Aren't the Englaishmen getting carried away??

[C_C]

Something which is completely irrelevant to the question.

I will say again : Please do not comemnt about something you have no clue about.
How good a team is today or will be in the future is a probabilistic modelling.

 

[C_C]

BTW, C_C, who do you fancy in the winter tours?

Winter tour is Pakistan and India isnt it ? Well if thats the extent of it, i fancy England in Pakistan ( probably winning 1-0 or 2-1) and India ( probably winning 1-0 or 2-1).

 

[Barney Rubble]

What does everyone think of the possibility that, with no bad weather, it could have been 4-1 to England? They'd certainly have taken the last wicket at Old Trafford, and chasing 342 at the Oval is always going to be tough, no matter how long you have left to do it. I had England in top at the end of the last Test - I think the view that they scraped a draw (which some seem to be expressing here and elsewhere) is a little off the mark.

 

[greg]

What does everyone think of the possibility that, with no bad weather, it could have been 4-1 to England? They'd certainly have taken the last wicket at Old Trafford, and chasing 342 at the Oval is always going to be tough, no matter how long you have left to do it. I had England in top at the end of the last Test - I think the view that they scraped a draw (which some seem to be expressing here and elsewhere) is a little off the mark.

I think the argument was that it was only due to the weather (and fact that aus needed a win) they meant they weren't facing a substantial first innings lead.

 

[greg]

Winter tour is Pakistan and India isnt it ? Well if thats the extent of it, i fancy England in Pakistan ( probably winning 1-0 or 2-1) and India ( probably winning 1-0 or 2-1).

Sorry, is that England or india win in India?

 

[C_C]

Sorry, is that England or india win in India?

India.

 

[tooextracool]

To be fair Simon Jones hadn't CLEARLY shown it leading up to the Edgbaston test. At Lords for example he bowled well, but consistently let the batsmen off the hook with regular 4 balls. It is easy to say now, and with the benefit of hindsight, that Vaughan should have bowled him on the last morning at Edgbaston. The problem was runs were coming so quickly that he never found an appropriate opportunity..

simon jones showed it in only the previous test match, where he bowled a fine spell with the old ball in the 2nd innings at Lords which had the tailenders all at sea against him.
he also bowled brilliantly in the first inning at edgbaston, and figures of 2/69 didnt go anywhere near showing how well he bowled in that inning. england had more than enough of a lead to be able to bowl simon jones on that last day, and as most people have seen, hes rarely wayward when it comes to bowling with the old ball. there was also never a convincing reason to bowl hoggard with the old ball at edgbaston or old trafford in the 2nd inning.

 

[tooextracool]

You obviously were too young then if you think that Zimbabwe actually competed against those teams. And please post Zimbabwe's record from the 90s for all to see.

which only goes to show how meaningless statistics are when it comes to looking at how good a team performed during a certain period. and its not the entire 90s im talking about, im referring to the period when they had the flowers, streak,johnson, goodwin and campbell all in the same side.

No, because i would think such an obvious fact would require no explanation but then again some of you teenagers are just way too frickin big-headed.
A player who is not in the top 20 batsmen of his era is obviously nothing more than a mediocre batsman.

what rubbish, thered be plenty of good batsmen around at the time who werent in the top 20 of their era, which of course means their mediocre doesnt it? so basically in an era filled with top quality batsman, we can assume that everyone ranked above 20 is mediocre.

And Ganguly is a cricketing legend - one of only 5 captains to have 10 overseas victory or more and an alltime great ODI batsman.

yes too bad he couldnt lead a good side to victory outside the subcontinent, and too bad he cant score runs to save his life against quality bowling attacks away from home and too bad that he couldnt score runs in pace bowler conditions even if he tried. ganguly has been worked out for years and its only people like you who cant manage to see through the light who think that ganguly is a legend, when he barely deserves a place in his own test side.

