Aren't the Englaishmen getting carried away??

[greg]

Whether you are a minnow or a top side is dependent on your overall standing, not just a simple head to head. Going by that logic, if OZ lost a 2 test series against Zimbabwe in 2001, they would be considered a minnow too by your definition.

This is the most ridiculous argument. Oz DIDN't lose to Zimbabwe. If Oz did lose to Zimbabwe that wouldn't invalidate Marc's definition of minnows (teams that can only beat, or even compete against, other minnows) it would call into question Zimbabwe's status as a minnow. Of course if it happened in 2001 it would not be relevant though to the Zimbabwe team now, seeing as it is a completely different team.

 

[Pedro Delgado]

England had to play very, very well to beat WI (relatively) recently, they didn't just turn up and go through the motions, which one could possibly do against Zim and Bang. WI were a great side, that have been on the decline for some years now, but that doesn't make them a minnow in my book. England have had periods of woefulness, and times when there was a dearth of Tests class players available, but have improved again. I see no reason why WI can't do the same.

 

[greg]

England had to play very, very well to beat WI (relatively) recently, they didn't just turn up and go through the motions, which one could possibly do against Zim and Bang. WI were a great side, that have been on the decline for some years now, but that doesn't make them a minnow in my book. England have had periods of woefulness, and times when there was a dearth of Tests class players available, but have improved again. I see no reason why WI can't do the same.

You also can't dismiss out of hand runs and wickets secured against them. They have had a fairly consistent pattern in recent years of being pretty competitive for the first half of the game before falling away dramatically in the second. Even the U19 team that they put out in Sri Lanka managed to do that. Ultimately one has generally been able to look back and say that the wins were "never in doubt", but it often hasn't felt like that at the time.

That said the Windies results since 2000 are APPALLING.

 

[Swervy]

By whom ? A so-called Physicist who violates the fundamental paradigm of statistical inference ?

Who wants to see CC do some number crunching??? I want to see some stuff that you can do on this regarding India and England....I hope you havent been simply guessing stuff about all this.

We all know CC thinks 5 years is a period of time needed to establish whether a team is good or not, despite the chances being that not only the object team having changed quite considerably in that time, but also the standard of the opposition from one team to another will have changed as well.

Now I think 5 years is way to long. Young men turn middle aged in not much longer a period, empires collapse quicker, an innocent school child can turn into a pig headed, arrogant swine who thinks he or she can patronise their way out of any arguement, and that being any arguement that they have started in the first place, much quicker than 5 years..5 years in life is a long time...in sport, it is an incredibly long time.

As a compromise, I have taken 3 years as a cut off.
In that time England have played 8 series vs teams who arent Zimb or B'desh.
That includes Australia home and away
SA home and away
West Indies home and away
NZ home
Sri Lanka away

India have played 8 series
West Indies home
New Zealand home and away
Australia home and away
Pakistan home and away
SA home

Now for some reason, CC thinks England have played too many 'minnows' recently and so we cannot get an accurate measure of how good England are...so lets take away WIs series, of which England have played twice (home AND away)...and India once (India having the luxury of only playing them at home).

So thats 6 series for England and 7 for India...and considering India had a 2 game series vs SA, then its pretty even.England have played 27 meaningful (according to CC) tests, India 20.

England have had the misfortune of playing Australia twice, series results being 1-4 away and 2-1 at home (total 10 tests)
India have also had that misfortune, drawing 1-1 away, and losing 1-2 at home. So although England have won more series vs Australia, and a higher percentage of tests (30% to 25%), England have lost more games (50% compared to Indias 38%). Honours even then

There is no doubt that England have played vs NZ miles better than India have.

England havent played Pakistan in those 3 years, so we dont know about that one
India havent played vs Sri lanka, so we dont know about that one either..honours even again

So to SA..England have drawn a series 2-2 at home, and won away 2-1
India won a two game series 1-0

Now given England have played 10 tests vs SA and India only two, England success is more significant than Indias (England have won 40% and lost 30%, India have won 50% and lost 0% but really havent played them enough to prove much). Honours even agin, although I would be inclined to give England away win in a 5 test series much more significance than Indias 2 test home win.

