***Official*** Australia in England (The Ashes)

[Richard]

Alright we've all made our points, okay? There's simply no need for this. Can we please stop picking on Richard?

And Richard, please don't bait TEC.

And TEC, please don't take the bait.

All's well now.

I have never in my life baited tec, I've simply said what I believe and, in some instances (it's actually far fewer than come to the eye - we agree on a good number of things) tec has spoken counter to that.

 

[Richard]

all that anti-***ism stuff (I think you are talking about the 'its alright to punch a girl etc') has nowt to do with cricket.

Exactly, that was just what I meant.

But the number of people who must have the collective eye brow raised to almost all of your post seems to be growing by the day

No, it's just every now and then someone else pops-up and makes an odd isolated comment then disappears.
And you've got a list of plenty with whom I get along very well with and take me completely seriously.

 

[Top_Cat]

LONGHOPCASSIDY: Regardless, I got one over TEC. Envy me, Dickinson.

RICHARD: I've managed it plenty of times.

The above counts as baiting, Richard.

 

[Mister Wright]

Since before he joined NSW by the sounds of things.
He was certainly poor against it in 2000 and he was still poor against it in 2003. Then he joined NSW in 2003\04 and certainly he was a very good player of spin by the time he played at The SCG against India and toured Sri Lanka.

Just because a player grows up playing in Western Australia does not make them automatically poor against spin. Katich has always been quite a good player of spin, and yes his skills against spin have improved since he moved to N.S.W. because he is exposed to better spin bowlers on a regular basis, but that doesn't mean he was never a good player of spin.

 

[Scaly piscine]

LONGHOPCASSIDY: Regardless, I got one over TEC. Envy me, Dickinson.

MOTSON: I've managed it plenty of times.

The above counts as baiting, Richard.

I'd have thought the above counts as bulls*** from Motson. As for stop picking on Motson, until he stops hijacking stickied threads like this one he deserves everything he gets.

 

[LongHopCassidy]

His last name is Dickinson, chum...

 

[Richard]

Just because a player grows up playing in Western Australia does not make them automatically poor against spin. Katich has always been quite a good player of spin, and yes his skills against spin have improved since he moved to N.S.W. because he is exposed to better spin bowlers on a regular basis, but that doesn't mean he was never a good player of spin.

Well he looked shocking on the couple of occasions I saw him, and I've heard plenty of people say he was poor against spin.
Seriously, how many WAns are good against spin at the start of their careers? Of the current crop of internationals we've got Langer, Katich, Martyn and Gilchrist, all of whom fitted the trend at the start of their career.
How often do WAns come across the turning ball? I've always got the impression it can't be very often.

 

[Richard]

His last name is Dickinson, chum...

Yes, but he thinks he's made himself a hilarious simily and he's so ecstatic with it that he'll use it whenever he can and hope that he can get a single person to find it as stupifyingly uproarious as he does.

 

[Richard]

until he stops hijacking stickied threads like this one he deserves everything he gets.

Until you realise that there's no such thing as hijacking threads you deserve all the derogation you get.

 

[Richard]

The above counts as baiting, Richard.

Look, I'm quite happy to admit that he's got stuff over on me, too, no-one gets things right all the time.
I've learned stuff from him about cricket, like I've learned stuff from nearly everyone on this forum.

 

[marc71178]

What has the Hants batting-line-up to do with the Kent attack he scored it off?

I wasn't ever talking about the Kent attack.

 

[marc71178]

In which case you're very mistaken about most posters... except idiots like that piscine, but we all know about that anyway.

So because he disagree's he's an idiot?

It's amazing the number of people who bring this up, but you still say they're all wrong.

 

[Richard]

I wasn't ever talking about the Kent attack.

In spite of Warne scoring against them.

 

[Richard]

So because he disagree's he's an idiot?

It's amazing the number of people who bring this up, but you still say they're all wrong.

I can assure you far more people than not on this forum consider him dislikable.
That he disagrees with everything I say has nothing to do with anything, that just means I think he's a complete fool and a one-trick pony.

