**Official** England in Namibia and Zimbabwe

[tooextracool]

Looks to me like Gough had a rather better series than Anderson.

oh yes if doing better than anderson is supposed to mean something other than you arent garbage.

 

[Richard]

Even Anderson didn't do too badly in this series - less than 4.2-an-over.
No-one should have done poorly in this series - as with all others after WC2003, it's much best just to ignore it.

 

[tooextracool]

Even Anderson didn't do too badly in this series - less than 4.2-an-over.
No-one should have done poorly in this series - as with all others after WC2003, it's much best just to ignore it.

oh yes 4.2 at an average of 56 against a bunch of school boys. absolute brilliance that.

 

[marc71178]

Of course we've never seen bowlers struggle to control the new white-ball and bowl lots of wides in an opening-spell before, have we?

Nervous rookies, yes.

Experienced campaigners - definitely not.

He got the best average of the series here (albeit a totally meaningless series) and had an ecomony-rate below 4-an-over.

So average now counts does it?

And ignore his woeful 2nd game that saw him dropped.

 

[marc71178]

Utseya is a far better bowler than any of the Lancs (except Murali, obviously).

You really have got a screw loose.

 

[marc71178]

Conveniently ignoring, of course, the most important part of ODI-bowling which is economy-rate.

A team that doesn't take wickets will not win games.

If wickets don't fall then more runs will be scored - how many times does this have to happen?

 

[Prince EWS]

But runs dont magically appear when wickets are left in hand. No matter how many wickets you have left, if the bowling is good, you wont be scoring many runs.

The fact that we saw England romp away in the last 10 overs if each match can be attributed to poor death bowling by the other bowlers, not poor miiddle-overs bowling by Utseya.

 

[Scaly piscine]

If Utseya bowled in the death overs he'd get smacked around as much as the other bowlers, if he doesn't take any wickets and allows batsmen to get in when he bowls the middle overs then the runs in the last 10 overs are partially his fault.

The D/L formula shows how much the extra wickets are worth and if you don't believe that you can go look at some 20/20 scores over the last couple of seasons.

 

[Prince EWS]

If Utseya bowled in the death overs he'd get smacked around as much as the other bowlers, if he doesn't take any wickets and allows batsmen to get in when he bowls the middle overs then the runs in the last 10 overs are partially his fault.

The D/L formula shows how much the extra wickets are worth and if you don't believe that you can go look at some 20/20 scores over the last couple of seasons.

No, I dont believe he would have got smashed at all.

He bowled at th 40-45 over mar a few times, and while Chigumbura and the likes were going for 10s, he was going for 4 or 5 an over.

 

[Scaly piscine]

No, I dont believe he would have got smashed at all.

He bowled at th 40-45 over mar a few times, and while Chigumbura and the likes were going for 10s, he was going for 4 or 5 an over.

Because they weren't taking or needing to take any risks against him, as shown by his average.

 

[Prince EWS]

Because they weren't taking or needing to take any risks against him, as shown by his average.

Exactly.

They believed they could just see off the good bowling of Utseya, and take the risks off the other, more wayward bowlers.

If the team had 5 Prosper Utseyas, their averages woule be far better, becuase the batsmen would HAVE to take risks against him, instead of relying on other bowlers bowling bad balls.

 

[Scaly piscine]

If they took risks against him (which they could do quite happily if there were 5 of him getting nobody out) they'd take him for 6+ an over easy.

 

[Prince EWS]

If they took risks against him (which they could do quite happily if there were 5 of him getting nobody out) they'd take him for 6+ an over easy.

No, you are missing my point.

If they took risks against him, he would get them out.

 

[Scaly piscine]

No, you are missing my point.

If they took risks against him, he would get them out.

He would get the odd free wicket caught at long-off while many more balls would be caught 10 rows back

 

[Prince EWS]

He would get the odd free wicket caught at long-off while many more balls would be caught 10 rows back

Well, thats where we disagree.

If that was true, then why dont the batsmen attack him?

 

[Scaly piscine]

Just to give an example of the importance of wickets:

A team is 200-4 off 40 overs, D/L gives an end total of 285 off 50 overs

Another team is 200-7 off 40 overs, D/L gives an end total of 252 off 50 overs


The lack of wickets from Utseya is costing his team on average well over 10 runs in the last 10 overs alone.

 

[Prince EWS]

And we all know how great a system D/L is... :rolleyes:

But I really dont think its his fault that he doesnt take wickets. The other bowlers bowl too many loose balls, so the batsmen score all their runs off them, and then they can see off the good bowling from Utseya without having to attack him.

 

[Scaly piscine]

D/L is good enough for the 'accuracy' I was using. His bowling average is similarly awful in 3-5 day games and limited over domestic games.

 

[Richard]

oh yes 4.2 at an average of 56 against a bunch of school boys. absolute brilliance that.

It's disappointing (for someone who might rate him as a good bowler) given the context - I've never said otherwise. I personally have never rated him especially highly and I won't until he starts bowing better.
But nonetheless against an ODI-class side Anderson's figures would be more than acceptible.

 

[Richard]

Nervous rookies, yes.

Experienced campaigners - definitely not.

Rubbish, it's nothing to do with experience.
It's to do with ability - some bowlers simply are not good at controlling the new white ball. Allan Donald never bowled with the new white-ball if he could avoid it.
Of course, Gough is usually fine but it's totally ridiculous to say someone should never have trouble controlling a ball that is renowned as the most difficult to control just because he's an experienced campaigner.

So average now counts does it?

Err, of course it counts - find where I've said it doesn't.
I've always said economy-rate is more important and I've always said that a good average shouldn't cover for a poor economy-rate if the wickets aren't earnt through good balls.
I've never said it's not important.

And ignore his woeful 2nd game that saw him dropped.

No, don't - include it.
It doesn't stop him from having the best average (bar Bell who bowled 3 overs).