Sorry CC, which ever way you look at it, England have performed better over the last two years vs teams who arent WI, Zimb or B'desh

Game over..you lose..please try again

 

[greg]

Who wants to see CC do some number crunching??? I want to see some stuff that you can do on this regarding India and England....I hope you havent been simply guessing stuff about all this.

We all know CC thinks 5 years is a period of time needed to establish whether a team is good or not, despite the chances being that not only the object team having changed quite considerably in that time, but also the standard of the opposition from one team to another will have changed as well.

Now I think 5 years is way to long. Young men turn middle aged in not much longer a period, empires collapse quicker, an innocent school child can turn into a pig headed, arrogant swine who thinks he or she can patronise their way out of any arguement, and that being any arguement that they have started in the first place, much quicker than 5 years..5 years in life is a long time...in sport, it is an incredibly long time.

As a compromise, I have taken 3 years as a cut off.
In that time England have played 8 series vs teams who arent Zimb or B'desh.
That includes Australia home and away
SA home and away
West Indies home and away
NZ home
Sri Lanka away

India have played 8 series
West Indies home
New Zealand home and away
Australia home and away
Pakistan home and away
SA home

Now for some reason, CC thinks England have played too many 'minnows' recently and so we cannot get an accurate measure of how good England are...so lets take away WIs series, of which England have played twice (home AND away)...and India once (India having the luxury of only playing them at home).

So thats 6 series for England and 7 for India...and considering India had a 2 game series vs SA, then its pretty even.England have played 27 meaningful (according to CC) tests, India 20.

England have had the misfortune of playing Australia twice, series results being 1-4 away and 2-1 at home (total 10 tests)
India have also had that misfortune, drawing 1-1 away, and losing 1-2 at home. So although England have won more series vs Australia, and a higher percentage of tests (30% to 25%), England have lost more games (50% compared to Indias 38%). Honours even then

There is no doubt that England have played vs NZ miles better than India have.

England havent played Pakistan in those 3 years, so we dont know about that one
India havent played vs Sri lanka, so we dont know about that one either..honours even again

So to SA..England have drawn a series 2-2 at home, and won away 2-1
India won a two game series 1-0

Now given England have played 10 tests vs SA and India only two, England success is more significant than Indias (England have won 40% and lost 30%, India have won 50% and lost 0% but really havent played them enough to prove much). Honours even agin, although I would be inclined to give England away win in a 5 test series much more significance than Indias 2 test home win.

Sorry CC, which ever way you look at it, England have performed better over the last two years vs teams who arent WI, Zimb or B'desh

Game over..you lose..please try again

Hmm. I thought we were getting on top of C_C for a bit (I was particularly proud of my post about the significance of England's tests against the Windies ;-)) but I'm not convinced you've helped things here Swervy
He accepts that England are better than India.

However, we have a get out. We got him in a moment of weakness to concede that this England team under Michael Vaughan are BETTER than the team under Nasser Hussein. Therefore we can take a load of Nasser's results (which weren't that bad, especially on the subcontinent) and use them as a minimum standard that Vaughan's team would have achieved

 

[C_C]

This is my last post on the matter, seeing that abusive idiocy abounds in this thread - Ironic that *I* am being branded as the foul-mouthed one here, expecially considering that i did not personally abuse anybody until abused and just debated logic and the veracity of their arguments. So far on this thread, i've been called Al-Qaeda, Troll, British-hater due to historical hangups ( ironically i am a distant cousin to Lord Beresford and the house of Poore/Powers), etc. Ironic, indeed.

For one, how good a team is, is based on how good their accomplishments are with the same core of players establishing themselves. In England's case, it is 2 years or so. In India's case it is 5 or so years.
So the comparison is a 5 year trend of India vs a 4 year trend of England really.
And 2 years is simply too small a sample space to conclude that a team is FAR better than another, especially when such a disparity does NOT exist in the results book when you compare India's 4-5 year record to England's 2 year record.

