India's opening pair

[steds]

Das has to open in the tests. I'd say with Chopra.

 

[Arjun]

Das has to open in the tests. I'd say with Chopra.

Many international openers who were successful had power, especially those of today. Das lacks power. He does not have the greatest powers of concentration, either. That's why he's not one of the top 6 batsmen in India, who play ODI's. The successful openers of today, with power, are successful in both forms of the game. The team needs more openers like those. Chopra may not be a six-hitter of the same league as Sehwag, but he runs hard and rotates the strike, giving it to a senior partner for a long time. Das just hogs the strike, the way he did ever since he hit a bad patch in SA, which lasted 3 Test series. Spending 68 minutes on strike is of no use if only 20 runs are scored. One look at FC averages will indicate that Chopra and Gambhir are a lot better than Das. SS was never a bad batsman, but not one who could win matches, either.

 

[Richard]

So they're not then a proven failure if they're succeeding.

Er, no, they're not, but they are when they're failing - which all those I referred to did, for a considerable period.
Then they started succeeding. So they turned from failures into successes.

 

[Richard]

15 innings is enough in your opinion. I'd suggest it would only be enough to write someone off if they'd failed miserably, which Chopra evidently hasn't.

Yes, I never suggested it was fact - unlike tooextracool, I don't try to make-out that it is.
Choppra has, however, failed miserably in my opinion, because an average of 28 is a pretty miserable failure.
And most people who've failed that badly don't get any more than 15 chances.

Notice you excluded Gillespie from your list of Aussie bowlers and Lee and Macgill are not "not even close to being Test-standard bowlers".

It was a good Aussie attack, on home soil, and Chopra survived a couple of furious bombardments from Lee in particular, showing plenty of courage and no little technical ability.

Lee and MacGill are nowhere near Test-standard, this is demonstrated as far as I'm concerned by the fact that Lee has averaged nearly 40 since 2001 and MacGill has had 2 good series and one acceptible one in his Test-career (remember, Bangladesh don't count), all a long time ago, and both the good ones for very obvious reasons (beginner's luck in Pakistan and English substandardness against spin in The Ashes).
You'd expect a bowler of close to Test standard to average 30 at an absolute maximum.
I excluded Gillespie from the Aussie bowlers for the same reason I excluded Shoaib Akhtar from the Pakistanis - because these two are actually capable of being very good Test bowlers. Not that either of them bowled like it very often in the respective series.

 

[Richard]

Richard, this is utterly contradictory. When a "proven failure" becomes a "success", hindsight is telling us that he wasn't a proven failure in the first place.

Except that hindisght can only be applied afterwards.
Someone is a proven failure once they've failed for a reasonable time.
Would you call the first part of Mark Ramprakash's Test-career anything but proven failure? I wouldn't - averaging 16 for 6 years is nothing but.
Nor is averaging 19 with the bat and 50 with the ball for 4 years anything but proven failure in Flintoff's case. Yet that too has changed.
Another who tries to manufacture contradictions where none exist.

 

[Richard]

at the very least, lee and macgill are "test-standard" bowlers.

No, they're not. I've already demonstrated why I consider as such.

 

[Richard]

no the fact that hes falled 7 runs short after 192 games says that he wont do it.....

And IMO his opening average could go up by at least 3.
Sadly he hasn't had the chance recently.

yes they are except that sachin's role extends beyond the 15 because he scores he usually bats till the 35-40th over.

Exactly! And he'll get an even better chance to perform that role when coming-in at four because he'll be out less in the first 15 overs.
And that role is the most important for India, because there are so few players besides Tendulkar who can do it effectively.

so there are far less players who are capable of averaging 38 in the middle order then?

Yes, there are, incidentally. Let's see some who have.

dont be ridiculous how can they be proven failures and then succeed? and even if they are 'proven failures' as chopra apparently is, the fact that they succeeded when they had similar potential to chopra says that chopra can succeed too.

