If the shoe was on the other foot.....*also Steve Smith BGT 2023 dismissals analysis*

[vvvslaxman]

1 hour ago, Stan AF said:

Don't worry OP. there's still a good chance that steve smith will hit his 3rd 100 in Oval and win WTC For australia.

 

This thread has all the "backfiring" attributes lol

[jalebi_bhai]

ICFwaala logic:

We will not criticize Steve Smith, he is not our player, but we will criticize Bazball, even though it's not our style of play. 

 

[coffee_rules]

17 hours ago, jalebi_bhai said:

Where are the threads micro analysing Smith's failures on this tour? Why are ICFers silent? 

ICF is still salivating on his extraordinary form of 2016-22

[Texan]

Smith still averages 59 after poor returns in this series and still also has an overall average above 50 in India.

 

Kohli is a full 11 runs behind in overall average at 48.

 

Not every series is going to be a successful one for Smith. He still averages 65 in BGT as against Kohli's average of 48 in BGT, a 17 point difference.

 

Honestly, Smith is in a different league from Kohli, they are not even in the same zip code. A few years ago, they were spoken of in the same breadth, but that is no longer the case.

 

If you had to find an equivalence in another sport, then in tennis, Andy Murray at one time was spoken of in the same breadth as Djokovic. We all know how Murray's career tapered while Djokovic's continued to scale new heights. Virat Kohli is the Andy Murray here.

[Zero_Unit]

20 hours ago, jalebi_bhai said:

Where are the threads micro analysing Smith's failures on this tour? Why are ICFers silent? 

Am just going to think out of the box and say maybe this has something to do with the site being called "Indian" cricket fans and not "Australian" cricket fans. 

[jalebi_bhai]

21 minutes ago, Zero_Unit said:

Am just going to think out of the box and say maybe this has something to do with the site being called "Indian" cricket fans and not "Australian" cricket fans. 

And I'm asking "Indian" cricket fans to analyze the performance of a player in a series played in India. 

[jalebi_bhai]

2 hours ago, Texan said:

Smith still averages 59 after poor returns in this series and still also has an overall average above 50 in India.

 

Kohli is a full 11 runs behind in overall average at 48.

 

Not every series is going to be a successful one for Smith. He still averages 65 in BGT as against Kohli's average of 48 in BGT, a 17 point difference.

 

Honestly, Smith is in a different league from Kohli, they are not even in the same zip code. A few years ago, they were spoken of in the same breadth, but that is no longer the case.

 

If you had to find an equivalence in another sport, then in tennis, Andy Murray at one time was spoken of in the same breadth as Djokovic. We all know how Murray's career tapered while Djokovic's continued to scale new heights. Virat Kohli is the Andy Murray here.

Way to miss the point of the thread.

 

This is not about Smith vs Kohli, I used Kohli's numbers merely as a reference. You can substitute Kohli with Rohit, Gill or Axar. 

 

The point is, had it been either Kohli or Rohit with 145 runs in 7 innings with 0 fifties in a high profile series like BGT, the forum would've crucified them. Had Smith scored the 186 instead of Kohli, I am 100% sure one of the ICF brain trust members would've opened a thread making the comparison and bashing Kohli. We'd be on page 8 or 10 of that thread

 

Smith's inability to perform this series is directly responsible for Australia losing it's 4th BGT in a row. Why is there no objective, critical analysis of this? 

[vvvslaxman]

Seems like this thread is for KL Rahul lol

[vvvslaxman]

Australia is targeting smith despite having stellar series before this. But we worry about Kohli being targeted for sucking 3 years.

 

https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/aussies-big-fail-ashes-audition-smiths-unwanted-record-india-test-series-player-ratings/news-story/898c52a5b09f15386bbe49b88ac2ea9d

[Texan]

35 minutes ago, jalebi_bhai said:

Way to miss the point of the thread.

 

This is not about Smith vs Kohli, I used Kohli's numbers merely as a reference. You can substitute Kohli with Rohit, Gill or Axar. 