A comparison truncated at precisely 2 years ( or 3) is inherently skewered, as we are playing to a specific timeframe when England have surged. By the same guage, you could try to show India to be better than Australia over select patches in the past 15 years.
Plus a 2 year rating period is way too small a sample space - history is proof that many mediocre teams (or players) had a 'stunning patch' 2-3 years long and then faded back into mediocrity. Form is temporary but class is permanent - followers of cricket should know that. Any rating mechanism - be it sports or a stock-market curve, is rated both on the pattern from an intermediate period along with the trend at the immediate period - this, our woeful so-called Physics and Mathematics experts ( who ironically have demonstrated categoric irreverance to the most fundamental concepts of statistical inference) should know as data normalising - essentially making sure that the data-set isnt skewered from the start due to the uniqueness of the sample space.
England, for all i care, is just a team ala India in the early 70s - a few players having the time of their life at the same time. That doesnt make one an excellent team and given that the relative strength of the field ( India and South Africa) over their statistical period is very close. It leads to the logical conclusion that England has to play more at this level to assert their categoric superiority over India or South Africa - every team has had to earn its accolades over several years - South Africa had to do their stuff for several years and it was only mid 90s that they got their recognition of the second best team. England, despite the once-in-a-lifetime-ashes-hoopla, is going to be held to the same consistent standard, atleast by me.

As for the cuffuffle about minnows- it is obvious from the sentiments of some that West Indies being given the minnow tag really undermines their credibility about England's 'far and away superior record' over the past 2 years or so.
That is proceeded by ludicrous definitions of minnows, such as a minnow only beats a minnow. I suppose by that benchmark, Cricket never had a minnow till Zimbabwe stepped into the fold. The English language defines minnow as a small bait-fish and the figure of speech applied to English is in context of a smalltime thing - person/fighter/player/nation/team etc. In that context, West Indies most definately are a minnow and the presence of two young mediocre batsmen, 1 alltime great one and one worldclass one doesnt change it one iota - Almost every minnow has had a worldclass/alltime great player in their midst-atleast in that particular era with a couple of decent performers. However, the minnow tag ( such as RSA in the early 1900s, WI in the 20s/30s, IND in the 30s-50s, NZ in 50s-late 70s, SL from 80s-early 90s, WI of 2000-current) is based on their results....we find all these minnow teams to have won far less than they lost or drew, not 'never won against a better team' crappola some English fans here are spewing. West Indies's record over that period justifies that.

This is followed, even more ludicriously, about someone trying to lecture me about respecting other opinions and other definitions when I myself havnt been afforded that luxury in this thread. Perhaps that person missed the proverb 'practice what you preach'. Hey- i dont go around using false modesty and saying 'it is just a different opinion and you should respect mine' after spending a whole week hotly debating the veracity of my opinion. But such duplicity apparently abounds here - the same person who spend the whole week shoving down his argument down my throat now has the gall to ask respect for his opinion since i should 'respect different opinions'. Amusing, really.

Anyways, i am done trying to talk sense into fanatics who are obviously gonna argue for the sake of arguments.

 

[greg]

This is followed, even more ludicriously, about someone trying to lecture me about respecting other opinions and other definitions when I myself havnt been afforded that luxury in this thread. Perhaps that person missed the proverb 'practice what you preach'.

.

Lol. I assume that was directed at me. You should avoid your seeming belief that this thread is just full of one person using 10 different aliases. Having already accused me (falsely) of abusing you with comments about the British Raj etc, perhaps you should find evidence in this thread of me not "practicing what I preach" before you accuse me of that as well. I know, broadly, where you are coming from. Just because i vigorously question your conclusions (that England can only be considered the #2side a small way ahead of India, as opposed to being closer to Australia than the rest), based both on the statistical evidence, such as it is, and the evidence gathered simply by watching the games, does not mean i question or have questioned your motives.

Although I find it astonishing that you can complain of "not being given the luxury of differing opinions" when throughout the thread you have asserted, strongly, that yours is the ONLY correct method, and that anyone who disagrees with you are "teenagers yet to live in the real world", something which cannot be totally unrelated from some of the hostility you have encountered in some areas.

 

[Swervy]

Hmm. I thought we were getting on top of C_C for a bit (I was particularly proud of my post about the significance of England's tests against the Windies ;-)) but I'm not convinced you've helped things here Swervy
He accepts that England are better than India.

