***Official*** Pakistan in England

[BoyBrumby]

Monty is not a bad bowler but there is such an over reaction that is crazy to say the least.

He does turn it a bit but not massively and all this talk of him being the best since Underwood is a joke (Botham, newspapers etc).

People forget how good Tufnell was in the beginning of his career and look how that panned out. Monty is a long way from cementing his place in the side.

Monty has played 8 test. In Tufnells first 8 tests

After 8 tests Monty has 25 wickets @ 30.72
After 8 tests Tuffers had 35 @ 24.14

including some of the best spin bowling I had seen in years against the West Indies and in a match where he made New Zealand look like clowns.

http://rsa.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1991/WI_IN_ENG/WI_ENG_T5_08-12AUG1991.html

http://rsa.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1991-92/ENG_IN_NZ/ENG_NZ_T1_18-22JAN1992.html

In the early days he was virtually unplayable due to his control, variation and turn.

Tufnells reputation has taken a battering over the years but if anyone watched him and truly remembered him in the early days he was not the fool he has been made out to be.

Tufnell had better flight than Monty, spun it more and better control.

Im trying to make 2 points.
a) Lets not overrate Panesar and think of him as a potential great and ignore others that have gone before.
b) Tufnell was a better spinner in the early days compared to Panesar now. Panesar has potential but that does not automatically translate to long term success. eg Tufnell.

There is too much euphoria about finding a decent spinner with potential. As I said, Ive seen it so sour for a better young bowler so I reserve my right to put a big 'LETS WAIT AND SEE' sign on my judgement of Monty.

As good as Tuffers was there's no way he spun the ball more than Monty. He bowled a lot flatter. & in that Windies match a lot of his wickets were due to rash shots. Of Monty's 8 wickets v Pakistan, only Afridi's wasn't a close catch, stumping or LBW.

 

[superkingdave]

Compton might have done if it wasn't for the war

 

[Goughy]

As good as Tuffers was there's no way he spun the ball more than Monty. He bowled a lot flatter. & in that Windies match a lot of his wickets were due to rash shots. Of Monty's 8 wickets v Pakistan, only Afridi's wasn't a close catch, stumping or LBW.

Ill disagree with you there. Tufnell got drift and turned it.

Monty ripped a few square this week but I dont think he generally turns it that much. Also in the early days Tufnell bowled it pretty slow and possessed a huge amount of variation. He certainly does not have the drift Tufnell had.

 

[greg]

The basic difference is that Tufnell wasted his talent (and to some extent his talent was wasted by negative England captains), whereas Monty shows every sign that he has the temperament and attitude to just keep on improving.

Of course talk of Monty being "the best since Underwood" is ridiculous, not least because we had some decent finger spinners in the eighties. He has had one matchwinning performance in which his luck was in. That he has serious potential, however, should not be in doubt.

 

[wpdavid]

Compton might have done if it wasn't for the war

Good call. Looking at Cricinfo, the winter of 1939/40 would have been when he had to do it, but I've no idea who, if anyone, we were due to tour. Actually Hutton came pretty close. His 364 was his 3rd test ton and came a couple of months after his 22nd birthday.

I'd be amazed if anyone's done it for us before Cook.

 

[Goughy]

The basic difference is that Tufnell wasted his talent (and to some extent his talent was wasted by negative England captains), whereas Monty shows every sign that he has the temperament and attitude to just keep on improving.

Of course talk of Monty being "the best since Underwood" is ridiculous, not least because we had some decent finger spinners in the eighties. He has had one matchwinning performance in which his luck was in. That he has serious potential, however, should not be in doubt.

I don't doubt that. English Cricket is stronger for having Panesar than not. However, I'm generally quite hard to impress and I would like to see more before I get too exited.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Ill disagree with you there. Tufnell got drift and turned it.

Monty ripped a few square this week but I dont think he generally turns it that much. Also in the early days Tufnell bowled it pretty slow and possessed a huge amount of variation. He certainly does not have the drift Tufnell had.

Monty may not possess the flight or drift of Tufnell, but he does have an unerringly accurate stock ball. I don't think he should sacrifice that in the search for greater variation, particularly when he has good control over the spin he imparts & (as Younis Khan will tell you) a pretty decent arm ball. That dismissal was a direct result of the two balls he'd spun ferociously just before.

