Shoaib Bashir to miss first test for England v India as visa row drags on

[putrevus]

2 hours ago, Vijy said:

See below

I don't think he is bad as such, but clearly benefited from an unsettled lineup + timidity at first + novelty factor.

Yes , he did benefit from Indian batsman who have gifted him some wickets but to his credit  he kept plugging away.

 

 

[putrevus]

11 minutes ago, Vijy said:

all conditions but Eng and SA compared to Dum Ali

Ali is no Ashwin, he will be first to admit it.

 

But he was good enough for England who requested him to unretire for Ashes.

[Muloghonto]

On 3/10/2024 at 9:54 AM, putrevus said:

How much did Murali avg in India and how did Warne avg in India.This guy is touring India for the first time , he might not have done anything great but he had a reasonable debut series. How he improves remains to be seen.

Warne &  Murali had to face Sidhu, Tendulkar, Ganguly & Sehwag. 3 of the 4 are top 10 players of spin-ever and the 4th is a top 5 player of spin in any era. 

 

[Vijy]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

Warne &  Murali had to face Sidhu, Tendulkar, Ganguly & Sehwag. 3 of the 4 are top 10 players of spin-ever and the 4th is a top 5 player of spin in any era. 

 

If they faced Kambli at his peak, he would have butchered them both as well. Better player of spin than Gangu, Tendu, and Sidhu IMO

[putrevus]

On 3/12/2024 at 4:23 PM, Muloghonto said:

Warne &  Murali had to face Sidhu, Tendulkar, Ganguly & Sehwag. 3 of the 4 are top 10 players of spin-ever and the 4th is a top 5 player of spin in any era. 

 

What is your point.

[Trichromatic]

On 3/13/2024 at 1:53 AM, Muloghonto said:

Warne &  Murali had to face Sidhu, Tendulkar, Ganguly & Sehwag. 3 of the 4 are top 10 players of spin-ever and the 4th is a top 5 player of spin in any era. 

 

 

Ganguly averaged 42 in India while playing on easiest conditions India ever produced at home.

[putrevus]

30 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

 

Ganguly averaged 42 in India while playing on easiest conditions India ever produced at home.

This guy ended up playing 113 test matches for India.

[Trichromatic]

52 minutes ago, putrevus said:

This guy ended up playing 113 test matches for India.

 

And regarded as best player of spin bowling.

 

It will always be mystery for me.

[Kron]

2 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

 

Ganguly averaged 42 in India while playing on easiest conditions India ever produced at home.

Ganguly can't even handle bounce around waist height. 

[Muloghonto]

4 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

 

And regarded as best player of spin bowling.

 

It will always be mystery for me.

 

Ganguly, like Kohli, went through a terrible patch as captain, which is what wrecked his stats. Until he became captain, he was a 50 averaging test batsman who utterly mauled Warne-Murali at home. 2 years into captaincy and he was having trouble negotiating Jayasurya the bowler.

 

[Vijy]

27 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

 

Ganguly, like Kohli, went through a terrible patch as captain, which is what wrecked his stats. Until he became captain, he was a 50 averaging test batsman who utterly mauled Warne-Murali at home. 2 years into captaincy and he was having trouble negotiating Jayasurya the bowler.

 

he was also faring well overseas in 90s too. I think he had the 4th/5th highest test avg in the 90s behind SRT, Waugh, Lara, and maybe Gooch.

[Muloghonto]

3 hours ago, Vijy said:

he was also faring well overseas in 90s too. I think he had the 4th/5th highest test avg in the 90s behind SRT, Waugh, Lara, and maybe Gooch.

Ganguly averages 49.63 in the 90s. Of players with at least 10 matches, he is the 9th highest average, behind SRT (58.00), John Wright (55.40), Kambli(54.20), Tugga ( 53.10), Gower ( 53.00, though Gower barely qualifies with 11 tests), Lara(51.60), Gooch(51.55)and Dravid(49.96)

 

I am surprised that Jimmy Adams is not in the list, given that he was averaging like 70 or 80 in tests at one point

[Vijy]

10 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

Ganguly averages 49.63 in the 90s. Of players with at least 10 matches, he is the 9th highest average, behind SRT (58.00), John Wright (55.40), Kambli(54.20), Tugga ( 53.10), Gower ( 53.00, though Gower barely qualifies with 11 tests), Lara(51.60), Gooch(51.55)and Dravid(49.96)

 

I am surprised that Jimmy Adams is not in the list, given that he was averaging like 70 or 80 in tests at one point

You are right. I should have been clearer about cutoff for number of tests. choosing 30 (larger sample size) leads to Gangu being 6th: SRT, Tugga, Lara, Goochie, Drawid, and Gangu.

 

Pad-dams rise and fall both happened by end of 90s. hence his "low" avg of 45-ish in that period

Edited March 16 by Vijy

[Muloghonto]

6 minutes ago, Vijy said:

You are right. I should have been clearer about cutoff for number of tests. choosing 30 (larger sample size) leads to Gangu being 6th: SRT, Tugga, Lara, Goochie, Drawid, and Gangu.

 

Pad-dams rise and fall both happened by end of 90s. hence his "low" avg of 45-ish in that period

 

I didnt realise that Paddam's rise and fall were both in the 90s, i thought he declined around 1999 or so. Anyways, a few surprises from the list: 
 

a) Inzamam has such a low average in the 90s- only 43.22 and behind Saeed Anwar. Yet, Inzy is considered a better batsman in tests than Anwar, despite Anwar being an opener and 90s being far harder to bat in than the 2000s, when Inzy boosted his aveage.

