*Official* England in Bangladesh Thread

[marc71178]

These were the ICC ratings and are just about up today by a couple of days.

Since the only ratings ICC operate are for teams, I'm not suprised Flintoff wasn't in them.

 

[Craig]

No, no, they had rankings for batsmen and bowlers as well.

I can give you the link if you like.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Fire away

 

[marc71178]

No, no, they had rankings for batsmen and bowlers as well.

I can give you the link if you like.

Funnily enough, this is the official ICC website, and there's no player ratings here.

 

[Craig]

http://cricket-records.com/Rankings.htm

 

[Neil Pickup]

http://cricket-records.com/Rankings.htm

1) They do say "PwC Rankings" above them which suggests that they are the PwC Rankings

2) Flintoff is ranked 6th in the ODI bowling, which again suggests they are the PwC Rankings

3) They are identical to the PwC Rankings, which again suggests that they are the PwC Rankings

4) I think you get the picture

 

[marc71178]

Neil says it all.

The ICC don't publish player ratings for a very good reason - PwC has the best format already!

 

[badgerhair]

Doubt it, the England selectors decided Solanki was good enough earlier this season and anything that endangers that view (like someone doing better), will not be allowed to happen to save their faces.

Solanki 0.
Strauss 83.

How many people think Solanki's going to be picked for the opening ODI?

Cheers,

Mike

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Welcome to the forum Badgerhair.

My XI would be....

M Trescothick
A Strauss
M Vaughan * - ideally I don't like Vaughan in the ODI team.
P Collingwood
A Flintoff
ID Blackwell
C Read +
A Giles
R Johnson
R Kirtley
J Anderson

 

[Richard]

* consults PwC *

* Notices that Flintoff is officially the number 1 all rounder in ODI cricket (20th in batting and 6th in bowling)

*consults irrelevancy of PWC*
*notices that, amongst many other things, Marcus Edward Trescothick is currently rated above Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar in Test-matches. Despite the fact that Trescothick's only recent deed of note in this form of the game was a double-century at The Oval on as easy a batting pitch as you'll ever see; this compares to probably the best batsman since Sobers and Barrington*

 

[Richard]

There is nothing special about his bowling.

And his form with the bat will run until he faces some quality bowling in the name of Vaas and Murali.

Much better to add a "probably" in there, Craig.
And with regards to his bowling, it's rubbish in Test-matches of course, but in ODIs it's not possible to argue with his economy-rate since the Holland game in WC2003, and indeed something of the sort had always been likely since the India ODIs in 2001\02; once batsmen stopped treating him with disdain, he was always going to start being economical.

 

[PY]

Welcome to the forum Badgerhair.

My XI would be....

M Trescothick
A Strauss
M Vaughan * - ideally I don't like Vaughan in the ODI team.
P Collingwood
A Flintoff
ID Blackwell
C Read +
A Giles
R Johnson
R Kirtley
J Anderson

Like the look of that side except for the fact that we'd only have 3 'specialist' batsmen but also 7 (:O) bowlers to use, not including Michael Vaughan as an option.

 

[Richard]

I notice that he's made runs against the likes of Pollock and Ntini (both ranked top 5 in ODI's) - so what's to say he won't against Murali (agreed class) and Vaas (inconsistent) ?

Vaas may be inconsistent as far as taking wickets with good bowling is concerned, but his accuracy rarely wavers from faultless. That's all you need against Flintoff; he'll get himself out before too long. Anyway, who's to say Vaas won't hit top form in the ODIs and Tests? And if he does we all know what'll happen - no batsman has ever stood a chance against Chaminda on top form.
As for Flintoff's runs against South Africa, Ntini may be ranked in the top 5, but his NatWest Series form was very poor by his standards (4.3-an-over compared to well under 4 for most of the previous 3 years); Pollock can only bowl 60 deliveries in the game (and even he had a couple of poor games); Hall and the part-timers are hardly what you'd call ODI-standard and Kallis, Langeveldt and Nel were below their par. South Africa ATM are a shadow of their best-ODI-side-ever of 4 years ago, in bowling at least.

 

[Richard]

The ICC don't publish player ratings for a very good reason - PwC has the best format already!

And a truly brilliant format that is.

 

[Richard]

My XI would be....

M Trescothick
A Strauss
M Vaughan * - ideally I don't like Vaughan in the ODI team.
P Collingwood
A Flintoff
ID Blackwell
C Read +
A Giles
R Johnson
R Kirtley
J Anderson

I can only see one possible deviation from that side and that is the persistence with Solanki - I'd still say that's more likely than not.
And if Strauss plays and fails twice I can see Solanki getting the Third game.
There's also a possibility of Clarke playing ahead of Kirtley. In fact I'd say it's more likely than not - no-one seemed to think Kirtley bowled too well in the Third Bangladesh game.

 

[marc71178]

*consults irrelevancy of PWC*

So irrelevant that it's accepted amongst the world media as official?

 

[marc71178]

And a truly brilliant format that is.

Funny how there's only one person who seems to disagree with it, and the same person who seems to be at odds with the rest of us on almost anything.

Spot a link there?

If you don't like them, I challenge you to find a better method of ranking players, I guarantee you will fail.

 

[Craig]

And what if he came up with a better system then the PwC?

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

*notices that, amongst many other things, Marcus Edward Trescothick is currently rated above Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar in Test-matches. Despite the fact that Trescothick's only recent deed of note in this form of the game was a double-century at The Oval on as easy a batting pitch as you'll ever see; this compares to probably the best batsman since Sobers and Barrington*

*notes that the PWC rankings are based on form and despite Sachin's marvellous Test match form of late (8,7,55,1 :rolleyes, Trescothick's recent performances have been better*

The PWC rankings are accurate at what they do - rank players on form.

 

[badgerhair]

The PWC rankings are accurate at what they do - rank players on form.

To be pedantic, PwC ratings are quite a bit better than conventional career averages. To say that they are "accurate" implies that their algorithms are perfect.

The PwC rating is a weighted career average, with various adjustments made to each innings which are intended to compensate for differences in conditions, strength of opposition and so on, but it is still a career average, derived from scorecard numbers.

It cannot take into account standard of play, especially on a collective basis.

When a team plays collectively very badly or exceptionally well, the scorecard makes it look as though runs were exceptionally difficult/easy to come by, and adjustments are made which are in fact unjustified by what really happened.

The algorithms are also rather kind to senior players, ie those with careers of 70+ Tests, whose decline in form and ability takes a lot longer to register than their improvements in their early career did.

There are several other opportunities for the PwC algorithms to come up with conclusions which are at least arguably at variance with reality.

I don't suggest that PwC isn't the best system yet devised, because it is. I've got about 90% confidence in it, myself. But it isn't *accurate* any more than a watch which is never more than five minutes fast or slow is *accurate*.

Cheers,

Mike