English Cricket going down hill?

[Ernest]

Beny
Without another player the caliber of McGrath, Australia are just another team amongst the rest, freak or not.

Correct me if I am wrong Beny but was Katich not dropped by Australia today, that was my point, I think I got that point from BBC ceefax.

Not a lot between Giles and McGill really, McGill has the better average, and Giles was a star player for England IN INDIA last tour there.

Originally Posted by Beny

Katich is captain of NSW, he maintains a first class average of 50.77

We have had a lot of players with averages like that in first class cricket, Hick was a good case in point, can't always carry that form through to international level.

Ern

[Beny]

Do they have test averages of over 42 already? Katich has played 13 test matches for a high score of 125 and 6 scores over 50. In India he was out for 99, a forty that was worth 80 and I think he made 80. Thats not bad, especialy over there. He was dropped because there was no room for him and it was a choice between Lehman, Katich and Clarke. There is a thread in the Aussie fourm.

Without McGrath we will simply be another Aussie team. Not the great World champs we are now but certinly still competitive and we may well remain that way for another 20 or 30 years until annother 'freak' comes along.

[Ernest]

G Hicks First Class average 53.50, with a highest score of 405*

M Ramprakash First Class average of 48.22, with a high score of 279*, one of the outstanding fielders in the world.

So Beny we can all come up with players who have brilliant 1st class averages, but did not hack it at international level.

Beny, lets go on to freaks, the last freak we had (before Flintoff) was Ian Botham, and who did he make suffer beny, ""Australia"", in I think 1981.

He near as damm it, revived England single handed, fron the depth they where in.

We missed him when he went, can you hand on heart, say McGrath won't be missed?.

If Katich is that good, why has he been left out of the Aussie side?.

Ern

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Beny

Without McGrath we will simply be another Aussie team. Not the great World champs we are now but certinly still competitive and we may well remain that way for another 20 or 30 years until annother 'freak' comes along.

That pretty well hits the nail on the head: McGrath is great.. but he's actually been superfluous to requirements for the last 10 years: the Aussies would almost certainly have STILL trounced everyone else even without him.

One thing that's easily overlooked is the impact the Aussie batting has on what the team can achieve in the field: when you can basically bat the opposition out of the game in a very few sesssions.. and you have literally STACKS of runs to play with... bowling becomes a pretty low-pressure activity. The bowlers have generally had very attacking fields (which is partly why Lee has always proven somewhat xpensive).. but the point it... leaking runs hasn't really mattered.

No-one is suggesting that the Aussie batting line up is likely to do anything other than go from strength to strength: the emergence of Clarke and dropping of Katich (who would walk into ANY other side in Test cricket, including England) just highlights the sheer strength in depth. With that as a basis.. who needs great bowlers?

Bottom line: the English batsmen rarely bat out 5 sessions in an innings.. and rarely post big totals. The Aussie batsmen routinely score so many, so quickly, they are ready to DECLARRE after even just 4 sessions. If push came to shove.. I reckon the Aussies could just about get away with an attack that read Edwards, Best, Bravo, Collymore and Colins and be THE major force in world cricket!

[Beny]

Ern did you read my last post concerning Katich?

[Ernest]

Yes, and if he so good, why has he been dropped, I am not convinced that your batting is so strong that you can leave men out like that, but there is a lack of experience to consider, it happened to Jimmy Anderson for England, he got dropped for lesser bowlers.


And Beny, even you can't believe what Rachael has just posted, your batting is so good, you could manage with a line up of 3rd rate bowlers.

Ern

[Beny]

Ern, lets go through the batting line up here.

Hayden
Langer
Ponting
Martyn
Lehman
Clarke
Gilly

Now which of these (class players) do you think should be dropped? Especialy considering that all of them except Clarke is a regular and Clarke himself is coming of a debut of 150 and averageing 65.

