER	Matches	Runs	Avg	Str Rate[/B]

Ganguly	311	11363	41	73.7

Dravid	333	10585	39.5	71.2

Not as big a difference in strike Rates as one has an image of.

Dravid would have played much fewer matches had he not kept wickets for as many as 73 games as the designated keeper.

By the way, Dravid's 84 victims behind the stumps dont fare as badly (at 1.17 per match) with some regular keepers.

[B]Wicket keeper	M's/I's	Victims	Rate[/B]
			
Dravid       	72	84	1.17
McCullum	152	174	1.14
Sangakarra	250	281	1.12
Mongia      	140	154	1.10
Taibu        	108	107	0.99
Stewart     	170	163	0.96
Flower       	213	165	0.77
Parore       	179	136	0.76

Interestingly, Dhoni in his first 72 matches also has exactly 84 victims.

This is just by the way and not to show Dravid as a great keeper but to show that for a non regular keeper he did a decent job behind the stumps something people tend to forget when they take up the cause of many modest keepers only because they can bat well.

We had this discussion not long ago. An interesting post was this one from Precam:

 Runs 	 BF 	 SR 	Opposition	Start Date	Chasing	 RSR 	Diff
 28 	 79 	 35.44 	v Pakistan	8-Apr-99	280	 93.33 	 57.89 
 9 	 30 	 30.00 	v Pakistan	16-Sep-98	258	 86.00 	 56.00 
 16 	 38 	 42.10 	v Australia	9-Oct-05	294	 98.00 	 55.90 
 21 	 36 	 58.33 	v Sri Lanka	5-Aug-01	296	 98.67 	 40.34 
 15 	 31 	 48.38 	v Pakistan	21-Jan-00	263	 87.67 	 39.29 
 24 	 44 	 54.54 	v Sri Lanka	1-Jun-00	277	 92.33 	 37.79 
 31 	 48 	 64.58 	v Australia	2-Oct-07	307	 102.3 	 37.75 
 16 	 59 	 27.11 	v West Indies	12-Sep-99	191	 63.67 	 36.56 
 63 	 82 	 76.82 	v Australia	26-Jan-00	330	 110.0 	 33.18 
 30 	 65 	 46.15 	v South Africa	3-Oct-99	236	 78.67 	 32.52 
 46 	 72 	 63.88 	v England	21-Aug-07	289	 96.33 	 32.45 
 63 	 103 	 61.16 	v South Africa	26-Nov-06	275	 91.67 	 30.51 
 25 	 37 	 67.56 	v Pakistan	4-Apr-99	292	 97.33 	 29.77 
 15 	 36 	 41.66 	v New Zealand	20-Jul-01	212	 70.67 	 29.01 
 29 	 46 	 63.04 	v Pakistan	26-Mar-00	273	 91.00 	 27.96 
 42 	 68 	 61.76 	v Sri Lanka	24-Aug-97	265	 88.33 	 26.57 
 33 	 53 	 62.26 	v Kenya		28-May-98	266	 88.67 	 26.41 
 69 	 99 	 69.69 	v Sri Lanka	9-Aug-05	282	 94.00 	 24.31 
 18 	 30 	 60.00 	v Pakistan	13-Sep-98	247	 82.33 	 22.33 
 28 	 42 	 66.66 	v Zimbabwe	30-Sep-98	260	 86.67 	 20.01 
 27 	 57 	 47.36 	v New Zealand	26-Jul-01	201	 67.00 	 19.64 
 60 	 85 	 70.58 	v Australia	12-Jan-00	270	 90.00 	 19.42 
 49* 	 81 	 60.49 	v Sri Lanka	22-Jul-01	222	 74.00 	 13.51 
 74 	 105 	 70.47 	v West Indies	30-Apr-97	250	 83.33 	 12.86

I have considered only selected innings from Indian chases where Dravid flopped hugely.

RSR = required SR :-)

Detailing times when Dravid self-destructed India's chances of an awkward chase by scoring far too slowly. The reasonable conclusion was that Dravid's the type of player who can do a good job for a team in ODIs when he's in form, but is just as likely to seriously damage their chances of victory when he plays while out of form.