 

The point is, had it been either Kohli or Rohit with 145 runs in 7 innings with 0 fifties in a high profile series like BGT, the forum would've crucified them. Had Smith scored the 186 instead of Kohli, I am 100% sure one of the ICF brain trust members would've opened a thread making the comparison and bashing Kohli. We'd be on page 8 or 10 of that thread

 

Smith's inability to perform this series is directly responsible for Australia losing it's 4th BGT in a row. Why is there no objective, critical analysis of this? 

 

But you are the site admin. You can just do a Ctrl + H and replace all "Kohli" critical thread references with "Smith" 

 

On a more sombre note, I think the reasons are obvious. We also post many threads to rejoice when we win. We don't post those when Australia wins, do we? In the Chit Chat Forum, I see a big thread hailing RRR for winning one Oscar, but I don't see a single thread hailing "Everything Everywhere All at Once" that won 7, including the best movie. If we rejoice in Indian achievements, we can also be critical when Indians don't perform. Isn't it natural to expect? 

 

And if you want to see threads criticizing established batsmen from other countries, you can just search for the words "Babar Azam" on this forum. 

[Texan]

13 minutes ago, vvvslaxman said:

Australia is targeting smith despite having stellar series before this. But we worry about Kohli being targeted for sucking 3 years.

 

https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/aussies-big-fail-ashes-audition-smiths-unwanted-record-india-test-series-player-ratings/news-story/898c52a5b09f15386bbe49b88ac2ea9d

There is no precedent even in Indian cricket for a batsman to average below 30 in Test cricket for 3 consecutive years and yet comfortably retain their spot in the team the way Kohli has retained his spot. Even when Sourav Ganguly was struggling during his captaincy days, he was still averaging higher than that and he still got left out of a few Tests after captaincy was taken away from him, which was also the correct decision at that time.

 

The only other case I found was that of Vengsarkar at the fag end of his career but he was mostly injured around that time and only played sporadically. 

 

So, Kohli is a first in terms of averaging under 30 for 3 consecutive years and still commanding a spot in the team easily.

[jalebi_bhai]

1 hour ago, Texan said:

 

But you are the site admin. You can just do a Ctrl + H and replace all "Kohli" critical thread references with "Smith" 

 

On a more sombre note, I think the reasons are obvious. We also post many threads to rejoice when we win. We don't post those when Australia wins, do we? In the Chit Chat Forum, I see a big thread hailing RRR for winning one Oscar, but I don't see a single thread hailing "Everything Everywhere All at Once" that won 7, including the best movie. If we rejoice in Indian achievements, we can also be critical when Indians don't perform. Isn't it natural to expect? 

 

And if you want to see threads criticizing established batsmen from other countries, you can just search for the words "Babar Azam" on this forum. 

What am I asking the ICF Brain Trust to do? Analyze Smith's poor performance in a series vs India in India. Glance a critical eye on the failure of one of the greatest Test batsman in a series in India. 

 

Instead of simply doing an analysis, people are doubling down with rank non-sense like:

 

"We can't do a technical analysis of Steve Smith because he's never been a technical player"..... what?

 

You are free to criticize Indian players. I do it myself. But as cricket fans let's be objective enough to call out the failures of other players as well....is that so hard? Or is this forum now just a platform for self-flagellation?

[rollingstoned]

14 hours ago, jalebi_bhai said:

Pujara's decline vs spin could be related to his knees. 

 

Smith this series just lacked a sense of assurance. Haven't seen his defence getting breached as easily as it was in this series. Ashwin would beat his outside edge in the past.  

He does have an unconventional technique, not the kind you would coach at any academy. Such sorts deteriorate worse with age than more conventional ones not as reliant on exaggerated movements and hand-eye co-ordination. He is still doing pretty alright.

[jalebi_bhai]

30 minutes ago, rollingstoned said:

He does have an unconventional technique, not the kind you would coach at any academy. Such sorts deteriorate worse with age than more conventional ones not as reliant on exaggerated movements and hand-eye co-ordination. He is still doing pretty alright.