And as far as i am concerned, yer just a kid with very little understanding of cricket or its statistics.. Neither Collins nor Collymore are far ahead of Pathan. To say so is to show complete lack of understanding of fast bowling..

gee i wonder who the better bowler is, one that averages in the low 30s, or one that averages nearly 50. the only thing that pathan can do with a cricket ball is swing it, and just because hes a left hander who can do that, hes hyped up to be the next wasim akram which is a disgrace to wasim akram.

And India is definately #3 in the world - both on ICC ratings(that you hold oh so dear)

and ive said that the ICC rankings have any sort of purpose where exactly?

and based on track record - plus India have some of the best batsmen in the last 10 years - Tendulkar ( whom you seem to hate dispite data showing tht he is the BEST batsman of his generation or at best, second best),

or also showing that hes one of the most overrated batsman in the history and is merely good not immortal as he was made out to be.

Dravid, Sehwag, Laxman and the best spin-bowling combo in the world ( Harbhajan-Kumble).

yet they cant win a series outside the subcontinent and even zimbabwe caused them problems. and laxman is merely good while harbhajan is ordinary and the pace attack is non existent.

The team did not beat many top 8 nations consistently

because of course, to not be a minnow you have to beat every one of the top 8 teams consistently.

- they got an odd victory against IND and a rain-affected fluke-job against Sri Lanka.

what in the blue hell are you talking about? there was no rain affected fluke job, there was a thrashing of a mediocre side away from home.

Thats pretty much about it minus the minnows. They've been thumped by RSA, ENG, AUS for a while now and have been thumped overseas by practically everybody. If you learn your cricket history accurately, you'd find that WI, even though superior to the BD/ZIM side, has been in the traditional minnow-spot defined by teams such as IND in the 30s/50s, WI in the 20s/30s, NZ in the 50s-70s, SL in the 80s-early 90s, etc.

they're about a minnow as india were in the 80s, which means that you have no idea what you're talking about.

Given that BCL was unlikely to bat in the second innings, SL were half-way winners already..

1)why because you say so?
2) the fact that SL need lara to be out of the side to have a chance says a lot about how poor SL is. and lets not forget that chanderpaul didnt play in the series either.

No its only you and your paranoid delusions that believe that IND are anything outta the top 5, along with a few traditional pro-anglicists here.

until india start winning abroad i dont see any reason why i should see your point? and its not like they've been fantastic at home either, struggling against a depleted **** side, failing to beat NZ and losing to Australia.

And you can rant your idiocy as long as you want. But if you did posess a basic understanding of probability and statistcs, you'd realise that 10 tests against 2 quality teams is almost an insignificant sample-space.

if you posessed any understanding of the game you wouldnt be so reliant on statistics and probability and all that rubbish, which is the only thing you actually know anything about. if 10 tests is so insignificant then 4 tests against bangladesh shouldnt change a thing.

 

[Slifer]

I'll share my opinion not that anyone cares. Anyway here goes I think England have the potential to be a great team as their bowlers continue to mature. IMO bowlers are the difference between decent teams and great teams (eg. WI 1980s Aust. present). India to me also has the potential to be a great team if only they could unearth some 'decent-worldclass' pacemen or two to complement their alredy excellent spin attack. As for the WI of present im a West Indian and i can tell u that this team is the poorest team that we have ever fielded and I'm quite shocked at the inability of 'certain' teams to put them away at home. India are scheduled to tour their in 2006 so perhaps they'll be able to get this monkey off their back. Overall England are clearly #2 in the world and they deserve to be but the gap between them and India IMO is not that big. (maybe my opinion will change after the next series)

 

[marc71178]

I will say again : Please do not comemnt about something you have no clue about.
How good a team is today or will be in the future is a probabilistic modelling.

No, how good a team is now has no link to future predictions, but merely recent performances.

Just like games 4 years ago have no relevance to current performances.

I'm not the clueless one here.

 

[tooextracool]

No, It is not irrelevant. I have more faith in Mcgrath's bowling ability than the combined batting/bowling abilities of Flintoff. It is because I have watched Mcgrath perform consistently over the years. And no it's not a fact that Flintoff will offer more to the team, its just your opinion.

exactly, and my opinion is backed up by facts, yours is not.
i am not saying that you are wrong to have more faith in mcgrath than flintoff, im saying that its ridiculous to say that someone else who thinks flintoff offers more is wrong, especially when you have nothing to back your claim up.

