*Official* Tour Matches

[MW1304]

If you're going by stats, his stats while damn good, are inflated by playing Pak & BD. Shakib can be equally vicious on assisting conditions, wouldn't you agree? So the margin isn't that huge as some people are making it out to be. No denying that he tops the list though.

What, so Shakib's are inflated by playing New Zealand and West Indies?

They've played a similar amount of games and Swann comfortably has the better average. He has more 5 wicket hauls, more 10 wickets hauls blah blah blah..

A few games against Bangladesh, in which he didn't even play brilliantly, don't suddenly account for that and certainly don't make him a worse bowler. He has better attributes than Shakib anyway.

 

[M0rphin3]

What, so Shakib's are inflated by playing New Zealand and West Indies?

They've played a similar amount of games and Swann comfortably has the better average. He has more 5 wicket hauls, more 10 wickets hauls blah blah blah..

A few games against Bangladesh, in which he didn't even play brilliantly, don't suddenly account for that and certainly don't make him a worse bowler. He has better attributes than Shakib anyway.

Westindies yeah, NZ? Shakib got those wickets against a full strength NZ side like Swanneh did against a full strength WI side. No doubt that he's ahead of Shakib presently, but only marginally. And yeah, Shakib didn't even start as a genuine spinner, and had to play against tough opponents like India, SL etc and has 5 wicket hauls against all opponents he played.

 

[superkingdave]

Alex Keath looking like getting a game for Victoria? Wasn't he a good chance to get drafted if he hadn't chosen cricket?

 

[Howe_zat]

I rate Shakib highly but he only has so many 5w hauls because he is forced to bowl himself almost all day. He is the best bowler in his own team, and produced an outstanding performance in SA. He also took apart a terrible WI side, but this only amounts to four matches.

In the rest of his matches, including all his matches at home, Shakib averages 38.

Swann has produced consistently good to excellent performances around the world and his averages largely reflect the quality of the batting against him. Take out his four best matches against Pakistan, and he still averages 30.5, which in the modern game is still very good.

 

[Prince EWS]

I rate Shakib highly but he only has so many 5w hauls because he is forced to bowl himself almost all day.

Haha. This is the new Warne v Murali.

 

[vcs]

I haven't observed Shakib closely before, but I caught a bit of him bowling against Zimbabwe a couple of days back and his action looked very roundarm-ish to me. That's not a good thing for an off-spinner, is it?

 

[Prince EWS]

I haven't observed Shakib closely before, but I caught a bit of him bowling against Zimbabwe a couple of days back and his action looked very roundarm-ish to me. That's not a good thing for an off-spinner, is it?

Yeah, he's admitted that's one of the things he's working on. It used to be a lot worse than it is now - he's worked very hard on getting that arm higher - but it gets a bit low when he's tired or out of form.

 

[morgieb]

Alex Keath looking like getting a game for Victoria? Wasn't he a good chance to get drafted if he hadn't chosen cricket?

He actually had a contract with the Suns, lol. Keath's doing pretty good iirc, it's not like picking cricket over AFL is unprecedented (read Mitch Marsh, Jamie Cox).

 

[M0rphin3]

I rate Shakib highly but he only has so many 5w hauls because he is forced to bowl himself almost all day. He is the best bowler in his own team, and produced an outstanding performance in SA. He also took apart a terrible WI side, but this only amounts to four matches.

In the rest of his matches, including all his matches at home, Shakib averages 38.

Swann has produced consistently good to excellent performances around the world and his averages largely reflect the quality of the batting against him. Take out his four best matches against Pakistan, and he still averages 30.5, which in the modern game is still very good.

Tbf, he wasn't a full time spinner to begin with when he started the career, he used to bowl part time while Rafique, Razzak led their spin attack. It's only afterwards he started to play as a specialist spinner, and since then he's performed quite well imo.

Wow, and it's a extremely unfair to him to say that he got those 5 wicket hauls just coz he bowled all day. Swann's bowled 50, 49, 45 and 41 overs in 4 of his wicket hauls while Shakib's worst came from 38 overs. And he has no quality bowlers to back him, be it spinners or seamers to maintain the pressure at the other end. And Shakib had to bowl against SL, India, SA, Eng, and those are all top class teams. Except India, he's played all of them away and at home.

 

[Jono]

In Bloemfontein & Centurion IIRC? Why?

Swanneh in centurion 5/110 & 0/92, & Shakib 6/99 (lost by an innings)

Lol, massive fail from myself.

Completely forgot Bangladesh played SA in SA.

 

[Howe_zat]

Tbf, he wasn't a full time spinner to begin with when he started the career, he used to bowl part time while Rafique, Razzak led their spin attack. It's only afterwards he started to play as a specialist spinner, and since then he's performed quite well imo.