Unconventional technique yes, but he does have a technique. Chanderpaul was as unconventional as you can get but he managed to perform well into his late 30s.

 

Smith will probably have to recalibrate his trigger movements to increase his reaction time. I don't think he will be able to sustain his excessive shuffling at the crease. 

[Frustrated]

Smith might hv failed in this series, but there is no reason as to why the Indian fans should criticise his batting.  He played this series in India (which is not his home ground).  Usually, top order batsmen face criticism when they consistently fail in home conditions.  (Like our top 3 in last 3 years or so)

[nevada]

7 hours ago, coffee_rules said:

ICF is still salivating on his extraordinary form of 2016-22

Or afraid of reverse jinxing him back to form by speaking about his poor returns this series. 

[jalebi_bhai]

18 minutes ago, nevada said:

Or afraid of reverse jinxing him back to form by speaking about his poor returns this series. 

Ah yes....that is also possible. I forgot this forum is also known as indiancricketfattus.com

[putrevus]

6 hours ago, Texan said:

There is no precedent even in Indian cricket for a batsman to average below 30 in Test cricket for 3 consecutive years and yet comfortably retain their spot in the team the way Kohli has retained his spot. Even when Sourav Ganguly was struggling during his captaincy days, he was still averaging higher than that and he still got left out of a few Tests after captaincy was taken away from him, which was also the correct decision at that time.

 

The only other case I found was that of Vengsarkar at the fag end of his career but he was mostly injured around that time and only played sporadically. 

 

So, Kohli is a first in terms of averaging under 30 for 3 consecutive years and still commanding a spot in the team easily.

There is no precedent either for a player who was averaging over 50 in all formats and was best batsman of decade in international entering prime phase of his career to fall off the cliff like Kohli after his Adaleide innings.

 

Kohli has been rightly given chances in hope he would find his form back.He is not some Ganguly or any other batsmen.

 

Do you know the highest avg of an Indian batsman during these three years. and who has most 100s.

 

 

[waga]

On 3/13/2023 at 9:50 PM, jalebi_bhai said:

And yet Smith failed to go past 50 even on the flattest flat track?

 

I personally don't care too much about Kohli. Wanted him dropped if he failed to average at least 40 in this series. You could substitute Kohli for Gill, who scored nearly as much as Smith did in the series in Ahmedabad itself, point still stands.  

So, what? Smith didn't do great. Then what. Would any shield batsman average 30 on hand-grenade pitches? No not even close. I bet most batsman wish their end of career decline and run of bad form was averaging 40+

 

 

Kohli is actively blocking space. Imagine if India didn't have 4 number 6 batsman all the way up until number 9 to make up for the aggregate runs lost by the only actual test level batsman being Sharma and Gill (who isn't even in the team half the time). Kohli is the giant neon sign pointing to the ridiculous situation that India's second XI is stronger than its first picked XI

[putrevus]

5 minutes ago, waga said:

So, what? Smith didn't do great. Then what. Would any shield batsman average 30 on hand-grenade pitches? No not even close. I bet most batsman wish their end of career decline and run of bad form was averaging 40+

 

 

Kohli is actively blocking space. Imagine if India didn't have 4 number 6 batsman all the way up until number 9 to make up for the aggregate runs lost by the only actual test level batsman being Sharma and Gill (who isn't even in the team half the time). Kohli is the giant neon sign pointing to the ridiculous situation that India's second XI is stronger than its first picked XI

No he is not, Gill even after his 2 100s in recent innings avgs 34 and Kohli avg 30 in same time .

 

https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=runs;spanmin1=1+jan+2020;spanval1=span;team=6;template=results;type=batting

 

 

The only guy who has done well is Pant. Rohit missed SA tour where he would have done nothing much either.

 

This supposed to be best phase for guys like Rahul, Rohit and others and worst phase for Kohli.