The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[the big bambino]

O'Reilly + Grimmett + Ironmonger. Three bowlers playing in the same team at one time boasting better averages than anyone (bar one) in the world has managed from the 60s to now. Do you maintain that this is coincidence?

Many other spinners averaging low 20s before the 60s. 1 since, despite their being many more teams and games.

RSAs spin failure in AUS (as well as Barnes's relative failure) suggests conditions were much easier in RSA and and England for spin than AUS near the turn of the century. At this time though, we are discussing an RSA player and an England one- they benefited from playing most of their games in easy conditions. No Australian of this era is being discussed. O'Reilly ended his career around 40 years after Faulkner and Barnes started. Pitches change in 40 years- see South Africa moving from mats to regular pitches in this timeframe.

First up I love the use of Ironmonger as boosterism. We all know the exceptional circumstances surrounding his average. You could selectively edit Ashwin's, Jadeja's and Harby's productive series to make a cynical case. So its really O'Reilly and Grimmett. But I'd even allow Ironmonger though we all know he isn't comparable. Those bowlers appearing in the same team is no less a coincidence than 4 fast bowers appearing for the WI in the 80s and 90s. So I think you are being selective. You are being selective in another way too. Why not mention the many spinners that failed where O'Reilly and Grimmett succeeded? Apart from JC White no English spinner succeeded in Australia during their era. neither did any spinner from any other country. Australia also produced many medium paced cutters and spinners in that time. Oxenham, Hurwood, Hornibrook and MacNamee. Heard of them? Why not? If the pitches were so favourable then the era would have produced many more examples of which you can only point to a paltry 3; and even the last one benefitted by not playing England as often as the others.

Neither is your case made in other nations in the Tiger/Grum era. Apart from those two and Verity spinners paid a handsome price for their wickets in Eng. Even in SA, where in the last 2 series before the war only Tiger and Grum made head way on the shirt fronts offered there. The easier matting wickets weren't available to Tiger or Grum, but succeed they did: didn't they?

Your last paragraph is superfluous. We all know the Barnes era was easier for bowling. That is why I confined my response to Australian wickets. They were then comparable to pitches now. Barnes succeeded on them therefore you have no reason to think modern pitches would have hindered him. (Btw what sort of a person terms a 22 average a failure?) My additional point relating to O'Reilly and Grimmett is that pitches everywhere had improved which is shown by the increase in decadal batting averages. Tiger and Grum succeeded on all pitches they played on in that era. Since the decadal batting averages are similar then to now you have no reason to believe modern pitches would frustrate them either.

 

[Coronis]

Also, leg spin works better on bouncier wickets. Plus good slip fielding adds to the effectiveness. Obviously, Australia...

I'm not sure, but I think good slip fielding adds to the effectiveness of all bowling.

 

[Starfighter]

First up I love the use of Ironmonger as boosterism. We all know the exceptional circumstances surrounding his average. You could selectively edit Ashwin's, Jadeja's and Harby's productive series to make a cynical case. So its really O'Reilly and Grimmett. But I'd even allow Ironmonger though we all know he isn't comparable. Those bowlers appearing in the same team is no less a coincidence than 4 fast bowers appearing for the WI in the 80s and 90s. So I think you are being selective. You are being selective in another way too. Why not mention the many spinners that failed where O'Reilly and Grimmett succeeded? Apart from JC White no English spinner succeeded in Australia during their era. neither did any spinner from any other country. Australia also produced many medium paced cutters and spinners in that time. Oxenham, Hurwood, Hornibrook and MacNamee. Heard of them? Why not? If the pitches were so favourable then the era would have produced many more examples of which you can only point to a paltry 3; and even the last one benefitted by not playing England as often as the others.

If we're going to refer this debate specifically to Australian pitches, Aus interwar bowling average 32.54, Aus 21st C. average 36.44. I think that shows that Australian pitches are in general harder to bowl on than they are now. Since you claim only three examples of good spinners coming out of Australia in that period, how about we look at some first class averages shall we? After all I think you'll agree that the types of bowlers that dominate at first class level are generally indicative of the sorts of pitches that country produces. Hence why Indian cricket has traditionally been dominated by spin, and English by seam.

Some interwar Australian Spinners, many of whom played tests from 1924-1938: O'Reilly 16.6, Oxenham 18.7, Ironmonger 21.5, Grimmett 22.4, Fleetwood-Smith 22.6, Hornibrook 23.83, Blackie 24.1, Ward 24.7, Chilvers 26.4, Hurwood 27.6, Lee 30.15, Hartkopf 31.0, Waite 31.6, Seivers 33.4

By comparison no fast-medium or fast bowler who played tests for Australia from that era averaged better than McCormick's 27.7 at first class level, there aren't too many better amongst those who didn't. Standard policy was to play only one fast bowler in tests, a total antithesis of today's strategy.