Wow, and it's a extremely unfair to him to say that he got those 5 wicket hauls just coz he bowled all day. Swann's bowled 50, 49, 45 and 41 overs in 4 of his wicket hauls while Shakib's worst came from 38 overs. And he has no quality bowlers to back him, be it spinners or seamers to maintain the pressure at the other end. And Shakib had to bowl against SL, India, SA, Eng, and those are all top class teams. Except India, he's played all of them away and at home.

Okay, maybe it was unfair of me to say it's because he bowls all day, all spinners will do that. What I meant is that Shakib takes a great deal of 5-fors because he is a very good bowler having to bowl with Rubel Hossain and Shaiful Islam, who would struggle to make regular county appearances.

I've said that I rate Shakib, but it isn't fair to bag Swann for excellent figures against Bangladesh and Pakistan but ignore that Shakib has only had one good Test series against quality opposition. Swann is far more consistent than Shakib and the figures show it.

And I'm aware that he has improved as a bowler, no-one is arguing that he has more all-round credentials.

 

[pskov]

It's been confirmed that Davies will keep with Prior playing as a batsman. So I imagine the team will be...

Strauss*
Trott
Collingwood
Bell
Prior
Morgan
Davies+
Bresnan
Shazad
Tremlett
Panesar

With who opens and where Prior bats to be decided.

 

[Howe_zat]

It's been confirmed that Davies will keep with Prior playing as a batsman. So I imagine the team will be...

Strauss*
Trott
Collingwood
Bell
Prior
Morgan
Davies+
Bresnan
Shazad
Tremlett
Panesar

With who opens and where Prior bats to be decided.

Fair enough. I imagine Bell will move to #3, as that's where he bats at county level, unless there's still a phobia in the England camp of doing that. KP could well play ahead of Trott, depending on who could benefit more from continuing to play, and in my mind that's KP. If Prior plays as a specialist bat, he could well open as he does in limited-overs cricket.

The other possibility is Strauss defecting to Cook for this match, though that's less likely.

Strauss / Cook *
Prior
Bell
KP
Colly
Morgan
Davies

 

[marc71178]

It comes to something where we're resting the most in form batsmen and still have to play 2 batsmen averaging over 100 in the Test series.

 

[M0rphin3]

Okay, maybe it was unfair of me to say it's because he bowls all day, all spinners will do that. What I meant is that Shakib takes a great deal of 5-fors because he is a very good bowler having to bowl with Rubel Hossain and Shaiful Islam, who would struggle to make regular county appearances.

I've said that I rate Shakib, but it isn't fair to bag Swann for excellent figures against Bangladesh and Pakistan but ignore that Shakib has only had one good Test series against quality opposition. Swann is far more consistent than Shakib and the figures show it.

And I'm aware that he has improved as a bowler, no-one is arguing that he has more all-round credentials.

18 against NZ in home, 20.81 against SA in SA, 32.44 against India in BD (2010). And a match winning performance against SL too.

And again unfair to say that he just gets 5fers because the other bowlers don't. His figures of 7/36 (NZ), 6/99(SA), 5/62 (India), 5/70 (SL) pretty much indicates that he earned those wickets rather than batsmen giving it away. And getting those figures while he's the only world class bowler in his team aint no joke.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Four debutants for Victoria.

| Cricket Victoria

Great to see Tom Stray get a game, hope he makes the most of it. Certainly has better credentials than some other guys getting games in SA, WA and QLD. Probably still going to miss out on a game, they'll do to him what they did with Gulbis and name him in the squad, to pretend they've given him a chance, and then he'll head back to district cricket for the rest of the year.

Likely side:

Hill
Carters
Finch
Hussey
White
Keath
Wade+
Hastings
McKay
Herrick
Holland

 

[Oscillatingmind]

I don't think its bad, but why is it state teams tend to blood in youngsters in touring matches? is it just because theres no points and ****?

 

[social]

Record against South Africa is

Until you compare it with the top guys

Swann has done extremely well for a traditional style offie

However, he's still just an offie an the fact that he's rate the no. 1 spinner in the world is a pretty sorry indictment of the rest

 

[FBU]

Will there be a radio link for this match?

 

[MW1304]

Surely Davies will open? I've heard that he's opened for Surrey in F/C games before and may well be the way to go if one of our openers is injured? If not I'd certainly not open with Prior or Trott, seems like messing about with things too much. They have their places in the team, so Cook should probably play. I'd go with this:

Strauss (c)
Davies (wk)
Bell
Pietersen
Collingwood
Morgan
Prior
Bresnan
Shahzad
Tremlett
Panesar

(by the way, loving the lack of tail in this team)