You make a good point about Ganguly, although I'm inclined to see that as Ganguly really being rather overrated than as Dravid actually being much good.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Did India lose all those games?

 

[Uppercut]

Feel free to check.

 

[tooextracool]

Its clear India's bench strenght is extremely talented, that clear. But are they ready for test cricket ATM to replace the Big 4 - no. We have seen that pretty clear in recent years as Ganguly & Dravid have had various trotts.

But lets not forget the Big 4, plus Azharruddin have been the rocks of IND middle-order over the past 15+ years. In the past when these guys missed tests, the players who have replaced them due to injury who where always very talented like the current set youngster - but didn't look test quality. Most notably Kambli, plus i remember when IND toured AUS in 99, when Bhardwaj & Kanitkar came with such BIG reps, but just faded away..

So using history as a guide, im taking a VERY conservative approach when judging INDs next generation of batsmen..

Err thats 2 different stories. You can't say India's bench strength is poor because players who came in and played 15-20 years ago were failures. It has no relevance to today. Fact of the matter is that there are players who have done the work at the domestic level, have impressed for the A team and the only step left for them to take is the step up to the international level (which they haven't had a chance to do)

I'm not sure when i agree with this. When Yuvi debuted in 2003 it was because of ODI form & FC runs, not lack of options. In the early 2000s he was being talked up, just like how Sharma is being now.

Of course as the years have gone by he has blown hot & cold in tests in the oppurtunities he has gotten. But i can see why the selectors would be consistently backing Yurvaj, the man has so much natural ability, its like damnn - he really has to come good.

The problem is that people continue to make the assumption that you can bypass technique to be a success at the international level. You can only go so far with a good eye and great timing, technique is one of the most important aspects of any player's makeup and the sooner people start accepting that the better. Yuvraj has failed time and time again because of his poor technique, and its just bloody annoying that people seem to think that he will magically succeed even though nothing has changed technically since his last stint.

 

[SJS]

We had this discussion not long ago. An interesting post was this one from Precam:



Detailing times when Dravid self-destructed India's chances of an awkward chase by scoring far too slowly. The reasonable conclusion was that Dravid's the type of player who can do a good job for a team in ODIs when he's in form, but is just as likely to seriously damage their chances of victory when he plays while out of form.

You make a good point about Ganguly, although I'm inclined to see that as Ganguly really being rather overrated than as Dravid actually being much good.

I had seen this table then too but did not want to get into a pointless argument but since you have repeated it let me say my bit.

It is easy to pick out innings where a player would have scored less than the required run rate of the side. For players like Dravid they will be more than, say for Sachin or Sehwag for obvious reasons (their average strike rates are higher than the teams average)

I could produce similar figures from other players who play regularly as top order ODI batsmen.

Kallis is an example since he is similar to Dravid in approach to batting.

Here is a list of matches that South Africa lost where his strike rate was lower than the required strike rate.

I must stress that this is not a complete list. There are exactly as many more games where his strike rate is lower than required but I have not taken those where he did not play many deliveries (hence did not affect the game much) or where the difference between his strike rate and the required strike rate is in single digits since that is not relevant.

Before you tell me that Kallis is an allrounder let me say that that is irrelevant because he is a good enough batsman to bat at number three for one of the world's two best sides.

[B]Runs	BF	SR	REQD RR	Difference	Opposition	Ground	Start Date[/B]

