Pietersen V Smith

[Shri]

I didn't say he isn't as good as he thinks. He is a very talented batsman and has the potential to be one of the best. But the best do not toss away their wickets against pie chuckers. If you had seen that test match you would have remembered the shots he played in that over. He almost played on and gave a catch to mid off in 6 balls. If he controls his urges he can be great.

In other words, he is still in the padawan stage.

 

[aussie]

I didn't say he isn't as good as he thinks. He is a very talented batsman and has the potential to be one of the best. But the best do not toss away their wickets against pie chuckers. If you had seen that test match you would have remembered the shots he played in that over. He almost played on and gave a catch to mid off in 6 balls[/B]. If he controls his urges he can be great.

Yea this is true - but he focused & domianted Bhaji & Mishra in a brilliant hundred. Yuvraj had got him out in the 1st test, plus a few times in the ODIs before. Overall this is indeed one things KP needs to work on, his irritating dismissals towards joke spinners when he should be playing them much better.

 

[vic_orthdox]

A few points on some issues that have been brought up:

Runs in that whitewash Australian series were still important, he tried to drag the team along with him, and its not his fault that the rest dragged their heels. Its such hindsight to call those runs useless or that there wasn't as much pressure, especially when he got good scores early in the series.

As a captain, people remember pressure innings' more often, somewhat attributed to the associated pressures, but also because you are leading by example and not just words.

 

[tooextracool]

I'm tired of this whole 'KP is more talented than Smith' argument. Yes he is more talented but how is that relevant? KP is older than Smith and is almost 30. At this point, KP has clearly underperformed given his talent at the test match level and is prone to a brain explosion every other day.

People keep clinging on to the idea that he is a 'big match player' but firstly, I would prefer Smith in any big match situation and secondly KP may have scored runs in the odd big match, but by and large he has spent far more time finding ways to throw his wicket away.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Hurts to say it but I'd pick Fat Gray right now.

 

[Jayzamann]

Did Smith's average go above 50 and KP's average go below 50 in the same test match?

 

[BoyBrumby]

Did Smith's average go above 50 and KP's average go below 50 in the same test match?

Nah, KP's was already south of 50, tbf.

 

[Prince EWS]

Disagree with most here

In my side I prefer a top 6 of

Watson
Katich
Ponting
Pietersen
Clarke
Hussey

than

Watson
Smith
Ponting
Clarke
Hussey
Katich

Just my thoughts. Also KP has much more talent imo than Smith and being in a distinctly mediocre side puts the pressure on him much more.

Don't think "your side" was supposed to be taken literally.

 

[Jono]

Clearly a team with no openers would choose Smith, and a team with a weak middle order would choose KP.

 

[Uppercut]

A few points on some issues that have been brought up:

Runs in that whitewash Australian series were still important, he tried to drag the team along with him, and its not his fault that the rest dragged their heels. Its such hindsight to call those runs useless or that there wasn't as much pressure, especially when he got good scores early in the series.

As a captain, people remember pressure innings' more often, somewhat attributed to the associated pressures, but also because you are leading by example and not just words.

Sure, but they're not more important than all of his other runs just because he was playing against a particularly good team.

 

[GIMH]

Nobody said they are more important. What people are saying is that they are a sign of a good player, the fact that he averages over 50 in Australia against such a quality attack.

 

[Uppercut]

It's just an area where I disagree with most people. I specifically define a good test cricketer as one who helps his team win test matches. Runs against a good team don't (necessarily) help his team win matches any more than runs against a poor team do. So why would I count them more heavily?

You obviously define what constitutes a good test cricketer a little bit differently, which is why these things matter to you.

 

[four_or_six]

It's just an area where I disagree with most people. I specifically define a good test cricketer as one who helps his team win test matches. Runs against a good team don't (necessarily) help his team win matches any more than runs against a poor team do. So why would I count them more heavily?

You obviously define what constitutes a good test cricketer a little bit differently, which is why these things matter to you.

You can hardly blame KP for his 158 in Adelaide not contributing to England winning a test match.

 

[GIMH]

Is Shakib not a good Test cricketer Will?

 

[Uppercut]

You can hardly blame KP for his 158 in Adelaide not contributing to England winning a test match.

Where did I say you can?

