The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[honestbharani]

a spinner, not too much support for most of his career.

Yeah... Jadeja has LOL stats sure. And define "majority", given Jadeja debuted in 2012 and Ashwin debuted in 2011 and shared test matches with Ojha and Harbhajan as well who have been match winners on their own.

Playing against 90s England anywhere is much more "friendly" for a spinner than having to face up to India and Pakistan even in SL conditions. And of course, lets hide the fact that Murali wiped the floor with England in England a lot more than Warne ever did. And the fact that Warne was slapped around for fun by BD in BD when Murali was running through them.

I mean, its one thing to be this biased but quite another to refuse to believe every available fact coz it disproves a biased opinion.

 

[honestbharani]

history shows that

It is not that when it is the fictional stuff you pull out to support your bias.

 

[ankitj]

Stephen - just hide behind aesthetics or something. Will work better for you.

 

[TheJediBrah]

The one time Murali and Warne played in exact same conditions and against exact same quality of opposition and colleagues was during their County stints and Murali averaged about half of what Warne did (AMZ posted those stats recently). You are still going to go on the train that Murali got his wickets due to tailor made conditions and no support bowlers?

Seriously, the amount of salty posts about Murali from Warne fans here is at the level of "Tendulkar better than Bradman" elsewhere on internet. So poor.

Don't do that. You can't just write off every significant advantageus experience Murali had on the basis of something so flimsy. Playing more than half his games in Asia helped him immensely. So did the huge number of games he played, and dominated, against minnows.

How you consider those facts in relation to rating him, or comparing him to other players, is up to you. But don't deny that they exist.

 

[stephen]

You have systematically excluded Philander, Rabada, Pollock and every other great pacer Steyn played with and are arguing, wrongly, about the rest of 27 tests (15 played with Ntini-Morkel and 12 Morkel). By definition, your initial claim was incredibly wrong and that you have absolutely no desire to look honestly into what you write speaks to the cancerous blob your posting has become.

I haven't excluded Philander at all, but he only played 40 of the 93 tests Steyn played. Pollock played 9. So that's half the tests Steyn played. That's still leaving the other half of the tests he played between around 2008 and 2012ish where he was taking loads of wickets without much support.

And South Africa is definitely favourable conditions for pace bowling, generally speaking, so arguing that guys who averaged around 30 playing half their tests in SA constitute "good support" is petty ordinary.

Let me ask you this. If you took Steyn out of the South African attack before Philander emerged, would you have thought their attack was good, or at least had a decent threat? After Pollock's retirement I don't see how that could be argued. Morkel's length was rubbish, Ntini was nowhere near as good as he was around 2005 and the other guys on the scene were players like Nell. Aggressive but not exactly world beaters. It wasn't Hadlee- support level bad, but as far as South African pace attacks go out was easily the worst few years since readmission.

It's part of what made Steyn so great - he was demolishing sides when nobody else was anywhere near his level worldwide.

I mean saying that Murali had rubbish at the other end is an overstatement too since he had Vaas and then Herath but the overall quality of the attack sans Murali for much of that time was Zimbabwe 2003 level - one test level bowler and then some fodder.

In virtually every great bowler's career they'll have at least someone half decent at the other end. Hell, even Hadlee had Chatfield. But Ambrose never got the high wpm values because he was competing with Walsh and Bishop. McGrath competed with Warne. Holding with Marshall and Garner. Donald with Pollock and de Villiers.

 

[honestbharani]

Don't do that. You can't just write off every significant advantageus experience Murali had on the basis of something so flimsy. Playing more than half his games in Asia helped him immensely. So did the huge number of games he played, and dominated, against minnows.

How you consider those facts in relation to rating him, or comparing him to other players, is up to you. But don't deny that they exist.

...

Playing against 90s England anywhere is much more "friendly" for a spinner than having to face up to India and Pakistan even in SL conditions. And of course, lets hide the fact that Murali wiped the floor with England in England a lot more than Warne ever did. And the fact that Warne was slapped around for fun by BD in BD when Murali was running through them.

 

[TheJediBrah]

...

how is that relevant to anything I said

edit: and fmd did you really just bring up Warne's total of 2 games against Bangladesh as if it's proof of something? and no he was not "slapped around", he took 11 wickets in those 2 games at 27, in what was a high scoring series.

and you literally just accused someone else of inventing "fictional stuff you pull out to support your bias". You've reached yet another level.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Having read back through a bit, comparing playing against England to Bang/Zim is one of the silliest things I've seen in a while. Don't know why Warne is being brought into this (again), but Murali would not have been better off playing more against England instead. He averaged over 20 against them. Against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe he managed to net an incredible 176 wickets at an average of 15. There's no comparison.

 

[stephen]

Yeah... Jadeja has LOL stats sure. And define "majority", given Jadeja debuted in 2012 and Ashwin debuted in 2011 and shared test matches with Ojha and Harbhajan as well who have been match winners on their own.

Playing against 90s England anywhere is much more "friendly" for a spinner than having to face up to India and Pakistan even in SL conditions. And of course, lets hide the fact that Murali wiped the floor with England in England a lot more than Warne ever did. And the fact that Warne was slapped around for fun by BD in BD when Murali was running through them.

