Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
I won't stoop to your level by calling you names: your post speaks for itself. Since you've just demonstrated that you don't understand the use of the conditional in what I sincerely hope is not your mother tongue, let me break down what I wrote for you, highlighting (and explaining the significance of) key words:
I wrote:
I've asked this question before: if, as I've predicted, Bell averages less than 20 in this series, what would be the attitude of his many defenders on this forum? That that level of performance is an aberration? That would be a very unintelligent, nay, delusional way of interpreting the data, given what has gone before.
In the above extract I reiterate my prediction that Bell will average less than 20. Everything that follows is CONDITIONAL upon that. I have acknowledged that it hasn't happened yet by using "if" after the colon, and then made use of the conditional in asking "what would be the attitude" of Bell's many defenders should my prediction come to pass. Then finally there is an implied "if" (if his defenders were to respond that averaging less than 20 in this series was just a blip) before I allow myself another conditional "that would be very unintelligent, nay delusional".
I can't believe you're sincerely raging along the lines of "how about we wait to see whether it happens, Nostradamus", when I couldn't have made it clearer that I was dealing in hypotheticals by my use of "if", "would" and other conditional constructions. Perhaps you're not just thick, and would react just as furiously upon receiving the following advice from your wife or mother, "you ought to take your umbrella darling; if you were to get caught in the rain, you would get very wet and might catch pneumonia":
"Well Nostradamus, how about we wait to see IF it rains, BEFORE accusing me of being the sort of person who could EVER catch pneumonia."
As for your other question, if Bell does average 40+, or even 30+, I will come here and humbly admit to having been wrong about him. I have no problems whatsoever admitting when I'm wrong. What I will not do is react with "a massive shrug of the shoulders". And go on to claim that "people read far too much into individual series averages; a series average of 20 would prove nothing other than Bell wasn't in prime form for the duration of the series."
Given Bell's history of embarrassingly inept performances whenever he has been confronted with a balanced attack, that would be almost as stupid as your last post.
Dude I love your posts..Just ****ing brilliant. I am at work now and I keep cracking up reading your posts and my colleagues are giving me weird looks
I think people like you are an asset on a public forum because your style challenges people to re examine opinions they have comfortably held for some time.
I do think that Ian Bell is a good player and your posts made me examine mine. I'll give you my reasons why I think he is a good player..Given that he is 29 years old, he still has enough cricket left in him for me to change my opinion (it could be that he is great, or he is average).
He had a disappointing 2005 Ashes no doubt and that was an instance of him failing against a great attack. I saw him in Pakistan in 2005 and I thought he was very good in this series, although the pitches were flat, he was up against an Akhtar who had the best series of his career and a Kaneria who usually takes 50 overs to take anything over 4 wickets but surprisingly had a good series then.
Commentators, especially English ones have always described him as a very good player of spin, perhaps England's best.. I saw him do a good job in Pakistan in 05 (although against an average spinner), I thought he did a decent job in Sri Lanka in 07 against Murali. But not good enough to be considered the best by any means.
I don't recall his 199 against South Africa against Steyn but I don't think you can dismiss that because it was a pretty good South African attack. But the rest of the series was pretty meh.
I did see the 2009 series in South Africa and this is when I thought he had really improved because I did not expect that century and it was that partnership with Collingwood that sealed the match for England. Then in the 3rd test I thought he and Collingwood saved England one more time.
Against Pakistan, he does have a few centuries in 2006 but that was against a pretty weak attack with Akhtar and Asif injured but if you think Gul is a good test bowler, then Gul was in that attack.
I saw the entire Ashes 2010 and I was very impressed with his performance here. I don't think you can just dismiss that Australian attack as crap because some of the same bowlers are doing extremely well in the current series against India. Yes Hiflenhaus and Siddle have improved but you can't be crap in 2010 and awesome in 2011.. You can be good in 2010 and very good in 2011. Hilfenhaus, Siddle, Johnson are very good bowlers and if they weren't very good in the Ashes, you have to credit the English batsmen on how well they played them. The same attack won Australia a series in South Africa in 09.
In the first test I thought he was very good, and could have easily gotten a hundred had he batted up the order. In the end he just ran out of partners and Siddle was bowling really well in that innings. He looked extremely improved in 2010 Ashes and had he batted higher, I am sure he could have scored at least another century.
However in cricket you are not judged by what you could have done but what you have done. Given that he has had a phenomenal run since then, I would not be too harsh on him after one test match, especially because it is extremely difficult to pick Ajmal and I don't think he has played him before. People like Tendulkar and Sangakkara,who are considered better than Bell have failed to read Ajmal..so I would give him two more test matches. In fact I will be very interested to see how the improved Bell fares in Sri Lanka and India where England would be playing in the next 1 year. If he fails, I will not consider him a good player of spin bowling.
Since I believe that he has vastly improved since the last 2 years, I will give him a few more series, he will get ample opportunity to face a range of attacks under different conditions and that will determine how he will go down as a batsman.
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