***Official England in India***

[Pothas]

But Lord's 2000 was the best game I've ever seen to my eyes because of the quality + the excitement.

Was at that second day of that Test. Think it was only the 3rd Test I had ever watched live and I am unlikely to see a better one in the rest of my life.

 

[aussie]

Never seen India play so well. Congrats to fabolous set of performances over the past few months.

But the bias in me, reckons i really wasted some good sleep this winter.

 

[pup11]

Well played and India and the finally the potential has been turned into consistent performances on field, and a lot of credit should go to Dhoni for the way he has led the side and has been able to extract the best out of everyone, special mention needs to be made of Sehwag and Gambhir who are arguably the best opening combination in all forms of the game atm, and they have been instrumental in India performing so well, i was very disappointed to see Aussies lose in India but at the same time i have no shame in expecting that the Indian team was clearly the better side of the two and deserve all the success that has come their way this season.

 

[honestbharani]

Go, India!!!



Nice to see MSD not offer up some crappy excuse and juz accept the facts..



But it is high time we got over the individual milestone fetish!!! It s there with the best to the worst of our players, I guess..

 

[krkode]

I think players are mesmerized by individual milestones primarily because of the media's portrayal of stats. We mold them, theorize about them, and constantly throw them about while comparing players. You're much more likely to see two batsmen compared based on their relative averages than based on a qualitative comparison of how many matches each has "won" for their country by playing some role here and there. Ultimately, it is a useful mode of "judging" one's career. The media, the spectators, the writers all fetishize stats and so it's no small surprise that the players do so too.

It seems like the only form of cricket where individual stats don't mean as much or are not thrown about a lot, ironically, is T20. Besides the usual "most runs, most wickets, S/R" etc. you don't have 50 different ways to compare players. Unless of course, we eventually make "30 runs" and "2 wickets" as new milestones. As it stands, though, 20-20 comes down to did you win or did you lose?

 

[G.I.Joe]

I think players are mesmerized by individual milestones primarily because of the media's portrayal of stats. We mold them, theorize about them, and constantly throw them about while comparing players. You're much more likely to see two batsmen compared based on their relative averages than based on a qualitative comparison of how many matches each has "won" for their country by playing some role here and there. Ultimately, it is a useful mode of "judging" one's career. The media, the spectators, the writers all fetishize stats and so it's no small surprise that the players do so too.

It seems like the only form of cricket where individual stats don't mean as much or are not thrown about a lot, ironically, is T20. Besides the usual "most runs, most wickets, S/R" etc. you don't have 50 different ways to compare players. Unless of course, we eventually make "30 runs" and "2 wickets" as new milestones. As it stands, though, 20-20 comes down to did you win or did you lose?

Puts the whole "Player XYZ doesn't have a great 4th innings record" thing into perspective, doesn't it? 4th innings runs can be as useless as they can be useful.

And you're right about the Twenty20 stuff. It has an element of playing for the sake of playing, while Test cricket is too preoccupied with records and statistics.

 

[Richard]

Was at that second day of that Test. Think it was only the 3rd Test I had ever watched live and I am unlikely to see a better one in the rest of my life.

Haha, picked the right day there as well - 21 wickets and one of the most unthinkable comebacks ever.

 

[Richard]

And you're right about the Twenty20 stuff. It has an element of playing for the sake of playing, while Test cricket is too preoccupied with records and statistics.

One of the many reasons I hate Twenty20. Individual feats of achievement are minimalised.

 

[G.I.Joe]

One of the many reasons I hate Twenty20. Individual feats of achievement are minimalised.

Oh no , there is appreciation of individual feats of achievement. Those feats are appreciated for the pure entertainment they've provided rather than being reduced to a function of argumentative numbers. No one yet has been anal enough to start T20 arguments on the lines of "Player X has done so and so 7 times against Teams B and C while Player Z has only done so 6 times against teams C and D in the second innings."

 

[G.I.Joe]

Derek Pringle in The Telegraph

As the leading narcissists in either team, Yuvraj and Pietersen became embroiled in a personality clash mischievously exploited at every opportunity by India's captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Whenever Pietersen strode to the crease, Dhoni would bring Yuvraj on to bowl his left-arm spin and generally wind-up his opposite number in a soap opera that leavened both series.

The ploy worked, too, with Yuvraj twice dismissing Pietersen cheaply enough for the bowler to make bunny signs and call him his rabbit. Retaliation from England's skipper, in the form of a fine hundred, came during the final Test in Mohali but he could not resist a verbal dig at his preening nemesis, calling him both a "pie chucker" and a purveyor of "left-arm filth."

Predictably, Yuvraj responded by saying that if he was a useless bowler then a man he had dismissed five times during his career must also be a useless batsman. Fifth form logic never sounded this sage.

 

[Richard]

Oh no , there is appreciation of individual feats of achievement. Those feats are appreciated for the pure entertainment they've provided rather than being reduced to a function of argumentative numbers. No one yet has been anal enough to start T20 arguments on the lines of "Player X has done so and so 7 times against Teams B and C while Player Z has only done so 6 times against teams C and D in the second innings."

