You know what really grinds my cricketing gears?

[honestbharani]

So you really think a guy who averages (this incomplete year) similar to what Ashwin averages in Australia (against Australians lol-spin technique) would not have made your Indian side? You know I'm right - You should know I am not belittling Ashwin - and you know that Lyon is playing the hardest gig any offspinner can gigify while Ashwin is playing among the easiest. There is no need to respond. Just nod your head at the computer screen.

Weren't you the same guy who posted that awesome bit about wanker runs? Amazed you fail to see the obvious TJB reference/nod in that post.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Lyon probably wouldn't make a Mumbai under-13s C grade team tbqh

 

[Victor Ian]

Weren't you the same guy who posted that awesome bit about wanker runs? Amazed you fail to see the obvious TJB reference/nod in that post.

I'll miss everything when I'm being touchy about favourite cult players.

 

[artvandalay]

They need to do at least something meaning outside the SC imo.

I was being a little sarcastic, Jadeja averages less than Bedi but only a fool would argue that he's comparable to him.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Something I've seen a lot recently that bothers me.

"X isn't a great bowler, because if you put him to bowl in conditions that absolutely don't suit his bowling, he will fail to run through a side"

This is such a horrid argument. You're stacking all the odds against the bowler, and will only consider him to be Elite or World Class if, in the face of that, he can take a match-winning 10 wicket haul. And even then you add riders on for the modes of dismissal and match situation and all that stuff.

Bowling is the art of making use of your conditions to good effect. No bowler has a perfect style that fits every possible set of conditions and circumstances on the Earth. Every bowler hones his style and method to be extremely effective in the conditions that he plays in the most. When you take a bowler out of those conditions, and put him in the worst possible conditions for his style, and when he returns with figures of 35-2-100-2, that is not a good reason to write him off as a rubbish bowler. Sometimes that's literally the best any bowler of that style/method can possibly accomplish in those circumstances.

I've seen this style of argument used to write off spinners based on their performances in Australia/NZ/England, to write off swing bowlers in batting conditions, and even applied to batsmen who 'only' 'average 30-40 in alien conditions. And its really annoying.

No player hones their game to perform in conditions that they aren't playing in. You want to maximise your effectiveness here and now, in the conditions and situations you play most of your games in. And when you do that, you develop certain strengths and certain weaknesses. There is no perfect 'technique' or 'style'. It's all relevant. A player is naturally going to be less-good playing in conditions that he has not built his game for. To hold that against players, or to use it as some sort of evidence of them being not all that good, is just ridiculous.

That's why I rate Swann's 2010/11 Ashes series in Australia. If you look at his numbers, you'd say he had a bad series. Having watched it, he was anything but ordinary and allowed a four man bowling line-up to prosper as the quicks attacked from their end, while he created bowling partnerships at his end.

EDIT: now excuse me as I wash myself off, having pumped up Swann twice in two days.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Transplant Lyon into India now and he's probably not go all that well at FC cricket (although he was hardly the problem that everyone kept talking about in the SL series). He'd adjust pretty well, and bowled beautifully for his 7 wicket haul in India.

But you're a product of where you've grown up, and over the past five years he's bowled perfectly for Australian conditions.

 

[ImpatientLime]

it's that wonderful time of year again when people on the internet completely fail to get what qualifies as a wisden cricketer of the year.

 

[StephenZA]

it's that wonderful time of year again when people on the internet completely fail to get what qualifies as a wisden cricketer of the year.

Count me as one of those....

 

[ImpatientLime]

Count me as one of those....

selected based on their influence and performance throughout the previous english cricket season.