Here's an idea for Englands ODI squad!!

[Richard]

yet you have said in the past that bowlers who rely on bounce will not be successful at the test match level
and it is clearly visible for anyone who has watched harmison bowl that he has in fact picked up wickets with good deliveries, except you of course who believes that short deliveries cant be wicket taking(not that harmison hasnt taken wickets of balls just short of good length either)

Harmison has taken wickets with all sorts of length deliveries. And it's clearly visible for anyone who watched - properly - that the batsmen could easily have avoided dismissal with most of them. Not could-have-done-if-they-had-played-the-ball-with-perfection - could-have-easily.

 

[Richard]

no 'outbowled' is when you bowl an absolute pearler that a batsman can do nothing about. 'outthought' is when you do something that the batsman doesnt expect.

And given that the batsman is probably expecting most things he knows the bowler is capable of bowling but can never possibly guess exactly when they are coming, that means batsmen are outthought very infrequently.

 

[Richard]

and you really never seem to be able to spot a joke.......

No, just with you it's never possible to guess what's a "joke" and what's a stupid sarcastic comment.
So I just decided to reply with a sarcastic comment of my own.

 

[Richard]

oh it does, but surely someone who can take a look at the cracks on the wicket etc up close could be able to decide better than you what kind of a wicket it is.

Oh, they can - that's why I never try to guess how a wicket will play.
I just wait and watch, and see how it's playing.

and so have the commentators, who happen to also get a close up view of the pitch, something that you dont.

So?
It doesn't matter how it looks like it'll play - what matters is how it does play - and so me and any commentator are on equal footing.

 

[luckyeddie]

Do us a lemon, Richard and TEC.

Restrict your consecutive replies in a single thread to 3 or 4 at the most.

To everyone else, sorry I interjected during the middle of Richard's otherwise-14-consecutive-posts-anti-TEC diatribe - it made it awkward to skip past them all lest I had written something reasonably constructive

 

[Richard]

Oi! We ain't that bad! Anyway I don't remember 164* this season...are you sure it was Shropshire? Last time I saw Solanki over here he got out for less than 10 because he skied every shot he played, he just can't play on a pitch more challanging than a road.

Sorry, made a mistake - it wasn't Shropshire at all, it was his own recreational cricketers - Worcestershire CB. It wasn't this season, though, it was 2003 - a season where he failed solidly opening the batting in the National League (and in ODIs), but scored 164* against his Board XI to keep the experiment with him opening going.
I reckon it would probably have been abandoned but for that 164*, and he'd have returned to the middle-order where he belongs.

 

[Richard]

Do us a lemon, Richard and TEC.

Restrict your consecutive replies in a single thread to 3 or 4 at the most.

To everyone else, sorry I interjected during the middle of Richard's otherwise-14-consecutive-posts-anti-TEC diatribe - it made it awkward to skip past them all lest I had written something reasonably constructive

Don't worry - given that this post is addressed to me and him, no-one else needs to read it.
Why restrict it to 3 or 4? Like you say - if anyone else wants to ignore it, they're more than entitled to do so.

 

[Richard]

yes, from my experience they usually start talking about pressure being built when the scoring rate drops and maidens start building up.

When the scoring-rate drops to what, exactly?
Maidens are fairly common when the scoring-rate is 2.5-an-over.

 

[Richard]

I don't think anyone has suggested that pressure is built in 6 balls.

No, and I haven't said anyone has.

 

[Richard]

Personally, I can't see the point in arguing over .5 an over. I guess it depends slightly on the situation and what you're trying to achieve. As I've said before, if you bring a bowler in that cuts the scoring rate then that applies some pressure to the batting team. Maidens do this and in this instance you may well go from 4-5 and over to 0, while your average run rate is still ok, you've scored practically 0 for 5 or 6 overs, this is when the pressure will start to build.

5 consecutive maidens is almost unheard of.
But let's say 3 in 6 overs - 0.5-an-over - that is about when you reckon pressure starts to build, then?
Personally I've seen batsmen weather that sort of storm an infinate number of times.

 

[luckyeddie]

Don't worry - given that this post is addressed to me and him, no-one else needs to read it.
Why restrict it to 3 or 4? Like you say - if anyone else wants to ignore it, they're more than entitled to do so.

It just looks like thread-hogging, that's all.

(something only the duck is entitled to do - and then only in specially-designated 'ducky' threads)

<quack> or you'll get jabbed with a LAWN DART

 

[Richard]

and the fact that he hasnt failed yet against spin at the international level and the fact that he has shown no visible weaknesses against the best spinners in the world suggests to me that you cant say anything but that.

Fine - let's leave it at you already think he's conquered his problems with spin, I won't until he plays a few more good innings against good spinners with the ball turning.
And no, if he does play those innings, neither he nor you will have "proven me wrong" because I never said it's inconceivable that he has made improvements, it was certainly always clear that he had the ability to. So let's get that one out of the way.

 

[Richard]

It just looks like thread-hogging, that's all.

Sorry, I don't intend to do that.
Just try to understand that I feel about every tooextracool post the way you feel about Scallywag posts in the Ponting thread.

(something only the duck is entitled to do - and then only in specially-designated 'ducky' threads)

<quack> or you'll get jabbed with a LAWN DART

 

[marc71178]

Why, if it is so easy to get batsmen out the way Pollock and McGrath supposedly do on flat wickets, are there so few bowlers who have ever done it?

Why, if it's so easy to dismiss Hayden (as you say) does he average 58?

 

[Richard]

if that were the case then someone like you should actually be a good batsmen......

I'm not talking about playing - you can never learn an eye, concentration, a fast arm or accuracy from watching (well, you can actually, but only to a small extent).
But you can learn everything about analysis.

 

[marc71178]

Probably something like that (30) - and no, it's not convenient at all - not for Lara. Very convenient for Flintoff, though. It might make some people think he was doing something that was forcing Lara to lose sight of it, despite the fact that thinking along these lines is wholly illogical and can happen for no good reason.

So it's all coincidence?!

Very convenient for you that is.

 

[marc71178]

Exactly - crowd involvement in a musical rendition is totally different to crowd involvement in a cricket match.
Hence the fact that you get a different feeling when watching one to that you get when watching a cricket match.

That is not the point I'm making.

I felt immense pressure when on stage, where I don't normally when playing concerts.

That pressure was in spite of an audience all willing me to do well.

Now transfer that to an International Cricket Ground where a proportion of the crowd want you to fail.

And you think you'd know what the pressure then is like despite never having experienced it?

 

[marc71178]

Personally I've seen batsmen weather that sort of storm an infinate number of times.

I very much doubt that.

 

[Richard]

Why, if it's so easy to dismiss Hayden (as you say) does he average 58?

A good example of this is Kyle Mills in the recent New Zealand match.
Mills in his 1st over had Hayden in all sorts of trouble, nipping the ball back. He could quite easily have been out twice - had Steve been as kind as he was to Kasprowicz earlier.
But could he keep it up? No. Yet had this been, for instance, Allan Donald bowling, he'd have had the ability to just keep bowling that, ball after ball (with the odd straight-onner thrown in for doubt), and it wouldn't have been long before he pinned him so stone-dead that even Steve would have had to give it.
But very few bowlers around in the present day are capable of bowling with the consistency neccessary. After his 1st over, Mills managed a single ball that moved back at all - and again he hit Hayden's pads. But he just couldn't do it for long enough.
It was exactly the same with Matthew Hoggard in both innings of the First Test last Ashes.

 

[marc71178]

Which doesn't answer the question I asked you.

If it is so easy, how come he averages 58?