I think Aus should play Warne and Macgill in tandem as of now?

[aussie]

And MacGill is nothing short of useless most of the time.
Giles and Croft are obviously useless on non-turners but both on turners are twice the bowler MacGill has ever been, regardless of whether or not the selectors were stupid enough to pick Batty and Dawson ahead of him.
It's not as simple as "MacGill is better than Giles and Croft".

here we go again, whats make u think that MacGilla is uselss & that croft & giles are twice the bowlers he'll ever be??? thats crazy

 

[tooextracool]

here we go again, whats make u think that MacGilla is uselss & that croft & giles are twice the bowlers he'll ever be??? thats crazy

because they are excellent bowlers on turners.

 

[aussie]

because they are excellent bowlers on turners.

yes, but does that make Gilo & Croft twice the bowler MaCGill will ever be???

 

[tooextracool]

yes, but does that make Gilo & Croft twice the bowler MaCGill will ever be???

he said on turners

 

[Richard]

no I know..you are right..but he certainly does contribute to getting teams out often. The thing is with MacGill is he is a very aggressive bowler, he is an out and out wicket taker, much like a fast strike bowler..containment has never been a priorty with him, wickets have.

It wouldnt surprise me if he is basically told to just rip the ball as much as possible and get the wickets, leave the containment to the others. Of course, Warne is such a good leggie that he can both contain and take wickets, but it is unfair on MacGill to make comparisons between the two, as Warne, for most people, is the greatest spinner ever.

Unfortunately for MacGill, he will always be compared to Warne. The reality of the matter is MacGill for the last 5 years or whatever has probably been the second best leggy in the world ..and probably in the top 5 of leggies in the last 30 years

Warne is equally the greatest spinner ever in the minds of the sensible, because there's nothing to separate him and Murali.
Yes, MacGill has indeed been the 3nd-best wristspinner in The World the last 7 years since Mushtaq Ahmed's decline (orthodox, of course - excluding Kumble)... that just shows, though, that wristspin is almost impossible to bowl to Test standard and only very few (mostly Australians) down the years have ever managed it.
Thing about MacGill, though, is that he's usually been most effective when he's bowled more accurately (most of the England 1998\99 series, SCG 2001\02 vs SA, the Bridgetown Test of 2003) - only time he's been effective while spraying it was his most recent game against Pakistan.
Even if MacGill is told just to wrip the ball as much as poss... his strike-rate since Adelaide 2000\01 is a mere 67, nothing special at all.

 

[Swervy]

Warne is equally the greatest spinner ever in the minds of the sensible, because there's nothing to separate him and Murali.
Yes, MacGill has indeed been the 3nd-best wristspinner in The World the last 7 years since Mushtaq Ahmed's decline (orthodox, of course - excluding Kumble)... that just shows, though, that wristspin is almost impossible to bowl to Test standard and only very few (mostly Australians) down the years have ever managed it.
Thing about MacGill, though, is that he's usually been most effective when he's bowled more accurately (most of the England 1998\99 series, SCG 2001\02 vs SA, the Bridgetown Test of 2003) - only time he's been effective while spraying it was his most recent game against Pakistan.
Even if MacGill is told just to wrip the ball as much as poss... his strike-rate since Adelaide 2000\01 is a mere 67, nothing special at all.

my error I meant to say leg spinner.

Actually a strike rate of 67 in what is meant to be a bad spell is not that bad for a spinner.

Warnes is 59, Murali 58, Kumble 67,Gibbs 88,Underwood 73, Bedi 80,Benaud 77,Chandrasekar 65, Qadir 73, Grimmett 67,Saqlain 68,Harby 62,Vettori 80,Laker 62.

So during a bad spell his strike rate is better than a fair few of some of the great spinners of all time

 

[Richard]

yes, but does that make Gilo & Croft twice the bowler MaCGill will ever be???

he said on turners

Exactly - on a non-turner MacGill is, obviously, the better bowler, even if he's not anything particularly special, because Giles and Croft on non-turners are absolutely rubbish (Croft at home averages 68.71 and Giles on non-turners averages 55.33).
But on turners both have excellent averages (Croft away from home averages 24.64 and Giles on turners averages 23.95 which goes down to 20.96 when you knock off the two ones in Sri Lanka in 2000\01 where he was suffering an achillies-tendon injury and bowled extremely poorly), and MacGill's style of bowling is very dissuited to turners compared to these two - he'll turn it a bit more but will offer far more run-scoring opportunity, and slightly lesser turn combined with much increased accuracy is by far the best option.

 

[Richard]

my error I meant to say leg spinner.

Actually a strike rate of 67 in what is meant to be a bad spell is not that bad for a spinner.

Warnes is 59, Murali 58, Kumble 67,Gibbs 88,Underwood 73, Bedi 80,Benaud 77,Chandrasekar 65, Qadir 73, Grimmett 67,Saqlain 68,Harby 62,Vettori 80,Laker 62.

