Waqar Younis

[Richard]

Lee

Bowling records | One-Day Internationals | Cricinfo Statsguru | Cricinfo.com

Shoaib

Bowling records | One-Day Internationals | Cricinfo Statsguru | Cricinfo.com

Mcgrath
Bowling records | One-Day Internationals | Cricinfo Statsguru | Cricinfo.com

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to show there because that doesn't have any particular relevance to what I was saying which you appeared to be responding to. Either way, even if I had been talking about entire spells it looks like I wouldn't have been too far wide of the mark - in his career so far, in spells where Lee has taken 3 or more wickets he's conceded over 5-an-over on 15 occasions, between 4.58 and 4.62 4, and 4.37 and less 28.

As an overall, his economy-rate in matches where he's taken 3 or more wickets is 4.13-an-over; where he's taken 0, 1 or 2, it's 4.93-an-over, a collossal difference.

For Lee (and the same is true of Shoaib), when he bowled well he bowled economically and penetratively; when he bowled poorly he was profligate and unpenetrative.

 

[Richard]

Accurate bowling increases the chances for you to get wickets, bad bowling and getting a couple of wickets is called a fluke... and 400 odd wickets in case of Waqar is no fluke...his accurate bowling got him wickets, that is why he has majority of his wickets in LBWs or bowleds.

Bowling lots at the stumps and being consistently accurate is a different matter. Waqar was not a bowler of any great consistent accuracy, but he did aim at the sort of place which gets you bowled and lbw wickets with far more regularity than most bowlers. Priority and accuracy is not the same thing.

You are never guaranteed anything in cricket, its a game of odds, and a new batsman facing a fast bowler who can swing the ball at a fair speed does take his time to set his eye in. Its more like common knowledge for cricket lovers.

Facing such bowling is extremely difficult regardless. Such bowling is generally considered to be quality bowling.

Facing bowling which sprays the ball all over is easy to face whether someone's new to the crease or established.

You are contradicting yourself here....

Umm... no, I'm not. Read it again.

if you are not then i guess you want to say in more simple language that Waqar was not accurate and his wickets didn't help him get accurate either.

Then please explain to me how is it that Waqar got all those wickets by ways of LBW or Bowled and yet wasn't accurate?

And if he was accurate, as per your logic, his economy rate should have been better...

Moreover, what do you consider accurate? Is a blockhole bowling accurate, line and length (McGrath type)....what is accurate?

"Being accurate" means hitting the spot you're aiming at. There isn't some sort of stop-start thing either - accuracy is a continuum, you don't get a point where a bowler is "accurate" and one where he's "inaccurate". One bowler is more accurate than another.

Some bowlers are better at bowling at one spot than others - Darren Gough bowled a Yorker length better than most bowlers; Glenn McGrath and Curtley Ambrose bowled a back-of-length length better than most bowlers.

There's metronomic style accuracy - where your body is pre-programmed and is good at bowling the ball at a certain pre-specified spot because it's been grooved that way. Then there's pinpoint style accuracy - where you can aim at a spot each delivery and hit it.

Different stages of a ODI call for different lengths. For most of the innings, back-of-length straight is the requirement; for the death stage, Yorker-length and (generally) wide of off-stump is the requirement.

Waqar was not a bowler of great accuracy; that was Wasim. Wasim too was a pinpoint-accuracy style bowler rather than Ambrose who was a metronome-accuracy style bowler - he could bowl both the back-of-length length and the Yorker length to order. That's why he's the best ODI bowler there's ever been in modern times. Waqar was simply a bowler who had a terrific mindset - he aimed the vast majority of his deliveries at the stumps and consequently hit them far more often than most. But if you looked at how likely each delivery was to hit the spot it was aimed at, Waqar would fall below many. And that's why his economy-rate was so high.

 

[Faisal1985]

Possible Contradictions by Richard

"Wicket-taking can certainly help accurate bowling be really economical instead of fairly economical."

"Getting tailenders or top-order batsmen out at the end of the innings will almost never slow the run-rate, because at the death everyone goes for everything regardless."


Moreover:

"Bowling lots at the stumps and being consistently accurate is a different matter. Waqar was not a bowler of any great consistent accuracy, but he did aim at the sort of place which gets you bowled and lbw wickets with far more regularity than most bowlers. Priority and accuracy is not the same thing."

And

" "Being accurate" means hitting the spot you're aiming at."

Also is contradictory.

If Waqar wanted to hit the stumps and "He did" for the most part of his wickets then he is accurate as per your logic because he aimed for it and got it right many times.

My suggestion try to change this girlish habit of "i am always right" even when you are far from it.

