Ashwin needs to lift his game in this series

[zen]

13 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Average is not be all, end all....you wouldn't do such black and white analysis if the player in question is Pujara, would you? More nuanced these discussions, anyway I am assuming you are just having some fun with this thread, so will leave it be. 

 

Agree that avgs are not everything ... Having watched Indian spinners become Lions (no pun intended) in Ind conditions, and mice overseas over the years, I do not tend to rate them too high ... I want them to have success in relatively tough conditions too ... at times, feel that by bowling in such easy conditions (for spinners), they have become too spoiled to put on that additional mile when the going gets tough ... maybe need to make pitches more sporting at home so they can develop their overall game  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by zen

[ash]

Isn't OP the same guy who proclaimed Hardik Pandya as the next Gary sobers and asked us to ignore his average in Test and FC matches and just see the talent? 

 

Anyways Ashwin is the best spinner in Indian conditions by a mile, better than Kumble. The myth that he does not do well in "less helpful" Indian conditions is simply not true.

 

Coming to SENA, Ashwins record has been good with 4 wicket hauls in SA, ENG and AUS. He has been fighting for his place with Jadeja, injuries in Aus , Eng etc. But he is undoubtedly the best spinner in the world now

[Tibarn]

Some stats to consider, compiled by another poster(@Moochad) and myself, in this thread

https://www.indiancricketfans.com/topic/116049-asian-bowlers-outside-asia/?page=2

It's 1 year old, but there wasn't much more cricket in 2020

Read the entire 3-4 posts, but here is a summary

Quote

Reviewing the stats I posted from the beginning of this post, these are basically all the top wicket-takers who are classified as spinners in the modern era. Not a single spinner in the modern era consistently meets this arbitrary standard, and not a single spinner does it across all the overseas countries. Only Windies seems to be a place where spinners consistently bowl up to those standards. 

 

Remove Windies from the stats and no modern spinner is below a 30 average in more than 1 of the ANES countries except Jadeja, who arguably spins the ball the least of any of them. 

...

Average for the 11 most prolific Spinners of the last decade

 

Australia: 12,184 runs 293 wickets 41.58 avg

 

England: 12,829 runs 387 wickets 33.15 avg

 

New Zealand: 8,004 runs 212 wickets 37.75 avg

 

SA:  5,075 runs 136 wickets 37.32 avg

 

WI: 4,879 runs  197 wickets 24.77 avg

 

Australia is a graveyard for spinners. SA and New zealand are also very unfavorable. 

...

Ashwin performs slightly better than average in Windies

Ashwin performs roughly equal to the average in England

Ashwin performs significantly worse than average in Australia and in South Africa.

...

 

Jaddu performs significantly better in both Australia and SA than average. 

Jaddu performs significantly worse in NZ and England than average

Jaddu performs slightly worse in the Windies than average

 

[Gollum]

Happy that Ashwin hasn't injured himself after that heavy workload. Well deserved rest now, and hopefully workload won't be an issue in the D/N test. 

[Gollum]

25 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Some stats to consider, compiled by another poster(@Moochad) and myself, in this thread

https://www.indiancricketfans.com/topic/116049-asian-bowlers-outside-asia/?page=2

It's 1 year old, but there wasn't much more cricket in 2020

Read the entire 3-4 posts, but here is a summary

 

Averages are misleading man. Ashwin bowled on some absolute graveyards for spin (in fact any kind of bowling) in 2011-12 and 2014-15 Australia....stats took huge damage from those two tours. He didn't play 2014 Adelaide (which had lots of assistance for spin) but IIRC he matched Lyon's numbers in next 3 tests. Unlucky to get injured against that weak Aussie batting lineup in 2018 after 1st test. Similarly a patta in Jo'burg in 2014 and was unlucky with drop catches in 2018 Centurion. 

 

Similarly Jaddu had the misfortune to bowl in that 2014 NZ test series where Baz made merry with 300, 200 kinda daddy scores. Will be harsh to draw conclusions with so much weightage to that tour. I mean do look at the kind of doctoring these NZ, RSA curators do to eliminate threat of SC spinners...they are pretty vocal about it. 

