This is the point. Soaking up balls cancels out the good effect of scoring runs. 33 off 80 or 60 off 98 are fine Test innings; they're match-losingly horrendously poor ones in an ODI.Ironically, most of them he was the best performing batsman
Note the dates. They were just the first ones I looked at, in order, in which Bevan played a definitive role in an Australian loss because of his poor strike rate. Probably there are another five, at least. Which would make for 10 single-handed losses out of 200 innings, quite high really.
"We batted poorly, we should have got 206 easily in the end, but we played some poor shots and didn't respect our wickets enough.""- Steve Waugh in the post-match conference of that very game.This is the point. Soaking up balls cancels out the good effect of scoring runs. 33 off 80 or 60 off 98 are fine Test innings; they're match-losingly horrendously poor ones in an ODI.
It's too easy to merely look at scorecards retrospectively. He may have been playing it perfectly given the situation, seeing off the right bowlers at difficult times and relying on others batsmen to stick with him. You could critique any other ODI batsman the same way if you went looking.This is the point. Soaking up balls cancels out the good effect of scoring runs. 33 off 80 or 60 off 98 are fine Test innings; they're match-losingly horrendously poor ones in an ODI.
I picked those innings as a counter argument to the idea that someone striking at 72 belongs in an ATG side.You pick the worst innings somebody has played and use that as your argument?
Yeah you never actually watched Bevan play, did you.I picked those innings as a counter argument to the idea that someone striking at 72 belongs in an ATG side.
You could easily make a similar list for Dhoni also. Bevan's approach worked 90% of the time, obviously no one's perfect.This myth again. Let's look at some matches.
1. 5th Match: Australia v India at Brisbane, Jan 18, 2004 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
Bevan comes in at 7 with Aussie needing 100 off 16 overs. An absolute doddle, you'd think, for a master like Bevan, but he fails to even score at a run a ball, hitting a pitiful 3 boundaries from 43 balls, and Aussie run out of wickets, losing by 19 runs.
2. 2nd ODI: Australia v Pakistan at Melbourne (Docklands), Jun 15, 2002 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
Batting at 6, Bevan limps to 30 runs off 52 balls, scoring one solitary boundary in a one and a half hour long innings. Thanks to chasing such a low score Pakistan win with 2 wickets to spare. Probably would have been a win for Aussie if Bevan could have managed so much as a SR of 80 here.
3. 4th Match: Australia v New Zealand at Sydney, Jan 17, 2002 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
Chasing an easy 236 against New Zealand, Bevan comes in at 4 and soaks up 98 balls (a third of the innings) for 60 runs (much less than a third of the target). Aussie end up having to slog out as the run rate climbs and they lose by 23 runs.
4. 3rd ODI: Australia v South Africa at Melbourne (Docklands), Aug 20, 2000 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
This one's a classic Bevan. Chasing 207 off 48 overs, a task so simple you'd almost default, Bevan wastes an astonishing 80 balls for a mere 33 runs. He scored one four in this innings, off 80 balls, and Australia ended up running out of overs 8 runs short.
5. 1st ODI: South Africa v Australia at Durban, Apr 12, 2000 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
Limping to 31 runs from a 57 ball innings, Bevan ensures Aussie end up losing with 12 balls to spare. Just imagine if Bevan had scored an extra 20 runs like a normal batsman - probably an Aussie win here.
Bevan seems to be remembered mostly for being not out when matches were won by Aussie. For this reason he's been mythologised to ****. All five of the matches I linked to were lost pretty much entirely by Bevan's poor strike rate and inability to hit boundaries. In all of these matches Aussie would have been better off if Bevan kicked his stumps over first ball and let someone with a higher strike rate bat instead.
Bevan in ODIs is the single most overrated thing in cricket. I'd seriously pick Luke Ronchi in an Oceania ATG side before I picked Bevan.
For the rest of this tour, not as a permanent change, open with Karu. Let him bat at an SR of 40 for the first 20 overs but not get out. And let everyone else do whatever they want to do. Dinesh and Matthews too low in the order. Neither one of them seem suited to uphill skiing so let them walk out to bat earlier when it is 20-1 rather than 30-2.Just got home from the airport and seen the scorecard,I must say I actually started laughing..congrats to NZ on yet another mauling..
Don't really know what to say about SL..I don't mind losing BUT I hate losing when we produce **** performances like the last two games..if this is the best we can offer then my only message to our board is send our kids to play as they can't do any worse than this ****..they will get smashed too but at least they would hopefully learn something..I am not taking anything away from NZ just really annoyed at the efforts of my team-again well done NZ...
They're both better Strike bowlers but I'd rate Vettori as one of the ATG stranglers. And he bats.
And FFS Vettori provides The much needed cake that is required for a proper icing cake ratio.