***Official*** 3rd Test at the WACA

[FaaipDeOiad]

Yeah exactly, his economy rate wasn't any worse than any of the other bowlers aside from Mahmood, and he actually went for less runs per over than the team did on average. So why would they single him out for criticism with regard to his economy rate? Ronchi got 89 off 49 balls, so obviously every bowler copped a bit.

Funniest part of the game was Jo Angel. Nearly 40, been retired for years, and he went for 3 an over. Due for a call-up to the WA side, surely?

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

They sure do need a quick or two. Perhaps Brendan Julian can join him?

 

[Nate]

Bring Thommo back even. Beach Cricket is almost State Cricket.

 

[greg]

Can't help laughing at the BBC trying to make out Panesar had a good performance for the England XI a few hours ago. "Panesar claims brace in tour loss" "Monty Panesar captured two wickets but a makeshift England XI could not prevent a seven-wicket defeat" "Pansear ... struck with his second ball and despite being for 18 in one over ousted dangerman Luke Ronchi"

What it fails completely to mention until you ignore the CEEFAX bit and go onto the BBC website and scroll right towards the bottom is that Panesar went for over 6 an over in his 10 overs, his second wicket was caught at long-off 11 runs short of the target (which was a certainty to be achieved at that point) and his first wicket was out stumped. Unsurprisingly Read was out for a duck.

What a bizarre post - I still don't understand what your issue is with Panesar. I think we should probably leave assessments about how he bowled to people who were there, don't you? And it's better if you get the facts right, which as Nnanden pointed out, you didn't!

The limited reports i saw said he did OK, was obviously a bit rusty, and was given a tough job bowling into the wind which resulted in at least a couple of times having the batsmen beaten in the flight but still being hit for six.

Still at least your arguments about never picking spin bowlers because they will always have worse strike rates than pace bowlers have been shown up by this series to be a pile of pooh.

 

[greg]

BTW i haven't read the previous posts so apologies if it's been commented on, but does anyone know what's happened to Tait? Is he injured, or are the Aussie selectors just playing mind games with the England selectors again, this time (now that they can't try and keep Panesar out any more), trying to get them to retain Giles as well?

 

[Nate]

He`s going along steadily for South Australia. Sprayed it here and there, but is generally doing pretty well. Would be a big risk picking him is all, especially when the spots for bowlers in the Aussie team are already limited.

 

[Scaly piscine]

What a bizarre post - I still don't understand what your issue is with Panesar. I think we should probably leave assessments about how he bowled to people who were there, don't you? And it's better if you get the facts right, which as Nnanden pointed out, you didn't!

The limited reports i saw said he did OK, was obviously a bit rusty, and was given a tough job bowling into the wind which resulted in at least a couple of times having the batsmen beaten in the flight but still being hit for six.

Still at least your arguments about never picking spin bowlers because they will always have worse strike rates than pace bowlers have been shown up by this series to be a pile of pooh.

You have the nerve to say I should get my facts right. My argument concerned how Panesar will struggle to keep his Test bowling average below 35 - whereas the likes of Mahmood, Plunkett and Anderson will head towards 30 eventually. We get all this stuff about how Panesar is an attacking spinner (probably an opinion created by watching too much Giles) - he's not, he struggles to genuinely take wickets and took an age to get his 5-fer on an absolute bunsen against SL. Panesar has been rubbish all the time he's been in Australia, whether it be in tour games or in grade cricket and he's been lucky to have had favourable conditions to bowl in early in his England career, just like Bell before he flopped badly against Australia and unlike Collingwood who had some difficult one or two games here and there to play in at the start of his Test career. I doubt Panesar would be as bad as Bell was against Australia first up but those are the real facts of the argument.

 

[greg]

You have the nerve to say I should get my facts right. My argument concerned how Panesar will struggle to keep his Test bowling average below 35 - whereas the likes of Mahmood, Plunkett and Anderson will head towards 30 eventually. We get all this stuff about how Panesar is an attacking spinner (probably an opinion created by watching too much Giles) - he's not, he struggles to genuinely take wickets and took an age to get his 5-fer on an absolute bunsen against SL. Panesar has been rubbish all the time he's been in Australia, whether it be in tour games or in grade cricket and he's been lucky to have had favourable conditions to bowl in early in his England career, just like Bell before he flopped badly against Australia and unlike Collingwood who had some difficult one or two games here and there to play in at the start of his Test career. I doubt Panesar would be as bad as Bell was against Australia first up but those are the real facts of the argument.

I think you need to learn the difference between facts and opinions, and often second or third hand opinions at that.