11	25	44	109.67	65.67	v Australia	Melbourne 	7-Oct-05
9	25	36	99.00	63.00	v England	The Oval	29-Aug-08
5	23	21.73	76.00	54.27	v Pakistan	Singapore	23-Aug-00
8	23	34.78	85.33	50.55	v Australia	Melbourne 	5-Oct-05
48	63	76.19	126.00	49.81	v Australia	Basseterre	24-Mar-07
16	25	64	111.84	47.84	v New Zealand	Wellington	20-Feb-04
11	30	36.66	83.33	46.67	v Sri Lanka	Galle         	6-Jul-00
34	43	79.06	117.33	38.27	v Pakistan	Durban      	7-Feb-07
42	66	63.63	98.67	35.04	v Australia	Melbourne 	16-Aug-00
8	20	40	74.67	34.67	v Australia	Johannesburg	22-Mar-02
101	127	79.52	103.00	23.48	v Sri Lanka	Colombo (SSC)	31-Aug-04
51	66	77.27	97.67	20.40	v West Indies	East London	24-Jan-99
42	60	70	89.33	19.33	v Pakistan	Lahore       	5-Oct-03
52	69	75.36	92.00	16.64	v England	Leeds        	22-Aug-08
14	21	66.66	82.67	16.01	v Australia	Sydney     	27-Jan-98
97	133	72.93	87.33	14.40	v India       	Colombo (RPS)  	25-Sep-02
37	55	67.27	80.67	13.40	v Australia	Brisbane	20-Jan-02
43	51	84.31	97.00	12.69	v Australia	Bloemfontein	30-Mar-02
24	35	68.57	78.67	10.10	v Sri Lanka	Tangier      	21-Aug-02

As I said, I can produce more such stats but not interested for the same reason as I had for not replying to this earlier

 

[SJS]

Now this was answering bull**** with bull**** (statistics versus statistics). There is another way to look at it but I suppose it is too much to expect everyone to discard their obsession with stats. But still first the objective assessment.

Both Dravid and Kallis have a role to play in ODI's for their respective sides. It rarely involves thrashing the bowling to win the matches. Far from it. They are there to provide solidity to the middle order. Sachin has recently said that because Dravid is not there he has to bat differently and try to put a price on his wicket so as to guide the middle of the innings. This is also the reason that the prefered place in the batting order for both is at number three. The openers get to hammer the new ball with the field close in and then the one drop comes in to play his game and guide the middle order before the lower order hammers again in the latter part of the innings. Thats why people like Yuvraj and Dhoni come lower down. Of course it does not stop the janta (populace) to keep screaming for Yuvraj, Dhoni and even Pathan to be sent higher up. Fortunately they do not decide the batting order. India tried putting stroke players at number three recently and we have seen the result.

Now coming to the bull**** served to me and served by myself. Lets see how many of those innings by Dravid (and Kallis) fall into the "self-destruct" category as our knowledgeable friend has put it.

I am taking only a few examples but that should be enough to show what is bull**** and what are "revealing statistics".

1997-1998 West Indies v India - 3rd Match
Arnos Vale Ground (30/04/1997)

This is one of the games that has been mentioned in Dravid's "self-destruct" list. Lets see what happened.

Windies batted first and scored 249 for 9 leaving India 250 to get in 50 overs at 5.0 per over or 83.33 per 100 balls.

Tendulkar and Ganguly opened and at 27 Tendulkar fell for 9 (in 17 balls).

Dravid and Ganguly then took the score to 157 before Dravid fell.

The partnership had put on 130 runs of which Dravid scored 74(105 balls) . Unfortunately it is not clear from the scorecard as to how many overs were consumed but one can do some calculation. Add Tendulkar's 17 balls faced to Dravid's 105 and we have 122. Ganguly fell after the score reached 185 (another 28 runs later). Assuming Ganguly played another fifteen balls after Dravid fell, he played 93 balls till Dravid got out (108-15).

So we were in the 35th or 36th over when Dravid fell. India now had 93 runs to get in about 15 overs with eight wickets in hand and Ganguly batting around sixty and the brillant stroke maker Azharuddin to join him at the crease.

Then India managed to collapse, after Ganguly fell, for the addition of just 46 runs in 48.2 overs.

Ganguly scored his 79 in 108 balls and the brilliant Azhar his 24 in 37.

Jadeja Saba Karim and Robin Singh failed to reach double digits and the last four batsmen (rather bowlers) scored 8 runs between them.

Yet it was Rahul who had 'self-destructed'.