So during a bad spell his strike rate is better than a fair few of some of the great spinners of all time

Kumble, Bedi, Chandra, Qadir, Saqlain and Harbhajan's SRs all go down miles when you take the home-only games - obviously away they are\were all poor bowlers.
Gibbs' last good Test was The 'Gabba '68\69, after that he averaged 36 - his SR up to that Test was 75.
Underwood's SR up to 1972 was 63, and after 1972 he wasn't that good a bowler (average 30.12, SR 81)
For any effective bowler a SR of around 60 is acceptible - fingerspinners have always got to be taken in the context that they're going to be effective sometimes and not others (be it pre-covered pitches, home\away or whatever).
Looking at overall career SRs of spinners isn't the greatest idea, you generally need to look deeper.

 

[shaka]

MacGill can turn the ball on anything imo. He would rate highly if he was given enough opportunity in the Australian team, it is just sad that he lived in the Warne era.

 

[Swervy]

Kumble, Bedi, Chandra, Qadir, Saqlain and Harbhajan's SRs all go down miles when you take the home-only games - obviously away they are\were all poor bowlers.
Gibbs' last good Test was The 'Gabba '68\69, after that he averaged 36 - his SR up to that Test was 75.
Underwood's SR up to 1972 was 63, and after 1972 he wasn't that good a bowler (average 30.12, SR 81)
For any effective bowler a SR of around 60 is acceptible - fingerspinners have always got to be taken in the context that they're going to be effective sometimes and not others (be it pre-covered pitches, home\away or whatever).
Looking at overall career SRs of spinners isn't the greatest idea, you generally need to look deeper.

but my point is that MacGills poor strike rate of 67 isnt shockingly bad.

You can mess about with the stats loads...in his last 15 tests, MacGill has taken 71 wickets,home and away, at just over 30, with a strike rate of 57, with 5 5 wicket hauls and one 10 wicket match...a pretty good record.

Away from home this decade he has only played 6 tests, strike rate 62,25 wickets, at an average of 36, not brilliant but not shockingly bad.

We all accept that he is more erratic than say warne, but he does get results fairly regularly, more so than pretty much ever spinner other than Warne and Murali..he therefore isnt THAT bad a bowler

 

[Richard]

You can't "mess around" with stats, they're there as they are.
Far as I'm concerned MacGill's stats that matter are the ones I named (the examples you gave presumably include Bangladesh ), and it takes a complete dunce to miss the fact that all the subcontinental bowlers were only any good at home, so their strike-rates at home are the ones that matter, and similarly with covered-pitch stuff, and Gibbs' time when he was good and the time he was poor.
And we remember, of course, when discussing all this that economy-rates are important when considering strike-rates.
MacGill, in terms of wristspin, is pretty good, but the basic fact of the matter is that average wristspin bowlers aren't that much use in Tests and if MacGill had not been Australian he'd probably be considered a wholly average bowler.

 

[marc71178]

You can't "mess around" with stats, they're there as they are.

But you can?

 

[Richard]

No, no-one can "mess around" with stats - you can compile stuff - I did, Swervy did, etc.
"Messing around" implies illicit work - you can't do illicit work with statistics.

 

[age_master]

Macgills effectivness would be increased by the lack of ability in the playing of leg spin in the english side.

 

[Shane Warne]

Macgills effectivness would be increased by the lack of ability in the playing of leg spin in the english side.

Bingo.

 

[age_master]

Macgill vs England - 39 wickets in 6 matches @ 24

on the SCG (turner) 1 games 17 wickets at 19.6...

 

[Richard]

MacGill versus England in 1998\99 (when we really couldn't play even poor legspin): 27 wickets at 17.70
MacGill versus England in 2002\03 (when thanks to Duncan Fletcher our play against spin was vastly improved): 12 wickets at 40.50
Doesn't take a genius to work-out that England (and everyone else in fact) are over the problems with MacGill.

 

[Swervy]

MacGill versus England in 1998\99 (when we really couldn't play even poor legspin): 27 wickets at 17.70
MacGill versus England in 2002\03 (when thanks to Duncan Fletcher our play against spin was vastly improved): 12 wickets at 40.50
Doesn't take a genius to work-out that England (and everyone else in fact) are over the problems with MacGill.

but unfair on MacGill there..in 02/03 he only played two test vs England..and in one of them he took 7 in the match, including 5 in the innings in the second innings including the rampant Vaughan, and helped England go from a position of relative saftey at 5/340 and starting to build a lead which if they had have continued without any wickets falling, England could have actually saved the game, if not may have found themselves pushing for the remotest chance of victory) to 387 allout 15 overs later.

MacGill did what he had to do when it was really needed, so to say England problems are all sorted vs MacGill is a bit of an exaggeration

 

[Richard]

Err, what? England never had a cat-in-hell's chance of saving the game at The MCG.
MacGill bowled poorly in the match and got the figures he deserved - he got wickets, as anyone will if you bowl enough overs, and he conceded runs, plenty of them.
Anyone could tell that England were nowhere near as clueless as they were in 1998\99 and it was darn refreshing to say the least, especially given the absurd amount that went wrong on that tour.

 

[tooextracool]

Macgills effectivness would be increased by the lack of ability in the playing of leg spin in the english side.

argh, it really annoys me how so many people seem to assume that england cant play leg spin.
umm struggling against warne because they cant pick his slider is a completely different proposition from not being able to play a decent bowler like macgill