Is Shakib not a good Test cricketer Will?

Of course he is. Would he be a better test cricketer had he bombed against New Zealand and taken wickets against South Africa? What would help his team more?

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

I specifically define a good test cricketer as one who helps his team win test matches.

Brian Lara played in more losses than any other cricketer, IIRC.

 

[Uppercut]

Brian Lara played in more losses than any other cricketer, IIRC.

You're not really getting it. Maybe I'm not articulating myself especially well.

Lara helped his side win cricket matches. If they still can't win with him, that doesn't change the fact that he was helping them. He was moving the West Indies towards a victory. You were always much more likely to win or draw with Lara in the side than without him. That's what makes him a good player, in Lara's case, an all-time great player.

Now, just say Lara averaged 70 against Australia and 30 against Pakistan. In most people's estimations, that would make him a better player than averaging 30 against Australia and 70 against Pakistan. That is what I'm objecting to. Do runs against Australia help the West Indies towards a victory (or away from a defeat) more than runs against Pakistan do? Not necessarily. They might, and they might not. So surely, in terms of measuring how good a player Lara was, runs against Pakistan=runs against Australia?

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

You're not really getting it. Maybe I'm not articulating myself especially well.

Lara helped his side win cricket matches. If they still can't win with him, that doesn't change the fact that he was helping them. He was moving the West Indies towards a victory. You were always much more likely to win or draw with Lara in the side than without him. That's what makes him a good player, in Lara's case, an all-time great player.

A lot of players tended to average less with Lara in the side than out, but that's neither here nor there.

Do runs against Australia help the West Indies towards a victory (or away from a defeat) more than runs against Pakistan do? Not necessarily. They might, and they might not. So surely, in terms of measuring how good a player Lara was, runs against Pakistan=runs against Australia?

When you put it that way, I'd say runs against Australia ARE more important. Because if the opposition is stronger, the team is likely to struggle more against it. Therefore whatever runs the talisman scores come at a greater premium. That is, he could average 30 against Pakistan and still be okay, if Pakistan is not capable of taking advantage of that in the way Australia would.

 

[Uppercut]

A lot of players tended to average less with Lara in the side than out, but that's neither here nor there.

When you put it that way, I'd say runs against Australia ARE more important. Because if the opposition is stronger, the team is likely to struggle more against it. Therefore whatever runs the talisman scores come at a greater premium. That is, he could average 30 against Pakistan and still be okay, if Pakistan is not capable of taking advantage of that in the way Australia would.

I dispute this. There are a lot of factors that determine the importance of runs, so many that it's impossible to use any statistical measure to find it. The fact that, when playing Australia, if Lara doesn't score the runs no one else will is just one of many small factors influencing how important those runs are.

Another big factor in how important runs are is how evenly poised the match is when the runs are scored. If your team's already way ahead or way behind, your runs aren't very likely to make a difference. And if your team is the West Indies, you're way behind a lot more often against the Aussies than you are against (eg) New Zealand. On the other hand, against Bangladesh you're generally way ahead. If you're going with that line, ranking teams by the value of runs against them would have the teams closest in ability to yours at the top and those in a completely different class at the bottom.

On top of that you have hundreds of external factors. Runs against Australia are always more important to England than runs against anyone else, regardless of who the best team is. Likewise Pakistan and India. Whether the match is live or a dead rubber, whether it's a series anyone cares about or a hastily arranged two-test tour of England, whether Andrew Symonds is in the other team (because everyone wants to win more against a team with that man in it), etc. etc. etc. At the end you have to come out and say there's no way you can decipher all of these factors and conclude that runs against good teams are more important than runs against bad teams. Even if you do conclude this through guesstimation, there's no way you can apply it to the extent it's widely applied on CW. At the very least the theory is severely oversold, and I'd go as far as saying it's a complete fallacy.

 

[GIMH]

Again though, it's not a case of them being more important. If a player had an average of 35 but somehow averaged 86 against the best team of his era, that would be nothing more than an anomale on their record, for me (Ramprakash a decent, less extreme, example actually). However, when two players have similar records (for example, Pietersen and Smith) but one has scored a lot of runs against Australia (Pietersen) and the other Bangladesh (Smith) then I think it's fair enough to deem the former's runs a higher indicator of quality than the latter.