 

[greg]

Anyway your use of averages in this way is highly debateable IMO. A spinner of equivalent value to a pace bowler will generally have, as a fair rule of thumb, an average of 4-5 runs greater. The bench-mark for an alltime great pace bowler is probably an average of 20-22, a spinner more like 24-26 (compare McGrath and Warne for example - who is the greater?) A merely "good" pace bowler can probably be considered anything under 30, and similarly the benchmark for "good" spin bowler is probably 34-5.

The reasons for this are probably multi-fold, including such things as spinners doing a lot of the donkey work when the pitch is flat and the ball old, the fact that they only generally come into their own as wicket takers in the second half of matches etc etc. It is also much less common for spin bowlers to boost their average with cheap wickets. There is real value in these things which won't be reflected in the averages which is why they can always find a place in a test team despite statistically inferior figures (as long as they can bowl economically - so for example the case of somebody like MacGill is more contentious), both for the role that they play in improving (through resting) the figures of the pace bowlers and the invaluable role they play in winning matches when the crunch comes in the second innings.

In 2005 Giles' role was solely to do the "donkey work", but so good was England's pace attack that he was almost worth his role for that alone. However on the one occasion when he was called upon to win the match in the second innings (Old Trafford) he was found wanting. Such were/are his limitations. He needed to make some contribution with the bat to compensate.

Monty on the other hand has demonstrated in his short career (and yes, it may be a false dawn, we don't know) has shown he is potentially on a different level. He has more than demonstrated that he can do the first innings donkey work (and far more effectively) and also that he can win matches in the second. Not always (Lords vs Pakistan) but he has done it (Old Trafford, Headingley). If England had their first choice bowling attack (inc. Jones) AND it was firing the Giles/Panesar call could still be potentially very close. But our pace attack is a shambles, so really it's a nobrainer.

 

[grecian]

Oh stop arguing with him Greg, his earlier post was proven to be almost utterly inaccurate, so he blusters with his normal unproven nonsense about "bunsens".

"he struggles to genuinely take wickets", what does that mean exactly?

As for Plunkett and Mahmoods average heading towards 30, only if their next 20 tests were against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe

 

[Scaly piscine]

Oh stop arguing with him Greg, his earlier post was proven to be almost utterly inaccurate, so he blusters with his normal unproven nonsense about "bunsens".

"he struggles to genuinely take wickets", what does that mean exactly?

As for Plunkett and Mahmoods average heading towards 30, only if there next 20 tests were against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe

Nobody proved anything and it's pretty obvious the Test he got a 5-fer in against SL and England lost (skittled by Murali) was a bunsen, but that would get in the way of your soundbite.

Panesar struggles to genuinely take wickets - what I mean is if you just told him to go and bowl a side out or break a partnership with good bowling he'd struggle more than someone else (dumb batting excepted) because he bowls a passive style. He's very much a stock bowler as opposed to a strike bowler. I don't believe he's good enough yet to be both.

 

[mavric41]

As for Plunkett and Mahmoods average heading towards 30, only if there next 20 tests were against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe maybe, but Bangladesh are in form!!!

 

[grecian]

Nobody proved anything and it's pretty obvious the Test he got a 5-fer in against SL and England lost (skittled by Murali) was a bunsen, but that would get in the way of your soundbite.

Panesar struggles to genuinely take wickets - what I mean is if you just told him to go and bowl a side out or break a partnership with good bowling he'd struggle more than someone else (dumb batting excepted) because he bowls a passive style. He's very much a stock bowler as opposed to a strike bowler. I don't believe he's good enough yet to be both.

The nonsense comment was about Panesar picking up wickets stumped and on the boundary, which you were corrected on, you didn't acknowledge it though. Funny that.

No, I will not admit your soundbite about that test match, Murali is the most destructive spinner of all time, just because he bowls out a team on a pitch that has worn more then the one that monty bowled on, does not make it a bunsen imo. It assisted spin and Panesar worked with it rather effectively I thought. He outbowled kaneira in the first two pakistan matches in this country on pitches that didn't assist whatsoever, but I forget you say that was all down to bad shots or dumb batting, also danish isn't the bowler he was, odd that.

So three different arguments to ignore good bowling, hmmm.

Yet as Greg said you may turn out correct about Panesar, but please stop giving your nonsensical theoretical averages of what people would of bowled as evidence. Its conjecture and as the great Brian Clough said about such drivel "if my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle", futile.

 

[Linda]

So you want Voges then.

Haha, good pick up.