I wonder if Jadeja, Saba, Robin Singh and Kumble had managed five runs each more and India had won the match who would have got the man of the match award. Surely Dravid's or Ganguly would have been the main contenders.

By the way for West Indies, Walsh bowled 9.2 overs for 26 runs and Ambrose 9 for 32.​

1999-2000 Carlton & United Series - 10th Match
Adelaide Oval (26/01/2000 - Australia v India)

Australia batted first and scored 329.

Ganguly and Tendulkar opened for India.

At 12 Ganguly fell for 5.

Dravid came in to join SRT.

At 39 SRT fell for 18.

At 39 again, Kanitkar fell for 0.

At 107, Dravid fell for 63. He had scored 63 (in 82 balls) out of 95 runs scored while he was at the crease.

India collapsed for 177 all out in 46.5 overs.

Dravid scored his runs at 76.8 per 100 balls while the rest of the team scored their's at 47.6 !

Here are the strike rates of the other batsmen.

• SRT : 64.3
• Ganguly : 62.5
• Kanitkar : 0
• Martin 34.0
• Robin Singh : 16.7
• Dighe : 56.8

Kumble was the next best scorer after Dravid with 28 runs !

India hit a grand total of 15 boundaries. Dravid hit ten of those. Ganguly was the only other batsman to manage more than one.

But of course it was Dravid's fault that India lost by 152 runs. If only he had scored 200 runs in those 82 balls ​

To Be Continued....

 

[SJS]

2005-2006 Indian Oil Cup - 7th Match
R. Premadasa Stadium (09/08/2005 - Sri Lanka v India)

Sri Lanka scored 281 batting first. India needed 282 to win.

Ganguly and Sehwag opened. Sehwag went on a rampage scoring 48 in 22 balls. before falling in the 7th over.

Dravid and Ganguly put on 50 in 9.3 overs before Ganguly fell for 26 (45 balls). India 102 for 2. Dravid batting 17 in 28.

Yuvraj joined Dravid.

There is a thumb rule cricketers follow for LOI that with wickets in hand you should score half the runs in 30 (out of 50) overs. India were 156 for 2 in 30 overs and needed another 126 runs.

Yuvraj fell at 186 for 42 (58 balls). Dravid was run out three overs later for 69 (99 balls). Whith Kaif batting well and Dhoni joining him, India were in with a very good chance. Dhoni fell for 7 in 11 balls, Irfan Pathan for 1, Harbhajan for 0 and Zaheer for 5. The match was lost.

Yuvraj, the big hitter had played a sufficiently long innings with a strike rate of 72.

Ganguly had played out 15 overs with a strike rate of 58.

Dhoni failed to score when it was most needed.

But the anchor man Dravid, for scoring 69 runs at 70 per 100 balls is our villain of the piece. Naturally ​

To Be Continued...

 

[tooextracool]

We had this discussion not long ago. An interesting post was this one from Precam:



Detailing times when Dravid self-destructed India's chances of an awkward chase by scoring far too slowly. The reasonable conclusion was that Dravid's the type of player who can do a good job for a team in ODIs when he's in form, but is just as likely to seriously damage their chances of victory when he plays while out of form.

You make a good point about Ganguly, although I'm inclined to see that as Ganguly really being rather overrated than as Dravid actually being much good.

You would have been right, except that your argument has expired. The Dravid of the last 3-4 years of his ODI career was a far superior player to the one before and the fact that he was successful at 5 and 6 bears testiment to that. Despite the dodgy stats that are used in your argument, the fact is that the majority of those innings are from over 8 years ago which bears little relevance to Dravid now not the Dravid that used to frequently hit the ball straight to the fielders at the start of his career. I was sceptical about Dravid in ODIs for quite a while, however, he eventually developed into a pretty good player and his selection for the ODI team is actually one that involves a lot of common sense and good judgement given the lack of experience in the current ODI team.

Regarding those stats, they also need to be looked at more closely. For example, looking at a couple of those games

HowSTAT! ODI Scorecard
HowSTAT! ODI Scorecard

India had about as much hope of chasing those targets down when they were 39/3 and 34/4 as Jess Ryder does of running the marathon. Those games were lost well before Dravid could do anything about it and his cautious approach played no part in it.

