Battle of the Test Bowling

[oz_fan]

Border

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Border I guess.

One gets the feeling that quite a lot of average bowlers took advatage of that West Indian side being relatively weak against spin, and Border was certainly not a great bowler. It was a match winner though, and he repeated the dose in the second innings.

I doubt this one will get too far.

 

[Sanz]

Border I guess.

One gets the feeling that quite a lot of average bowlers took advatage of that West Indian side being relatively weak against spin, and Border was certainly not a great bowler. It was a match winner though, and he repeated the dose in the second innings.

I doubt this one will get too far.

It's funny that you pick Border on a square turner especially when you didn't pick Hirwani for the same reasons.

Anyways I pick Kapil for picking up 8 wickets on an absolute belter of a pitch.

 

[Jono]

Clearly Kapil. Can't exactly blame him that the match didn't have a result either.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

It's funny that you pick Border on a square turner especially when you didn't pick Hirwani for the same reasons.

Anyways I pick Kapil for picking up 8 wickets on an absolute belter of a pitch.

Could have something to do with the competition, perhaps?

I don't really know much about this Kapil spell, but it's rather hard to vote for it. The game was mostly washed out, it was a dead rubber, and there's no other bowlers to compare him to because no other innings was completed. Border's spell obviously had as much to do with the pitch as anything else, and if it were up against Hirwani's it'd be a pretty obvious decision because Hirwani did more or less the same thing but took more wickets.

As it is, I don't see how a spell that had basically no impact because of rain and the state of the series as one of the best of all time, whereas Border at least won the match.

 

[GIMH]

Borders

 

[Perm]

Allan Border

 

[Sanz]

Could have something to do with the competition, perhaps?

I don't really know much about this Kapil spell, but it's rather hard to vote for it. The game was mostly washed out, it was a dead rubber, and there's no other bowlers to compare him to because no other innings was completed. Border's spell obviously had as much to do with the pitch as anything else, and if it were up against Hirwani's it'd be a pretty obvious decision because Hirwani did more or less the same thing but took more wickets.

As it is, I don't see how a spell that had basically no impact because of rain and the state of the series as one of the best of all time, whereas Border at least won the match.

Wasn't Border's performance in a dead rubber as well ? And how does a first inning performance become a match winning one ?

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Wasn't Border's performance in a dead rubber as well ? And how does a first inning performance become a match winning one ?

So it was actually. For some reason I thought it was 2-0, not 3-0. Changes things a bit, obviously.

Anyway, the performance defined the course of the match, hence it was match-winning. West Indies were bowled out cheaply on a pitch that was good enough for Australia to make 400 in reply, and consequently they lost the game. A simple enough concept, surely?

Obviously it's not Kapil's fault that India didn't win, but one of the criteria by which you judge a performance is surely the impact on the match. I don't see how you can argue that taking 8 wickets in a test that lasted one and a half innings had a significant impact. It had no impact, because the game went nowhere. It doesn't mean he didn't bowl well, but it does mean that it's not one of the best spells ever in test cricket IMO. I don't really think Border's is either, but it got a fairly easy draw.

Really, I could go either way on this vote. I doubt either one will make it past the next round.

 

[Sanz]

Actually I can go back and argue each one of your points you said while not picking Hirwani's figures, but I wont. I just wanted to point the inconsistency in your selection and your arguments(in this thread), that's it.

Cheers !!

 

[aussie]

both great efforts, but the series was already decided in both cases. I'll give it to Border slighty because for a part-timer to bowl so againts the then mighty windies was superb even though it was at the SCG.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Actually I can go back and argue each one of your points you said while not picking Hirwani's figures, but I wont. I just wanted to point the inconsistency in your selection and your arguments(in this thread), that's it.

Cheers !!

Don't see how they'd be relevant really. I'm not claiming that Border's spell was all that great, or even as good as Hirwani's, but it's different opposition. Nice you're taking notice of my votes though.

 

[Dasa]

Kapil.

 

[Jono]

Obviously it's not Kapil's fault that India didn't win, but one of the criteria by which you judge a performance is surely the impact on the match. I don't see how you can argue that taking 8 wickets in a test that lasted one and a half innings had a significant impact. It had no impact, because the game went nowhere. It doesn't mean he didn't bowl well, but it does mean that it's not one of the best spells ever in test cricket IMO. I don't really think Border's is either, but it got a fairly easy draw.

I understand your point, and it is valid, but hypothetically if bowler A takes 10/60 on a first day wicket, reasonably flat with most of the wickets coming from tremendous Waqaresque inswinging yorkers and brilliant set-up deliveries ala Wasim Akram to Dravid Chennai 99 (baiscally, he bowled unbelievably well with very few gift wickets)resulting in the opposition being bowled out for 110, yet days 2-5 are washed out, does that mean his tremendous spell can never be one of the best ever, simply because he was denied the opportunity for it to occur in a win?

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

I understand your point, and it is valid, but hypothetically if bowler A takes 10/60 on a first day wicket, reasonably flat with most of the wickets coming from tremendous Waqaresque inswinging yorkers and brilliant set-up deliveries ala Wasim Akram to Dravid Chennai 99 (baiscally, he bowled unbelievably well with very few gift wickets)resulting in the opposition being bowled out for 110, yet days 2-5 are washed out, does that mean his tremendous spell can never be one of the best ever, simply because he was denied the opportunity for it to occur in a win?

It would certainly be an amazing spell, but if you were comparing it to the absolute best spells ever (Hadlee's 9-for, Laker's 9-for etc) I'd imagine it'd lose out for most people because the others had a bigger impact on the match? Or hell, maybe it'd be the best just because it was 10/60.

When it comes down to it, it's one criteria among many which you can use to compare performances. I mean, there are batting performances which are great in losing causes or in matches that went nowhere, but it'd be hard to rate them ahead of Lara's 153 or whatever. If someone scored 400 at a run a ball chasing 600 and nobody else got past 20 and they finished unbeaten in a loss, it'd probably be the best batting performance ever anyway, or very close, but realistically in most cases a match-winning effort will be better.

To clarify, I'm not saying that a spell in a dead match that had no result or in a losing cause can't be good or even that it can't be great, but it certainly takes a hit when you're comparing to another spell that actually won a match or a series or turned a game around or whatever.

 

[cameeel]

Border

 

[Matteh]

Border

 

[silentstriker]

Border on to the next round 7-3

Srinath's 8/86 vs Pakistan
http://www.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/...ECARDS/IND_PAK_ASIA-TEST_T1_16-20FEB1999.html

vs.

Spofforth 7/44 vs England
http://www.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1880S/1882/AUS_IN_ENG/AUS_ENG_T_28-29AUG1882.html

 

[cameeel]

Given how terrible for batting the pitch looks to have been for Spofforth's effort (going on runs scored), and the fact that Srinath took 13 for the test, it's Srinath that gets my vote.

 

[Dasa]

Srinath.