Do you really not understand that it is not fact that Chopra has similar potential? It is simply the opinion of some people, including you, and that says that comparisons to such players is invalid.

the fact that almost everyone believes that chopra has potential shows that you just maybe wrong........just like you were about harmison,steve waugh,jonty rhodes,mcgrath,mark richardson and the rest

Oh, yeah, and of course I said so many times that I thought Waugh and Rhodes had no potential and should have been dropped because of their failures.
Sadly for you, because I wasn't taking note in the relevant time periods, I don't know whether or not I'd have dropped them. So you certainly don't - you can only make unfounded assumptions.
Richardson, as I've said many times, has yet to prove me wrong - because scoring runs on bat-friendly wickets and hardly any on seamers or turners (hardly any - not none at all) is not something I've said I believe him incapable of.
And likewise McGrath hasn't taken wickets with good deliveries on non-seaming, even wickets, which again, is all I've said he's incapable of doing.
And because everyone else may or may not believe Chopra has potential shows nothing - because potential is purely guesswork, and cannot be "proven" until someone does what the believers believe they have the potential to do.
Fortunately, it doesn't look like Chopra is going to get the chance so there goes another chance for you to prove me "wrong", meaning instead you have to resort to tactics like "everyone thinks he has potential, so therefore he does".

 

[tooextracool]

And IMO his opening average could go up by at least 3.
Sadly he hasn't had the chance recently.

oh and you can guarantee that?i say that his average will stay the same as it has been and i think tendulkars average could go up by 3 if he continues to bat at the top!

Exactly! And he'll get an even better chance to perform that role when coming-in at four because he'll be out less in the first 15 overs.
And that role is the most important for India, because there are so few players besides Tendulkar who can do it effectively.

do you not read?tendulkar does a better job in the middle overs when he already has a start in the first 15. and if tendulkar were in fact doing he job at 4 effectively he wouldnt be averaging only 38 and definetly wouldnt be failing everytime india were in a run chase......

Yes, there are, incidentally. Let's see some who have..

err ganguly.....dravid.....kaif(whos batting in the wrong position)?

Do you really not understand that it is not fact that Chopra has similar potential? It is simply the opinion of some people, including you, and that says that comparisons to such players is invalid.

do you not understand that it the opinion of almost everyone except you, and the fact that you have already been involved in dismissing players with similar potential who went on to become great players shows that your opinion might be faulty yet again....

Oh, yeah, and of course I said so many times that I thought Waugh and Rhodes had no potential and should have been dropped because of their failures.Sadly for you, because I wasn't taking note in the relevant time periods, I don't know whether or not I'd have dropped them. So you certainly don't - you can only make unfounded assumptions.

no the fact that they felt below your threshold of averaging over 35 after 15 innings says that they should have and would have if you were a selector....so your 15 innings assumption is either just useless or just useful for dismissing players who you dont like.

Richardson, as I've said many times, has yet to prove me wrong - because scoring runs on bat-friendly wickets and hardly any on seamers or turners (hardly any - not none at all) is not something I've said I believe him incapable of..

oh by failing in that ind-nz series on seamer friendly wickets you might say? oh and now he cant bat on turners either?which explains why he average 67 in SL, without failing in a single innings either. and of course who will forget that 73 and 49 he scored at trent bridge....but we all know trent bridge didnt turn, giles can take wickets on non turners too.

And likewise McGrath hasn't taken wickets with good deliveries on non-seaming, even wickets, which again, is all I've said he's incapable of doing.

yes of course so all of those 400+ wickets came against useless batting on seamer friendly wickets then? and of course your beloved vaas who cant even average below 30 and bowl in conditions that are actually helpful for the bowlers must be a wicket taking bowler!

 

[tooextracool]

Except that hindisght can only be applied afterwards.
Someone is a proven failure once they've failed for a reasonable time.
Would you call the first part of Mark Ramprakash's Test-career anything but proven failure? I wouldn't - averaging 16 for 6 years is nothing but.
Nor is averaging 19 with the bat and 50 with the ball for 4 years anything but proven failure in Flintoff's case. Yet that too has changed.
Another who tries to manufacture contradictions where none exist.

ramprakash is, was and will forever be a proven failure......
and someone who fails initially but succeeds later can only be termed a failure, definetly not a 'proven failure' because a proven failure is basically not good enough to succeed at the international level.