 

When you look at overall numbers even Swann suffers but he had 2-3 good individual series (overseas) which is why he is rated so high. Better will be to look at series impacts like we saw in recent BG Trophy....both Ash and Jaddu owned Lyon. Hope to see a repeat in England in Aug-Sep.  

Edited February 16, 2021 by Gollum

[Tibarn]

3 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Averages are misleading man. Ashwin bowled on some absolute graveyards for spin (in fact any kind of bowling) in 2011-12 and 2014-15 Australia....stats took huge damage from those two tours. He didn't play 2014 Adelaide (which had lots of assistance for spin) but IIRC he matched Lyon's numbers in next 3 tests. Unlucky to get injured against that weak Aussie team in 2018 after 1st test. Similarly a patta in Jo'burg in 2014 and was unlucky with drop catches in 2018 Centurion. 

 

Similarly Jaddu had the misfortune to bowl in that 2014 NZ test series where Baz made merry with 300, 200 kinda daddy scores. Will be harsh to draw conclusions with so much weightage to that tour. I mean do look at the kind of doctoring these NZ, RSA curators do to eliminate threat of SC spinners...they are pretty vocal about it. 

 

When you look at overall numbers even Swann suffers but he had 2-3 good individual series (overseas) which is why he is rated so high. Better will be to look at series impacts like we saw in recent BG Trophy....both Ash and Jaddu owned Lyon. Hope to see a repeat in England in Aug-Sep.  

I wasn't criticizing Ash/Jaddu in particular. The stats I posted show that depending on the country, those two have outperformed the other top spinners of this decade (Ash in England and Jaddu in Aus/SA)

 

The stats basically show that we have to rethink about how we rate spinners. If in all 4 ANUS countries the top 11 spinners of the last decade can't average less than 33, that means one should be judging spinners averages by a different metric from what one judges fast bowlers by. 

 

For example in Australia, if, in the last decade, the top 11 highest wicket-taking spinners collectively average 41.6, we can actually say a spinner that averages, say, 35 in Aus actually had a successful tour. 

 

The rule-of-thumb measure that we have historically used that below 30 is a good average shouldn't really apply to spinners, IMO. Statisticians should determine what is the average performance in a country, and then judge relative to that average.  

[Ankit_sharma03]

 

[SK_IH]

2 hours ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

 

In all probability, he will get his 400th here & Ahmedabad will continue its glorious legacy of being host to memorable Indian records.

[Gollum]

Ashwin's 100 was enough for me. The way some people were whining about our pitches, best way to shut them up. Now whenever those donkeys start their braying send them a link of his century. A *ing #8 did that to them on what was termed an 'unplayable' pitch. Only 2 conclusions possible...either they were/are wrong or that Chennai 100 rivals Smith's Pune 100 as the best knock on 'rank turner' in the last decade or so. Win-win for India, you *ers can't have it both ways. 

[zen]

Now the new guy Axar has out bowled Ashwin with 2 back to back 5-ers including one in the first innings ... Good to see these “experienced” spinners getting exposed as anyone who can bowl decently is picking up wkts on such tracks ... these spinners are one of the most overrated bunch of cricketers

Edited February 24, 2021 by zen

[gattaca]

3 minutes ago, zen said:

Now the new guy Axar has out bowled Ashwin with 2 back to back 5-ers including one in the first innings ... Good to see these “experienced” spinners getting exposed as anyone who can bowl decently is picking up wkts on such tracks ... these spinners are one of the most overrated bunch of cricketers

such tracks ? Have even see few balls ? There is nothing much in the pitch ? Most of them got out playing straighter deliveries. Axar bowled more overs than Ashwin as well. Joe root got out to very good ball from Ashwin. He setup him well. Ashwin got India more test wins than kung fu panda played in. 

[zen]

5 minutes ago, gattaca said:

such tracks ? Have even see few balls ? There is nothing much in the pitch ? Most of them got out playing straighter deliveries. Axar bowled more overs than Ashwin as well. Joe root got out to very good ball from Ashwin. He setup him well. Ashwin got India more test wins than kung fu panda played in. 

