Cricketweb's 5 most unfairly treated players

[Uppercut]

I think that's reasonable though. Just because you're harsh on your team however they play doesn't mean they're not playing badly. Have a look at the posts during the successful Ashes series.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I think that's reasonable though. Just because you're harsh on your team however they play doesn't mean they're not playing badly. Have a look at the posts during the successful Ashes series.

Hey, look, my own default position as an English sports fan is resigned pessimism, so you're preaching to the converted, but it'd be madness to pretend the Ashes series was all wine and roses. We looked ****ed after Leeds. A lot of the criticism was justified, I'm sure. About as many of our lot had their reputations receed as those who advanced theirs.

I will say tho that on the face of it it seems strange how we (English sports fans) have reputations both for arrogance and pessimism. On the face of it they seem contrasting standpoints, so there's a slight suspicion we just can't win.

 

[Uppercut]

Haha, "sports fans" is an umbrella term. The cricket fans are anything but arrogant.

A lot of football fans are arrogant, mainly by implication in that they always find someone else to blame for their side not quite being the best in the world. Could be Cristiano Ronaldo for winking after Rooney had stamped on someone's nuts, any number of referees for calling a (usually 50-50) decision the other side's way, or Sven Goran Eriksson for being Swedish and not understanding the wonderful English game despite having a better record than every other England manager ever. Or the "lottery" (snigger) of penalty kicks.

Truth be told, the main feature of English sports fans in general is a tendency to linger on past successes for ever and ever and ever until we're all bored stiff. It's the only trait which I genuinely believe is just you guys.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Haha, "sports fans" is an umbrella term. The cricket fans are anything but arrogant.

There were a lot of posts from our esteemed Australian brethren before they lost The Ashes about how they hated losing to us because we were so insufferable in victory, so it isn't quite as easy to neatly divide cricket fans from football fans. In fact a lot of us are the same people.

& I'll ignore your revisionist version of Ronaldo imploring the ref to send Rooney off for the purposes of brevity.

 

[Uppercut]

What did he say to the ref?

 

[BoyBrumby]

What did he say to the ref?

God knows, but something, clearly:

YouToob.

Wasn't his place to get involved & Carvalho was fouling Rooney in any event. Whine shouldn't have reacted as he did, but the wink was a piss take.

 

[Uppercut]

God knows, but something, clearly:

YouToob.

Wasn't his place to get involved & Carvalho was fouling Rooney in any event. Whine shouldn't have reacted as he did, but the wink was a piss take.

You've no idea what he said, you're just accepting the English media's assertion that he said "that's a sending off" or something to that effect. It could have been anything from "why didn't you give a free for a similar foul earlier?" to "did you see that?!" It was all just a trial by media for me.

In any case, there's much worse examples. The penalty against Russia where Rooney was fouled outside the box (although contact quite possibly continued into the box) was particularly dire, considering that through all the moaning no one mentioned that England were only 1-0 up at that stage due to a comfortably offside goal.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Blah, blah.

& that's why I ignored it initially.

 

[Uppercut]

Learn to tow the party line, boy

Indeed.

 

[Pratters]

Kallis is almost certainly underrated by a lot on here (self probably included in all honesty), but I think it's in part because of the way he plays as a batsman. He doesn't dismantle attacks like Lara, Sachin or Ponting at their zeniths do/did and there is a strong suspicion that he often has an eye on the red ink.

I have come to the conclusion that Kallis can't lift his game to play radically aggressively even if he wants to. On the tour to Australia (the one before the last one), he had a terrible time with the bat not being able to hit out. Kallis is limited as a batsman.

 

[Pratters]

Leads to another question which could arguably warrant it's own thread, that being;

What countries fans/supporters on Cricket Web are the most hard or unfair on their own respective teams relative to the teams actual performances?

I feel the New Zealand fans are some of the most well versed and deeply involved with their team. However, they criticize their team a lot when they lose. For a nation where cricket is not the no. 1 sport and for a country with the population of New Zealand, they mighty well as a cricket team.