Oh yeah he took 9 wickets against SL at an avg. of 24 in 3 tests, Mcgrath took 10 in two test @17.

err mcgraths record in SL stands at 10 wickets at 29.20 from 4 tests, well done with that sherlock.

Obviously it makes Flintoff look much better as bowler, Since Mcgrath cant' play against australia, we cant compare him, but let me guess Flintoff's avg against australia was under 25 in the last series ?

because to bowl well in a series you have to average under 25 is it? you obviously didnt watch that series, because if you didnt, you wouldnt have a doubt as to who the better bowler was in that series.

Dont need to. Mcgrath is a specialist player and one of the greatest. Flintoff isn't even one of the greatest allrounder yet, forget about being a great bowler/batsman which he never will be. I have already shown it to you the stats of Flintoff/Mcgrath as a bowler and Flintoff doesn't even come close.

and you keep failing to realise that the stats between mcgrath the batsman and flintoff the batsman is the same distance as the earth from the sun.

Ask australian members on this forum as who would they have in their team, Mcgrath or Warne the bowler or Flintoff the allrounder, why not initiate a poll and see how many people chose Flintoff over Mcgrath and how many of them are non-english.

what a non biased poll that is!
lets ask all of the people from mcgraths home country and not include the people from flintoffs home country! i wonder who would come out on top.

Dude you are the one who put the 2 years criteria to suit your argument. What now, are you going to compare Flintoff's entire career with Mcgrath. Duh...Is there a comparison ?

again ignoring the point of how you used selective stats to not include flintoffs performance against SA in 2003.

Okay taking Bradman was not a great example, can Flintoff replace Steve Waugh, Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Dravid. NO none of them. Can Flintoff come in at no. 3 and build an inning like Dravid can, no he cant.Can Flintoff come in at 100/5 and save the match like Waugh could, No he cant. Sorry Flintoff cant replace these players. The point is when the batting is down, a team will need someone to bat like Dravid/Lara/Waugh/SRT etc. something Flintoff has not shown so far.

conversely can dravid, tendulkar, lara and steve waugh come in and destroy top order batting lineups with the ball? NO.

And how do you know that everyone would ? As a matter of fact I never said everyone would. I dont talk about others . I know that I wouldn't have Freddie over Gilly and that's it.

and i know i would have flintoff ahead of gilchrist. a 1-1 result adds to my point doesnt it? that its arguable as to whether people would have flintoff or gilchrist in the side.

Oh so Freddie can bat like Strauss/Tresco at opener's slot ? The point is Freddie isn't good enough with the bat to replace a top order batsman. So If I need an opener for England Team I will have Strauss over Freddie. If I need a wicketkeeper for my world XI I would have Gilly over Freddie.

again conveniently forgetting the fact that flintoff can bowl, along with the fact that we're not picking players for specialist positions, we're talking about picking a single player for an entire side.

And If Freddie is going to walk into Aussie side, it would be at the expense of Katich/Clark not at the expense of Gilli, Langer, Warne, Mcgrath, Ponting, Martyn.

why because you say so?fact is that this already makes your claim that strauss and tresco would make the side ahead of flintoff look stupid.

Same can be said about you that you will have him in your team because you seem to like him. I have never said I wont have him in my team, I have said that I wont have him ahead of Mcgrath.

nope i have never let 'liking a player' get in the way of selection. there are plenty of players who i like and think are rubbish and yet plenty of players for whom the converse is applicable.

And when did I say that ?

so whats your point then? if i feel that flintoff would be a more valuable player to a test side than mcgrath, why the hell are you arguing against it?

 

[tooextracool]

That's why Aussie fast bowlers took 4 wickets in the first innings, and English bowlers went wicketless on second day.

wow a whole 4 wickets! give them a medal. especially considering how many of them were due to poor shots and the fact that warne took the first 5 wickets.

