BRAD HOGG vs Harbhajan Singh

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Chandan]

I meant that we should have won more tests when this batting line-up was in its peak, ie 2002-2004. We didn't win any series abroad during that period apart from the one in Pak (admitted that we won there for the first time) and even managed to lose the home series vs Aussies.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Bongosamaj]

Hogg is one of THE most underrated bowlers around the world. He is never going to be Kumble class, let alone Murali-Warne but he is a very clever spinner who knows his limitations and figures out batsmen's discomforts in a flash. Bhajji on the other hand is a totally negetive bowler in ODIs, more interested in bowling a flat, fastish and negetive line. Even in Tests, Bhajji is a rather ordinary bowler. He has 238 wickets @ 29.86 from 57 matches but the guy is a terrible bowler outside the subcontinent. Not to mention, much like Jim Laker, Bhajji's stats are inflated by one amazing series ( 2001 oz). Aside from that one amazing series, Bhajji has 206 wickets from 54 matches (thats less than 4 wickets/match) at a pretty mediocre average of 31.85

[ludhianvi]

I think Harbhajan bowled quite well overall in this series except for like one match. He had Symonds dismissed last game had it not been for Sreesanth spilling the catch.

[Bongosamaj]

I think Harbhajan bowled quite well overall in this series except for like one match.

No, he's bowled poorly for most of the series. One match previous to the last, as Salil pointed out, Bhajji chose to bowl a negetive line & length while defending 150-odd runs, deliberately choosing to protect his bowling figures instead of try and take a few quick wickets even if he gets hit for a few sixes. Then last game, he got torn a new one. In the second ODI, Bhajji yet again, pushed a negetive line & length, going for less than 20 in his first five overs and then nearly 40 in the last five, yet again, paying the price for being such an un-agressive bowler. I think Harbhajan is simply not good enough or smart enough or ballsy enough to be a frontline ODI bowler. He can be a decent runner in the outfield, a fiesty hitter lower down the order infrequently and a containing bowler but he is the kind of guy i'd not pick as a frontline spinner for India. His ODI attidude and skills are geared towards being a negetive spinner, which works best when you got a very good and agressive spinner ( Saqqi for eg- 10x the spinner Bhajji is in ODIs). But if i had it my way, i'd drop Bhajji and develop new spin talents in Ojha, Chawla or Nadeem. Bhajji, simply speaking, is not a champion spinner in mindset even if he is fairly skilled as a spinner and has more tools in his box than most. And India cannot afford to make a mediocre spinner like Bhajji their frontline spinner in either form of the game since India does not have a robust pace attack and a prime spinner has always been a key equation in some of the better attacks India has turned out in the past. Seeing Chawla bowl and Bhajji bowl immediately shows the contrast- Chawla is not scared to toss the ball up, give it some air and go for runs because his attitude fetches him wickets. Sure, he has less skill than Bhajji at the moment but his mental game is far superior to Bhajji's and he is still only 20 or 21, if not younger. I'd rather rely on Chawla improving with age (which he is very likely to, given that spinners are almost never at their best in their early 20s, nomatter how good/bad they ultimately turn out) than stick with a bowler lacking in spirit ala Bhajji.

[MundaPakistani]

Harbi has 238 Test wkts in just 57 Test matches ... The great west Indian fast bowler Holding had 249 in 60 Tests .... that is how good Harbi is(granted the Avg and SR are obviously not as good as Holding since he is a spinner) .... and here is a list of other bowlers who took far less wkts than Harbi ... Not a shabbby list at all ehh to be on top of ? e]

man you kill each and every thread about ODI cricket but bringing in test stats:D

[MundaPakistani]

Anyway forget ODIs. I want to know the top 5-6 wicket takers for India in TESTS. Can you provide the stats BB. Number 1 is Kumble, 2 is Kapil. But after that??