 

[tooextracool]

Yes, I never suggested it was fact - unlike tooextracool, I don't try to make-out that it is.
Choppra has, however, failed miserably in my opinion, because an average of 28 is a pretty miserable failure.
And most people who've failed that badly don't get any more than 15 chances.

just like waugh,rhodes,tendulkar and hell even ramprakash......why did ramprakash deserve to get more chances when he failed for 6 years ?

macGill has had 2 good series and one acceptible one in his Test-career (remember, Bangladesh don't count), all a long time ago, and both the good ones for very obvious reasons (beginner's luck in Pakistan and English substandardness against spin in The Ashes)..

oh we all know that when he took those 20 wickets against the WI he bowled rubbish, im sure you didnt watch that series either because if you had you would have seen that he did actually bowl well. he would have averaged in the 20s if it wasnt for that final innings in antigua on what was an extremely flat track.
im also assuming that you missed the series against SA where he took 7 wickets in his only test and the series against the WI in 2000 where he took his career best figures of 7/104.
if you had the common sense to look at SR rather than averages you would see how effective macgill has been at times. his SR in those 3 series mentioned above were 61,56 and 58 respectively and if warne himself has a career SR of 60.

 

[Richard]

ramprakash is, was and will forever be a proven failure......
and someone who fails initially but succeeds later can only be termed a failure, definetly not a 'proven failure' because a proven failure is basically not good enough to succeed at the international level.

Just because you might interpret as such, that doesn't matter.
If someone is "proven" at something, it does not mean they cannot disprove that proof later.
A proven international failure most certainly is not definitively not international standard; because these things can change.
There is absolutely no question that Andrew Flintoff before 2003 was not a Test-standard batsman, but from then onwards he has been.
He was a proven failure in his time from 1998 to 2003, from 2003 onwards he has been a proven success.

 

[Richard]

just like waugh,rhodes,tendulkar and hell even ramprakash......why did ramprakash deserve to get more chances when he failed for 6 years ?

And have you ever heard me say he did? No.
He was extremely fortunate to get a recall for that Sixth Ashes Test in 1997, but he took the bull by the horns, scored 47 on a tricky pitch, forced his way onto the winter tour and hasn't looked back from then on - except when he played New Zealand and, wholly understandibly, when he was forced to open.
And no, Chopra hasn't failed like Tendulkar - because Tendulkar's average of 41 after the same number of innings as Chopra isn't going to be a failure in most people's opinion.

oh we all know that when he took those 20 wickets against the WI he bowled rubbish, im sure you didnt watch that series either because if you had you would have seen that he did actually bowl well. he would have averaged in the 20s if it wasnt for that final innings in antigua on what was an extremely flat track.

None of the wickets in that series offered anything more or less to the bowlers than another - except that Antigua one where there was help for the seamers early on.
The whole point of good wristspinners is they can conquer any conditions - MacGill, however, is not a good wristspinner, he is a poor one.
And in that West Indies series (which, incidentally, no, I didn't have the chance to watch), he averaged 45.09 if you exclude The Third Test. So your "if you exclude the last" comment works in reverse. However, given that he actually bowled like a good wristspinner in that match, which is very clear, it's not fair to remove it the same way it's not fair to remove any of the other three and say "he bowled well in the series". The fact of the matter is, he bowled poorly in the series and ended-up with an average of 34.

im also assuming that you missed the series against SA where he took 7 wickets in his only test and the series against the WI in 2000 where he took his career best figures of 7/104.

No, I just don't set much stall by one-off Tests (and I don't call them "series"), and nor did I "miss" the West Indies series in 2000 - in fact, if you'll take a look, I mentioned it.

if you had the common sense to look at SR rather than averages you would see how effective macgill has been at times. his SR in those 3 series mentioned above were 61,56 and 58 respectively and if warne himself has a career SR of 60.

And if you had the sense to ignore strike-rates and look at averages, which are the most-commonly-looked-at figures for a reason, you'd see that MacGill has very rarely been effective in authentic Test-cricket, except in a couple of one-offs against South Africa, a debut series in Pakistan and a series against England in 1998\99 when they were as hopeless against any wristspin, however rubbish, as you could wish to see.

 

[Swervy]

And have you ever heard me say he did? No.
He was extremely fortunate to get a recall for that Sixth Ashes Test in 1997, but he took the bull by the horns, scored 47 on a tricky pitch, forced his way onto the winter tour and hasn't looked back from then on - except when he played New Zealand and, wholly understandibly, when he was forced to open.
.

what...Ramps has never looked back since then...you are joking arent you.

