England Have The Batting!,Have They Got The Bowling?.>

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Zainub Razvi

Decide for your self

Good call Zainub.

I don't think anyone seriously thinks England can match India for top and middle order batting... though some would contend that England have a much stronger 7-8-9... which might compensate very, VERY slightly. Equally, I don't think anyone could seriously suggest that England are a match for Sri Lanka with the batting, either. As for the rest... not such an easy call.

How many world class players in all the rest of the teams put together? a dozen?

Richardson has respectable support in New Zealand.. but no more. Kallis gets a bit of support from Smith but otherwise ploughs a lonely furrow for SA. Both teams rely on batting down to 9 in order to compensate for lack of strength. Inzi ploughs a lonely furrow in Pakistan. Lara has only Sarwan and Chanderpaul for meaningful support in the WI. Zimbabwe, Kenya and Bangladesh have no-one special.

Leave out England, India and Sri Lanka.. and you can still get a good top order together of Richardson, Smith, Lara, Inzi, Kallis and Sarwan / Chanderpaul... but that wouldn't leave many deserving players feeling hard done by!

Who, from the England line up, would break into that top 6? Thorpe would get in ahead of Sarwan / Chanderpaul... but that's probably it: Vaughan might be deemed unlucky.. and for personal preference I'd have him in ahead of Smith... but on recent form even he couldn't really complain if left out.

[Richie Benauds Love Child]

True enough. We seem to be going down the NZ way of doing things - ie perform as a unit rather than any individual. Take smith and kallis out of the equasion in current form and SA are knackered.

ENgland on the other hand spent the entire WI series away with scorelines like 20-2 per innings apart from the last test. If tresco doesnt perform, strauss or Vaughan or thorpe or freddie can come in and save the day. Thorpe does it more than most but not exclusivly.

[Zainub]

Vintage Rachael - I knew this was coming. Enjoyed reading that post so much.

[Maranello]

Originally Posted by Rachael

Who, from the England line up, would break into that top 6? Thorpe would get in ahead of Sarwan / Chanderpaul... but that's probably it: Vaughan might be deemed unlucky.. and for personal preference I'd have him in ahead of Smith... but on recent form even he couldn't really complain if left out.

Interesting question Rachael, but not what the discussion is about. This question only proves that the best of SA, WI and Pak are better than England's best. No one disputes that, in fact its obvious and well-knows that Kallis, Inzamam and Lara are world-class players and will be contenders for a World XI, where their equivalent England players may not. So nothing proved.

However, that is not the question, the question is, is England's line-up better than SA, SL, NZL, Pak, etc? The only objective way of measuring this is to get the weighted average of current PwC rating points for each of England's current top 6, and compare with the weighted average of each of the other countries. Another way would be to use the median, since an arithemetical mean can be skewed by one-off greats, eg Kallis, Lara.

[Alison]

Originally Posted by Maranello

However, that is not the question, the question is, is England's line-up better than SA, SL, NZL, Pak, etc? The only objective way of measuring this is to get the weighted average of current PwC rating points for each of England's current top 6, and compare with the weighted average of each of the other countries. Another way would be to use the median, since an arithemetical mean can be skewed by one-off greats, eg Kallis, Lara.

I'm not sure how objective it would be, but you could always do what Rachael did, but for each country's batting order, rather than for a composite batting order.

[Maranello]

It would be completely objective since it ignores subjective opinions and other factors, instinct, gut feel, state of pitch, weather, quality of shots, etc.

Whether it gives the right answer or not is another debate, and one which you can contribute to here. But it will certainly be 100% objective - ie you and I can do the exercise independently of each other and will always reach the exact same answer, our subjective opinions have no way of swaying the answer one way or another.

[Occasional Fan]

Maranello - you seem to be in a very philosophical sort of mood today! I just read your note to Zainub about rational thought and irrational action and so on. I'm not sure I can keep up. Might have to go back to EU Employment Law! Or cricket? Now, there's an idea ...

[Alison]

Maybe, it would depend what you based your opinion as to who would get into each team on

[Maranello]

True, but for my little exercise, I would simply use the six batsmen used by each country in their last Test.

[Maranello]

Apologies OF and others, didn't mean to get too serious here. My query on the EU players was not intended as a deep philosophical question, and defnitely not a comment on EU Law, which I have no interest in (don't have an interest in English laweither). It was more of a rhetorical question on these chaps... apologies if people feel inundated with the unintended philosophical heaviness, definitely too early for that here in the UK for me