I'm not 100% sure about Rachels comment... To a degree I concur that it would be difficult to win with a very poor bowling line up yet at the same time so long as the Bowlers are not so bad that they cannot get wickets then that should not be a problem because we are arguably the best batting side in the world and have been for a while. if you are posting scores of 500 in an inngins then it's hard to see yourself loosing a match.
It is almost inconcivable that Australian bowling would ever be in that situation though as we do have a crop of bowlers who could do well. Just take a look at NSW bowling out NZ.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Beny

I'm not 100% sure about Rachels comment... To a degree I concur that it would be difficult to win with a very poor bowling line up yet at the same time so long as the Bowlers are not so bad that they cannot get wickets then that should not be a problem because we are arguably the best batting side in the world and have been for a while. if you are posting scores of 500 in an inngins then it's hard to see yourself loosing a match.

I can see the Aussies losing matches.. simply because they score so quickly.

On the plus side... if the Aussies are only needing 6 sessions in a match (over 2 innings) to post 700+ runs.. then that leaves a long time (9 sessions) for the bowlers to winkle out the opposition (and this is the bit Ernest simply ignores: even Tait, Lee, Kasprowicz and McGill would get a team out eventually with nearly 9 sessions do it in, sackfulls of runs to play with and with the consequent luxury of an attacking field placings whenever they wanted them).

The down side (in theory) is that the opposition has FOREVER to score their runs.... which in theory means that a good batting side has the time to defeat you.. and that a draw is the least likely possible result.

In practice... no team in the world seems able to come een close to coping with the sheer pressure of needing to consistently deliver 700+ runs in a match OR havign to bat out 9 sessions in a match: not even the Indians in Australia (when they batted with huge confidence and real class) could manage that feat.

[Beny]

even Tait, Lee, Kasprowicz and McGill would get a team out eventually with nearly

Not sure how effective that team would be but I can imagaine it would bloody well hurt. They would be feared but not nessicerily for their effectivness.

[Rachael]

We've now had a stack of returns on the poll.. and it seems we're pretty well united in thinking that the Aussies are ahead of the English on at least 6 counts: Hayden, Ponting, Gilchrist, Warne, Gillespie and Kasprowicz. A significant number of us have also suggested that England lag behind in the Langer vs Strauss stakes.

Ernest is out of step with pretty much everyone one on pretty much every player.. seeing the wicket-keeper position as the only one in which England lag behind.

Unanimity is NOT complete.. with only Maranello, Notts Exile, Rachael, Richie Benauds Love Child, Teatime FatCat being predictable enough to settle for the obvious selections.

The following verdicts stand out as seeing addition hope for England elsewhere:

flanflinger - Hoggard => Gillespie
Glamorgan Wanderer Jones / Anderson >= Kasprowicz
Kirsty Harris Butcher >= Ponting
Lee Johnson Tresco >=Hayden, Jones >= Gilchrist

There was some disagreement the other way though.. with Milo seeing even greater grounds for the Aussies to be marked up as favourites: Martyn >=Vaughan, McGrath >=Harmison and Langer>=Strauss. Not even Beny was that optimistic: he settled (along with Nick and Kirsty Harris) for Langer>=Strauss.

What this poll cannot, of course, answer is the scale of the gulf each of us see seperating the various players: even if we see Hayden, Ponting, Gilchrist, Warne, Gillespie and Kasprowicz as giving the Aussies an edge.. it doesn't make clear just how much of an edge. Even though we see ourselves as able to at least compete in the form of Vaughan, Thorpe, Flintoff and Harmison.. we can't tell from the poll whether people think these are players who merely match their opposite numbers.. or if we think these players actually give England an edge.

In other threads I will try and see how we feel the batting and the attacks match up overall.

postscript: those polls are now in place: see http://www.world-a-team.com/showthread.php?t=1469 and http://www.world-a-team.com/showthread.php?t=1470

Updates: yubeingfunny has chipped in... selecting the six obvious candidates.. no exceptions.

Andy Mellon has now also chipped in: all the six obvious candidates.. plus the disputed candidate, Langer. I find it interesting that our most esteemed observer of the county game (and a contributer whose famiarity with Strauss undoubtedly exceeds, and pre-dates, that of many other contributers) singles the Langer-Strauss contest as another in which the English are still struggling to match the Aussies.