If averaging 30 in the last 7 years is good, I must have misunderstood all these year what success is. I think he has scored 2 100''s in his last 30 odd tests....wow!!!!!

 

[Richard]

oh and you can guarantee that?i say that his average will stay the same as it has been and i think tendulkars average could go up by 3 if he continues to bat at the top!

Yes, and given that neither of us agree on those likelihoods and neither can be proven or guranteed, neither means all that much!

do you not read?tendulkar does a better job in the middle overs when he already has a start in the first 15. and if tendulkar were in fact doing he job at 4 effectively he wouldnt be averaging only 38 and definetly wouldnt be failing everytime india were in a run chase......

I hardly think it's likely he's failed every run-chase.
I really cannot believe this "only 38" stuff - 38, for most players, is an exceptional achievement.
So how on Earth can you know for certain that Tendulkar does a better job in the middle-overs when he's come in at the top of the order? I'd like to see some stats to show that, not that I think it would be possible to construct any.

err ganguly.....dravid.....kaif(whos batting in the wrong position)?

So Kaif, who averages 31 in his supposed "in-position" position, plus 33.75 one place down from that, far less than he does at seven\eight combined, is as good as Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid?
Forgive me, but I think not.
Ganguly, meanwhile, has averaged 24.67 when batting at four, five or six - sure, that suggests he's a master of the middle-overs.
Dravid certainly is a master of the middle-overs IMO, but equally to give him and Tendulkar the best chance of batting for most of them is the best formula if you ask me.

do you not understand that it the opinion of almost everyone except you, and the fact that you have already been involved in dismissing players with similar potential who went on to become great players shows that your opinion might be faulty yet again....

And as I have told you many, many times, there are plenty of players who have failed the way Chopra, Stephen Waugh, Atapattu and Rhodes (I'd hardly call Atapattu or Rhodes "great" batsman - very good, yes, underachievers, yes, but "great", no) did in their early careers, who have not gone on to achieve anything.
Chopra is part of that group as far as I'm concerned, and I couldn't give two pins about whether I'm in a minority there, not the Waugh, Rhodes, Atapattu group.

no the fact that they felt below your threshold of averaging over 35 after 15 innings says that they should have and would have if you were a selector....so your 15 innings assumption is either just useless or just useful for dismissing players who you dont like.

Wrong again. I've never said that I'll dismiss a player automatically just because he hasn't achieved my ideal in 15 innings or so.
Believe it or not, I too do believe in giving chances beyond that which has been earned to those who I believe have potential.
I do not know, so therefore you certainly do not, whether I would have given Rhodes, Stephen Waugh and Atapattu the chances they got. I reckon, looking at their domestic averages, I probably would have.

oh by failing in that ind-nz series on seamer friendly wickets you might say? oh and now he cant bat on turners either?which explains why he average 67 in SL, without failing in a single innings either. and of course who will forget that 73 and 49 he scored at trent bridge....but we all know trent bridge didnt turn, giles can take wickets on non turners too.

Yes, he scored at Trent Bridge when the ball was turning. Yes, he scored in the NZ-Ind 2002\03 series when it was seaming all over the place.
However, mostly he hasn't and it certainly was not turning in Sri Lanka in 2003, otherwise there would have been far lower scores than there were. New Zealand were exceptionally lucky in Sri Lanka and India that they did not encounter any real turn, otherwise they would have scored much lower scores and very probably have been beaten very comfortably.
So, in conclusion, Richardson has played the odd good innings where there has been something for the bowlers. I have always described him as a "flat-track-bully" which would suggest to most people a batsman who isn't that good when the ball is moving at all - whether seam, turn, swing or drift. However, he has played well in bowler-friendly conditions occasionally. No rule is without exceptions.

yes of course so all of those 400+ wickets came against useless batting on seamer friendly wickets then? and of course your beloved vaas who cant even average below 30 and bowl in conditions that are actually helpful for the bowlers must be a wicket taking bowler!

Yes, as demonstrated by the fact that he can bowl all types of penetrative techniques.
McGrath, meanwhile, can't, and on the rare occasion that the batting's good on a decent wicket he'll not threaten.
On a seaming or up-and-down pitch he's deadly and you'll not get a better bowler. In fact, he's exactly like Pollock.