Err when did I declare Jones as 'one trick pony' ?

you were most definetly indicating that when you said "Jones was the most effective with reverse swing which aussies were having trouble with, that's it"
unless of course the use of 'thats it' was basically nothing.

 

[C_C]

No, how good a team is now has no link to future predictions, but merely recent performances.

Just like games 4 years ago have no relevance to current performances.

I'm not the clueless one here.

Actually you are.
How good a team is currently is again, influenced by the uncertainty error and therefore, again, probabilistic.

 

[C_C]

which only goes to show how meaningless statistics are when it comes to looking at how good a team performed during a certain period. and its not the entire 90s im talking about, im referring to the period when they had the flowers, streak,johnson, goodwin and campbell all in the same side.



what rubbish, thered be plenty of good batsmen around at the time who werent in the top 20 of their era, which of course means their mediocre doesnt it? so basically in an era filled with top quality batsman, we can assume that everyone ranked above 20 is mediocre.




yes too bad he couldnt lead a good side to victory outside the subcontinent, and too bad he cant score runs to save his life against quality bowling attacks away from home and too bad that he couldnt score runs in pace bowler conditions even if he tried. ganguly has been worked out for years and its only people like you who cant manage to see through the light who think that ganguly is a legend, when he barely deserves a place in his own test side.




gee i wonder who the better bowler is, one that averages in the low 30s, or one that averages nearly 50. the only thing that pathan can do with a cricket ball is swing it, and just because hes a left hander who can do that, hes hyped up to be the next wasim akram which is a disgrace to wasim akram.



and ive said that the ICC rankings have any sort of purpose where exactly?



or also showing that hes one of the most overrated batsman in the history and is merely good not immortal as he was made out to be.




yet they cant win a series outside the subcontinent and even zimbabwe caused them problems. and laxman is merely good while harbhajan is ordinary and the pace attack is non existent.




because of course, to not be a minnow you have to beat every one of the top 8 teams consistently.



what in the blue hell are you talking about? there was no rain affected fluke job, there was a thrashing of a mediocre side away from home.



they're about a minnow as india were in the 80s, which means that you have no idea what you're talking about.





1)why because you say so?
2) the fact that SL need lara to be out of the side to have a chance says a lot about how poor SL is. and lets not forget that chanderpaul didnt play in the series either.





until india start winning abroad i dont see any reason why i should see your point? and its not like they've been fantastic at home either, struggling against a depleted **** side, failing to beat NZ and losing to Australia.





if you posessed any understanding of the game you wouldnt be so reliant on statistics and probability and all that rubbish, which is the only thing you actually know anything about. if 10 tests is so insignificant then 4 tests against bangladesh shouldnt change a thing.

1. Even with Flower, Streak,Campbell, Goodwin, etc. on the side, ZIM were a minnow in test cricket - their record and the very short period of time they played together justifies that.

2. Performance is relative. Ever heard of a thing called the Bell Curve ? No ? Well when you enter REAL life and leave highschool, you might get a clue about it. Excellence is simply people near the top in a given era, good is in the upper half, mediocre is around the middle and poor is around the bottom. Simple as that. If in an era there are 10 batsmen averaging 70, a batsman averaging 40 is poor and a batsman averaging 50 is mediocre. Since we are talking the same era here, he is a mediocre batsman by this era's benchmark.

3. I agree that Ganguly is not a classy test batsman - but he is a legend in the ODI format- better than any English ODI batsman to've played the game for a long period of time. And yes, he is an excellent captain - his results compared to results under Tendulkar or Azharuddin shows that. I dont care what the actual achievements are, if a captain can improve the achievements almost twice-folds with essentially the same core of players, he is an excellent captain.Period.

4. One is also more experienced and has played a few matches on extremely helpful conditions sometimes. As per being a disgrace to Wasim Akram- Pathan has shown the most potential for a under 25 bowler along with Franklin. You might think you know how to guage talent but i will take Wasim's word along with Bruce Reid's word over yours.

