*Official* India Tour of Australia 2018/19

[the big bambino]

Don't you give credit to a captain for leading a side to victory and blame them for a defeat?

Because if so you're being inconsistent by giving Smith a clear pass for his side cheating under his leadership. It's absolutely a failure of his captaincy and he is to blame. If it is not then he doesn't get credited with any of the achievements of the side under his leadership either, since that's just the players doing everything when he watches on powerless.

Careful. You might be accused of having poor comprehension skills.

 

[cnerd123]

Stephen didn't say that Smith was completely blameless

Smith was caught in a hard place and was hung out to dry by his board. He did not initiate nor perform any act of ball tampering. He merely failed to stop it.

Use of 'hung out to dry' threw me. I took that to mean he didn't deserve a punishment. I think he absolutely did.

 

[TheJediBrah]

You're right. But I've literally heard Stephen and GotSpin and other aussie posters say "Smith did nothing wrong" repeatedly. Embarrassing posting.

I don't know about nothing wrong. But he did less wrong than plenty of players that suffered minimal punishment (eg. Faf), or even no punishment (eg. Sachin), and in the context of him being banned for a year as a result I think it's fair to say that he did "nothing" wrong to deserve a ban. Let alone for a year.

 

[h_hurricane]

Actually, you said that Maharaj was better than Lyon in South Africa and that Ashwin was better than Maharaj in South Africa so therefore Ashwin was better than Lyon.

The truth is that Lyon performed as well as Ashwin in India and has in the last five years shown that he's ahead of, or at least at the same level as Ashwin.

Last 5 years, tests involving Lyon + Ashwin:

R Ashwin (INDIA) 39 wickets 33.53 ave 2.70 econ 74.4 strike rate
NM Lyon (AUS) 38 wickets 31.57 ave 3.07 econ 61.5 strike rate

If Ashwin being better than Maharaj and Maharaj being better than Lyon proves anything, it's that Maharaj is better in South Africa than Lyon.

Lyon has comfortably outperformed Ashwin in the last 2 series they played as well as the last match. However, while drawing a comparison between them, there is much more than head to head record. I would take Ashwin over Lyon due to the below record even though it is a bit unfair to Ashwin given that only his overseas record is taken.

Lyon Career bowling average : 32.05

Ashwin Overseas bowling average : 31.39

 

[cnerd123]

No one did anything wrong if you're talking about the severity of the punishments relevant to the crime committed. Obviously the punishments were massively over the top. That's not at debate.

Saying Smith doesn't get to be labeled a cheat even though the team cheated under his leadership - I disagree. It's his team. He cops it. He gets praised when they win, criticised when they lose, and he gets painted as a cheat when they do something like this and he's powerless to stop it.

An honest man like Dravid would have resigned from captaincy the moment he found out this was happening, even if it was right before the toss. No way he'd have taken the field as captain with the knowledge that this is what his players were planning.

 

[silentstriker]

These last pages are all stupid. Let it go. No one cares.

 

[Burgey]

Hard to disagree with ***** here, even though Dravid was appointed captain of India *after* he’d been convicted of ball tampering.

 

[Burgey]

These last pages are all stupid. Let it go. No one cares.

It’s an Australia-India series. There has to be drama, even if it’s entirely confected. Thems the rules.

 

[Starfighter]

Lyon has comfortably outperformed Ashwin in the last 2 series they played as well as the last match. However, while drawing a comparison between them, there is much more than head to head record. I would take Ashwin over Lyon due to the below record even though it is a bit unfair to Ashwin given that only his overseas record is taken.

Lyon Career bowling average : 32.05

Ashwin Overseas bowling average : 31.39

Lyon SENA bowling: 33.28 (210 wickets best 7/152, 5x5 1x10)

Ashwin SENA bowling: 43.37 (48 wickets best 4/62, 0x5 0x10)

Sri Lanka is overseas pretty much in name only for an Indian spin bowler.

 

[OverratedSanity]

These last pages are all stupid. Let it go. No one cares.

Well clearly the people posting do.

 

[Spark]

Use of 'hung out to dry' threw me. I took that to mean he didn't deserve a punishment. I think he absolutely did.

I wouldn't say that that's what that idiom typically means tbf.

 

[TheJediBrah]

No one did anything wrong if you're talking about the severity of the punishments relevant to the crime committed. Obviously the punishments were massively over the top. That's not at debate.

Saying Smith doesn't get to be labeled a cheat even though the team cheated under his leadership - I disagree. It's his team. He cops it. He gets praised when they win, criticised when they lose, and he gets painted as a cheat when they do something like this and he's powerless to stop it.

An honest man like Dravid would have resigned from captaincy the moment he found out this was happening, even if it was right before the toss. No way he'd have taken the field as captain with the knowledge that this is what his players were planning.

If Smith deserves to be labelled a cheat then what is "honest man" Dravid who actually ball tampered himself? A super cheat?

 

[OverratedSanity]

If Smith deserves to be labelled a cheat then what is "honest man" Dravid who actually ball tampered himself? A super cheat?

A man with the balls to do the dirty deed himself and cop the punishment without crying like a little bitch. WAG.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Lyon SENA bowling: 33.28 (210 wickets best 7/152, 5x5 1x10)

Ashwin SENA bowling: 43.37 (48 wickets best 4/62, 0x5 0x10)

Sri Lanka is overseas pretty much in name only for an Indian spin bowler.

Yeah i wouldn't give any weight to overseas record with those 2. I mean for Lyon overseas is probably easier bowling conditions.

 

[Spark]

You say that but it took a long time for Lyon to grok how to bowl in the subcontinent. It's not a trivial thing, plenty of Australian spinners have been just as pitiful (in relative terms) in India as vice versa.

 

[stephen]

I never said Smith was entirely without blame, only that he was going out to dry by his board for a failure of his captaincy. A failure, I might add that many modern captains have had. He was not a ball tamperer. Just a bad captain.

 

[TheJediBrah]

His biggest failure was being Australia's most beta captain ever

 

[OverratedSanity]

Lyon SENA bowling: 33.28 (210 wickets best 7/152, 5x5 1x10)

Ashwin SENA bowling: 43.37 (48 wickets best 4/62, 0x5 0x10)

Sri Lanka is overseas pretty much in name only for an Indian spin bowler.

Kind of true, but the difference in balls used in countries isn't talked about enough as a factor in these things. Lots of Indian spinners struggle with the kookaburra more so than the conditions which is why a lot of them have poor records in SL. And vice versa for sl spinners.

Kumble and Harbhajan got their fair share of helpful decks to bowl on in SL but have woeful records there despite the conditions in India arguably being less conducive to spin. It's the same for murali. Dominated India at home, got smashed in India.

The odd thing is of course that Ashwin says he hates the SG but he's probably just used to it by now.

 

[Spark]

Idk why we're so micro-obsessed with bowling stats anyway. I'm still of the opinion that they aren't especially meaningful.

 

[h_hurricane]

Idk why we're so micro-obsessed with bowling stats anyway. I'm still of the opinion that they aren't especially meaningful.

I generally tend to give a large weightage to overall averages. Ashwin averages 25 and Lyon 32. Ashwin is well ahead in that aspect, but then we will have a large hue and cry about him being a home track bully.