 

[Richard]

what...Ramps has never looked back since then...you are joking arent you.

If averaging 30 in the last 7 years is good, I must have misunderstood all these year what success is. I think he has scored 2 100''s in his last 30 odd tests....wow!!!!!

100s aren't important - average is.
Don't know where this 30 in the last 7 years comes from - may or may not be right, doesn't matter - the significant thing is the time from 1998 onwards, where he averaged over 37. His only failure series in that time were against New Zealand on seamer-friendly wickets.

 

[Swervy]

100s aren't important - average is.
Don't know where this 30 in the last 7 years comes from - may or may not be right, doesn't matter - the significant thing is the time from 1998 onwards, where he averaged over 37. His only failure series in that time were against New Zealand on seamer-friendly wickets.

average isnt everything....but here you go...from 1998 onwards Ramprakash averaged a massive 33.94 in tests in which time he scored 2 hundreds in 32 matches(57 innings),10 50's and 6 ducks and failed to score 20 in an innings 26 times.

If that is his golden era, poor Ramprakash

That about the hundreds is important, you need your middle order batsman to occasionally play the big innings, to get your team into match winning positions, Ramprakash rarely did that,and therefore ,even in his glory days of 1998 onwards, he didnt do his job...and was therefore on the whole a waste of space...in fact I cannot think of one single innings Ramparkash played which in anyway turned a game in Englands favour

 

[tooextracool]

apparently averaging 31 when almost every other player averaged more than him in india cant be deemed a failure too. but of course if vaughan who averaged 36(the best in the english side) it must be failure!

 

[tooextracool]

Just because you might interpret as such, that doesn't matter.
If someone is "proven" at something, it does not mean they cannot disprove that proof later.
A proven international failure most certainly is not definitively not international standard; because these things can change.
There is absolutely no question that Andrew Flintoff before 2003 was not a Test-standard batsman, but from then onwards he has been.
He was a proven failure in his time from 1998 to 2003, from 2003 onwards he has been a proven success.

err no, you really dont know what the word 'potential' is do you?
anybody who fails in the short run but then improves later is a failure with potential.....not a proven failure. a proven failure would be incapable of success at the international level.

 

[Richard]

average isnt everything....but here you go...from 1998 onwards Ramprakash averaged a massive 33.94 in tests in which time he scored 2 hundreds in 32 matches(57 innings),10 50's and 6 ducks and failed to score 20 in an innings 26 times.

If that is his golden era, poor Ramprakash

Wrong, you've included the innings where he's opened the batting.
When you exclude them it comes to 37, believe me, I've looked.

That about the hundreds is important, you need your middle order batsman to occasionally play the big innings, to get your team into match winning positions, Ramprakash rarely did that,and therefore ,even in his glory days of 1998 onwards, he didnt do his job...and was therefore on the whole a waste of space...in fact I cannot think of one single innings Ramparkash played which in anyway turned a game in Englands favour

No matter what perceptions about match-turning, the fact is it's a good average that keeps a batsman in the side, and defines who's better than who, otherwise Lara would unquestionably be better than Tendulkar and IMO he's not...
I can assure you that his 48 at The Oval in 1997 was instrumental in that success, and it is an example of the fact that centuries aren't the be-all-and-end-all - everything's relative, sometimes centuries aren't neccessary (one of the most influential innings, IMO of England's Test history, is Michael Atherton's 45 at Lord's in 2000 against West Indies), sometimes they're nowhere near enough, ie if you're replying to 650.

 

[Richard]

err no, you really dont know what the word 'potential' is do you?
anybody who fails in the short run but then improves later is a failure with potential.....not a proven failure. a proven failure would be incapable of success at the international level.

And you really don't know how to use the word "potential", do you?
Potential is something which can be guessed at. It is not something which is certainly there.
Someone who has failed first then succeeded afterwards (not always "in the short-term" - 5 years [Flintoff and Rhodes] and 6 years [Stephen Waugh] is not short-term at all).
A proven failure would not be incapable of success at the international level, he would have failed over a long time-period, a time-period that not many have failed over then gone on to be successful.
Someone who fails for a long time is a proven failure. But some people, like Ramprakash, show afterwards that that failure was misleading, by going on to succeed.