 

[Sanz]

As an overall, his economy-rate in matches where he's taken 3 or more wickets is 4.13-an-over; where he's taken 0, 1 or 2, it's 4.93-an-over, a collossal difference.

For Lee (and the same is true of Shoaib), when he bowled well he bowled economically and penetratively; when he bowled poorly he was profligate and unpenetrative.

That's again selective stats carefully choosing a criteria that will eliminate more good games of Lee/Akhtar because both these bowlers had higher percentages of 3+ wickets.

It is like manufacturing stats to suit your conclusions.

 

[Richard]

Again, I know what I did, you don't. In reality I picked 3 wickets because that seemed to me to constitute a spell where a decent number of wickets were taken; 1 or 2 is run-of-the-mill. I picked the variables, then looked at the results, not tested a different number of variables to see which gave the most desireable (to me) results.

The reality is that mostly, Lee and Shoaib tend to either take wickets and bowl economically or go around the park and not threaten. I don't need to be selective about how I display the data - however I or anyone else displays it, that's what it shows. You could go through every spell of both bowlers and categorise them as "went around the park and took wickets", "economical and penetrative" and "went around the park and didn't threaten" if you wanted to, that'd be the best way to do it, but I really CBA, because I don't need to - I already know what happened.

 

[Richard]

Possible Contradictions by Richard

"Wicket-taking can certainly help accurate bowling be really economical instead of fairly economical."

"Getting tailenders or top-order batsmen out at the end of the innings will almost never slow the run-rate, because at the death everyone goes for everything regardless."

The former quote would more accurately read "getting early wickets" rather than merely "getting wickets".

Moreover:

"Bowling lots at the stumps and being consistently accurate is a different matter. Waqar was not a bowler of any great consistent accuracy, but he did aim at the sort of place which gets you bowled and lbw wickets with far more regularity than most bowlers. Priority and accuracy is not the same thing."

And

""Being accurate" means hitting the spot you're aiming at."

Also is contradictory.

It isn't.

If Waqar wanted to hit the stumps and "He did" for the most part of his wickets then he is accurate as per your logic because he aimed for it and got it right many times.

You don't seem to understand very well - most every Waqar delivery was aimed at the stumps except when he chucked the odd short one in, but he missed that aim with great regularity, as well as hitting it on plenty of occasions too (which when you bowl several thousand deliveries you will do). Other bowlers hit their aim - whatever that aim might have been - with far more regularity than Waqar.

As I say - there is no such thing as "is accurate" \ "is not accurate" - it's a question of how accurate. No-one's saying Waqar was a hopeless waste of space who couldn't ever hit a barn door in 50 attempts, merely that compared to plenty of bowlers, his accuracy was inferior. That didn't stop him being a damn decent ODI bowler, but it did make him notably inferior to a good few others.

My suggestion try to change this girlish habit of "i am always right" even when you are far from it.

I wouldn't say what I said if it wasn't right. See? It'd be rather foolish to deliberately say something that was wrong just for the sake of being wrong.

 

[wfdu_ben91]

I wouldn't say what I said if it wasn't right. See? It'd be rather foolish to deliberately say something that was wrong just for the sake of being wrong.

No, it's just what you think is right. Doesn't mean it is, Dickadoo.

 

[vic_orthdox]

As an overall, his economy-rate in matches where he's taken 3 or more wickets is 4.13-an-over; where he's taken 0, 1 or 2, it's 4.93-an-over, a collossal difference.

For Lee (and the same is true of Shoaib), when he bowled well he bowled economically and penetratively; when he bowled poorly he was profligate and unpenetrative.

There's also the possibility that those stats show that by not taking wickets, it is more likely that runs are to be scored. It can go both ways.

 

[Teja.]

Richard, your posts seem to give the impression that bowling at the stumps consistently over a 266-match ODI career is absolute childplay.

 

[Xuhaib]

haha...Richard having one of those threads.

 

[bagapath]

my top 10 fast bowlers of the last 30 years

Tests

Marshall
McGrath
Hadlee
Imran
Lillee
Ambrose
Donald
Akram
Holding
Waqar

ODIs

Akram
Garner
Waqar
McGrath
Pollock
Hadlee
Donald
Lee
Bond
Ambrose

Cant really answer the thread starter's question straight. I guess, depite Waqar's awesome record in tests, there are enough greats who were better than him. In ODIs he is closer to the top of the pile for sure. But since test cricket is considered to be the ultimate form of cricket his fame is a notch below that of his contemporaries.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Haha, for so long seeing "the last 30 years" has had connotation of the 1970s onwards. Doesn't really work now! Just noted that looking at bagapath's list.