He is also a brave bowler; too often Tufnell & Giles retreated into their shells & came over the wicket at the first sign of aggression from the batsman. When Afridi looked to take the long-handle to him Monty trusted his method & Shahid obligingly holed out. Luck? Possibly, but fortune tends to favour the brave.

 

[greg]

Good call. Looking at Cricinfo, the winter of 1939/40 would have been when he had to do it, but I've no idea who, if anyone, we were due to tour. Actually Hutton came pretty close. His 364 was his 3rd test ton and came a couple of months after his 22nd birthday.

I'd be amazed if anyone's done it for us before Cook.

It's never been done.

 

[JBH001]

Maybe. He hasn't played enough for us to pass a judgement like that. You may be right, but his performance so far means he should at least be persisted with until we know more. I'm not saying he will average Muralis' 22 or Warnes' 25, but he may very well average a Harbhajan-like 29. Which, for the most part, is OK for a spinner, provided he can dominate games in the second innings on certain pitches. He needs to learn the Doosra, and if he does, I think he can be a world-class spinner. He has most of the other tools...but finger spinners need the doosra.

I find it difficult to say much about Monty as I haven't had the chance to watch the man - I can only go by reports by media and here on this forum too.
(Speaking of which, I see Scaly is once again damning with faint praise...)

In regards to spin bowling averages though - an average in the high 20s and early 30s is actually very good for a spinner, not just OK as SilentStriker states. This is even more so for finger spinners - post WW2 most great finger spinners I can think of have had averages in the high 20s - early 30s and strike rates of 75 - 85 or so. As a couple of examples let us look at Lance Gibbs, Bishen Bedi and Prasanna, perhaps the premier WW2 finger spinners.

T Balls Runs Wkts BBi BBm Ave Econ SR 5wi 10wm
Gibbs 79 27115 8989 309 8/38 11/157 29/09 1.98 87.75 18 2
Bedi 67 21364 7637 266 7/98 10/194 28.71 2.14 80.31 14 1
Pras 49 14353 5742 189 8/76 11/140 30.38 2.40 75.94 10 2

These 3 are perhaps the finest finger spinners since WW2 and Bedi along with Underwood are the best left arm finger spinners. Only Deadly and I recall Toey Tayfield bucked the trend and had substantially lower averages though their SR's were still up there.

Deadly 86 21862 7674 297 8/51 13/71 25.83 2.10 73.60 17 6
Tayfield 37 13568 4405 170 9/113 13/165 25.91 1.94 79.81 14 2

As you can see though the averages are in the mid 20s the SR are all up there.
The only exception to these is Jim Laker - though ironically I believe him to be over-rated and not in the same league as Prasanna or for that matter Tayfield. Anyway.

Laker 46 12027 4101 193 10/53 19/90 21.24 2.04 62.31 9 3

Historically though spinners are up there in terms of averages and SR. In this context if Monty ends up averaging 30 - 35 with a SR of 75 - 80 with a good wkts/test ratio he would have done very well indeed.
Looking at spinners overall you realise how exceptional Warne and Murali are for having maintained a combination of high wickets/test, low averages and exceptional SR (below 60 for most of their careers) as opposed to other spin bowlers.

Figures wise Monty has had a very good start to his career and is a throwback to an earlier kind of left arm English offie, certainly not akin to Underwood but more like Rhodes, Blyth and Verity. He doesnt play for Yorkshire does he? lol!

Speaking of Doosra, I dont know if Monty necessarily needs to learn it.
The reason Murali devised the damn thing (and I say damn thing because I am unconvinced of the legitimacy of the delivery - despite my admiration and respect of Murali) was because his big turning offie made it impossible to get LBWs against left hand batsman padding up to him a la Thorpe in 2001. Monty does not have this problem and from all accounts has a truly exceptional arm ball. The doosra is unnecessary.

In the meantime, returing to Monty. It may be too early to tell - after all he is still young and as the old saying goes spinners dont really get 'there' until they are 30. However he does seem to be in the best possible environment for an English spinner for the last 25 years at least. He has everything going his way.
All that remains is to wait and see.

 

[marc71178]

Monty ripped a few square this week but I dont think he generally turns it that much.

A first morning pitch and he was getting a lot of turn - was that just a one off then?

 

[Nate]

Shocked about Jones` dumping. Best of luck to Read though, looks pretty good IMO, especially when it counts.

