Mohammad Amir's stats - hype vs reality

[jusarrived]

3 hours ago, sandeep said:

You seem to have a problem understanding posts in their entirety and choose to jump to inaccurate conclusions about poster's intent.   There, attitude can go both ways. So can mature discussion.  

I wasn't questioning your intent . Am just saying when you start talking about teams performance for a bowlers failure , it's just a poor excuse . 

[velu]

poor mans zakk

 

[nevada]

Good post, OP! While some people feel that numbers dont tell the full story, they do prove that he is no Wasim and most likely never will be.

[chewy]

He is ok, but says more about Pakistan bowling resources that they have to go back to a convict and someone who sold his country 

[sandeep]

53 minutes ago, jusarrived said:

I wasn't questioning your intent . Am just saying when you start talking about teams performance for a bowlers failure , it's just a poor excuse . 

I was making a simple point that he's been better than what his stats indicate since his comeback - thats all.  

 

And its not an "excuse", its reality - bowlers' stats get a healthy bump when a team is doing well and vice versa.  For example, How do you think Jayant Yadav's bowling numbers would have been if he had debuted in the previous England tour as opposed to this one?  

 

On Amir, his early hype was due to his early success, and the mystique only grew in his ban, by fans gushing and wondering "what could have been".  He's a good bowler, but nowhere near great as of now.  That's reality, and you don't need statistics to learn that...

 

And I'm super glad that he wasn't Indian, I would definitely not want a fixing cricketer ever representing our team.  Ever.  

[Cricketics]

He was a special talent when he came as a 17year old. That time and that age with the performance he gave, he was rightfully considered as a special talent. Currently, he is pretty good but he is living on the same old hype as he hasn't played from a while. At times, Pakistan's other bowlers have bowled better than him and Amir has lot to achieve before he can be considered special. He does have some special skills like bowling wicket to wicket and that is why Kohli said what he said during the Asia Cup game etc, but he is not the same kind of "special bowler" which he used to be when he came as a 17 year old. He will have to earn all that respect again, especially if he does not take good amount of 4fers or 5fers very soon.  Still a pretty good bowler to me, but not the special talent. Special for me is Hazlewood. 

[sandeep]

Hazelwood is pretty underrated.

[G_B_]

@New guy

 

do you mind if we make this an article on ICF front page?

[New guy]

10 hours ago, G_B_ said:

@New guy

 

do you mind if we make this an article on ICF front page?

Please go ahead buddy

[New guy]

10 hours ago, Cricketics said:

He was a special talent when he came as a 17year old. That time and that age with the performance he gave, he was rightfully considered as a special talent. Currently, he is pretty good but he is living on the same old hype as he hasn't played from a while. At times, Pakistan's other bowlers have bowled better than him and Amir has lot to achieve before he can be considered special. He does have some special skills like bowling wicket to wicket and that is why Kohli said what he said during the Asia Cup game etc, but he is not the same kind of "special bowler" which he used to be when he came as a 17 year old. He will have to earn all that respect again, especially if he does not take good amount of 4fers or 5fers very soon.  Still a pretty good bowler to me, but not the special talent. Special for me is Hazlewood. 

From the stats, his "special" performance even before the ban was limited to one English season

[Cricketics]

1 minute ago, New guy said:

From the stats, his "special" performance even before the ban was limited to one English season

Yes, just that he was out there doing that as a 17 year old is what made him special then. Not anymore though. I see him like other bowlers who are decent, thats it. 

[Sandeep99]

He looks a good bowler but doesn't have stats to show for it, I feel. I feel he's more of an LOI bowler who will get wickets when batsmen attack him. Just a mediocre-decent test bowler..

[New guy]

11 hours ago, chewy said:

He is ok, but says more about Pakistan bowling resources that they have to go back to a convict and someone who sold his country 

You know the best/worst thing? Every time they have pardoned someone based on "talent" and country needing them, they have never got anything good in return.

 

They treated Akhtar as special and looked away when he did wrong things. They over-turned his bans. In the end Akhtar never really achieved anything after his bans and faded away. 

 

PCB fought tooth and nail to get Amir in the team. He was a super-star even when he was banned in Pakistan. He has come back and not having any effect

 

Asif is the text book case. Got caught doping once - PCB buries it and "rests" him  instead of banning. Got caught doping again in IPL. PCB again does nothing. Gets jailed in Dubai. PCB sends lawyers to free him. Does not punish him and gives him a FOURTH chance. What happens? Asif not only fixes but drags young Amir with him. Even then the 5 year ban was from ICC and not PCB

 

In 12 years Asif has played 23 test matches and taken 106 wickets. And had 4 major scandals which would have resulted in a major ban in any other team. Thats one scandal every 26 wickets and one scandal every 4 match. He has done nothing in those 12 years to justify the fan and PCB faith in him. Now he is giving interviews about how bad the current bowlers are and taking pot-shots at Amir. And despite all this, Pak fans really, really want him back and its only a matter of time before PCB gives in. 