 

b) Through the 90s, Thorpe had the reputation for being the best batter in England, followed by Atherton, yet the highest average is by Robin Smith, followed by Alec Stewart

 

c) A mark of how good the bowling was in the 90s and how balanced the pitches were ( and by extension, how good Tendy was to have such towering stats over everyone else), is how Ponting & Kallis -both HoF batters who are ATGs, played 5 years and 30+ matches in the 90s and averaged less than 45. 

 

Maybe its the retirement of Donald, Ambrose & Walsh that lead to a decline in bowling in the early-mid 2000s ( IIRC there's like 5-6 years between retirement of Donald and arrival of Steyn) that lead to a lot of those batters (Inzy, Ponting, Kallis, etc) stats-padding in the 2000s and generally speaking most batsmen who were around the age of 30 or so when 2000 started, have better stats in the 2000s than in the 90s- with perhaps the exception of SRT who was seriously injury plagued in this timeframe.

 

[Vijy]

2 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

 

I didnt realise that Paddam's rise and fall were both in the 90s, i thought he declined around 1999 or so. Anyways, a few surprises from the list: 
 

a) Inzamam has such a low average in the 90s- only 43.22 and behind Saeed Anwar. Yet, Inzy is considered a better batsman in tests than Anwar, despite Anwar being an opener and 90s being far harder to bat in than the 2000s, when Inzy boosted his aveage.

 

b) Through the 90s, Thorpe had the reputation for being the best batter in England, followed by Atherton, yet the highest average is by Robin Smith, followed by Alec Stewart

 

c) A mark of how good the bowling was in the 90s and how balanced the pitches were ( and by extension, how good Tendy was to have such towering stats over everyone else), is how Ponting & Kallis -both HoF batters who are ATGs, played 5 years and 30+ matches in the 90s and averaged less than 45. 

 

Maybe its the retirement of Donald, Ambrose & Walsh that lead to a decline in bowling in the early-mid 2000s ( IIRC there's like 5-6 years between retirement of Donald and arrival of Steyn) that lead to a lot of those batters (Inzy, Ponting, Kallis, etc) stats-padding in the 2000s and generally speaking most batsmen who were around the age of 30 or so when 2000 started, have better stats in the 2000s than in the 90s- with perhaps the exception of SRT who was seriously injury plagued in this timeframe.

 

(a) Anwar is underrated (although he is also an Asia specialist, to an extent), and Inzi is overrated.

(b) I always rated Robin Smith higher than many better known Eng batters, ditto with Gower. Thorpe was better in the early 2000s

(c) 90s and 2014-2024 had an excellent balance of batting and bowling in terms of both pitches and players.

 

In 2000s, there were several factors that contributed to inflated batting avgs: (a) pitches in most countries (notably in SC) got flatter; (b) most top-level bowlers retired (donald, walsh, ambrose), declined (two Ws, pollock, Gillespie, saqlain), or both (streak, who was excellent in 90s). Only Aus and SA were left with good pace attacks, meaning that if you were from one of these two teams, you could feast on most of the others.

[putrevus]

19 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

 

Ganguly, like Kohli, went through a terrible patch as captain, which is what wrecked his stats. Until he became captain, he was a 50 averaging test batsman who utterly mauled Warne-Murali at home. 2 years into captaincy and he was having trouble negotiating Jayasurya the bowler.

 

I don't think so, His avg was high only due to his two centuries in his debut series.Plus the 1997 series which was played  against SL were played on such flat tracks that there was no result in any of them. 

 

Where did he maul Warne , that series in 1998 was all about Sachin, Siddu and Azhar.Did we miss that series where Ganguly mauled Warne??

 

His avg by the time he took over the captaincy  was 47  and going down.It never sniffed 47 after that test.

Edited March 17 by putrevus

[putrevus]

Inzi was 100 times the batsman Ganguly ever was, you don't need to see averages to talk about their difference.

[putrevus]

23 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

 

And regarded as best player of spin bowling.

 

It will always be mystery for me.

He was not great batsman by any means.He had his moments as captain but that model was never sustainable as it was one man army in Bhajji doing all the damage in 2001.

 

He could hit SLA spinners a long way though.

[Muloghonto]

3 hours ago, putrevus said:

I don't think so, His avg was high only due to his two centuries in his debut series.Plus the 1997 series which was played  against SL were played on such flat tracks that there was no result in any of them. 

 

Where did he maul Warne , that series in 1998 was all about Sachin, Siddu and Azhar.Did we miss that series where Ganguly mauled Warne??

 

His avg by the time he took over the captaincy  was 47  and going down.It never sniffed 47 after that test.

 

Just like Kohli's batting average declined significantly when he was captain- same with Tendy. Its easier to find Indian captains who did not decline as captain than those who did- the latter category is literally hugely dominant but unlike Kohli or Tendy, Ganguly didn't get to focus on his batting only after giving up captaincy.

 

[Muloghonto]

3 hours ago, putrevus said:

Inzi was 100 times the batsman Ganguly ever was, you don't need to see averages to talk about their difference.

lol no. 

Inzy was a **** batsman who should never have been in the team, period.