Pakistan's # 1 has lower # of wickets than IND's #2 how ever the PAK bowlers have been far more efficient e.g i would rather have 160 wickets at 25 and a SR of 44(Shoaib) than say 236 wickets at 30 and a SR of 64(srinathi).

[MundaPakistani]

yes I agree with that ... at the risk of sounding repetitive ... that series was the worst series ever w.r.t umpiring ... especially the B'lore Test ... you can have 3 Tendulkars and 3 Dravids in your team but you will still lose if you have to take 13-15 opposition wkts per innings while we have to make do with about 6-8 ... thats how bad it was .... people tend to forget and brush it under the carpet but I dont .... Billy bowden offered a sheepish apology after that Test .... the other moron Mr Bucknor well the less said the better .... Idiots :angry_smile:

while we are at it lets discuss the 01 series against AUS and while we are talking about Bucknor lets also discuss what happened in the final stages of the lords test match this year.

[Chandan]

What had happened at Lords, Faisal? That umpire failed to give the last man out?? How about before that when Dravid and Sachin were given out wrongly in the Lords test?? The decisions didn't even, EVEN out here?? At the same time, why not discuss the 2004 Sydney test too where umpire was the only cause for India not being able to nail the series in Australia? So in a nutshell, umpires have been more cruel than charitable to Indians. Also, why not discuss the SA test series just last year where Dravid was particularly targetted, be it unintentionally?? You'll find that for some strange reason we've been victoms rather than those who benefitted. But I have no regrets. In 2004, Australian team was superior than ours without a doubt--they won! In England, Indian team was superior to the English team and we won despite several decisions going against us. The only heartburn is the series in Australia 2003-2004!! That is it!!

[Donny]

Bossby, you are sounding repetitive.

[The Outsider]

Harbhajan is a liability in ODIs, the sooner we chuck this liability the better. Opposition batsmen are happy milking him in the middle overs for 4-5 RPO while targeting the 5th bowler at the other end. They also have close to zero chance of losing a wicket to him or the 5th bowler, so can keep wickets in hand to hammer the quick bowlers at the death without any fear. Please, send this guy as far away from the ODI team as possible.

[Bongosamaj]

Also, why not discuss the SA test series just last year where Dravid was particularly targetted, be it unintentionally?? You'll find that for some strange reason we've been victoms rather than those who benefitted.

