Steve Harmison pulls out of Zimbabwe tour

[Richard]

because harmison is performing consistently well maybe? anderson hasnt which is why he isnt even a consistent feature in the side, so well done in bringing him up. and tresco has been far more reliable that gough has been lately. and a thing that you completely ignored was that all of them are not slow in the field, tresco in particular has a very safe pair of hands.

So does Gough - he's taken some stunning catches in case you've missed them. He doesn't drop many, he's just slow and not very athletic. He has still got a good arm, though.
So what you are saying is that had Gough got 10-34-1 in the final, you'd not be saying all this stuff?

 

[Richard]

and where did you come up with the random numbers from? no if there were 5 goughs(assuming that they all got the same figures) teams would get 200+. if there were 5 harmisons taking 2/30 then they would be 150 all out. gee which one is better?

Err, the Harmison. Nonetheless, 1 Harmison and 1 Gough is perfectly acceptible, except when Gough gets figures like his 2 most recent games.

and its not like gough has been economical in most of those seamer friendly wickets either, in most cases hes gone for 4 when every else has gone for 3. if hes not taking wickets, then he must be twice as economical.

Why the hell is that? If you're going for 4-an-over or less, you've done your job - simple as. No matter if everyone else has done their job better.
If, on the other hand, Gough gets a few more games like his last 2 while the others are going for only 5-an-over, we can start to make something of it.

and england have such a great list of bowlers dont they?seriously if you end up being the worst bowler in a list that includes anderson and wharf then surely you cant be too proud of yourself.

And funnily enough Gough's record over all but his 2 most recent games is far, far better than both.

or he just isnt good enough to bowl as well as they can anymore?

Because 2 games prove that oh so conclusively don't they?

 

[Richard]

and i think even you would know that i was referring to the test in SA....

Yep - but you didn't do it very well, talking as if an ODI situation when you know and I know that any bowler who gets 10-26-1 in an ODI has done an outstanding job.

 

[Richard]

yes because whenever convenient you look at potential and whenever its not you look at stats.....and when the latter proves you to be wrong you end up modifying them to try and save face.

No, I don't "modify" anything - sometimes I don't just take the thing as a whole, becase in some cases the thing as a whole is misleading - like in cases where there have been 1 year of incredible success followed by 3 years of very, very poor failure.
With Bracken and Williams, incidentally, I've not needed to - Bracken and Williams' whole Test-career stats in fact suggest they're somewhat worse than Blignaut, Friend and Ervine. However, personally I consider them equally inept.

 

[Richard]

just to pick up on that (and it is totally irrelevent)...Croft was considered the better bowler compared to marshall pretty much up to the end of his test career..anyway..on with the debate

Oh, really? Who by? And why was that?

 

[Richard]

They're doing something else because they can't play Internationally. Given the political situation to return to as it stood mid-90s, then I think 80%+ would go back.

Sadly I can't see Alistair Campbell, Guy Whittall, Gavin Rennie and the like playing again... not to mention that, sadly, I think the terrible current situation may go on for quite a while yet. Who knows, maybe to the point that the country is almost totally broken.

 

[iamdavid]

I think Sean Ervine may even have his sights set on representing Australia one day , provided the current debacle dosent blow over.
He's settled out here with his girlfriend and he appears very commited to WA , at 22 I reckon he's as good a batsman as anyone in the country of that age , who knows where he might wind up in five or six years time.

 

[Langeveldt]

They're doing something else because they can't play Internationally. Given the political situation to return to as it stood mid-90s, then I think 80%+ would go back.

Im not sure I share your confidance...

 

[marc71178]

Exactly. My point exactly.

So why would you rather restrict a team to 200-4 from 50 then?

 

[tooextracool]

No, I don't "modify" anything - sometimes I don't just take the thing as a whole, becase in some cases the thing as a whole is misleading - like in cases where there have been 1 year of incredible success followed by 3 years of very, very poor failure.
With Bracken and Williams, incidentally, I've not needed to - Bracken and Williams' whole Test-career stats in fact suggest they're somewhat worse than Blignaut, Friend and Ervine. However, personally I consider them equally inept.

yes and you just compared the best bowlers of one group to the worst bowlers of the other, incidentally you completely forgot about tuffey,oram akhtar, shabbir and the like.