 

[Xuhaib]

My take on Waqar has always been the same.

90-94 Best fast bowler ever.

95-98 World class.

99-03 Barely test class.

 

[Teja.]

My take on Waqar has always been the same.

90-94 Best fast bowler ever.

95-98 World class.

99-03 Barely test class.

Overall, all time great?

 

[vic_orthdox]

I think anyone who has a period of excellence like Waqar did would still be an all time great, even if he had've gone straight from the 1990-94 "best fast bowler ever" tag (not really my opinion, but understandable) to 1999-2003 "barely test class", simply because of how amazing that peak was.

Similar, in a way, to Botham. How good Beefy was at his peak still gives him great status, at least within his own nation, despite the majority of his career (in terms of years) not really performing to such a standard.

 

[Xuhaib]

Overall, all time great?

Depends on your criteria.

My criteria for an all time great is the top 50 cricketers ever so by that defination i say a lower rung all time great.

 

[Sanz]

Again, I know what I did, you don't. In reality I picked 3 wickets because that seemed to me to constitute a spell where a decent number of wickets were taken; 1 or 2 is run-of-the-mill. I picked the variables, then looked at the results, not tested a different number of variables to see which gave the most desireable (to me) results.

No it doesn't matter how you did it. The whole process is taking bigger chunk of Lee's good games. 25% compared to Mcgrath's 18.

The reality is that mostly, Lee and Shoaib tend to either take wickets and bowl economically or go around the park and not threaten. I don't need to be selective about how I display the data - however I or anyone else displays it, that's what it shows. You could go through every spell of both bowlers and categorise them as "went around the park and took wickets", "economical and penetrative" and "went around the park and didn't threaten" if you wanted to, that'd be the best way to do it, but I really CBA, because I don't need to - I already know what happened.

It is funny to see adding another Criteria since your last post. Earlier in the thread you said the following :-

For Lee (and the same is true of Shoaib), when he bowled well he bowled economically and penetratively; when he bowled poorly he was profligate and unpenetrative.

Now all at a sudden you have cleverly inserted another criteria (marked in the post above.

And you are still wrong, you do not know what happened in every thread.Here are a some of matches where Lee was economic but not penetrative.

2nd ODI: Australia v Bangladesh at Cairns, Aug 3, 2003 | Cricket Scorecard | Cricinfo.com
12th Match: Australia v England at Jaipur, Oct 21, 2006 | Cricket Scorecard | Cricinfo.com
4th ODI: India v Australia at Chandigarh, Oct 8, 2007 | Cricket Scorecard | Cricinfo.com

 

[Sanz]

Depends on your criteria.

My criteria for an all time great is the top 50 cricketers ever so by that defination i say a lower rung all time great.

The point is one can have his PoV on whether or not Waqar is an All time greatbut to make a statement like Damien Fleming is fair way ahead of Waqar as an ODI bowler is simply baffling.

 

[Ikki]

I'd have him in the top 5 bowlers of alltime and in my alltime XI. The guy was a genius with the ball and had a small runup that generated great pace.

Waqar wouldn't of been anywhere near as good as what he was without Wasim and Imran's bowling is a tad overrated by most, due to the fact that he was the total package as a cricketer and could do everything, much like Gary Sobers.

Agree, Wasim was a genius. Waqar not being anywhere near as good without him is a mighty claim.

Simply wrong on Imran. Was probably the best bowler of the 80s where his contemporaries were some of the best bowlers of all time.

 

[thierry henry]

Just to go back to the debate at the very start of the thread, I'd like to echo Goughy's sentiments on Wasim.

At the risk of being shouted down for stats-obsession, Wasim's test record appears to me to be a rung below the other contenders. What's also interesting is that he is referred to as such an utterly devastating wicket-taking bowler, yet compared to other great or supposedly great quicks has a fairly middling strike-rate and probably the lowest wickets-per-match.

I also don't see, prima facie, what would make Wasim so clearly superior to a McGrath or a Pollock (so so underrated) as an ODI bowler.

I'm not denying there are probably counter arguments, just felt this needed pointing out. The reason I really felt it needed pointing out is because, in a sport where "aura" seems to be used as a tiebreaker for statistically similar players, Akram seems to exist in a class all of his own. You constantly hear him described as a sort of superhuman bowler who had absolutely everything- speed, swing, seam, accuracy, nous, just everything, as if he somehow combined the best attributes of all of the greats. This might make sense if he took his wickets at 15 apiece, but he didn't. Rather, he performed to a similar standard to Shaun "Poor Man's McGrath who was ineffective in tests for a large part of his career" Pollock in terms of wicket-taking and economy in both forms of the game.