Is VVS Laxman a better player than Goddy under pressure?

[vvvslaxman]

Mohali would not have been possible if the Indian team was adopting the pussy foot approach of shielding the tail. And India lost the Sydney test because Tendulkar wanted to remain not out and had given up after adding 200 runs for the last 4 wickets - 27 for the 9th and 31 for the 10th. And giving India a 70 run first innings lead? At least think through the basics before writing!

You don't give 5 balls to your tail every over when your batsman is up against a top class bowler in foreign conditions. Ishant was brand new to International cricket then. So is Unadkat.

[jhakati]

64-11 in favor of laxman

[The Outsider]

You don't give 5 balls to your tail every over when your batsman is up against a top class bowler in foreign conditions. Ishant was brand new to International cricket then. So is Unadkat.

Who says you don't? If that pussy approach was being adopted by the Indian team or the Australian team of Waugh, the tail would have remained as inept as the Paki tail. Anyhow the topic has been discussed already : http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=71353 Fact is Waugh and Laxman, two of the best players with the tail, don't shield them. Every match thread Laxman takes a single off the first ball, people start abusing him in the match thread. And he has one of the best records of batting with the tail. Shielding the tail is a dumb, outdated approach except in exceptional cases.

[Guest Hiten.]

"It boils down to the experience and the rapport I share with each one of them," he said of the secret behind his success with the lower order. "It is very important to give them confidence. Luckily, each one of them works on his batting, and they take a lot of pride in their batting and don't want to throw their wicket away. Because they're out there with a fighting spirit, and not to give their wicket away easily to the opposition, it helps me. "We set ourselves small targets without looking at getting a 30-run or a 50-run partnership. We're just looking to have a five-run partnership or survive one over, and then take it five overs at a time or something like that. The most important thing is knowing what they are comfortable with and that's something I've learnt to do over the years. If I know that a batsman is not comfortable with a certain bowler then I don't give them strike. But if they're comfortable, then I definitely give them the strike because the scoreboard keeps moving and the pressure suddenly shifts from us to the opposition."

Tailenders have to accept the responsibility of sticking out in the middle during team crisis and one way of ensuring they accept this responsibility is by actually showing faith in them to come true.

[The Outsider]

^ But we should forget the results, what the players themselves say - the main batsmen and tail enders because 'you don't' is written in archaic manual somewhere.

[Sachin=GOD]

When Goddy batted with the tail, he did almost the same thing as Laxman (i.e. showing confidence in the tailenders and giving them more strike) but the batsman at the other end got out When Laxman batted with the tail and did the same thing, the tailenders did not get out so Laxman is called a 2nd innings legend and its said that Goddy farms the strike. When batting with the tail, we usually see that the main batsman always gives more strike to the tailenders (in Mohali test, Laxman-Ishant partnership was of 130 balls and Ishant faced 92 of those!!) and in the Sydney test in 2008 Goddy made 153 and had a partnership of 129 with Bhajji where they faced 176 balls in total and out of those Bhajji faced 153. Batting with the tail does not mean always shielding the tail, rather we've seen on many occasions that giving the tailenders more strike in the partnership usually is more beneficial. You can only show confidence in tailenders by giving them more strike and in the process sometimes they will be out early and sometimes you will have partnerships like the one in Mohali.

[Guest Hiten.]

It's like asking defenders in a game of football to stay in their own D and not score a goal if the opportunity arises because their job is to defend and not score goals :phehehe:.

[sarcastic]

When Goddy batted with the tail' date= he did almost the same thing as Laxman (i.e. showing confidence in the tailenders and giving them more strike) but the batsman at the other end got out When Laxman batted with the tail and did the same thing, the tailenders did not get out so Laxman is called a 2nd innings legend and its said that Goddy farms the strike. When batting with the tail, we usually see that the main batsman always gives more strike to the tailenders (in Mohali test, Laxman-Ishant partnership was of 130 balls and Ishant faced 92 of those!!) and in the Sydney test in 2008 Goddy made 153 and had a partnership of 129 with Bhajji where they faced 176 balls in total and out of those Bhajji faced 153. Batting with the tail does not mean always shielding the tail, rather we've seen on many occasions that giving the tailenders more strike in the partnership usually is more beneficial. You can only show confidence in tailenders by giving them more strike and in the process sometimes they will be out early and sometimes you will have partnerships like the one in Mohali.

I would say that Laxman's greatness lies in the fact that he brings the best out of the tail. It is not just a chance factor that most of the time Laxman is playing with the tail, the tail performs giving the team the desired result. It is the calmness and the confidence he extracts from the tailenders. I am not saying that SRT does not do it or someone else.... but probably not as much and as well as VVS does!!!!!!

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Raghav_12]

Mohali would not have been possible if the Indian team was adopting the pussy foot approach of shielding the tail. And India lost the Sydney test because Tendulkar wanted to remain not out and had given up after adding 200 runs for the last 4 wickets - 27 for the 9th and 31 for the 10th. And giving India a 70 run first innings lead? At least think through the basics before writing!

Don't know if i am missing the context in this part of discussion, but statement made bold can not be appropriate in any context. Till now I had heard that India lost Sysdney, because of Bucknor or because of India's inept batting in second innings, but it is first time I heard that India lost because of Sachin Tendulkar who scored around 170 runs in that test match. No better example of using any number in a way most suitable to you..

[vvvslaxman]

Who says you don't? If that pussy approach was being adopted by the Indian team or the Australian team of Waugh, the tail would have remained as inept as the Paki tail. Anyhow the topic has been discussed already : http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=71353 Fact is Waugh and Laxman, two of the best players with the tail, don't shield them. Every match thread Laxman takes a single off the first ball, people start abusing him in the match thread. And he has one of the best records of batting with the tail. Shielding the tail is a dumb, outdated approach except in exceptional cases.