5. Tendulkar is the best batsman of his generation and at most the second best. You have shown your ignorance by calling him an overrated batsman, considering that he has been more successful than any batsman of his generation against top quality attacks and has faced more top quality attacks than any other batsman of his generation. But dont let your faulty logic and hatred stop you.

6. Zimbabwe caused them problems but they've done far better against the best team of this era by a comfortable margin compared to the next best. As per Harbhajan being ordinary, again, you show your ignorance. Ashley Giles or Daniel Vettori is what you'd call ordinary. Harbhajan is more accomplished a bowler than Murali or Warney at his age and is easily the 4th best spinner in the world currently, after Murali, Warney and Kumble- and in that order.

7. A minnow is one who has a significantly worse record than the main-pack. Simple as that. 1920s/30s West Indies, India of the 30s/40s/early-mid 50s, Pakistan of the 50s, New Zealand of the 50s-mid/late 70s, Sri Lanka of the 80s-early-mid 90s and West Indies from late 2000 are all in the SAME category. True, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are far worse, but it doesnt change West Indies's minnows status over the last 5 years or so.

8. I have shown you that their performance against legitimate teams is considerably worse than India's of the 80s and even then, India of the 80s wasnt a very good team.

9. Sri Lanka doesnt need Lara to be out of the side to pumell WI- see their record in the series where Lara scored 650+ runs. However, i am stating a FACT that given that Lara was unlikely to bat in the second innings and Chanderpaul was out, the odds were overwhelmingly in favour of SL winning the match if the weather permitted it.

10. Winning abroad consistently would improve India's stature considerably- arguably that is the only feather missing in its cap. But it again, doesnt change the fact that India is the third best team currently at worst in TEST CRICKET- their record against the best opposition( OZ), home excellence and a much-improved away record reflects that. England's grasp on #3 is tenuous - they have built that claim over a much shorter period of time than IND and have relied mostly on minnows to bolster their claims. And RSA is arguably the clear 4th - their record against IND recently is nothing hoo-haa and their record against the best opposition, OZ, is far worse.
You'd do well to realise that performance against OZ matters just as much as away performance, since both represent a bigger challenge. Thus India's ordinary away record is counter-balanced by their excellent performance againts OZ over the years.
But then again, i guess logical thinking and you dont exactly go hand in hand.

11. I think i understand the game far more than you do. As for calling probabilistic modelling rubbish - all i can say, kiddo, is when ( if) you deciede to persue a technical career, you'd know how foolish your comments are. For ANY rating system is a probabilistic modelling, especially one that is talking about how good sports teams are now or will be in the future. You can be yet another comntemptous englishman for all i care, mooching off of India, but the fact remains that your logical reasoning is non-existant and in the real world, where there is money riding at stake, my pattern of analysis will get picked every single time over yours or some of your fellow englishmen in this thread.

 

[Sanz]

wow a whole 4 wickets! give them a medal. especially considering how many of them were due to poor shots and the fact that warne took the first 5 wickets.

Err 4 out of 10 is 40 % as compared to ZERO. And when Aussie bowlers take wickets it is because of poor shots and when English bowlers take the wickets it is because of great bowling, isn't it ?

you were most definetly indicating that when you said "Jones was the most effective with reverse swing which aussies were having trouble with, that's it"
unless of course the use of 'thats it' was basically nothing.

I was merely implying that Jones' reverse swing was more effective and gave more trouble and so was Hoggard under swinging conditions. I wasn't talking about any particular test match but over all series. Now you can think whatever you want.

 

[Sanz]

exactly, and my opinion is backed up by facts, yours is not.
i am not saying that you are wrong to have more faith in mcgrath than flintoff, im saying that its ridiculous to say that someone else who thinks flintoff offers more is wrong, especially when you have nothing to back your claim up.

Hahaha, your opinion is based on facts ? such as Mcgrath averages 21 as compared to Flintoff's 32.

err mcgraths record in SL stands at 10 wickets at 29.20 from 4 tests, well done with that sherlock.

Err you had set the criteria of last two years and Mcgrath hasn't played SL in last two years, that's why his avg. against SL in Aus. And now I expect you to change the criteria again to suit your argument.

because to bowl well in a series you have to average under 25 is it? you obviously didnt watch that series, because if you didnt, you wouldnt have a doubt as to who the better bowler was in that series.