The point is that any decent spinner can do well in Ind ... As Axar (and Jadeja before) has done it without much “international” experience ... Nothing against Ashwin in particular, just highlighted him (using him as an example) as he is the “experienced” spinner in this series 

Edited February 24, 2021 by zen

[gattaca]

3 minutes ago, zen said:

The point is that any decent spinner can do what Ashwin can in Ind ... As Axar (and Jadeja before) has done it without much “international” experience ... Nothing against Ashwin in particular, just highlighted him as he is the “experienced” spinner in this series 

Ashwin does struggle sometimes but most spinners do. Even Kumble sometimes struggled to pickup wickets. Left arm spinners in India will always be dangerous if they have pace. Shaun Udal of all people , that Australian spinner in 2016 and monty Panesar. Good comparison would be similar spinner like Ashwin   Like Lyon on same wickets.

Edited February 24, 2021 by gattaca

[zen]

Just now, gattaca said:

Ashwin does struggle sometimes but most spinners do. Even Kumble sometimes struggled to pickup wickets. Left arm spinners in India will always be dangerous if they have pace. Shaun Udal of all people , that Australian spinner in 2016 and monty Panesar.

All of these experienced spinners are overrated (does not mean that they are not good) including Kumble, who could not even spin the ball much on occasions ... Guys like De Silva played him like a slowish medium pacer  

[gattaca]

2 minutes ago, zen said:

All of these experienced spinners are overrated (does not mean that they are not good) including Kumble, who could not even spin the ball much on occasions ... Guys like De Silva played him like a slowish medium pacer  

Spin bowling is hard. Even warne struggled in India. Even he had support from McGrath, gillespie etc. Muralitharan struggled in Australia. Seamers struggle to bowl in subcontinent. Every one needs help from pitch or climate.

[Real McCoy]

Zen is always stuck with his beliefs even after proven wrong. He always backs certain players and not others. When someone is so stubborn, its sad and there is no point arguing with him on this

[zen]

Just now, gattaca said:

Spin bowling is hard. Even warne struggled in India. Even he had support from McGrath, gillespie etc. Muralitharan struggled in Australia. Seamers struggle to bowl in subcontinent. Every one needs help from pitch or climate.

these guys are used to such tracks, bowling against visiting batsmen who are not (will not be as successful if they bowled to Ind batsmen for e.g.) and  usually perform when the dice is heavily loaded in their favor 

[Gambit]

Forget Ashwin. He's an ATG. Pujara needs to step up. He averages under 30 since the 2018 Australian tour. 

[zen]

9 hours ago, Gambit said:

Forget Ashwin. He's an ATG. Pujara needs to step up. He averages under 30 since the 2018 Australian tour. 

Every "good" spinner w/ considerable games (Kumble, Bhajji, Ashwin, Jadeja, and maybe even Axar in future) is an ATG in Ind (based on pitches)) ... As for Pujara (digressing), he has proven in relatively tough conditions "recently" in Eng (avg close to 40 in top order, when others in the top order avg 22), in Aus (2 b2b series), in the low scoring series in NZ (mostly got out to good balls) ... Without even being at his best, he is still a handful. Sure, he can step up too further though esp. once back in his purple patch 

Edited February 25, 2021 by zen

[maniac]

Here is my honest assessment of Ashwin and Jadeja

 

I think the secret sauce all along was to play both together.

 

They work well together because Ashwin bowls an attacking line and relies on variations  and jadeja keeps it tight  and relies on pitch.

 

That’s a killer combo

 

Overseas we play only 1 of them. 
 

If you look in recent times, Ashwin has looked like a million bucks overseas when the seamers were performing too but on unhelpful pitches were everyone struggled, he has been mediocre too.

 

Jadeja on the other hand has done marginally better overseas because teams have tried to over attack him underestimating him and his accuracy has got him decent returns.

 

At home as we saw even with an average bowler like Nadeem as support Ashwin manages to pick up 9frs easily.

 

Even today taking nothing away from Axar who bowled beautifully and deserved every wicket he got but we saw Broad looking like a deer in headlights against Ashwin but the next over he tried to slog Axar who had a more convenient angle to the leftie and got an extra bonus wicket.

 

These things matter.

 

We should be proud that we have a killer spin attack now with Ash,Jaddu. Axar, Washington and Kuldeep.

 

I don’t see the point of this thread. If any our spinners have been underrated as HTB.

 

Ash and Jaddu as allrounders are once in a Gen players.

 

Dont see any reason we should nitpick on them. Unreasonable thread.

Edited February 24, 2021 by maniac