Now let's look at the last decade or so? O'Keefe 24.6, Somerville 26.2, Fawad 29.8, Holland 32.5, Swepson 33.4, Lyon 35.5, Cullen 35.6, Beer 40.4, Hauritz 43.2, Doherty 42.6, Casson 43.5, Zampa 46.2, Krejza 48.9

I'm sure I've missed a few but I've got all the test players.

If pitches in Australia were no more favourable to spin then than now, why did Oxenham (medium pace off spin), who you call a relative nobody, average under 20? And all those other bowlers who were not considered good enough? Sure they may be better bowlers than some or even most of those in the modern list, but they would't have the records they did if there wasn't something in the pitches to encourage their development. Lyon averages 33.8 at home and 30.1 away, and is worse in the Shield. Are you saying that Hornibrook, while a fine bowler at times, is so much better than Lyon to average 12 less? Are you saying that O'Reilly was sufficiently better than Warne (26.1) to average 10 less? Because your assessment of the pitches makes that argument by implication. The fact is the inter-war period saw a far greater dominance by spin than any period in Australian cricket since. While O'Reilly is clearly out ahead of the rest of his contemporaries I think it's pretty clear that he had better conditions to bowl in than modern bowlers. You simply don't see those sub-20 averages anymore. Yes test pitches may have been flatter than non-test pitches but the era averages I show above show that the recent ones are flatter again, while the FC bowler figures show the decline in spin recently compared to then.

 

[Bolo]

First up I love the use of Ironmonger as boosterism. We all know the exceptional circumstances surrounding his average. You could selectively edit Ashwin's, Jadeja's and Harby's productive series to make a cynical case. So its really O'Reilly and Grimmett. But I'd even allow Ironmonger though we all know he isn't comparable. Those bowlers appearing in the same team is no less a coincidence than 4 fast bowers appearing for the WI in the 80s and 90s. So I think you are being selective. You are being selective in another way too. Why not mention the many spinners that failed where O'Reilly and Grimmett succeeded? Apart from JC White no English spinner succeeded in Australia during their era. neither did any spinner from any other country. Australia also produced many medium paced cutters and spinners in that time. Oxenham, Hurwood, Hornibrook and MacNamee. Heard of them? Why not? If the pitches were so favourable then the era would have produced many more examples of which you can only point to a paltry 3; and even the last one benefitted by not playing England as often as the others.

Neither is your case made in other nations in the Tiger/Grum era. Apart from those two and Verity spinners paid a handsome price for their wickets in Eng. Even in SA, where in the last 2 series before the war only Tiger and Grum made head way on the shirt fronts offered there. The easier matting wickets weren't available to Tiger or Grum, but succeed they did: didn't they?

Your last paragraph is superfluous. We all know the Barnes era was easier for bowling. That is why I confined my response to Australian wickets. They were then comparable to pitches now. Barnes succeeded on them therefore you have no reason to think modern pitches would have hindered him. (Btw what sort of a person terms a 22 average a failure?) My additional point relating to O'Reilly and Grimmett is that pitches everywhere had improved which is shown by the increase in decadal batting averages. Tiger and Grum succeeded on all pitches they played on in that era. Since the decadal batting averages are similar then to now you have no reason to believe modern pitches would frustrate them either.

Is Ironmonger's finger what you mean, or is there something else? That, his era and his average is about all I know- he's barely written about for someone who averages below 20. Irrespective of what the exceptional circumstances were though, the probability of one team producing 3 bowlers that statistically exceptional at the same time is extremely slim without conditions playing a role. Verity as well- 4 bowlers averaging low 20s playing in the same year from only 6 test nations. Maybe more? I haven't looked. To my knowledge, 1 bowler from more than 6 nations in the last 60 years. The probability of this occuring randomly is nearly zero.

The Windies quicks were certainly helped a bit by conditions of the time (not as much as being awesome), but they are nowhere near the level of statistical outliers. There have been 15? 20? quicks since with similar stats in a shorter duration of time. Depending on what form of statistical interpretation you select, 15 could be closer to a trillion than it is to 1.