 

[SJS]

2006-2007 South Africa v India - 3rd Match
Newlands (26/11/2006)

South Africa scored 274. They should have never got anywhere near that score.

They were 76 for 6 in the 20th over and 136 for 7 in the 36th. Yet Agarkar, Pathan and Harbhajan allowed them to score 138 runs in the last 14 overs without losing another wicket.

Zaheer who had broken the back of the South African top order with 3 for 11 in 8 overs was hit for 31 in his last two !

Pathan was hit for 52 runs in his last four overs !!

Harbhajan for 35 in his last four. Agarkar was hammered in each of his eight. Yet we dont see any villains here.

India needed 275 to win.

Before the fifth over had ended both Tndukar and Sehwag were back in the pavillion with a combined total of TWO runs in 13 balls.

Soon it was 17 for 3. Kaif gone for 10 in 17 balls.

Then 44 for 4. Karthik 14 in 23.

It was the 17th over when Dhoni joined Dravid who was standing amidst the ruins of the side with 21 in 51 balls.

At 129 Dhoni fell for 55 in 48 balls. In partnership he and Dravid put on 85 in 14.2 overs; Dravid's share - 22 in 32 deliveries.

A procession now started. Pathan 1, Harbhajan 10 and Agarkar 6 fell in quick succession.

Finally Dravid fell for 63. After Dhoni got out he had added another 20 in 20 balls.

It is interesting to see how Dravid's run scoring pattern changes.

• With early wickets falling he scored 21 in 51 trying to build a foundation.
• When he did get a partner he supported him with 22 in 32 as Dhoni scored the big runs.
• Then with the tail falling apart he tried to raise the tempo with 20 in 20 before he ran out of partners.

This is just the kind of role Dravid and Kallis are taken in a side for. In an ODI side each player has a different role. To blame Dravid for not performing Sehwag's or Yuvraj's role is as silly as doing the reverse.

Unfortunately cricket fans are not always known for being able to see beyond statsguru and a quick cut and paste job.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Great reading, SJS.

 

[SJS]

Great reading, SJS.

Thanks.

I had to break one of my rules (open an ignored post) to do this but I thought it was needed.

It also meant staying up till four in the morning

 

[Uppercut]

Both Dravid and Kallis have a role to play in ODI's for their respective sides. It rarely involves thrashing the bowling to win the matches. Far from it. They are there to provide solidity to the middle order. Sachin has recently said that because Dravid is not there he has to bat differently and try to put a price on his wicket so as to guide the middle of the innings. This is also the reason that the prefered place in the batting order for both is at number three. The openers get to hammer the new ball with the field close in and then the one drop comes in to play his game and guide the middle order before the lower order hammers again in the latter part of the innings. Thats why people like Yuvraj and Dhoni come lower down. Of course it does not stop the janta (populace) to keep screaming for Yuvraj, Dhoni and even Pathan to be sent higher up. Fortunately they do not decide the batting order. India tried putting stroke players at number three recently and we have seen the result.

We have indeed! They've won seven of their last eight ODI series, the only loss being the final Asia cup when Ajantha Mendis beat them single-handedly in the final. Before then, you have to go back to the 4-2 home loss to Australia two years ago to find the last time India lost an ODI series. It was the last ODI series which Dravid played in.

I know exactly what Dravid's role in ODIs was, I just don't consider it necessary to "rebuild" at one wicket down. Scoring runs quickly is, under every circumstance, better than scoring them slowly, and I don't think Dravid scores enough runs to justify how slowly he scores. I would absolutely agree that his solidarity in the middle order was a good thing, but it doesn't exist. He's only scoring marginally more runs than Yuvraj Singh or Suresh Raina and considerably less than MS Dhoni. Solidarity does not mean simply batting negatively.

