Which, whether true or not, is completely irrelevant to the point GF was making. You've both completely missed it. Funny how that happens when someone systematically goes through a 300+ posts thread from the start and individually quotes every post he disagrees with, out of context.England without Anderson and Swann can expect to be rolled over by SA and India atm.
Should have read posts...Should have referred it.
He wasn't and he still isn't. Even with Anderson and Swann in, England won't beat India in India and struggle to do so in England.DWTA, before this series Anderson was hardly the be all and end all of England's attack.
EWS talking about out of context.. Weren't you advicing Marcuss on "getting posters beat" sometime back? I believe you have taken the entire internet out of context, tbh..Which, whether true or not, is completely irrelevant to the point GF was making. You've both completely missed it. Funny how that happens when someone systematically goes through a 300+ posts thread from the start and individually quotes every post he disagrees with, out of context.
FWIW, the post GF made was making the point that rankings don't take changes in team personnel into account. If Team X games into a series ranked #1 but eight of its players have retired in the past three days, its ranking is completely inconsequential. That's all he was saying in that post - he wasn't actually arguing the merits of any side; merely the merits of the rankings in a predictive sense when teams have changed personnel. He used India and England as hypothetical examples. If Team Y, playing against Team X, had also had eight retirees as hb suggested then the rankings would be even less relevant.
I can't help if the posting and posters happen to be random.. I can only quote what has been said..Why?
Try reading the original tone of the thread. I'd be amazed if you could actually pick up the tone of a thread when you're quoting random posts, but hey, a guy can dream.
Don't apologise for your overly aggressive nature, apologise for your spasticated style of posting. Then we might get along.
I blame myself for making Post #4.how can a random comment from a motor mouth like Gough lead to such a huge thread.
possibly the best post in the thread sometimes its better to keep your cricketing acumen to your self.I blame myself for making Post #4.
If you're getting that from my posts, you're more special than I first though.
Happy New Year ****.
Wtf guys? This is stupid.Happy New Year **** ****
Well, put it down to a very narrowly missed run out off the last ball then.Hmmm 3 bad decisions in close succession.. I will pick and choose the ONLY one that can back up my non-existent point and help me clutch that straw even tighter.. "correct" indeed..
"Mathematical backing", wtf? This is cricket not quantum physics. Cold statistical analyses are used far too willingly in making predictions in cricket. Stats can give you a rough view of certain aspects of how a player is performing, but on the whole there are far more flaws than benefits, especially when trying to predict a player's upcoming performances. To say that predictions based on simple observation are somehow 'nonsense' unless numbers are used to back it up is ridiculous, and, probably born out of someone trying to treat cricket like a science topic. Watching the game closely allows you to take in the finer details of how a player is performing and is easily the best way of predicting how successful a player will be in the near future. E.g. a bowler might be causing all sorts of trouble in the first innings of a match without reward. Stats will tell you the bowler performed badly, observation will tell that the bowler was finding nice lines and lengths, getting good movement etc. Which would you use to predict how they are going to fair in the second innings?I am, if anything, a heartless monster.
Regardless, it is completely nonsense, unless you provide it with mathematical backing. Predictions based on hunches are fine, even if they are nonsense. It doesn't bother me if such guesses are used to predict the result of a future series. Likewise, it shouldn't bother you if I call out how fallacious those suppositions are.
Actually aussie batsman have made finn,tremlett,bresnan look very good,Indian bowling attack is good in all conditions and they are capable of taking 20 wickets on flattest of p-itches which i do not think england are yet capable of.Also england have won against pak,bangladesh and drew against wi at home also may draw the ashes .A team is only as strong as its weakest link.
Look at the performances of the bowling attacks all series. Siddle carried the Aussie attack at Brisbane, they were all dire at Adelaide, Johnson and Harris wrecked us at Perth, and only Siddle again stood up at Melbourne. Australia's bowling in virtually every innings has relied on one man being the main wrecking ball - Siddle twice, Johnson and Harris have all claimed 6-for in the series.
Whereas with the exception of the first innings of Brisbane, England have consistently dismissed Australia cheaply without any of their bowlers having a really outstanding series. It's been the theme all tour from the first tour match - all of the bowlers are chipping in to contribute without relying on any one of them pulling a magic spell out of their arse - only Finn, Swann and Tremlett have taken a Michelle.
As PEWS said, the only weak link in the side is Collingwood's batting, and even then, what Collingwood brings in the field to a degree compensates for his batting failures. Compare England to India - there's question marks over both openers in conditions where the ball does a bit, Dravid may or may not be over the hill, Ganguly hasn't been replaced adequately yet at 6, and their bowling attack bar Zaheer is a complete joke.
Tremlett/ Broad, Anderson, Finn/ Bresnan and Swann are better than their Indian counterparts in most conditions, if not all tbh. Would say Harbhajan is slightly better or equal to Swann on those decks but really, Sharma and Sreesanth are more often ******** than decent, and I say that as someone who thought Sharma would be the next big thing a couple of years back. He's been woeful in tests for the most part. Needs the biggest arse kicking ever.look, you obviously think England bowling > India even in Indian conditions.. I disagree.. We will just wait and see when the series happens. As things stand, there is a very good chance that the series will never happen with these same bowlers playing and we will never know..
I was gonna reply to a few posts mate but a bit of a car crash seems to have occurred overnight.And frankly, every time India prepare flat tracks, the Indian fast (and spin) bowlers bitch and moan....and rightly so.
I find it funny that anyone would think that the bowlers would prefer to bowl on Indian tracks (the flat ones) - home advantage or not.
You've been here long enough to know it doesn't work like thatSo this my dicks bigger than your dick thread has gone on over 40 pages.This is comedy gold.
Why don't people accept that both Anderson and Zaheer are good/very good bowlers and are both valuable assets to their sides. We can go over this again in the summer when they meet in England.
In the meantime Happy New Year everyone.