No you are the who boosted about how Flintoff averages below 25 when the fact is that even at his best (during ashes 2005) he was 27+. It's funny that you compare Injured mcgrath to a fully fit Freddie, as someone said despite his injury and not bowling well Mcgrath ended up with better averages.

and you keep failing to realise that the stats between mcgrath the batsman and flintoff the batsman is the same distance as the earth from the sun.

Doesn't make a difference to me. If I have 4 bowlers who could bowl as consistently and well as Mcgrath, I would have them all ahead of Flintoff. I really dont care what Mcgrath can do with the bat.

what a non biased poll that is! lets ask all of the people from mcgraths home country and not include the people from flintoffs home country! i wonder who would come out on top.

Why is it going to be biased ? After all you are the one who is claiming that Everyone else (except me) would have Flintoff ahead of Mcgrath in their XI, so I suggested that to prove your claim why not have the poll and see how many aussie agree with that as they are included in 'Everyone else', right ?

again ignoring the point of how you used selective stats to not include flintoffs performance against SA in 2003.

As I said, I looked at the two year criteria set by you and that mean I looked at the dates around 17th/18th of Sep (or whenever I made that post) SA didn't come up so I didn't post SA. Anyways just looked at his performance against SA 10 wickets@59, 423@53. Okay good with bats, forgettable with the ball. You sill want to compare him to Mcgrath and say he isn't far behind

conversely can dravid, tendulkar, lara and steve waugh come in and destroy top order batting lineups with the ball? NO.

And when was the last time Flintoff destroyed a top order batting line up with the ball ? How about NEVER.

and i know i would have flintoff ahead of gilchrist. a 1-1 result adds to my point doesnt it? that its arguable as to whether people would have flintoff or gilchrist in the side.

There was a poll some time back on who is a better allrounder and there were lot of people who thought of Gilchrist as better allrounder than Flintoff..and also check out how many neutrals voted for Gilli and how many did that for Flintoff.

again conveniently forgetting the fact that flintoff can bowl, along with the fact that we're not picking players for specialist positions, we're talking about picking a single player for an entire side.

Why are we not playing specialist players ? Are you saying that you would pick 11 players like flintoffs(if there were available) ahead of the likes of Mcgraths, Dravids and Gilchrists ?

fact is that this already makes your claim that strauss and tresco would make the side ahead of flintoff look stupid.

Why ? Is it because Flintoff can replace Strauss/Flintoff as openers ? If I need an Opener in my team I will have one of Strauss/Tresco rather than Flintoff.

nope i have never let 'liking a player' get in the way of selection.

Well then dont assume that others do. I will not select Flintoff ahead of Mcgrath because IMO Mcgrath is a better cricketer and not because I dont like Flintoff or like Mcgrath more than Flintoff.

so whats your point then? if i feel that flintoff would be a more valuable player to a test side than mcgrath, why the hell are you arguing against it?

I am not the one who kept saying that 'Everyone else would' have flintoff ahead of Mcgrath, so stop ranting.

 

[Deja moo]

A team of 11 Flintoffs playing against a team of 11 specialists would lose more times than not, IMO.

 

[marc71178]

Actually you are.
How good a team is currently is again, influenced by the uncertainty error and therefore, again, probabilistic.

No it is not.

How good a team is can only be assessed by what they've done recently, not what they might do.

 

[C_C]

No it is not.

How good a team is can only be assessed by what they've done recently, not what they might do.

Again, for the umpteenth time, it is STILL a probabilistic modelling, drawing from a dataset with an uncertainty figure. I dont know if you took physics in your highschool but when you do experiments, your answer is something like 45.45 Newtons +/- 0.05 Newtons. That plus minus puts it in a probabilistic range and if your error is big ( which is in England's case, due to a record that is barely 2 seasons old), your answers are LESS accurate.
Geez.

 

[marc71178]

Results that have happened have absolutely nothing to do with probability.