My case is that until the 60s many spinners had fantastic averages. After that almost none. Off the top of my head, see Laker, Tayfield, Locke just after O'Reilly. Spinners from these countries have usually averaged mid to late 30s since then. Something clearly changed that started to favour quicks above spinners. It wasn't laws of the game (bodyline, lbw law, physical protection). I think it was mostly the pitches.

The first 80 years of cricket were extremely good to spinners, but this should not be taken to mean all countries are going to produce great spinners simultaneously, or that you will become a great spinner by virtue of having played in this era. Conditions do not replace ability, but they certainly make ability more effective.

O'Reilly was definitely an ATG spinner, but I'm pretty sure his average would not look the same if he were playing in the modern era. Warne averages something like 15% more and is typically thought of as the best leggie ever. Kumble (more similar in pace) averages 30 and is borderline ATG.

On Barnes, not much discussion is possible- I'm not betting against Barnes maintaining a 22 average in the current era (really not sure though), so I don't think we are disagreeing. Note that I said relative failure, not failure. If he'd averaged 10 in AUS and 5 elsewhere, it would still be a relative failure. There's a tendency in cricket discussion to reduce comparative statements to absolute ones.

On the batting averages, this conversation started from me saying that decadal averages mask the fact that spinners averages have gone up and quicks have gone down. There is no reason to conflate the averages of spin and pace when we are specifically discussing spin.

 

[the big bambino]

If we're going to refer this debate specifically to Australian pitches, Aus interwar bowling average 32.54, Aus 21st C. average 36.44. I think that shows that Australian pitches are in general harder to bowl on than they are now.

can you just clarify that for me please? I'm reading that the interwar bowling ave is less than C21 ave, implying that it would be easier to bowl on the interwar pitches - is that right? Is this a test ave or a fc ave? I see you go on about bowling averages later in your post that seem to be fc aves - is that right? If so you seem to be mixing up test and fc aves, which makes for a confusing argument. So i just want to get it into my head.

Btw - No I will not agree that the types of bowlers who dominate at fc level is indicative of the types of pitches provided. it is indicative of dumb random luck. The reason Gregory and Ted Mac played in the 20s and Lindwall, Miller and Johnston played in the 40s is simple accident of birth, thats all. Nothing to do with pitch conditions. In fact O'Reilly (who was contemptuous of Australian pitches saying more drongo batsman scored hundreds here than anywhere) said at least our pitches were fast. Whereas they were slow in the 40s. Note also that English wickets were slower in the same era. Yet they produced the much better fast bowlers leading to a situation where our spinners were better suited to touring there and their fast bowlers being by far their greater wicket takers out here. in short exactly the opposite to your implication.

Your opening sentence is only partly true but totally misleading. In my last post I concentrated on Australian pitches when talking about Barnes. But pitches world wide when talking about Tiger and Grum. I only referenced Australian pitches in relation to them as a subset of their performance in the era on all pitches.

 

[mr_mister]

I think the Ironmonger point was that he averaged 10 against minnows SA and 34 against England, the formidable opponent of his era

 

[the big bambino]

Is Ironmonger's finger what you mean, or is there something else? That, his era and his average is about all I know- he's barely written about for someone who averages below 20. Irrespective of what the exceptional circumstances were though, the probability of one team producing 3 bowlers that statistically exceptional at the same time is extremely slim without conditions playing a role. Verity as well- 4 bowlers averaging low 20s playing in the same year from only 6 test nations. Maybe more? I haven't looked. To my knowledge, 1 bowler from more than 6 nations in the last 60 years. The probability of this occuring randomly is nearly zero.

The Windies quicks were certainly helped a bit by conditions of the time (not as much as being awesome), but they are nowhere near the level of statistical outliers.

No I mean Ironmonger had harby/Ashwin like series against the weaker WI and SA teams. Both sides still had good players but his average probably flatters him. Fine bowler though he was he wasn't really a first choice. but lets count him because I think he would have still averaged in the mid 20s and patsy Hendren believes if he toured Eng he'd have won the 1930 series 5-0 for us. Which is a big call. Add to that Verity. I'm trying to think of others. Fleetwood, Peebles, Robins, Freeman, White, Vincent, Tyldesley, Richmond, Mailey, Scott, Langridge, Mankad (though no tests then), Goddard - look there's heaps. All of their averages were higher than you think. Langridge averaged 21 over 8 tests but did little bowling after his first five. If he was as good as his ave he' have been picked ahead of Verity as his batting was much better too. That he wasn't tends to show that his ave made him look better than what he was. Anyway of all of them Verity averaged 24.5 - or more than Jadeja. Goddard 26 over 8 tests but he struggled to get ahead of Verity too. Thats more than Ashwin. Freeman averaged 25 but once again he wasn't a regular and prospered against the WI and SA in 2 series. Thats comparable with Maharaj.