 

I cannot understand this mentality at all. 

[Ultimate_Game]

30 minutes ago, New guy said:

You know the best/worst thing? Every time they have pardoned someone based on "talent" and country needing them, they have never got anything good in return.

 

They treated Akhtar as special and looked away when he did wrong things. They over-turned his bans. In the end Akhtar never really achieved anything after his bans and faded away. 

 

PCB fought tooth and nail to get Amir in the team. He was a super-star even when he was banned in Pakistan. He has come back and not having any effect

 

Asif is the text book case. Got caught doping once - PCB buries it and "rests" him  instead of banning. Got caught doping again in IPL. PCB again does nothing. Gets jailed in Dubai. PCB sends lawyers to free him. Does not punish him and gives him a FOURTH chance. What happens? Asif not only fixes but drags young Amir with him. Even then the 5 year ban was from ICC and not PCB

 

In 12 years Asif has played 23 test matches and taken 106 wickets. And had 4 major scandals which would have resulted in a major ban in any other team. Thats one scandal every 26 wickets and one scandal every 4 match. He has done nothing in those 12 years to justify the fan and PCB faith in him. Now he is giving interviews about how bad the current bowlers are and taking pot-shots at Amir. And despite all this, Pak fans really, really want him back and its only a matter of time before PCB gives in. 

 

I cannot understand this mentality at all. 

Spot on and the hilarious thing is that padosis are the first to cry about "honour" while trying to fill up their team with convicted cheats

[New guy]

14 minutes ago, Ultimate_Game said:

Spot on and the hilarious thing is that padosis are the first to cry about "honour" while trying to fill up their team with convicted cheats

Also first to cry about corruption in their nation and how connected and rich people escape justice. Irony so thick, you need a knife to cut it

[MechEng]

It's a mentally uphill task to come up with performance which we have expected of him after a break of 5 years. I'm sure he's having few issues with his self esteem now, it's going to take some time to get back at his best game. International sport is not easy, a small lapse can impact your career.

[New guy]

11 minutes ago, MechEng said:

It's a mentally uphill task to come up with performance which we have expected of him after a break of 5 years. I'm sure he's having few issues with his self esteem now, it's going to take some time to get back at his best game. International sport is not easy, a small lapse can impact your career.

As I clearly showed, his stats and performance haven't changed before and after the break. Only the English season was an anomaly. His performance in Sri Lanka was before the break. His performance in 2009 was before the break. He had similar stats in Australia even on his last tour there

Edited December 30, 2016 by New guy

[MechEng]

29 minutes ago, New guy said:

As I clearly showed, his stats and performance haven't changed before and after the break. Only the English season was an anomaly. His performance in Sri Lanka was before the break. His performance in 2009 was before the break. He had similar stats in Australia even on his last tour there

Agreed with the statistics part but here I'm also referring to his bowling style. I watched Amir bowl in England earlier this year and I couldn't see that crazy late swing from him which he did generate effortlessly in 2010, also he looked nervous and undercooked. Maybe it will take time for him to regain his confidence and bowl those top spells again.

[rkt.india]

3 minutes ago, MechEng said:

Agreed with the statistics part but here I'm also referring to his bowling style. I watched Amir bowl in England earlier this year and I couldn't see that crazy late swing from him which he did generate effortlessly in 2010, also he looked nervous and undercooked. Maybe it will take time for him to regain his confidence and bowl those top spells again.

Swing depends on conditions. There is no magic to it. Even England bowlers did not swing the ball much on that tour. In England, ball won't swing all the time. It depends on the weather. 2010 and 2011 were years when ball swung prodigiously and even in 2014. Remember Asia cup earlier this year in Feb-March before T20 WC when Aamir played against us and we were chasing a very low total. Aamir swung the ball prodigiously and made it very tough for our batsmen. We lost early wickets before Kohli who somehow survived those Aamir overs took us to win. Now, suddenly Aamir could not have lost that swing in a space of just 3-4 months.

[express bowling]

Amir bowls in good areas as a test bowler.  He is attacking the off-stump all the time and that is very objective bowling.  When the conditions favour conventional swing,  such accurate and objective  swing bowling can be very dangerous to face.  Problem is that, conventional swing is condition dependent and is not available more often than not.

 

His problems are that  (a)  his pace is very inconsistent in test matches and he often ends up bowling medium-fast, which is not good enough for his style of low-bounce bowling.  (b)  he does not know how to use bounce effectively   (c)   he looks ordinary when there is no conventional swing...he is not that good at seaming the ball on moderately helpful tracks or bouncing the ball  and I don't know how good he is at reverse swing.

 

To sum it up...  as of today, Amir is a conventional-swing dependent  bowler without too many other weapons in test matches....swing will not be available most of the times....unless he develops new weapons he will look great when the ball is swinging and ordinary when there is no swing on offer. He looks better in ODIs as he is able to bowl a bit quicker and his objective bowling is ideal for that format.