 

[Uppercut]

I have come to the conclusion that Kallis can't lift his game to play radically aggressively even if he wants to. On the tour to Australia (the one before the last one), he had a terrible time with the bat not being able to hit out. Kallis is limited as a batsman.

The fact that he has had a successful career in ODIs suggests otherwise tbh. Just because he failed to on that occasion doesn't mean he can't.

 

[Pratters]

You can have a successful ODI career if you are able to nudge the ball around for ones and twos. His S/R in ODIs is 70 in this day and age. I don't remember Kallis being able to really hit out aggressively against bowlers. That he can score runs, there is no question. Can he score runs when the team really needs quick runs though.

 

[Uppercut]

807 fours and 120 sixes in those ODIs say "yes".

Also worth mentioning that the majority of them weren't in what you would call "this day and age". Also worth mentioning that ODIs in South Africa are one area that has been pretty exempt from the flatness of this decade. Can wheel out some stats to conclusively back that up if you like, but I'm not sure it's necessary.

 

[Pratters]

807 fours and 120 sixes in those ODIs say "yes".

If you are going to play that many ODIs you are bound to have that many fours and sixes.

Also worth mentioning that the majority of them weren't in what you would call "this day and age". Also worth mentioning that ODIs in South Africa are one area that has been pretty exempt from the flatness of this decade. Can wheel out some stats to conclusively back that up if you like, but I'm not sure it's necessary.

70 is still slow.

Also, look at his 16 centuries in 291 matches. Says a thing or two about not being able to make the tons often enough.

 

[Uppercut]

Not by test match standards though. I fail to believe he can score at a strike rate of 80+ regularly in ODIs but is incapable of doing so in tests.

 

[Pratters]

Not by test match standards though. I fail to believe he can score at a strike rate of 80+ regularly in ODIs but is incapable of doing so in tests.

In tests you get balls outside the off stump, the wide lines are wider and the field is according to the bowling team. It is far more difficult to score fast.

Even in ODIs I can't see Kallis playing an inning where he has a S/R of 125-140 where he makes 100 plus.

EDIT -A quick check tells me that of all his hundreds in ODIs against test standard nations, only one has come at faster than run a ball.

EDIT - Of all of Kallis' scores of 50 plus, only three are at a S/R of over 120. One of them is at 200 but that's an oddity more than a norm.

Kallis doesn't hit out like say a Ponting.

 

[Uppercut]

In tests you get balls outside the off stump, the wide lines are wider and the field is according to the bowling team. It is far more difficult to score fast.

Even in ODIs I can't see Kallis playing an inning where he has a S/R of 125-140 where he makes 100 plus.

EDIT -A quick check tells me that of all his hundreds in ODIs against test standard nations, only one has come at faster than run a ball.

EDIT - Of all of Kallis' scores of 50 plus, only three are at a S/R of over 120. One of them is at 200 but that's an oddity more than a norm. Kallis doesn't hit out like say a Ponting.

No way. Fields are far, far more defensive in ODIs. The bowling team builds their entire approach around preventing you from scoring fast. Of course it's harder to hit out.

The overall strike rate from the innings doesn't really show how well (or poorly) Kallis has hit out. Quite often he'll strike at 50 until the 45th over, then smash another 40 runs in 25 balls or the like. I'm much more wary of statistics in ODIs than I am in test matches.

 

[Pratters]

No way. Fields are far, far more defensive in ODIs. The bowling team builds their entire approach around preventing you from scoring fast. Of course it's harder to hit out.

I disagree and I have already stated why.

 

[Uppercut]

None of the restrictions you mention- free captaincy and a less stringent ruling on wides- apply until you've already flogged an attack apart. He may struggle to reach Stuart Broad bowling three feet outside off-stump or Ashley Giles bowling an outside-leg line. But I don't think that's quite what you meant by "struggles to hit out".