performances V the minnows

[butchering lee]

it is popular practice to rubbish good performances against the minnows and i'm using BD in this instance rather than my beloved zim because it relates directly to my next question:

how do we view bad performances v minnows?

recent eg (numbers and actual words are rough) of questioning ability when faced with stats v BD (in this instance):
"bosman ave's 22, but take out his 80 v bd and he ave's only 11"

so can i say
stuart clark has a bowling ave of 17 but if you look at his ave v BD it's 70 - and i use Clark because he also has a very short international history.

or is this merely a case of guys not putting their all into it against the minnows (which opens another can of worms)?

[Teatime FatCat]

Sadly for Zim, Bangla are getting more and more competitive - how a county hasn't taken on Mohammed Rafique is beyond me! -

I wouldn't denigrate wickets and runs against Bangla, I now feel they're genuine. Also, if a new, young player scores a century against a minnow, I'd applaud them. You've still got to play the correct shot, or bowl the correct ball to suceed.

[butchering lee]

absolutely - regarding rafique.

however, even when zim were a lot more competitive than BD are even now performances against them were denigrated (most still do v BD).

my point is: if good performances are unworthy - bad performances should therefore also automatically bring into question the ability of the player (especially n.k.o.t.b.).

[Teatime FatCat]

It's a shame that people think that of the old Zim sides. For instance, many sides would be rolled over in ODi's by a side like this -

Johnson
A.Flower
Campbell
Goodwin
G. Flower
G.Whittall
Taibu
Ervine
Streak
P.Strang
B.Strang
H.Olonga

That's decent ODi side - England would be glad of either Flower, Goodwin, Taibu, Ervine, Streak and P.Strang.

That's 7 players good enough for the England OSI side!

[Andy Mellon]

Originally Posted by Teatime FatCat

That's decent ODi side - England would be glad of either Flower, Goodwin, Taibu, Ervine, Streak and P.Strang.

I don't rate Ervine. He's marginally better than Travis Friend and Andy Blignaut. In fact, the bowling attack of that side looks a little bit poor - Streak, Olonga, Strang, Strang, Ervine (plus additional overs from Neil Johnson and Grant Flower). Olonga was never a great bowler - just a passable international bowler, Ervine was erratic. The batting order looks very good though - Johnson was always underrated in my opinion. Anyway, I'm hijacking this thread.

On bl's point - well, I would question the ability of a batsman who averages less than 20 against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh if they'd played a decent number of games against them. At the moment, I don't think enough tests have been played against Shambabwe and Bangladesh to truly slate a player who's failed against them.

[butchering lee]

Ervine seems to perform best under pressure. his best games in the counties, i believe, came in the semi's and finals of whatever. and he played some great games towards the end of his zim "career". he's alright!!


with regards.. vs. the minnows. i was looking at some of the zim players who've played 3 or more games (contextually - that's a lot btw) vs more than 3 non-minnows and they've done well/ok (sometimes a lot better than 20 ave which is what you used as a benchmark). taylor, chigumbura, chibhabha are the three i checked yet vs. BD they perform less well. i don't know what it means...