However, we have a get out. We got him in a moment of weakness to concede that this England team under Michael Vaughan are BETTER than the team under Nasser Hussein. Therefore we can take a load of Nasser's results (which weren't that bad, especially on the subcontinent) and use them as a minimum standard that Vaughan's team would have achieved

he begrudgingly accepts that England are better...however I think earlier on in the thread he actually suggests that England should possibly be considered number three in the world...

dated the 15th sept '#2 in the world or maybe #3. But gap between #2, #3, #4 and #5 isnt very much in my mind.'

he also more tha implies that India are vastly superior to NZ (despite the drubbings)..

I am merely pointing out the absurdity in what he says.

By hiding behind this pseudo intellect BS, he is trying to get away from giving England the credit they deserve...it doesnt work with most of us..thankfully

I tried to simplify matters

He says there are not enough sample points of Englands performances to prove their success (despite what is plainly obvious to all who watch the game)..and yet there appears to be equally few (if not possibly even less) to prove that India even deserve a number 3 ranking.

I originally was going to go about my post in a bit more of a scientific manner, but in the end I couldnt be bothered, because the pompous so-and-so would just twist his way out of it once more.

But hey..in the vacuum left by Richard, its great to have a slightly less pompous body floating around to amuse us all.


(CC hope you take all this in the best possible way )

 

[greg]

I've got to admit though that i was shocked to discover, in the course of researching various posts, just how bad New Zealand's record has been over the last five years. (certainly in terms of winning games, they've had a lot of draws)

 

[Swervy]

This is my last post on the matter, seeing that abusive idiocy abounds in this thread - Ironic that *I* am being branded as the foul-mouthed one here, expecially considering that i did not personally abuse anybody until abused and just debated logic and the veracity of their arguments. So far on this thread, i've been called Al-Qaeda, Troll, British-hater due to historical hangups ( ironically i am a distant cousin to Lord Beresford and the house of Poore/Powers), etc. Ironic, indeed.

For one, how good a team is, is based on how good their accomplishments are with the same core of players establishing themselves. In England's case, it is 2 years or so. In India's case it is 5 or so years.
So the comparison is a 5 year trend of India vs a 4 year trend of England really.
And 2 years is simply too small a sample space to conclude that a team is FAR better than another, especially when such a disparity does NOT exist in the results book when you compare India's 4-5 year record to England's 2 year record.

A comparison truncated at precisely 2 years ( or 3) is inherently skewered, as we are playing to a specific timeframe when England have surged. By the same guage, you could try to show India to be better than Australia over select patches in the past 15 years.
Plus a 2 year rating period is way too small a sample space - history is proof that many mediocre teams (or players) had a 'stunning patch' 2-3 years long and then faded back into mediocrity. Form is temporary but class is permanent - followers of cricket should know that. Any rating mechanism - be it sports or a stock-market curve, is rated both on the pattern from an intermediate period along with the trend at the immediate period - this, our woeful so-called Physics and Mathematics experts ( who ironically have demonstrated categoric irreverance to the most fundamental concepts of statistical inference) should know as data normalising - essentially making sure that the data-set isnt skewered from the start due to the uniqueness of the sample space.
England, for all i care, is just a team ala India in the early 70s - a few players having the time of their life at the same time. That doesnt make one an excellent team and given that the relative strength of the field ( India and South Africa) over their statistical period is very close. It leads to the logical conclusion that England has to play more at this level to assert their categoric superiority over India or South Africa - every team has had to earn its accolades over several years - South Africa had to do their stuff for several years and it was only mid 90s that they got their recognition of the second best team. England, despite the once-in-a-lifetime-ashes-hoopla, is going to be held to the same consistent standard, atleast by me.