 

[tooextracool]

Yep - but you didn't do it very well, talking as if an ODI situation when you know and I know that any bowler who gets 10-26-1 in an ODI has done an outstanding job.

i think its fairly obvious what i was referring to, given that we've already argued about this in the past.

 

[tooextracool]

So does Gough - he's taken some stunning catches in case you've missed them.

recently, not something that hes done 10 years ago.

He doesn't drop many, he's just slow and not very athletic. He has still got a good arm, though..

yes so it makes him a liability on the field, its highly unlikely that he gets to the ball in the first place to take the catch or stop the ball.

So what you are saying is that had Gough got 10-34-1 in the final, you'd not be saying all this stuff?

no if gough had been performing consistently i wouldnt be saying this stuff

 

[tooextracool]

Err, the Harmison. Nonetheless, 1 Harmison and 1 Gough is perfectly acceptible, except when Gough gets figures like his 2 most recent games.

no its not perfectly acceptable if hes not performing remotely close to what he should be....

Why the hell is that? If you're going for 4-an-over or less, you've done your job - simple as. No matter if everyone else has done their job better..

it depends on the pitch, if you go for 4 an over on a seamer friendly wicket and not taken wickets then you havent done your job at all....

If, on the other hand, Gough gets a few more games like his last 2 while the others are going for only 5-an-over, we can start to make something of it.

nope because he has been relatively expensive on several occasions in the past.

And funnily enough Gough's record over all but his 2 most recent games is far, far better than both.

Because 2 games prove that oh so conclusively don't they?

err as ive shown before hes been bowling poorly for more than 2 games....

 

[Richard]

So why would you rather restrict a team to 200-4 from 50 then?

Because that inspires more confidence in your batsmen than having had the attack flogged for over 5.5-an-over while wickets are falling.

 

[Richard]

i think its fairly obvious what i was referring to, given that we've already argued about this in the past.

Yes, so I deliberately took in another context to annoy you, like you tried to do with comments about Mike Brearley.

 

[Richard]

yes and you just compared the best bowlers of one group to the worst bowlers of the other, incidentally you completely forgot about tuffey,oram akhtar, shabbir and the like.

No, I never even included Akhtar or Shabbir, I rate both as very fine bowlers who perform well far more often than they perform poorly.
Oram, on the other hand, simply started his Test-career on two of the most seam-friendly wickets you'll ever see and since then has been very, very poor; Tuffey, meanwhile, has almost always been outstanding on seamers and very, very poor on non-seamers (with about one exception to each - The Second Test in India and his debut Test against Australia).

 

[Richard]

recently, not something that hes done 10 years ago.

The least recent of those I was thinking of was 4 years ago. Can you think of many instances of drops and misfields recently?

yes so it makes him a liability on the field, its highly unlikely that he gets to the ball in the first place to take the catch or stop the ball.

It makes him pretty poor - not a liability, there are very few of those around any more.

no if gough had been performing consistently i wouldnt be saying this stuff

And he'd have been very consistent (1 bad game in about 11) had he got good figures in the final.

 

[Richard]

no its not perfectly acceptable if hes not performing remotely close to what he should be....

Except he is - except in the last 2 games.

it depends on the pitch, if you go for 4 an over on a seamer friendly wicket and not taken wickets then you havent done your job at all....

Yes - but he hasn't gone for significantly over 4-an-over at all, he's only done that on 2 occasions of late, plus one where he had to come back after 6-2-11-1 and sacrifice himself in a hopeless cause.

nope because he has been relatively expensive on several occasions in the past.

What, in West Indies? Where almost every England bowler has been expensive on the last 2 tours.

err as ive shown before hes been bowling poorly for more than 2 games....

He's not - he's been bowling poorly for 2 games, and he's been not-especially-brilliant in a few others. He's been good plenty of times, too.

 

[marc71178]

Because that inspires more confidence in your batsmen than having had the attack flogged for over 5.5-an-over while wickets are falling.

Erm, how?

Seeing a team struggle to score at 4 an over gives them more confidence than if the team scores at 5.5?

 

[tooextracool]

Yes, so I deliberately took in another context to annoy you, like you tried to do with comments about Mike Brearley.

except that i was being sarcastic, you were just continuing to argue something and then decided not to.