*Official* Road to the 2010/11 Ashes

[tooextracool]

He's an off-spinner

Check out "how well" vastly superior bowlers of his type such as Murali have done in Oz

Local batsmen feed on them and that was proven during the Ashes in Eng in his home conditions

Theres little point using apples to compare with oranges. The only similarity between Murali and Swann is that they turn the ball in the same direction. With the exception of possibly Vettori, we havent seen a bowler similar to Swann on Australian shores anytime over the last decade. Vettori's record in Australia is decent while not remarkable, and for me it is clear that Swann is the better bowler.

 

[tooextracool]

The problem is that Oz conditions/players dont suit his style of bowling

I cannot believe anyone can say this with a straight face while the likes of Marcus North is in the side.

 

[Woodster]

Am I not right in thinking that Nathan Hauritz has taken 38 wickets in Tests in Australia at an average of 29.65 ? Surely that indicates great success for Hauritz and a very promising stat for Swann. If Hauritz can manage that, then surely Swann has a very good chance of influencing this upcoming series.

 

[Pup Clarke]

Local batsmen feed on them and that was proven during the Ashes in Eng in his home conditions

I'm sorry, but I can't see the likes of Watson, Hussey, North and Paine/Haddin being able to 'feed' on him, he's improved that much imo since last year.

I hardly feel Katich and Ponting are good players of spin at all, this is going to be a real test for them. Clarke is the only one I'd feel probably confident to handle him reasonably well.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Am I not right in thinking that Nathan Hauritz has taken 38 wickets in Tests in Australia at an average of 29.65 ? Surely that indicates great success for Hauritz and a very promising stat for Swann. If Hauritz can manage that, then surely Swann has a very good chance of influencing this upcoming series.

Yeah but Hauritz only got muppets from Pakistan and West Indies out and they aren't anywhere near as good as the fantastic formidable Australian batting line up.

 

[Prince EWS]

Am I not right in thinking that Nathan Hauritz has taken 38 wickets in Tests in Australia at an average of 29.65 ? Surely that indicates great success for Hauritz and a very promising stat for Swann. If Hauritz can manage that, then surely Swann has a very good chance of influencing this upcoming series.

Hauritz would struggle to average under 50 if he was bowling to Australia in Australia all the time though, as his Sheffield Shield performances indicate.

 

[aussie]

Hauritz would struggle to average under 50 if he was bowling to Australia in Australia all the time though, as his Sheffield Shield performances indicate.

Would average 50 also againts any strong AUS like batting team in AUS as well. As shown by him average 50 vs S.Africa in 2008/09.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I've seen a fair bit of Haddin and he's serviceable as a keeper at best. He's closer to Gilchrist in terms of his batting than his keeping.

Prior will never be Jack Russell, but he very comfortably outkept Haddin in 2009 (seriously, check the byes conceded) and I wouldn't hesitate in picking him first.

 

[tooextracool]

To put that into context, in the 2000s, here is the list of 5 wicket hauls taken by spinners:

• 2010: Danish Kaneria - 5/151
• 2009: Suliemann Benn - 5/155
• 2007: Anil Kumble - 5/84
• 2006: Monty Panesar - 5/92
• 2005: Danish Kaneria - 7/188
• 2004: Danish Kaneria - 5/125
• 2004: Daniel Vettori - 5/152
• 2004: Upul Chandana - 5/101
• 2004: Upul Chandana - 5/109
• 2004: Anil Kumble - 8/141
• 2003: Anil Kumble - 6/176
• 2003: Anil Kumble - 5/154
• 2003: Ray Price - 6/121
• 2001: Daniel Vettori - 5/138
• 2001: Daniel Vettori - 6/87

Have bolded the ones that are at an average of less than 20. No right arm offspinners amongst them, for the record.

Has there been more than one world class off spinner this decade (Harbhajan)? We had Saqlain and even Peter Such in the late 90s take 5fers. Im not saying that Swann is going to tear the roof down, in all likelyhood he'll probably be steady and average in the 30s or low 40s but even the best visiting pace bowlers have struggled to average below 30 in Australia.

Looking at the stats, in the last 10 years there have been 31 5fers taken by visiting teams

Out of which, 15 were taken by spinners, which is about half of them. Bowling in Australia is hard in general, its not just a separate case for spinners.