As for the cuffuffle about minnows- it is obvious from the sentiments of some that West Indies being given the minnow tag really undermines their credibility about England's 'far and away superior record' over the past 2 years or so.
That is proceeded by ludicrous definitions of minnows, such as a minnow only beats a minnow. I suppose by that benchmark, Cricket never had a minnow till Zimbabwe stepped into the fold. The English language defines minnow as a small bait-fish and the figure of speech applied to English is in context of a smalltime thing - person/fighter/player/nation/team etc. In that context, West Indies most definately are a minnow and the presence of two young mediocre batsmen, 1 alltime great one and one worldclass one doesnt change it one iota - Almost every minnow has had a worldclass/alltime great player in their midst-atleast in that particular era with a couple of decent performers. However, the minnow tag ( such as RSA in the early 1900s, WI in the 20s/30s, IND in the 30s-50s, NZ in 50s-late 70s, SL from 80s-early 90s, WI of 2000-current) is based on their results....we find all these minnow teams to have won far less than they lost or drew, not 'never won against a better team' crappola some English fans here are spewing. West Indies's record over that period justifies that.

This is followed, even more ludicriously, about someone trying to lecture me about respecting other opinions and other definitions when I myself havnt been afforded that luxury in this thread. Perhaps that person missed the proverb 'practice what you preach'. Hey- i dont go around using false modesty and saying 'it is just a different opinion and you should respect mine' after spending a whole week hotly debating the veracity of my opinion. But such duplicity apparently abounds here - the same person who spend the whole week shoving down his argument down my throat now has the gall to ask respect for his opinion since i should 'respect different opinions'. Amusing, really.

Anyways, i am done trying to talk sense into fanatics who are obviously gonna argue for the sake of arguments.

and what it all boils down to is...

WE ALL KNOW ENGLAND ARE A BETTER TEAM THAN INDIA AND BY QUITE A WAY.

I know you know it really

 

[Swervy]

I've got to admit though that i was shocked to discover, in the course of researching various posts, just how bad New Zealand's record has been over the last five years. (certainly in terms of winning games, they've had a lot of draws)

and yet in a home and away set of series, NZ were by far the better team vs India

 

[Scaly piscine]

I hope a certain person is enjoying reading the cricinfo article "Left-arm swing and minnow bashing" in which the following table pops up...

Tests by each team since 2002

Team Total Tests Tests v minnows Percentage
Sri Lanka 34 8 23.53
Pakistan 33 7 21.21
India 38 6 15.79
South Africa 41 6 14.63
West Indies 44 6 13.63
New Zealand 31 4 12.90
England 50 6 12.00
Australia 46 4 8.70

 

[tooextracool]

And yes, Ganguly is a far better player than Sarwan is,

ganguly is not even better than sarwan, let alone far better.

Parthiv played as a wicketkeeper

which changes the fact that hes a high school player how exactly?

and Zaheer/Nehra arnt much far from Collins and Collymore.

what rubbish, zaheer and nehra would struggle to get into the zimbabwe side. collins in particular is a better bowler than those 2 combined. as is darren powell and jermain lawson.

If you do a head-2-head, you will get 1 close result ( Lara vs Tendulkar), 2 in WI's favour by a little ( Chanderpaul vs Ganguly and Jacobs vs India keeper), 4 clear-cut results in india's favour ( Laxman, Kumble, Harbhajan, Dravid and Sehwag and rest ( who are minor cogs in the wheel) balancing out rather evenly. That is fairly comprehensive and the results show that as well. 11-12 is a helluva lot better than 7-30 or somethign like that !

probably, because india is the better side on paper and perhaps even on the field. however it still doesnt change the fact that india arent a very good side, and WI are not a minnow.

 

[tooextracool]

1. There is no such thing called 'over-reliant on stats'. If you are applying statistics with an understanding of its applications, you are designing a far more robust model/opinion based on quntified facts rather than just media brainwashing/BS jingoistic opinions.
Clearly you know naught about statistical inference, which for your information, is used by bookies when they are giving odds for the game

stats is for people who dont know squat about the game, which i'd think goes hand in hand with you. there are times when stats are useful and times when they are not. in this case its most definetly not.

2. Yes, England was a minnow in that period and India was very close to being a minnow in that other period.

oh so now england were minnows in the 80s . absolute garbage. you obviously dont have an idea about what a poor team is because a poor team is not a minnow. and you have some nerve, to say that 12-29 is definetly a minnows record and then go back on it and say that its now 'close to being a minnow'.

Yes, i may get laughed out for that but that is why not many people are logical. You use facts to form opinions, not look for facts to justify a pre-concieved opinion.
The former is called research. The latter is called psuedo-science and data mining.

bs. if you honestly think i havent gone past the pre conceived opinion several times you're obviously out of your mind, given that we've had the argument about why i dont think tendulkar is an all time great.

