Michael Clarke signs for Hampshire

[Gaijin-san]

Prfsht, English bowlers are so hopeless at the moment calling any of them good is a pipedream.
I believe this thread is to praise God (Michael Clarke)

 

[Neil Pickup]

Kabir was hopeless for England at Trent Bridge.

 

[mavric41]

I think that this is just the grounding Michael Clarke needs before he becomes a Test player. Having experiance in thrashing English bowlers all around the park will keep him in good stead for the next Ashes tour.

 

[marc71178]

Although I can't for the life of me work-out why when so many rubbish bowlers with very poor records have been picked instead.

Name them, and how "poor" these records are.

And the reason Mascarenhas has never been selected is because he sucks.

 

[marc71178]

And who's better?
Harmison?
Harmison, who managed 2 wickets for over 60 on about the worst pitch you'll ever see, at Trent Bridge?
Or Flintoff?
Hoggard and Anderson you might just get away with, although Hoggard will shortly cease to qualify as "young". but to call anyone else better than Kabir Ali is, I'm afraid, rank idiocy. His FC strike-rate is phenominal, even if his economy-rate leaves something to be desired.

But does he deserve the wickets?

Harmison is ranked where in the world exactly, compared to Ali?

Did Flintoff not just bowl superbly in alien conditions to get the results that his bowling of the last 12 months deserve?

 

[Eclipse]

I am comming around to Harmison as a bowler just a little.

Still has a long way to go IMO though.

 

[Craig]

Kabir was hopeless for England at Trent Bridge.

Not hard to - he never played in that Test.

Unless Headingly has changed its name to Trent Bridge and I'm not aware of it.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Gah. Headingley then. You know what I meant.

 

[Rik]

Kabir was hopeless for England at Trent Bridge.

Hopeless, I think not. He had a similer debut to Harmison, and in my opinion, was more impressive.

 

[marc71178]

Hopeless, I think not. He had a similer debut to Harmison, and in my opinion, was more impressive.

The difference being that the selectors were more impressed by one than the other...

 

[Rik]

The difference being that the selectors were more impressed by one than the other...

The selectors were only impressed because one can bowl 90mph+ and the other couldn't. From watching both of them, Kabir had the more impressive debut. The selectors were wooed by Harmison's pace, the one thing they seem to hold dear.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Here we go again!

 

[Rik]

Here we go again!

You said Kabir was poor, I disagree. I fail to see how this has anything to do with "Here we go again."

It's an opinion. What you take from it is your choice.

 

[Neil Pickup]

"Here we go again" was in reference to your mentioning of Ben and James' brother.

 

[Tom Halsey]

I personally believe Kabir has the potential to be the best bowler in the world

 

[Gaijin-san]

Back to talk of Michael Clarke, I found this little quote from David Hookes:
"He's a fast-scoring player, he bowls, he fields like a bloody leopard - get him in the (Australian) system,".
Now most people will know that Hookes is most definitely not a fan of New South Welschmen. He makes a living out of routinely making snide comments about everything from NSW. In fact, that raving comment came right after some of his *other comments* about NSW. I think that is a big compliment.

 

[Richard]

Here we go again. What is it with this thing about praise being worth more just because it's given "where it normally wouldn't be"?
For a while now, we've had this repeated rubbish in England about Rod Marsh, Ian Chappell, etc. having praise for Harmison, Trescothick, Vaughan, and several others, and it's worth so much simply because "they're not given to praising Englishmen".
Just because Hookesy has said he rates Michael Clarke it simply makes him part of an ever-increasing bandwagon.
None of this supposed reluctance to praise players from certain quarters makes someone any more likely to be right.

 

[Richard]

I personally believe Kabir has the potential to be the best bowler in the world

lol, I wouldn't quite go that far!

 

[Richard]

Here we go again!

Yes, here we go again. It's that same thing.
It's so obvious it bears repeating. The selectors appear, beyond a doubt in my view and clearly in Rik's too, to have something close to an obsession with the ability to bowl at 90 mph.
Rik mentioned that Kabir Ali and Harmison had similar debuts. I would like to make what I consider an even more relevant comparison:
Two nightmare pitches, Trent Bridge and Headingley, in consecutive Test-matches against a team which has all bar Shaun Pollock and Dewald Pretorius the same team. Harmison plays one of them, Kabir the other. The pitches are all but identical. Both up and down like a ninepin from the second day, both seaming around like a top, both played under leaden skies for more time than not.
Harmison takes 2 for 60-odd in the match, off nearly 30 overs(?). Kabir takes 5 at less than 28 apiece. OK, he gets Gary Kirsten in the first-innings with an end-of-innings slog but essentially all the rest are good bowling.
IMO neither bowled particularly impressively. But there's no doubt in my mind that Kabir was the more impressive. He genuinely extracted seam, something Harmison struggled to do.

 

[Richard]

But does he deserve the wickets?

Harmison is ranked where in the world exactly, compared to Ali?

Did Flintoff not just bowl superbly in alien conditions to get the results that his bowling of the last 12 months deserve?

Nope - he got a Long-Hop which was gloved down the leg-side, another wide Long-Hop which Samaraweera somehow managed to nick, an lbw which was clearing the top of the stumps, and a tail-ender flapping to slip.
Oh, no, of course, he bowled accurately, as he had sometimes done in the last 6 months (he had hardly bowled in Test-cricket in the 6 months before that), and bowling accurately means you deserve every poor stroke played against you.
In your book, and some others', at least. Fortunately I comfort myself in the knowledge that this hasn't happened very often before, and it's not especially likely to happen again in the near future.
I cannot comment with any certainty on whether Kabir Ali deserves the greater proportion of his wickets, as I have never watched a Worcestershire First-Class game, but from what I have seen of him in televised one-day cricket (plus the one Test-match) it suggests that he has the requistite materials. So my guess is he does deserve the greater proportion. No-one is going to deserve every wicket they get and I don't hold-out for that.