The other Steve Smith question - Who would you try and get him out ?

[jimmy101]

Didn't Australia cancel a tour of BD sometime within the past 12 months?

Or something like that?

 

[TheJediBrah]

Didn't Australia cancel a tour of BD sometime within the past 12 months?

Or something like that?

They cancelled a series v Bangladesh in Australia

 

[Gob]

You'd suppose wrong IMO. He was famously dismissed by Maharaj a few times and even Dean Elgar a couple of times IIRC. We talked about this the other day but I really think it's just a coincidence more than anything that he's struggled against SA, relatively speaking.

SL is another matter, because Fatty bowled really well on that 2016 tour and the wickets were very helpful.

edit: didn't see that Gob literally just said the exact same thing

Great minds etc

Btw IIRC fatty mostly got him out in that series with the straighter one. He worked on that before going to India and decided to play inside the line instead of playing the turn when playing Jadeja. Got beaten a lot but given the massive turn he survived and kept out the straighter ball. Send him back to that SL series now and i'm sure hell average 200 or something

 

[Slifer]

Lack of batting quality flatters the bowlers, particularly the spinners.

But bowling quality has still been really good for several years, and outstanding for the last couple. Hardly any weak attacks around, which even the 90s couldn't claim.

Hmm let's see

Oz now < 90s
Rsa now = < 90s
Nz now > 90s
Pak now <<90s
SL now ???
Eng now >= 90s **
Wi now << 90s
Ind now >> 90s

So imo overall the attacks now aren't particularly stronger than the 90s if at all. ** next to England because they had some very decent bowlers in the 90s : Gough, Fraser, Caddick etc. Not sure how to rate them.

 

[trundler]

Australia don't have McGrath and Warne but the backup seamers are very high quality. India are a world class attack now too so that should help the overall strength.

 

[Bolo]

Hmm let's see

Oz now < 90s
Rsa now = < 90s
Nz now > 90s
Pak now <<90s
SL now ???
Eng now >= 90s **
Wi now << 90s
Ind now >> 90s

So imo overall the attacks now aren't particularly stronger than the 90s if at all. ** next to England because they had some very decent bowlers in the 90s : Gough, Fraser, Caddick etc. Not sure how to rate them.

I'm not really sure how to compare overall quality. Just commenting that there were some trash attacks in the 90s to the extent we dont see now. Zim, India, NZ, and Lanka (except for the last couple of years) were really crap.

Several other countries had some phenomenal attacks, and if you want to say 90s bowling is better than current, that's fine. 90s were a famously great era for bowling.

I'm just trying to say that while bowling averages recently flatter the bowlers (much like batting averages in the 2000s), we are still at a time when there is a ton of quality around.

 

[Slifer]

The batting now though is pretty dire. England has one batsman averaging over 35, seriously?? Wi have zero averaging over 40. Steve Smith has helped to cover over some cracks but him aside (and Warner to an extent) their lineup is pretty dire as well. On the other hand India are pretty solid and NZ as well imo. Dont know what to make of SL and Rsa. I'm leaning towards them being mediocre at best

 

[morgieb]

The batting now though is pretty dire. England has one batsman averaging over 35, seriously?? Wi have zero averaging over 40. Steve Smith has helped to cover over some cracks but him aside (and Warner to an extent) their lineup is pretty dire as well. On the other hand India are pretty solid and NZ as well imo. Dont know what to make of SL and Rsa. I'm leaning towards them being mediocre at best

The current South African batting isn't great. Though if Markram and de Kock get back to their best it looks decent enough. The big problem is that for the first time in a very long time they no longer have that superstar.

Sri Lanka is weird in that it's a pretty ordinary batting lineup overall but pretty much all of their best bats (Mathews, Karuaratne, Mendis, Chandimal, Perera) have played ATG innings somewhat recently which have masked some of their problems.

 

[Flem274*]

when teams are closer together in quality then mathematically wouldn't you see batting averages fall and bowling averages increase for most players? which is why we have plenty of high 30s batsmen and high 20s bowlers atm with a few stand outs.

it's impossible to have an era where all the bats average 40+ and the bowlers 25ish because everyone is ruining (or boosting) each others stats. the vast majority of 50+ or <25 averaging batsmen and bowlers have some monster records against weaker sides.

this decade everyone can beat everyone in most (not all) situations. the ashes is an arm wrestle now, nz can beat pakistan in the uae, sri lanka can beat south africa in sa, india can win in australia. bangladesh can now see off non-asian sides at home but are now going to be saved by rain from a rampaging afghanistan.

this is a rare time in cricket. frustrating if you get too invested in your team, but with a more global view it's a lot of fun to watch the crazy performances happening in this decade.

 

[jimmy101]

Agreed. I do enjoy the topsy-turvy unpredictability of modern cricket.

 

[_00_deathscar]

this is a rare time in cricket. frustrating if you get too invested in your team, but with a more global view it's a lot of fun to watch the crazy performances happening in this decade.

For me, last 5-6 years or so have been great fun - while the quality of cricket was certainly high, I can't say I particularly enjoyed watching the Aussies steam roller everyone and India being decent (but not great - only good) at home and absolutely useless away, same for a lot of teams.

It's a lot more even now between teams as there isn't a standout - India might be just marginally better than the rest of the pack (owing to their, almost unprecedented, very strong home performance) but in general it's quite even at the top.

 

[harsh.ag]

Now that Rahane has found some form and Vihari has been scoring consistently, India are the strongest side imo by an appreciable distance.

 

[OverratedSanity]

No chance of it being by any appreciable distance. The last few months have made it clear what a massive underachievement it was to lose convincingly to SA and England, both very mediocre teams right now and eminently beatable at home.

 

[harsh.ag]

No chance of it being by any appreciable distance. The last few months have made it clear what a massive underachievement it was to lose convincingly to SA and England, both very mediocre teams right now and eminently beatable at home.

That's why I am saying it now that Rahane and Vihari are scoring runs and didn't say it back then or even when they beat Aus in Aus.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Two decent matches for Rahane give me no confidence that he's back in form tbh.

 

[Daemon]

No chance of it being by any appreciable distance. The last few months have made it clear what a massive underachievement it was to lose convincingly to SA and England, both very mediocre teams right now and eminently beatable at home.

ABdV and Curran. ****ing assholes.

 

[srbhkshk]

No chance of it being by any appreciable distance. The last few months have made it clear what a massive underachievement it was to lose convincingly to SA and England, both very mediocre teams right now and eminently beatable at home.

Agree with England, that was a series India really should have done better in, a lot closer than what the scoreline of 4-1 suggests. With SA I think they are a helluva lot weaker without ABD, it's not only him who is gone - he almost seems to have taken the spark away from their batting with him too.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Agree with England, that was a series India really should have done better in, a lot closer than what the scoreline of 4-1 suggests. With SA I think they are a helluva lot weaker without ABD, it's not only him who is gone - he almost seems to have taken the spark away from their batting with him too.

He was awesome but it wasn't like he was Smith where he buried our chances under a mountain of runs. A merely acceptable performance with the bat would've seen India win that series. The second highest scorer after kohli was Hardik Pandya with 119 runs @19.8 ffs.

 

[srbhkshk]

He was awesome but it wasn't like he was Smith where he buried our chances under a mountain of runs. A merely acceptable performance with the bat would've seen India win that series. The second highest scorer after kohli was Hardik Pandya with 119 runs @19.8 ffs.

Yeah, the batting sucked ass, was a shameful performance.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Funny to see the thread has long since moved on from the topic at hand. Everyone's given up trying to figure out the answer to the question jus like England's bowlers.