zinzan12 said:
It never stops does it ....That is, the excuses for, and the fudging of Flintoff's stats to talk him up. This could apply to nearly every cricketer in the history of the game ....
e.g ..such and such was not fit during that series so lets remove that series from his test record.Or Jo Bloggs broke up with his wife in that series so he wasn't up to it emotionally. Or, he was too young when he started etc etc
With regard to Flintoff.....I've just about heard them all. I mentioned on numerous occasions now the way Flintoff fans fudge his stats to talk him up. You can't have it both ways.
I'm sorry Flintoff fans....You need to Face facts. The unfortunate reality(for u) is that history judges a test cricketer on his FULL career stats. Not the last 12 months and not taking into consideration that the player started to young etc etc.
In the same way us (new zealand) fans, have to face facts that despite the fact we like and rate Vettori, we have to except he is not one of the "great-test players" around at the moment. he may be a good cricketer, but not one of the greats. His test record simply isn't good enough yet.
Otherwise almost every test cricketers stats could be manipulated as well...
For example I've mentioned already Chris Cairns started his cricket too early, he had an amazing run of different injuries throughout his career. He only played 62 tests. His last 30 tests Read.....
M Runs HS Ave 100s 50s wickets B/b Ave 5w 10w
30 1909 158 41.50 4 10 121 7/27 26.03 9 3
The above record in his last 30 tests is very impressive...but has been fudged (by me) and had he had the same averages of (41 with the bat) and (26 with the ball) thru his whole career it would have been amazing !!
The reality though is that Cairns average in his career was 33 with the bat and 28 with the ball. That is the record that he will be ultimately judged on when history looks back at the test career of Chris Cairns.
Flintoffs record will no-doubt improve. At present though his full test career shows a batting ave of 31 and a bowling ave of 36. If he (though its unlikely) never played test cricket again, that is the Test record that history would look back on, not his 12 month period of 2004.
Sorry to keep harping on about this point, but It keeps happening. I acknowledge that he has improved a lot as a cricketer from the Flintoff of old, but he is simply not one of the "great test players in the world" at the moment. ODI's yes, Tests no. He simply isn't in the class of test cricketers as Lara, Mcgrath, Tendulkar, Dravid, Warne, Kallis etc etc to name a few.
And the comparisons with all-time greats such as Botham, Hadlee, Imran etc etc is just a joke....As a test playwer he's not even on the same plane as the above.
Has their ever been a more Overhyped and overated (TEST) player??
In 2003 there most certainly weren't many.
I'm sorry - there is no such thing as "fudging" stats. The overall career stats can be as incredibly misleading as anything. If you look at Lance Gibbs' overall career you might think him an extremely ordinary bowler. If you look at Vinod Kambli's overall career you might think "why the hell didn't he play more?" (indeed, many still do).
For each and every player, there are certain stats that sum them up best. Sometimes you have to go deeper than the surface crust.
Please do not get it into your head that I am one of those who lies down and worships every centimetre of ground Flintoff walks on. This is nothing to do with him; I am simply pointing-out the folly of insisting that you are only allowed to use a single stat - overall career average - to judge a player. There are many, many, many different stats that are available: some show a very revealing pattern, some show nothing at all.
In Flintoff's case it shows quite clearly that he was an incredibly ordinary player before 2003, and that he has been a rather good one from then onwards. Once again, this must be taken in context; 18 months in the sun does not, indeed, make an all-time great.
But equally you can't say "no, you're not allowed to 'fudge the facts' because that's not the most commonly used thing".
In almost every case, you can't just take an overall skim of the surface, you need to break it down. This is not "manipulation" or "fudging", it's giving a truer picture. Those who try to dismiss it as "manipulation" or "fudging" are simply clutching at straws.
The fact is, lots of players go through peaks and troughs, and it's the most recent stuff that's almost invariably the most meaningful. If you look at Jacob Oram's Test-career, you might think he's not too bad a bowler, when in fact you remove his first series and you see quite clearly that he's absolutely terrible. You won't realise how ****-poor Brett Lee is if you include his Tests pre-injury. You won't realise that Stuart MacGill is possibly the most overrated bowler of the modern era if you look at his career as a whole instead of the two phases it very, very clearly falls into.
Phases (and other patterns) are part-and-parcel of cricket. To deny the fact that they say far more than the overall average is pure folly.
)