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Current Most indispensable cricketer in the world

So who is it?


  • Total voters
    30

Cevno

Hall of Fame Member
Disagree with Steyn.

He's the best bowler in the world currently, but I think SA would still be a very competitive unit without him. In fact they won here in 2008 with minimal input from him.
Hmm...

Actually if SA was to tour India tomorrow,losing Steyn for SA will be a bigger blow for them than Zaheer would be to India in terms of importance to the overall wicket taking abilities in the conditions.

If India were to tour SA though, Zaheer becomes a lot bigger blow for India and Probably much bigger than them losing Steyn. Same for England/Australia probably too though the degrees may change.
 
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Xuhaib

International Coach
Well, true but Morkel was their leading wicket taker back then and is three years further on as a player now.

SA would miss him, no doubt, but have some decent options to bring in.
Morkel has still not won a test match on his own his output without Steyn is still questionable as Furball said they had Kallis,Nitini & Nel back then since their back up have gone worse and also from what i remember England gave wickets to Paul '****in' Harris just shows how woeful they were batting as a team.
 

OMM!

U19 12th Man
Cook or Strauss missing a large portion of time would leave a huge whole in England's top order and their general management think-tank as well.

Matt Prior as well would be very difficult to replace. Bairstow or Davies would have to step up big time!
 

MW1304

Cricketer Of The Year
Mate consider the drop in class other teams have, with bowlers in particular, and you'll realise that is absolutely nothing. Davies would be a pretty decent WK for anyone.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
See the context of how he missed those tours and why explaine abpove tbh. And still that statement i made was correct.
It was correct, but dishonest. Your argument was that Zaheer's injury woes were overplayed; you then selectively used the facts to back up your case. So what if he's only missed one home Test in 2 years through injury? You yourself said that Zaheer's value is on away tours, and he's missed 10 of the last 13 away Tests that India have played in the last year or so due to a wide catalogue of injuries. Surely that's a) more relevant given Zaheer's importance and b) more relevant given that he's not missed a chunk of cricket with one injury.

He's had recurring ankle problems over the last 4 years that have ruled him out of the World Twenty20 in 2007, 3 Tests in Australia last time you toured there, a home series against South Africa, the tour of the West Indies and which will now keep him out for the next 4 months. He's also twice done his shoulder, forcing him to miss the Champions Trophy in 2009 and the Sri Lanka series in 2010, and twice done his hamstring in the last year which kept him out of the first Test in South Africa and ****ed up his series here.

Sure, the Indian management have tried to wrap him in cotton wool by resting him for meaningless ODIs, but the evidence points to him getting injuries no matter how much cotton wool you wrap him in. He's broken down far too often in the last 4 years, and particularly in the last 2, for any of the stuff you're spouting to make sense. You're either in denial over Zaheer, or you simply don't appreciate injuries properly enough to comment.

Zaheer Khan might well come back from this bout of surgery and have a fine 3 years afterwards. All the evidence of the last 2 years suggest that that's about as likely as me leading England's attack in Australia 2 years from now.
 

Cevno

Hall of Fame Member
It was correct, but dishonest. Your argument was that Zaheer's injury woes were overplayed; you then selectively used the facts to back up your case. So what if he's only missed one home Test in 2 years through injury? You yourself said that Zaheer's value is on away tours, and he's missed 10 of the last 13 away Tests that India have played in the last year or so due to a wide catalogue of injuries. Surely that's a) more relevant given Zaheer's importance and b) more relevant given that he's not missed a chunk of cricket with one injury.

He's had recurring ankle problems over the last 4 years that have ruled him out of the World Twenty20 in 2007, 3 Tests in Australia last time you toured there, a home series against South Africa, the tour of the West Indies and which will now keep him out for the next 4 months. He's also twice done his shoulder, forcing him to miss the Champions Trophy in 2009 and the Sri Lanka series in 2010, and twice done his hamstring in the last year which kept him out of the first Test in South Africa and ****ed up his series here.

Sure, the Indian management have tried to wrap him in cotton wool by resting him for meaningless ODIs, but the evidence points to him getting injuries no matter how much cotton wool you wrap him in. He's broken down far too often in the last 4 years, and particularly in the last 2, for any of the stuff you're spouting to make sense. You're either in denial over Zaheer, or you simply don't appreciate injuries properly enough to comment.

Zaheer Khan might well come back from this bout of surgery and have a fine 3 years afterwards. All the evidence of the last 2 years suggest that that's about as likely as me leading England's attack in Australia 2 years from now.
You have made up somethings which i never said and ignored what i did say here.Well Done!!

Cbf'd arguing with you on injuries and speculation any further as can't make the same point over and over again. Time will tell,i guess.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Zaheer.

People have recently gone into a habit of exaggerating his injury problems. He has just missed one home test in the last 2 and a half years almost and played more tests in the past 2 years than Gambhir. He is really very very crucial for India on strong Away tours specially.
What part of this did I misunderstand?
 

Cevno

Hall of Fame Member
What part of this did I misunderstand?
Sigh!! Did you miss the other posts i made explaining that fully and giving the whole details and context?

And don't exaggerate what i was saying and take it into another direction to suit your argument, which you were doing in the above post on 2 occasions. Also i have already responded to 80% of the relevant portion of that post already.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Sigh!! Did you miss the other posts i made explaining that fully and giving the whole details and context?

And don't exaggerate what i was saying and take it into another direction to suit your argument, which you were doing in the above post on 2 occasions. Also i have already responded to 80% of the relevant portion of that post already.
You didn't explain anything, you just posted plenty of unqualified statements like "there's been loads of bowlers who have come back from injury in their 30s" - statements that have very little basis in reality.

How many serious sporting injuries have you had in your life?
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
Disagree with Steyn.

He's the best bowler in the world currently, but I think SA would still be a very competitive unit without him. In fact they won here in 2008 with minimal input from him.
AWTA.

But when are South Africa going to play another test match, FFS?

Hell, even New Zealand might play a test before they do.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
With the exception of the South Africa ODI series all the cricket Zaheer has missed in the last year and a half has been through injury.

India in England 2011: Zaheer Khan ruled out of series | Cricket News | England v India 2011 | ESPN Cricinfo

That's an enormous catalogue of injuries, and with the exception of the groin strain he picked up against New Zealand, they're all recurring injuries. That simply does not bode well for the future.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
"He's only missed one home Test in the last 2 and a half years" - you've ignored or glossed over the fact that in roughly the last year, Zaheer has:

Missed the entire series in Sri Lanka
Missed the opening Test in South Africa
Missed the entire series in West Indies
Played one Test out of four in England (in which he failed to last 14 overs before hobbling off injured.)

So Zaheer might very well have played a lot of Tests at home. But in the last 13 months he's played just 3 out of 13 Tests away from home.
I'd say 9 games isn't a lot of Tests in 2 and a half years personally, definitely not a strenuous workload.

In total he's played 17 out of 28 games in the period (including the game he played 3 hours of before breaking down)
 
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