 

[aussie]

He played, and if you call that pitch a turner you need your head examined.
It was about as flat as it's possible for a pitch to be.

my mistake, i thought u meant he had only played one test in 3 years

 

[aussie]

So... Vaughan and Thorpe have the blatant weaknesses against seam and spin that Hayden and Gilchrist respectively have, and Langer to an extent has both?
Gilchrist is more destructive, Hayden is a better flat-track bully, by far, than either - but they both have straightforward weaknesses that Vaughan and Thorpe don't have.

I dont think Hayden is weak againts spin, his record in the sub-continent isn't that bad, i agree that Thorpe is a decent player of spin while Gilchrist & Langer have clear weakness againts spin.

When u say seam, what exactly do mean, is it where the ball is moving around or fast bowling if either i dont think Gilchrist is weak on either aspects

 

[marc71178]

In spite of Warne scoring against them.

If you actually bothered to read the inital post it was regarding the 130-7 being down to the fact that there's a lack of decent batsmen in the line-up.

 

[social]

So... Vaughan and Thorpe have the blatant weaknesses against seam and spin that Hayden and Gilchrist respectively have, and Langer to an extent has both?
Gilchrist is more destructive, Hayden is a better flat-track bully, by far, than either - but they both have straightforward weaknesses that Vaughan and Thorpe don't have.

At the end of the day, it's all about scoring runs.

Langer, Hayden and Gilchrist score substantially more, at a better average, and generally at a quicker rate than the Englishmen that you've mentioned (Strauss should not even enter this discussion as his test career is still in its' infancy). As aresult, thet're better players.

 

[Scallywag]

At the end of the day, it's all about scoring runs.

Langer, Hayden and Gilchrist score substantially more, at a better average, and generally at a quicker rate than the Englishmen that you've mentioned (Strauss should not even enter this discussion as his test career is still in its' infancy). As aresult, thet're better players.

I have been reading how seemingly all the Australians have a weaness against spin bowling so I looked up the stats of most spinners to see how they went against Australia.

Most spinners except Harbhajan (all but one of his tests against Australia have been in India) have higher averages against australia than other teams.

I would like to know which spinners Ponting, Langer, Hayden and Gilchrist have a weakness against.

 

[badgerhair]

At the end of the day, it's all about scoring runs.

Langer, Hayden and Gilchrist score substantially more, at a better average, and generally at a quicker rate than the Englishmen that you've mentioned (Strauss should not even enter this discussion as his test career is still in its' infancy). As aresult, thet're better players.

Idly musing.

To what extent is that skewed by the relative quality of the team as a whole?

Being able to bat in long partnerships is a function of both batsmen. Better batsmen are able to give more help to their partners than worse ones. So being able to bat most of the time with other good batsmen helps you score more and have better stats, etc and more good batsmen means more tired bowlers bowling at them. Part of the reason for Strauss's success so far could well be that he has had experienced players like Vaughan and Trescothick and Thorpe at the other end most of the time, while those guys have spent a fair amount of their careers in weaker batting sides (such as when they were themselves inexperienced) and didn't benefit from that stability.

You could make the same sort of case around whoever were the batsman who weren't Greenidge, Haynes, IVAR and Lloyd in the 80s: most of them were of considerably less merit than those four but still scored bundles of runs.

Would Laxman and Ganguly still have the figures they do if they hadn't spent so much time batting with Dravid and Tendulkar, for instance? Playing in a weaker line-up, I suspect Ganguly would now have an average more like 37 than 40, since I don't think he's any better than Nasser Hussain.

Obviously the corollary is that these allegedly weaker players are more effective and have better results because of being in a better team, so on that level they actually are better players, although that begins to be a bit meaningless as a statement.

I'm simply suggesting reasons why comparing the raw figures of indidivuals may be a little misleading, as they don't quite reflect players in strictly comparable and equivalent circumstances.

Of the five top-order men mentioned, my personal order of merit would be Vaughan, Langer, Thorpe, Hayden, Strauss. (I can't find it in me to put Gilchrist in there at all because his role is so completely different - you have to compare him with Flintoff or (eventually, I suspect) Pietersen and possibly Shahid Afridi. Or it gets as ridiculous as trying to decide whether Warne or McGrath is the better bowler.) Which is to say that if your were to construct a top order consisting of those five, that's the order in which I think people would rank them after seeing them in action together for a year or two.


Cheers,

Mike