I mean, its one thing to be this biased but quite another to refuse to believe every available fact coz it disproves a biased opinion.

When did I suggest Warne had a poor wpm?

I mentioned the 4 ideal conditions for a high wpm

A good batting side
Terrible other bowlers on your side
To be a spinner so you can get through a lot of overs
To play in friendly conditions to your style of bowling

I didn't say you needed them all. I only said that they were optimal.

And I grant you, Jadeja was pretty decent in India for much of Ashwin's career, but there's no denying that Ashwin has greatly benefited from the other three conditions. He's a spinner with a great batting side who had played a lot in friendly conditions. I mean he's played 2/3 of his career at home ffs.

 

[trundler]

This is ********. And cringe. Stop. Almost as bad as claiming Hayden was better than Gavaskar.

 

[TheJediBrah]

This is ********. And cringe. Stop. Almost as bad as claiming Hayden was better than Gavaskar.

I don't even get what this argument is about, but I don't think it's to do with "better". We know that wpm is largely meaningless. Not sure why anyone would try so hard to make excuses for it.

 

[stephen]

So reading back over the last couple of pages, Harsh's argument is that Steyn had good support his whole career. I disagree saying there was a long period in Steyn's career where he was the only truly threatening bowler in the SA side.

I guess that brings us to the question, what is a good set of support bowlers? Maybe I've been spoiled by following Australia for so long that I don't see good support bowlers averaging 29+ (except spinners, but the bar is much lower on what a good spinner should average).

Ankitj if you're interested in starting up a Warne vs Murali debate you're free to do so but I won't be engaging.

 

[TheJediBrah]

but I won't be engaging.

That would be nice

 

[trundler]

I don't even get what this argument is about, but I don't think it's to do with "better". We know that wpm is largely meaningless. Not sure why anyone would try so hard to make excuses for it.

It's a pointless argument and just makes for cringe reading.

Here's a top 6 of batsmen who did the back and across thing:

Geoff Boycott
Simon Katich
Don Bradman
Steve Smith
Greg Chappell
Dennis Amiss

Some of them had more exaggeration versions of it. Amiss is batting out of position but he looks like an old timey Smith here:

 

[Dan]

Swap Amiss and Katich and the batting line-up works tbf

 

[stephen]

Yeah... Jadeja has LOL stats sure. And define "majority", given Jadeja debuted in 2012 and Ashwin debuted in 2011 and shared test matches with Ojha and Harbhajan as well who have been match winners on their own.

Playing against 90s England anywhere is much more "friendly" for a spinner than having to face up to India and Pakistan even in SL conditions. And of course, lets hide the fact that Murali wiped the floor with England in England a lot more than Warne ever did. And the fact that Warne was slapped around for fun by BD in BD when Murali was running through them.

I mean, its one thing to be this biased but quite another to refuse to believe every available fact coz it disproves a biased opinion.

I'm still really confused by this post. It's starts off making a tiny bit of sense re: Jadeja, but then it talks about 90s England as if it was relevant to anything at all, then descends into some nonsense Warne vs Murali stuff (which, if you'd been following hasn't been the discussion) and finally ends with an accusation of bias which is out of nowhere?

I suggest you start reading the posts you're replying to before you start accusing anyone of bias hb.

 

[TheJediBrah]

It's a pointless argument and just makes for cringe reading.

Here's a top 6 of batsmen who did the back and across thing:

Geoff Boycott
Simon Katich
Don Bradman
Steve Smith
Greg Chappell
Dennis Amiss

Some of them had more exaggeration versions of it. Amiss is batting out of position but he looks like an old timey Smith here:

I love these types of batsmen. Would put Chanderpaul in there though.

I'd rather watch Katich and Smith bat all day than Martyn and Mark Waugh, not even joking.

 

[stephen]

I don't even get what this argument is about, but I don't think it's to do with "better". We know that wpm is largely meaningless. Not sure why anyone would try so hard to make excuses for it.

I was discussing the conditions for it happening, not judging any players for having a high/ low value for it.

 

[ankitj]

Classic stephen, after throwing out the bait post, he'll probably toss in a backhanded compliment or begrudging praise next

Good call.

I was discussing the conditions for it happening, not judging any players for having a high/ low value for it.

 

[Dan]

So reading back over the last couple of pages, Harsh's argument is that Steyn had good support his whole career. I disagree saying there was a long period in Steyn's career where he was the only truly threatening bowler in the SA side.

I guess that brings us to the question, what is a good set of support bowlers? Maybe I've been spoiled by following Australia for so long that I don't see good support bowlers averaging 29+ (except spinners, but the bar is much lower on what a good spinner should average).

Good to know that Lee, Siddle, Bichel, Bird and Kasprowicz aren't good support bowlers, while Johnson, McDermott and Hilfenhaus are less than half a run per wicket away from being cancelled.

Like, there's literally 32 bowlers across all Test teams across the entire 2010s who meet this definition of a 'good support bowler' and have taken more than 20 wickets. And one of them's Morkel. Who averaged 26 for the decade.

Looking at the numbers in any sort of context, and actually watching cricket would tell you that Morkel was "truly threatening" and a perfectly good support bowler (at the very least) for a large chunk of Steyn's career.