So of the many only really O'Reilly and Grimmett meet your criteria. I say, if what you say is true, then there would be at least be the same numbers that were as outstanding in the Barnes' era. There isn't so both were special. My comment about the WI fast bowlers is to say that it is mere coincidence that a team can possess a handful of exceptional bowlers at the one time.

My case is that until the 60s many spinners had fantastic averages. After that almost none. Off the top of my head, see Laker, Tayfield, Locke just after O'Reilly.

As shown above they started to pay for their wickets just after the first war. laker an Lock excelled in an era that was favourable to bowling of all kinds.

On the batting averages, this conversation started from me saying that decadal averages mask the fact that spinners averages have gone up and quicks have gone down. There is no reason to conflate the averages of spin and pace when we are specifically discussing spin.

They do not mask that fact at all. It is a contention. based on the names of the bowlers i've mentioned earlier and their averages I would say it isn't the case at all.

 

[Bolo]

I think the Ironmonger point was that he averaged 10 against minnows SA and 34 against England, the formidable opponent of his era

Fair enough. Not a perfect example, because that record is a bit of an aberration. It is, however, the most relevant example I know of. O'Reilly and Grimmett also played south Africa though, and if south Africa were that weak they should have been posting similar numbers. Additionally, this wasn't the only era with minnows.

 

[the big bambino]

I think the Ironmonger point was that he averaged 10 against minnows SA and 34 against England, the formidable opponent of his era

I wouldn't call them minnows (they beat Eng in 2 series after all) but bashing them up on a Melbourne glue pot does tend to influence a small sample size.

 

[Bolo]

I wouldn't call them minnows (they beat Eng in 2 series after all) but bashing them up on a Melbourne glue pot does tend to influence a small sample size.

If you are attributing his success to pitch conditions, wouldn't it stand to reason that some of Grimmett or O'Reilly's success could be attributed to conditions as well? A country isn't going to produce a glue pot for one match and no other spin friendly pitches in the same era.

AUS haven't produced a gluepot in my lifetime, and nothing I'd regard as spin friendly (as opposed to unfavorable to quicks/balanced) in a generation.

 

[Starfighter]

can you just clarify that for me please? I'm reading that the interwar bowling ave is less than C21 ave, implying that it would be easier to bowl on the interwar pitches - is that right? Is this a test ave or a fc ave? I see you go on about bowling averages later in your post that seem to be fc aves - is that right? If so you seem to be mixing up test and fc aves, which makes for a confusing argument. So i just want to get it into my head.

The averages at the top of my post are for tests, as they are the aggregates I can get. Most the other ones are for first class as I am comparing the respective performances of spinners in one era to another.

Btw - No I will not agree that the types of bowlers who dominate at fc level is indicative of the types of pitches provided. it is indicative of dumb random luck.

I don't even know how to reply to this one. You think the fact that India has been historically dominated by spin and England by seam/swing around 75 mph or so (since the war) is down to 'random dumb luck' and has nothing to do with the prevailing conditions in those countries, which are more favourable to their respective types than other for bowlers?

The reason Gregory and Ted Mac played in the 20s and Lindwall, Miller and Johnston played in the 40s is simple accident of birth, thats all. Nothing to do with pitch conditions.

You've completely missed the point I was making there. If a country is producing predominantly spinning pitches, would first class, i.e lower than test level, teams select only fast-medium seamers? Or would they rely more on the bowlers more likely to succeed in those conditions, spin bowlers? Why did true medium pace die out when the uncovered pitches which afforded them purchase disappeared? I'm not talking about your Lindwalls. Genuine pace allied with accuracy and skill succeeds on most surfaces. But very few bowlers are at that level. Average bowlers cannot rise above the conditions. Thus the conditions will tend to dictate the average composition of the bowling attack.

In fact O'Reilly (who was contemptuous of Australian pitches saying more drongo batsman scored hundreds here than anywhere) said at least our pitches were fast. Whereas they were slow in the 40s. Note also that English wickets were slower in the same era. Yet they produced the much better fast bowlers leading to a situation where our spinners were better suited to touring there and their fast bowlers being by far their greater wicket takers out here. in short exactly the opposite to your implication.