 

[GIMH]

LOL I was just reading some old threads (I have NO work to do today) and came across this

If 2 of Hoggard, Jones and Flintoff are injured at the same time (and the pitch doesn't suit Giles) - watch out, 600-here-comes-the-opposition.

Admittedly, Giles wasn't playing, and the pitch probably would have suited him, but still, 119's not quite 600!

 

[Autobahn]

Tufnell was always more of a flight bowler then a big spinner wasn't he? i mean he was always on about his "ball on a string".

The one thing i would grant monty though even at this very early stage of his career is that he seems far more confident than tuffers, reading people's bio's which include him he seemed to be constantly short of self-belief always asking if his "action looked alright" and it meant if someone really got the long-handle out against him he could go to pieces and a prime example was cairns' smacking him around the place at the oval in 1999.

Whereas even with Afridi's assualt beginning monty stuck to his guns and believed in himself and his stuff.

 

[aussie]

View on the series - England's perspective

Overall i'd say England have played some good cricket in this series, with the batting being the standout. Cook continues to get better, Collingwood is relishing in probably the form of his life & even though Pakistan's attack hasn't been the great, Bell scoring back 2 back centuries is great for England with Vaughan likely to never play again &the absense of Flintoff.

With the bowling Panesar performances have been very encouraging, it would have been good to see him bowl here the other day if i was in the country since everyone is talking about it. I for one would prefer to pick him over Giles (if Gilo recovers for the Ashes) once he keeps improving because he is more of an attacking option & since England wont have the same 4-man pace attack coming in Australia, Panesar would be more useful, even if the Australian batsmen target him he could surprise a few. Also great to see Harmison storming back into form, Hoggard is still doing what he has to do well enough but other than these three there is a huge whole in the bowling.

Jones seems almost surely out of the ashes even if he himself has hopes, Mahmood & Plunks have been disappointing while even if Lewis plays and does respectably in the final 2 test vs i dont think he would be very effective in Australia. Anderson also is still recovering from injury, hopefully even if he can't play for England this summer he can get some bowling for Lancashire & get on the plane down under, also i don't know what the word on Tremlett but based on what i saw of him last year i think he should be in the test side. Also it been long overdue but wonderful to see Read back in the international set-up i personally would have picked him as soon as he made that 150 for Eng A, hopefully he takes this oppurtunity & cement his place in side, until maybe Steve Davies comes into the side (since he looks like a real talent in the making).

But overall hopefully England gain momentum from the victory here & defeat Pakistan & get some luck with injuries & take close to the best team possible to Australia. The only disappointment for me in this series both sides couldn't be at full-strenght especially in the bowling so to see Akhtar, Asif & Naved run at the England batsmen & Hamry/HoggY/Jones/Freddie run at the Pakistanis.

 

[simmy]

England should create pitches taht suit them ie. the Old Trafford pitch!

Makes no sense. Best two bounce bowlers around (when Fred gets back) and we create a flat pitch at Lords. Stupid.

We saw the best of Harmison on crumbling West Indian wickets so all should be similar.

 

[simmy]

Check back soon for another random Simmy rant.

 

[Scaly piscine]

England should create pitches taht suit them ie. the Old Trafford pitch!

Makes no sense. Best two bounce bowlers around (when Fred gets back) and we create a flat pitch at Lords. Stupid.

We saw the best of Harmison on crumbling West Indian wickets so all should be similar.

I agree, but instead we get the first pitch as you said (only did owt for spinners) and the third Test pitch against SL...

 

[simmy]

I agree, but instead we get the first pitch as you said (only did owt for spinners) and the third Test pitch against SL...

It drives me mental, it really does. The ECB should tell the groundsman to make such a pitch. When we went to Asia we had to adapt, so they should when they come here.

I think sometimes the groundsman are more interested in the financial gains of a five day test match rather than what would help England win.

 

[marc71178]

I agree, but instead we get the first pitch as you said (only did owt for spinners) and the third Test pitch against SL...

So you're now saying that OT wasn't helpful for spinners, thus making Panesar's efforts much better than anything served up by Flunkett.

 

[vic_orthdox]

There is too much euphoria about finding a decent spinner with potential. As I said, Ive seen it go sour for a better young bowler so I reserve my right to put a big 'LETS WAIT AND SEE' sign on my judgement of Monty.

How good Monty ends up being will rely on who, and how, leads England over the next 5 years.