The reason is not at all strange, my friend. It is very very simple. I am not a businessman by any means but i can see this as 1-2-3 simple corporation 101. ICC is a corporation. A corporation has just one goal - to make money. Corporations make money by keeping things in control BY THE CORPORATE ELEMENTS in them - people who are there to serve(and benifit handsomely in return) the interests of the corporation. Unfortunately for ICC, it is a fundamentally international corporation- it cannot exist (without accepting a far lesser fate and possibility of extinction) in a domestic sense or rely on domestic culture- it has to play the nasty (and inevitable) game of international politics and idiotic concepts like 'nationalism' rearing its ugly head again. Ideal scenario for ICC is to keep the corporate culture going (where $$ is made) and all these idiotic elements of international politics (nationalism, direct politicial tussle,etc) in a liberal mixture to keep it from blowing up. What is doubly unfortunate for ICC, is that its international politics arn't diverse enough as Soccer,where FIFA really is the boss and can do ANYTHING it wants with football- you piss off FIFA bad enough, your team gets banned from the next world cups or even life- FIFA has no problems with it. FIFA doesn't have to give two $hits about pleasing anyone. The only 'nation' that could cause trouble to FIFA if it really wanted to is Brazil ( due to their immensely high quality football through the ages and amazing world fan-power...you know what i am talking about- half the people of Asia for eg will root for Brazil automatically after their home team) and Brazil doesn't care to play dirty politics with FIFA- they know they are the best, they've mostly been the best in the last 50 years, most of the world knows it and they know its just a matter of time that Brazil climbs the pinnacle YET AGAIN. Unfortunately for ICC, it has the 'india phenomenon' to deal with- where literally more than half of its money, power & viewership comes from one nation. ICC has still firm grasp of cricket in their hands and that is for the most part because India has always been a mediocre-to-decent cricket team for most of its history, rarely being brilliant for any stretch and never truely dominating at the international stage for any length of time. Ultimately, it is a sport and sport fundamentally relies on excellence on the field of play to form its intermediate power structure between different national teams. ICC is terrified at the idea of a dominant Indian team ( and it doesn't have to worry for a while i think- India is too corrupt, insane and under-developed for cricket to form a world -dominating team for atleast a while) because that would mean BCCI being literally the real king of the hill. Don't be fooled by nationalist overtones fuddling the picture- ICC is still king of the hill. BCCI today is like the most powerful duke in the court- very much the strongest influence but very much NOT in charge of 'cricket'. BCCI already has frightening power from ICC's pespective - BCCI controls by far the largest income for ICC- more than 50% of its pipeline. Metaphorically speaking, BCCI is sitting on the jugular of ICC. All it needs to do is bite and ICC dies a horrible death ( and i am not going to pretend that it would necessarily be a good thing from purely as much cricketing/neutral perspective i can muster, either). A world-beating Indian team is the kind of power that'd give BCCI fundamental control of cricket- to a point where cricket does what BCCI wants it to do. BCCI is also a corporation ironically- they are smart enough (and in part, lucky enough due to India's insanity with cricket) to tap into India's nationalism to its use. Ultimately, their goal too, is to maximise their profit and gain more power. India doing well in cricket amounts to Indians watching more cricket ( thanks to our crazyness with it)- more indians watching cricket means more money. More money means more control over the revenue. Ultimately,ICC is still in charge but it is a king very much theatened by a coup that is a ticking time-bomb. Ultimately, ICC does not know if it can avoid the ticking time bomb either. (because it may just be a matter of time before India throws up 2-3 once-in-a-lifetime cricketers along with 4-5 very good ones in a 10-15 yr span) So one way of ICC to ensure control is to make life tiny bit harder for India to gain the upper hand. One of the easiest way for ICC to do that is through umpires- Its a known fact that ICC controls the umpiring aspect very very firmly. The # of international umpires that stand against India is not that big either- less than 25 people ( i am pretty sure thats how big the pool of elite umpires is, at maximum) and if you think about it, its not even a small 'division' of the corporation in terms of manpower involved. A simple command to ' just give the odd decision against India' is not that hard to get across to the umpires, particularly if there are incentives offered.( Cricket is extremely corrupt and anyone who thinks matchfixing/bookies control is over, they are just clueless - these elements also provide ICC and other cricket organizations to 'dabble in the arcane' ). Its a win-win deal for ICC- if the umpire refuses, he still isn't going to open his mouth due to obvious reasons ( if you want to really burn the corporation in this case, you gotto be a martyr- for they WILL also bring you down with them). This is fairly obvious IMO but ultimately, it is a simple case of corporate power struggle. Not something very surprising or unexpected, when the whole point of cricket today is to make more money.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Bongosamaj]

because of people like you who lie thru their teeth ... or at best doggedly keep denying.

Just outta curiosity, what has Donny lied about ?

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Bongosamaj]

and when confronted he resorts to the usual PC nonsense.

You mean to say that he also used the ' it all evens out in the end' get-out-of-jail card ? Didn't i say in another concurrent thread that this is just about the most commonly used 'get-out-of-jail' card played by cricket fans the world over, nomatter what race/religion/nation and that it is without substance and just an exercise in PC-ness to save one's own a$$ ? :haha:

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Bongosamaj]

see the difference ?

Yes. I see the difference. Donny cares a $hitload less than you about having the right impression of cricket. Doesn't mean he has a wrong/lesser impression than you. Again, as i said, its same ol get-outta-jail card of 'everything evens out' played by different people at different times to break their logical conundrum. He who hollers the most isn't necessarily right, just that he cares more.

[Guest BossBhai]

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