Most descriptions I see of the era tend to describe a Australian wickets as hard rather than fast, especially in the twenties. They aren't the same thing, the Melbourne wicket in the last Ashes being a good example of a hard, slow pitch. Importantly they would tend to be much dryer which would support spin, especially as they were uncovered which mean they would dry out more rapidly than modern pitches. Dry, initially hard wickets would support the types of bowlers that could, as mentioned by Arthur Mailey, 'make the ball buzz in the air', which we indeed had, (and Tich Freeman was not). Meanwhile England seem to have had a greater variety of pitches, some of which supported pace more than others, and further more it seems pitches there were generally faster interwar than in, say, the mid-late fifties.

Your opening sentence is only partly true but totally misleading. In my last post I concentrated on Australian pitches when talking about Barnes. But pitches world wide when talking about Tiger and Grum. I only referenced Australian pitches in relation to them as a subset of their performance in the era on all pitches.

You write in that paragraph:

Why not mention the many spinners that failed where O'Reilly and Grimmett succeeded? Apart from JC White no English spinner succeeded in Australia during their era. neither did any spinner from any other country.

So it is reasonable to construe that your paragraph relates to Australian conditions. You should be more clear otherwise.

In any case none of what you have written in your reply to my previous comment affects the main issue here - you are consistently asserting that Australian pitches now are no more unfriendly to spin than they were then, and that Grimmett and O'Reilly should turn in similar figures now to what they did then (despite the fact even Warne couldn't quite manage it). I have shown that the era was in fact significantly better for spin bowling. In fact in tests for 1920-1940 the average for spin bowlers as defined by Cricinfo (which will exclude a couple of medium pace types like Oxenham) was 34.02. The average for spin bowlers in the modern era in Australia is 43.06. Spin bowlers of average-good ability (say, Hornibrook, Blackie, Ward) had much better figures than spin bowlers of average-good ability (say, Lyon, Holland, Hauritz) inter-war than today. That's the evidence. Please provide some of your own.

 

[Zinzan]

Pretty obviously themed XI...and handy side.

Gavaskar
H Mohammad
Sangakkara+
Tendulkar
Miandad
Barrington
Vettori
Davidson
Gillespie
Muralitharan
Anderson

 

[mr_mister]

What's the theme?

 

[Zinzan]

Surnames with 3+ syllables.

Probably should have played Underwood over Vettori, but wanted the latter's batting.

 

[Zinzan]

Pretty obviously themed XI...and handy side.

Gavaskar
H Mohammad
Sangakkara+
Tendulkar
Miandad
Barrington
Vettori
Davidson
Gillespie
Muralitharan
Anderson

Vs... Surnames with 1 syllable XI

Hobbs
G.Smith
Y Khan
S.Smith
M Crowe
S Waugh
I Khan
Knott+
Warne
Steyn
Barnes

 

[Red]

vs 2 syllables, someone from the subcontinent can do the one for the 4+ syllables.


Greenidge
Richards
Bradman
Richards
Miller
Sobers
Gilchrist
Akram
Marshall
Laker
Lillee

 

[OverratedSanity]

5 syllables

Jayasuriya
Karunaratne
Jayawardene
Samaraweera
Tillekeratne
Kapugedera
Jayawardene (wk)
Wickramasinghe
Kulasekara
Senanayake
Muralitharan

 

[AndrewB]

vs 2 syllables, someone from the subcontinent can do the one for the 4+ syllables.


Greenidge
Richards
Bradman
Richards
Miller
Sobers
Gilchrist
Akram
Marshall
Laker
Lillee

There are enough 2 syllable players that you can get a strong team with them all the same length:
- Hutton, Hayden, Kallis, Border, Miller, Sobers, Hadlee, Ashwin, Murray, Lillee, Donald
- Simpson, Boycott, Bradman, Headley, Hammond, Ponting, Boucher, Pollock, Ambrose, Trumble, McGrath

 

[Coronis]

Vs... Surnames with 1 syllable XI

Hobbs
G.Smith
Y Khan
S.Smith
M Crowe
S Waugh
I Khan
Knott+
Warne
Steyn
Barnes

vs 2 syllables

Sutcliffe
Hutton
Bradman
Chappell (or Viv for all you fanboys but we'll agree to disagree)
Hammond
Sobers
Gilchrist
Hadlee
Marshall
Grimmett
McGrath

 

[harsh.ag]

The England ODI ATXI discussion has recently become more interesting:

Marcus Trescothick
Johnny Bairstow (w)

Joe Root (c)
Kevin Pietersen
Allan Lamb/Eoin Morgan

Ben Stokes
Andrew Flintoff
Ian Botham

Graeme Swann
Darren Gough
Derek Underwood

Plenty of batting. Plenty of (varied) bowling.