M W Avg 5 10
A Kumble (India) 2003-2008 7 13 31.79 4 1
Danish Kaneria (Pak) 2004-2010 5 10 40.58 3 0
DL Vettori (ICC/NZ) 2001-2008 8 13 37.55 3 0
UDU Chandana (SL) 2004-2004 2 4 22.50 2 1
Shoaib Akhtar (Pak) 2004-2005 3 5 30.36 2 0
DW Steyn (SA) 2008-2009 3 6 26.16 2 1
AB Agarkar (India) 2003-2004 4 8 37.25 1 0
SJ Benn (WI) 2009-2009 3 5 37.09 1 0
DJ Bravo (WI) 2005-2009 5 8 27.36 1 0
AR Caddick (Eng) 2002-2003 4 7 34.50 1 1
CL Cairns (NZ) 2001-2001 3 5 45.50 1 0
MJ Hoggard (Eng) 2002-2006 7 12 45.31 1 0
Z Khan (India) 2003-2007 3 5 40.00 1 0
CS Martin (NZ) 2001-2008 5 8 53.41 1 0
Mohammad Amir(Pak)2009-2010 2 4 40.37 1 0
Mohammad Asif (Pak)2005-2010 4 8 35.23 1 0
M Ntini (SA) 2001-2009 6 12 43.94 1 0
MS Panesar (Eng) 2006-2007 3 4 37.90 1 0
RW Price (Zim) 2003-2003 2 3 61.83 1 0
WPUJC Vaas (SL) 2004-2007 3 5 42.25 1 0
C White (Eng) 2002-2002 4 5 38.00 1 0

 

[vcs]

Agarkar! What a great man.

 

[Prince EWS]

I've seen a fair bit of Haddin and he's serviceable as a keeper at best. He's closer to Gilchrist in terms of his batting than his keeping.

Prior will never be Jack Russell, but he very comfortably outkept Haddin in 2009 (seriously, check the byes conceded) and I wouldn't hesitate in picking him first.

Kamran Akmal has shown us that truly dire keepers can have little periods where their poor keeping techniques just don't cost much, without really improving their keeping all that much. Then all of a sudden...

Prior has improved his keeping, but he's still not very good. The fact that he's arguably England's third best batsman even when performing the dual role and can keep to a vaguely decent standard means I'm not calling for his head by any stretch of the imagination, and I'd pick him ahead of Haddin for the package at the moment, but his glovework is not better than Haddin's even if he did give away less byes last year.

 

[Jarquis]

Will take your word for it as you're more likely to have seen a substantial amount of them.... but whenever I've seen Haddin in the last 18 months he's looked pretty clumsy with the gloves tbh. Whereas Prior has been more than tidy.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Obviously I can only go on what I've seen, but Haddin looks untidy generally and seems particularly suspect standing up (doubt he gets much practice, tbf). I recall a very amusing interlude at Lords when he allowed himself to be nutmegged by North for 4 byes. Surely that's keeping 101 stuff? Manou looked a different class althogether when he came in.

 

[four_or_six]

I've seen a fair bit of Haddin and he's serviceable as a keeper at best. He's closer to Gilchrist in terms of his batting than his keeping.

Prior will never be Jack Russell, but he very comfortably outkept Haddin in 2009 (seriously, check the byes conceded) and I wouldn't hesitate in picking him first.

I agree with you in that I'd definitely pick Prior... but to be fair to him a lot of the byes difference in 2009 comes from Lords and iirc Johnson may have been responsible for a few of those.

Edit: I recall completely incorrectly, the byes seem to come from everyone but Johnson!

 

[BoyBrumby]

I agree with you in that I'd definitely pick Prior... but to be fair to him a lot of the byes difference in 2009 comes from Lords and iirc Johnson may have been responsible for a few of those.

A few, perhaps but I seem to remember him struggling as much if not more to Hauritz & North, after Doogie did his pinky.

 

[robelinda]

Yeah, some of the calls seemed laughable. Dropping Clarke? Picking WARNER??? WTF?

Yay its the internet!

Just crazy what garbage gets typed!

 

[robelinda]

Bank on Swann making a big impact.

 

[Matt79]

I agree with you in that I'd definitely pick Prior... but to be fair to him a lot of the byes difference in 2009 comes from Lords and iirc Johnson may have been responsible for a few of those.

Edit: I recall completely incorrectly, the byes seem to come from everyone but Johnson!

The umpires have some compassion for keepers and would have called several of Mitch's efforts wides rather than byes.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Haddin isn't a great keeper, reckon he tends to rise in estimation whenever he's injured, ITBT.

 

[Top_Cat]

Over-rated with the bat too, tbh. Not a bad bat by any means but all the talk of batting at 6 seems a bit crazy to me.