You don't think Steyn vs a 18 year old debutant is an exceptional case? That is simply prepoosterous. It was a situation where even middle order could not be trusted against Steyn.

[zen]

What it means is that you define your criteria for pressure and we will take it from there. I can only show inng's as and when you define what constitutes pressure. So if you don't mind feel free to define your criteria for pressure and we will see who fits that description. And by evading the question you are being honest and ofcourse proclaim yourself to have proved that you are right ? So to repeat again ... what constitutes pressure ? Can there be pressure in the 1st inngs ? or it can only come about in the 4th inngs ? Can there be pressure on a flat pitch or does it only happen on a juicy pitch. Feel free to elaborate. Whats that supposed to mean ? Just curious.

Bhaishaeb, why would I want to define any criteria when the debate is down and dusted with, along with the poll showing 65 to 11! You came to this thread believing that SRT > Laxman under pressure and to show that you presented us with a mountain of stats like Sachin playing only 2 innings from 2004 to 2010. When you presented this stat, you must have believed that it shows that Tendulkar is ahead of Laxman. Which is why I am asking you a simple thing to show us that Laxman has done less than that and see if 65 folks who voted for Laxman agree with what you have Now if Laxman hasn't done less than that then why would you have wanted to debate that SRT > Laxman (under pressure situation so there is no need to specify that) based on that. And if you have then you just posted some irrelevant stat just to show that SRT > Laxman whether those stats made sense or not! If you can't show this and want to go on to something else defined by others then it probably shows that you are trying to clutch on to something, which is one of the points I made in one of my post So before we go any further, you need to shows us where Laxman stands. Otherwise the debate is over. :P (smiley at the end of the post to avoid distracting our honorable Sachin fan)

[Guest BossBhai]

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[akshayxyz]

^ Well put - the poll results are reflection of - the divide on understanding of pressure. This definition of pressure situations - that batting with tail leading to win - only qualifies as pressure innings... is a bit too narrow.

[vaibhav_delhi]

When you know tht if you are out , the match is lost, when ur teams reputation, the No. 1 ranking's at stake, when the guys before you have more or less failed in face of hostile attacks, then to play and win/save the match for team can surely be classified as exceling under pressure

[akshayxyz]

^ When you know that you are in a situation where even if you fail no one is going to call for your head - the pressure is relieved - you play more freely. btw your post is a bit tangential. I did not say that your example does not qualify as pressure situation, I ( and few others) have been trying to convey that this is very narrow definition. There are many more situations, types of pressure, which may be as difficult, if not more, to handle. e.g. Ranking/reputation have been at stake in almost all the matches/series played in 2010 - SA-vs India, in SL, vs Bangladesh, vs Aussie. Imagine had India lost to Bangladesh or Aussies or SL... how many ranking points it would have costed India. One reason my admiration for Dhoni has increased is that he said - every win in important, no one is better/worse that other. And that is the kind of consistency required in attitude to translate into more wins, and hence to reach and maintain #1 spot. I hope every one takes this learning from Dhoni.

[asterix]

If you look from the other point of view.."Whoever is infamous of choking more.." And you get the answer..

[zen]

That is only for the scenario where he comes in when there are less than 50 runs on board. And before you go ridiculing that piece of stat perhaps you should have checked whats VVS like in the same situations no ? Like I said you are not cut out for a debate as you don't even have the patience to listen what others are saying. You are convinced that you are dead right and others are just idiots. So when that happens all you need is the ability to shout and shout hard and long which is what you are doing. If you stop that for a moment and answer my question so that the debate can proceed ( that is if you are even interested in a debate else cut this charade and get straight down to hurling insults abuses and smilies which is your idea of a debate ) But in the highly unlikely event that you still want to debate ... then the reason why I'am asking for your definition of what constitutes pressure is to make sure that we both are on the same page as far as what qualifies as pressure before I start producing you inngs. The fundamental problem here is your definition of pressure versus mine. So the moment we sort that out rest assured we will get to the list of inngs played by both players over their careers as per that criteria. Now if you dont mind can we see that criteria instead of the glib talk and patronising ? Meaning you cant help yourself being like a silly school girl and debate like a grownup despite being told that others don't like it ? Like I said you dont have the capacity to debate with others in a respectful manner. But hey lamba chauda bhashan dene mei kiska baap ka kya jata hai right ?

Bhai Saheb, I know what scenario you presented us with. In the scenario you presented, Tendulkar has played 2 innings from 2004 to 2010. Since you presented this scenario, this must favor Tendulkar, right? (otherwise what's the point of pulling out some number). I just want to know how Laxman stands on this. And see if the guys who voted here agree with your analysis. Is it too much of a task for someone like you who is so eager to debate this out? Now for a guy batting at #4, you think that coming in at 50-2 equals pressure situation so what would be the similar situation for someone batting at #3, #5, #6 and #7, etc? I am sure you don't think that coming in at 50-2 is the same as coming in at say 50-3, or 50-4 or even 20-1. And if coming in at 50-2 equals the same pressure as what is being discussed here, then does that mean that guys playing for a comparatively weak batting line up usually are also playing their innings under same kind of pressure, for example Lara, Flower, MoYo (of late), Sakib, etc? Please elaborate on this. ( :P )

[The Outsider]

You don't think Steyn vs a 18 year old debutant is an exceptional case? That is simply prepoosterous. It was a situation where even middle order could not be trusted against Steyn.

No, I don't when there is an entire day to be played out. If it was some 5-10 over scenario, yes.

[vaibhav_delhi]

Akshay: you are not getting the point man, there is always or at most times pressure on u in international cricket. But there are times when pressure is significantly more, and I gave you examples. cant understand the reasoning for your denial.