3. You sure dont seem to get the idea of an example, do you ? I am sure your favourite lil zimbok averaged 50+ that you sneer at the example, attempting to deride it as if i said it as an observed fact. Goodwin played till 2000 and for your information, outta the players who had played some significant # of matches till then and were active/still are active,i would easily put Carl Hooper, Saurav Ganguly, Graham Thorpe, Ponting, Stephen Fleming, Sanath Jayasurya,etc. ahead of Goodwin as well.

when ganguly learns how to hold a bat in seamer friendly conditions then i'll rate him ahead of goodwin.
jayasuriya cant score a run away from the subcontinent, fleming was ordinary and inconsistent at the time and still averages less than 40. there is only a case for thorpe and ponting being better players.

4. Whether you like it or not, Ganguly is one of the best captains in the game today and is justified by the marked improvement India have shown under his tenure. His man-management skills and backing of players is peerless and his on-field decision-making is above average. Simple as dat and you better deal with it..

why because you say so?
indias record has been better because the other captains were useless, and when they had a half decent captain their record improved marginally. woohoo give them a medal.
his on field decision making is very ordinary and on several occasions hes been clueless on the field.

5. You are criticising my assessment that 11-12 record is very close to a 20-19 record. Says a lot about your non-existant brain.

i'd really appreciate if for once you'd show some amount of respect into an argument without actually going into your typical insults when you have no clue what to say. i havent insulted you in this manner and i dont think you have the right to do so either.
and england have lost 2 test matches since the series in SL 1.5 years ago, so i'd say that its far far better than indias record especially considering that india have struggled to win anything away from home.

6. Yes, Pedro i rate as a better bowler but not by much but the difference is that Pathan is a bright young prospect while Pedro is at his peak. A bit like comparing Wasim Akram with Karsan Ghavri in 1986.

whether pathan develops into anything more than rubbish is uncertain, and you cant go around talking him up as though hes going to develop into anything because theres no reason to suggest based on his performance at the moment that he isnt rubbish right now. pedro collins is a far far better bowler at the moment.

7. Yes, a lotta experts have made foolish comments but then again, experts rarely agree and when they do, they rarely get it wrong.

err what? ive never heard of such a thing that when experts agree they must be right.

And we are talkin about evaluating potential here, something someone like Akram is far more qualified to judge than you are.

why because you say so?
many many times experts overhype players for no apparent reason, even the worst of bowlers have been overhyped before ending up being completely useless.

8. Tendulkar has credible claims to be considered the best batsman after Bradman and while others may get rated higher than him, it is a close call either which way. The fact that you think he is massively overrated shows your utter lack of cricketing understanding and knowledge

its not a close call at all. one has made a career out of playing on flat wickets and still averaging less than other greats and is considered to be an all time great
and just because 99/100 people in the world think hes great doesnt actually mean that he is either.

9. Except tht i am not talking about one fluke series. 2001 was just as much a fluke as this english victory.

quite possibly, but the fact that india lost the series before and after that to far inferior teams that australia while england in the build up to the series become only the 2nd team to beat SA in SA means that its far far less likely to have been a fluke.

Atleast 2001 was achieved against a fully fit Aussie team which were younger a playing at a much higher level than they have been of the recent past. Besides, India's record against OZ in the new millenium is 4-5. That is a significantly better record and a significantly higher win % than ANY other nation.They havnt been as dominating at home as they were in the 90s but they have been a lot more successful away from home compared to the 90s. Their home record is pretty decent and their away record is average.

no, their away record is rubbish. losing to WI, NZ and drawing with zimbabwe away from home doesnt make anyones away record 'average'.

Their record against the best team is excellent, have been at it for atleast 4-5 years.

you can keep holding on to this, because its the only thing that you have thats positive for india.