Well, see I don't find someone smashing 40 off 22 balls remotely entertaining really - give me a well-constructed 60 off 110 or 130 over that every time.

What's more, batsmen can't bat in a way that means they get a good average. No batsman in Twenty20 is ever going to achieve anything much of great note other than a good strike-rate. Good innings' in Twenty20 are far, far rarer than in Test and ODI cricket, because you just have to score so quickly (whatever the method you use, be it mindless slogging or sensible hitting) that you're going to be out cheaply quite often.

In Twenty20, as I say, individual success is minimalised. A good individual innings in Twenty20 is one which would be broadly fairly insignificant - or else almost impossible to play and requiring a manner of playing that would rightly be totally unacceptable - in a Test. One of the biggest reasons I like cricket is because it's interesting in that individual success builds team success, rather than other team sports like rugby and football where individuals play constantly together as a team.

While Twenty20 is still 1 vs 1 at any given time, a good economical bowling spell (economical by "normal" Test\ODI standards) is a precious rarity in Twenty20 and a good innings, as I say, is much less frequent than in Tests and ODIs, and thus Twenty20 has the team element and the individual one is massively reduced.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Well, see I don't find someone smashing 40 off 22 balls remotely entertaining really - give me a well-constructed 60 off 110 or 130 over that every time.

What's more, batsmen can't bat in a way that means they get a good average. No batsman in Twenty20 is ever going to achieve anything much of great note other than a good strike-rate. Good innings' in Twenty20 are far, far rarer than in Test and ODI cricket, because you just have to score so quickly (whatever the method you use, be it mindless slogging or sensible hitting) that you're going to be out cheaply quite often.

In Twenty20, as I say, individual success is minimalised. A good individual innings in Twenty20 is one which would be broadly fairly insignificant - or else almost impossible to play and requiring a manner of playing that would rightly be totally unacceptable - in a Test. One of the biggest reasons I like cricket is because it's interesting in that individual success builds team success, rather than other team sports like rugby and football where individuals play constantly together as a team.

While Twenty20 is still 1 vs 1 at any given time, a good economical bowling spell (economical by "normal" Test\ODI standards) is a precious rarity in Twenty20 and a good innings, as I say, is much less frequent than in Tests and ODIs.

Yeah Richard, but thats a criticism of the T20 format. No one's claiming that T20 is a better form of the game, it's just that it hasn't been taken over by the Stats Nazi's like Test cricket has.

 

[krkode]

Yeah Richard, but thats a criticism of the T20 format. No one's claiming that T20 is a better form of the game, it's just that it hasn't been taken over by the Stats Nazi's like Test cricket has.

This. T20 as a format itself has its short-comings but there's something to be said for the simplicity of playing for the sake of playing (and playing for the sake of winning). By cutting down on the individual role and emphasizing the team aspect, you move away from both the media and subsequently the players fetishizing stats as the be-all target (i.e. you will have less of Gambhir and Yuvraj going for meaningless 5th day hundreds and more result-mongering).

Fact of the matter is, I myself love cricket stats which at the same time is why I don't like T20. Which is why I even, to an extent, like ODI cricket (as well as tests, of course). I can't fathom a format where I can't count 50s, 100s, 5-wicket hauls, averages etc. and actually have them mean something as a form of measuring a player's success. It's just that because we probably do it too much, we have days like Day5 Mohali which are then criticized for being against the spirit of the game and deemed stat-mongering by us very same media and fans who throw stats about like candy.

 

[Richard]

Yeah Richard, but thats a criticism of the T20 format. No one's claiming that T20 is a better form of the game, it's just that it hasn't been taken over by the Stats Nazi's like Test cricket has.

And in my book that's bad!

 

[krkode]

And in my book that's bad!

Personally, I would tend to agree. It's just a lot of people have taken a critical outlook on Dhoni's plan to let Gambhir and Yuvraj go for hundreds. GI and I were just trying to rationalize that.
For example, an article on cricinfo starts: "Centuries don't matter..." Since when?

 

[susudear]

cricket's usp

It is that it gives a chance for individual glory as well as team glory. and personal records reduce to some degree subjectivity for analyusis. Which is a very good motivation for player.

 

[sohummisra]

Unfortunately, cricket has always been about statistics... it was apparently just a myth to some that this did not stretch out to the players. With Indian players, statistics are even more important because your head can be on the chopping block before any given series unless you are in the recently downsized Fab 3. Centuries are extremely important for players like Yuvraj, who still haven't cemented their spot, despite having played a match-winning knock in their previous Test.

It's actually a shame that if and when the time comes for the selectors to drop Yuvi, they will probably use the argument "well he hasn't scored a century in X matches" whereas he may have very well made a couple of 50's or even a match-complexion-changing knock (such as Sehwag's innings at Chennai) that isn't encompassing by the statistics.

Make no mistake--statistics are very important for fans and the media, and for any sport, not just cricket. However, it is an issue, I feel, when players begin to change their performances based on their statistics. For example, Ray Allen of the Boston Celtics would not pass up an open three-pointer on a bad shooting night for fear of his three-point percentage going down.