Regarding the point about Jacques Kallis, I rather agree with it, but he gets endless and over-the-top abuse for selfishness so it's not entirely worth bringing up. Their technique and ability to counter top-class bowling is something that's not currently necessary on the pitches that ODI cricket is played on at the moment.

I think the defensive batsman at number 3 is a position that's going out of the game.

 

[Uppercut]

You would have been right, except that your argument has expired. The Dravid of the last 3-4 years of his ODI career was a far superior player to the one before and the fact that he was successful at 5 and 6 bears testiment to that. Despite the dodgy stats that are used in your argument, the fact is that the majority of those innings are from over 8 years ago which bears little relevance to Dravid now not the Dravid that used to frequently hit the ball straight to the fielders at the start of his career. I was sceptical about Dravid in ODIs for quite a while, however, he eventually developed into a pretty good player and his selection for the ODI team is actually one that involves a lot of common sense and good judgement given the lack of experience in the current ODI team.

Regarding those stats, they also need to be looked at more closely. For example, looking at a couple of those games

HowSTAT! ODI Scorecard
HowSTAT! ODI Scorecard

India had about as much hope of chasing those targets down when they were 39/3 and 34/4 as Jess Ryder does of running the marathon. Those games were lost well before Dravid could do anything about it and his cautious approach played no part in it.

Indeed, but I don't think that justifies not even trying to.

It was a directly quoted post, I didn't look at closely enough at the stats because I couldn't be bothered. Plenty of them are good examples of Dravid's turgid batting piling pressure on the other batsmen to pick up the run rate, often causing a collapse. Presumably, plenty aren't.

 

[Flem274*]

I'm going to quote that TEC if Big Fat Jess ever runs a marathon.

 

[TT Boy]

We have indeed! They've won seven of their last eight ODI series, the only loss being the final Asia cup when Ajantha Mendis beat them single-handedly in the final. Before then, you have to go back to the 4-2 home loss to Australia two years ago to find the last time India lost an ODI series. It was the last ODI series which Dravid played in.

I know exactly what Dravid's role in ODIs was, I just don't consider it necessary to "rebuild" at one wicket down. Scoring runs quickly is, under every circumstance, better than scoring them slowly, and I don't think Dravid scores enough runs to justify how slowly he scores. I would absolutely agree that his solidarity in the middle order was a good thing, but it doesn't exist. He's only scoring marginally more runs than Yuvraj Singh or Suresh Raina and considerably less than MS Dhoni. Solidarity does not mean simply batting negatively.

Regarding the point about Jacques Kallis, I rather agree with it, but he gets endless and over-the-top abuse for selfishness so it's not entirely worth bringing up. Their technique and ability to counter top-class bowling is something that's not currently necessary on the pitches that ODI cricket is played on at the moment.

I think the defensive batsman at number 3 is a position that's going out of the game.

Hence why Kallis has adopted a far more aggressive approach in ODI cricket. What was his S/R against the Australians in the plethora of ODI's they played earlier this year, over 80 and for the past twelve/eighteen months, Kallis has been batting in a far more 'adventurous' manner.

 

[Uppercut]

Hence why Kallis has adopted a far more aggressive approach in ODI cricket. What was his S/R against the Australians in the plethora of ODI's they played earlier this year, over 80 and for the past twelve/eighteen months, Kallis has been batting in a far more 'adventurous' manner.

Yeah, that's true. He's done it in tests too, and he looks in better touch than he ever has but the big scores aren't coming.

His defensive approach always seemed a bit unnecessary to me with the batting depth South Africa had recently. Maybe that's why he's copped so much more abuse for negativity than any other batsman.

 

[TT Boy]

Think the pressure is off somewhat, hence why he bats with seemingly more freedom. Particular in test cricket, see his late evening assault on Peter Siddle at Perth which gave South Africa the momentum the next morning to chase over 400.

Two years ago it was a different story as Smith was struggling, continual failures from Gibbs, Amla wasn't contributing and AB was flattering to deceive. So it was imperative that him and Ashwell Prince valued their wickets, as no one else in the side did. The lack of freedom in test cricket probably just carried on to limited overs cricket.