Look, ideally it'd be someone younger, like Marsh (Im on the bandwagon well and truly) or Cosgrove, I love a risky selection. Whoever they had picked wouldnt have had to deal with much pressure with the likelihood that Watson will come back for Boxing Day anyway. But Voges will do in my book, mostly because Im bias though.

 

[aussie tragic]

I notice that a few people have mentioned Marsh as a possible Test star one day, with some even stating he should have called up before Voges. As I've never seen him play, can someone explain why Marsh is being rated so highly

btw, I looked up his FC record and he's played 36 games and only averages 31, with only 3 centuries and a HS of 119 ????

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

I notice that a few people have mentioned Marsh as a possible Test star one day, with some even stating he should have called up before Voges. As I've never seen him play, can someone explain why Marsh is being rated so highly

btw, I looked up his FC record and he's played 36 games and only averages 31, with only 3 centuries and a HS of 119 ????

The main reason is just that he looks really, really good. He's got a great technique, plays all the shots and looks capable in both forms of the game. Steve Waugh said he was the best young batsman he'd ever seen, or something of the sort, and that was a number of years ago.

He's underachieved in first class cricket so far, but he's shown a few signs recently that he's starting to get it right. He's an unknown quantity though, so his reputation is really just based on potential, a bit like Michael Clarke's was before he got picked.

 

[greg]

The main reason is just that he looks really, really good. He's got a great technique, plays all the shots and looks capable in both forms of the game. Steve Waugh said he was the best young batsman he'd ever seen, or something of the sort, and that was a number of years ago.

He's underachieved in first class cricket so far, but he's shown a few signs recently that he's starting to get it right. He's an unknown quantity though, so his reputation is really just based on potential, a bit like Michael Clarke's was before he got picked.

Having some ex-cricketer/respected coach saying that they were the "best young cricketer they have ever seen" seems to be the bare minimum required these days...

Sarwan, Clarke, Bell, Cook, Marsh... (I'm sure Jacques must be there as well)

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Having some ex-cricketer/respected coach saying that they were the "best young cricketer they have ever seen" seems to be the bare minimum required these days...

Sarwan, Clarke, Bell, Cook, Marsh... (I'm sure Jacques must be there as well)

I don't recall anyone saying that about Clarke. He certainly got praise from plenty of people as a young player, but not quite on that scale, at least not from what I've heard. The cricketers which stand out in recent memory as getting huge praise when quite young in Australia are Johnson (once in a generation bowler from Lillee), Ponting (best teenage batsman ever or something from Marsh), and then Marsh. Jaques actually appeared on the scene from almost nowhere I think. Most of his initial success came in England, and the NSW stuff came later on, and he didn't really cement his spot until his mid 20s.

But yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean a great deal. All of those cricketers you mentioned turned out to be pretty good, mind you, so I don't think it's meaningless when some unknown 16 year old gets big praise from someone who knows the game, but obviously it doesn't necessarily mean they'll be a great. I rate Marsh very highly and think he could turn out to be a fine batsman, but he's not ready for international cricket yet.

 

[aussie]

I guess i can live with Symonds being picked for 1 test with the hope that Watson will return for the MCG test, but its total nonsense that Hodge has not been picked, by all reports he isn't all that injured and by the 3rd test he should be fine...

 

[Scaly piscine]

The nonsense comment was about Panesar picking up wickets stumped and on the boundary, which you were corrected on, you didn't acknowledge it though. Funny that.

No, I will not admit your soundbite about that test match, Murali is the most destructive spinner of all time, just because he bowls out a team on a pitch that has worn more then the one that monty bowled on, does not make it a bunsen imo. It assisted spin and Panesar worked with it rather effectively I thought. He outbowled kaneira in the first two pakistan matches in this country on pitches that didn't assist whatsoever, but I forget you say that was all down to bad shots or dumb batting, also danish isn't the bowler he was, odd that.

So three different arguments to ignore good bowling, hmmm.

Yet as Greg said you may turn out correct about Panesar, but please stop giving your nonsensical theoretical averages of what people would of bowled as evidence. Its conjecture and as the great Brian Clough said about such drivel "if my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle", futile.

It was so obviously a bunsen, Jayasuriya was very difficult to play on it and he hardly puts anything on the ball. Panesar benefitted hugely from Harmison rattling the Pakistan batsmen in one of the Tests, he also picked up some lucky/freak wickets as well in that same Test (a player overbalancing by millimetres past/on the line for no real reason and getting stumped, Inzi hitting the ball onto his foot and getting caught and so on). Danish Kaneira has been in a bad patch for a while now and he was played a lot better by England than Panesar was played by Pakistan.