10. He is poor away from home but he hasnt played much away from home yet. Plus he is a youngster and one of the most precocious spinners ever - spinners rarely mature till their late 20s and at a comparative stage in terms of maturity, Harbhajan stands better than most spinners in history of cricket. He is also quiete good historically as a spinner and one of the top 5 spinners since the 90s. Overall, not bad for a 24 year old at all..

hes played 22 tests away from home and i think thats a fair amount. and you seem to be making it out as though he will improve leaps and bounds over his career, when he hasnt done anything of the sort in the last 4 years.

11. It is 7-31 or something like that once you take out their fellow minnows from the equation. And yes, India were very close to being a minnow( the only saving grace is that they drew a lot more matches than WI and SL-the minnows of that period) and so was England.
Unlike you, i dont form an opinion based on pusillanimous vacillations and then look for facts to justify my opinion - i look for facts and form an opinion based on facts

and i look at facts and form my opinion too, which is that you have no idea what you are talking about. a minnow should not be beating top 8 teams that often in a series, that is the simple fact.

12. SL lost one test due to a Lara special and i stated a probability hypothesis. Given that Lara was unlikely to bat and Chanderpaul wernt playing ( Plus SL were around 10 runs or so ahead with 10 wickets in hand), SL didnt NEED a huge score to score a likely victory.
That is common sense. With lara and chanderpaul out, WI would've struggled to chase 250.

again you conveniently forget the fact that SL would only have had a chance to win when lara and chanderpaul werent playing. based on the rest of that series, SL had no chance of winning while lara took them on on his own, forget chanderpaul.

13. Yes, they are #3 - show me a team that has done significantly better in that timeframe apart from Australia. All the potential contenders ( England and RSA) are close to that record - they either have a much poorer record in the subcontinent or a much poorer record against OZ, thereby effectively nullifying india's weak point ( away from home)

except for the fact that teams arent judged solely by their performances against australia.

14. I dont like to self-gloat but given the immaturity of posters here, i am forced often to indulge in that as self defence. Having said that, i think i've watched far more cricket than you have, talked to a lotta cricket players - including a few worldclass/great ones who've helped me greatly understand the game and give insights. Furthermore, i dont data-mine like you and other psuedo-science babblers ( see intelligent creation theorists for one) but rather, i let the data draw the conclusion. You'd be wise to do the same instead of formulating an opinion influenced by your prejudices and limited knowledge and then searching for data to back that up.

i couldnt be bothered with what you think of yourself. as far as im concerned from your posts i feel that ive watched and know far far more about cricket than you do

 

[tooextracool]

Oh since that TB argument doesn't work, you have switch back the gear and started talking about entire series. Just how good was Flintoff bowling in the first test ? let me guess 2/123 in 27 overs. 3rd test 1st inning 1/65, 4th test 1st inning 1/54, 2nd innings 2/83.

what is your point?
no one can bowl well in every single inning but the fact is that he bowled far better than mcgrath did in the series.

Certainly not because of Flintoff's bowling may be they were playing against weak teams.

SA in SA is weak? thats a joke
and the NZ lineup while its not the strongest in the world,is still good enough to pose a decent contest.

 

[tooextracool]

Only a fool will compare the difference between and bowling avgs and uses that prove that Flintoff is a better player than Mcgrath. And 33 isn't a great test avg. especially in this era of flatter wickets when most decent batsmen are averaging in 50+. So no I would still have Mcgrath over Flintoff.

2 things:
1)if flintoff isnt a very good batsmen then can you imagine how poor mcgrath is?
2) flintoffs average over the last 2 years is far far better.

Oh okay I read it wrong but you did accuse my not liking Flintoff for the reason of selecting Mcgrath before him. And no I never said you cant have Flintoff ahead of Mcgrath, I wasn't even arguing that. This whole discussion started when you said 'Mcgrath isn't streets ahead of Flintoff as a bowler' and 'that is a fact' and I argued otherwise and when you were proved completele wrong as usual you changed your tune.

and by streets i meant in terms of how big the difference in their batting ability is. if you think that mcgrath is streets ahead in terms of bowling, then what would you use to describe how far flintoff is with the bat compared to mcgrath, because its far far ahead.

You sure can have Flintoff ahead of Mcgrath, infact there are many members on this forum who will have Shahid Afridi ahead of Flintoff.

yes and those people would also be the same people who think that mcgrath outbowled flintoff in the ashes.