Yes but we were talking about the strength of the attack so I fail to see why I can't bring up Swann into the reckoning just because its an area where Australia fall down. I've been talking about the overall attack the whole time.
No i said you dont have to bring AUS spinners into the equation given the strenght of AUS attack can only be judged by its fast bowling options. The best AUS attack would not include a spinner.
ENG best attack is 3 quicks plus plan. So obviously we will talk about Swann when judging the overall strenght of ENGs attack.
So basically its Hilfenhaus/Bollinger/Johnson/Harris vs Anderson/Broad/Finn/Swann. AUS is better quite clearly.
We'll have to agree to disagree then. Onions is like a faster Glenn McGrath who's attempting to aim for offstump albeit his accuracy is nowhere near McGrath standard. The comparison to Pollock is a good one actually in his earlier days when he used to regularly touch 90 mph.
Really dont see the McGrath comparison at all my friend. I have seen no bowler since McGrath retirement that resembles anything he does, certainly not Onions in any way.
As you have agreed, he delivers close into the stumps like Pollock during his early days, but thats it. Pollock was more of a seam bowler, while Onions seam & swings it a more when he gets helpul conditions as he showed last year in the Ashes.
If I was to do a player comparison (player vs player) which I hate as they simply do not give you the relative strength of the attack it would probably go as follows.
Well yes usually player vs player comparison i dont do as well. Since not all the time teams with better players on team 1, may beat the team 2 with superior player. Given team chemistry, pyscological edge etc.
I.e IND probably had a better batting line-up in the middle-order than AUS for the last 15 years or so if you compare player vs player with the present of famous 4. But obviously given AUS superior bowling, they where better.
While SA in 90s where probably on par player vs player to AUS of the 90s. But the psycological effect one player in Warne had over the SA team, made AUS win more.
But usually i'd say teams who come up better in the player vs player match-up, usally wins.
Broad > Johnson (I'd much rather have the consistency of Broad over Johnson for the fact that Johnson is even worse than Anderson when it comes to how well he performs swinging wildly. Additionally Broad can have magical spells himself as we saw in the Ashes last time)
No way. You may could depend on Broad to bowl 6 balls in the same place more often than Johnson. But Johnson is far more likley to be more of wicket taking threat on seaming wickets or flat decks (especially). ATS i'm not sure if Broad could take 5 wicket haul on flat overseas pitch againts a strong batting team. Johnson has already done that in IND recently.
It doesn't make sense comparing Johnson & Anderson since they are different type of bowlers (thats why i compared him to Broad & Hilfenahus to Andersons since they are the two swing bowlers). Johnson is back-of-lenght bowler like Morkel who doesn't swing the ball. Whose strenghts are when they aim to hit the pitch & test batsman back foot game.
Johnson can swing the ball if he is in form & gets the right conditons as we he showed in S Africa 09, when he destroyed them (when Broad was in S Africa last winter, he didn't trouble the S African batsmen anywhere near as much as Johnson did when he was in top form). But its not a strenght of his or something he looks to depend on.
I definately put Johnson produced in SA 09 when he broke Graeme Smith's hand & broke Jacques Kallis jaw. Over Broad Oval spell.
Anderson = Hilfenhaus (Hilfenhuas is workhorse who you could give an end all day and he'd still be going but personally I think he bowls just a length too short which results in Flintoff syndrome ie repeatedly beats the bat without reward. I'd rather have Anderson as he can win a session alone if settings suit and I fully believe that he is now able to keep things tight when it isn't swinging.).
Where is recent test evidence of that?. In recent series againts South Africa & PAK when the ball stopped swinging, Jimmy still was not showing the ability to be able to do anything when the sun came out.
While just recently Hilfy in conditons where he should have struggled in IND. Managed to keep Sehwag quiet in IND conditons. When Jimmy was in IND 08, he was anywhere near as threatening to the IND batsmen as Hilfenhaus was.
Hilfenhaus has already passed the test of bowling well in non seaming condtions againts good batsmen. Anderson hasn't as yet, so clearly Hify deserves the edge as the better all-round bowler to date.
Swann > Hauritz (Lets not kid ourselves Australia are going to go in with a spinner regardless of how much you'd like to see them go in with a four pronged pace attack)
Ye i know. But that doesn't mean you have to mention it as a basis to judge AUS best attack vs ENG best attack.
If ENG where picking Bresnan over Finn currently or something & everyone was crying in ENG that Finn has to play & the ENG selectors where stubbornly sticking with Bresnan (like what the AUS selectors are doing with Hauritz). I would still judge ENG best attack with Finn in it, since i know Finn is the better bowler.
Bollinger > Finn (Not sure why you've been mentioning Onions considering when he's laid up with a bad back. This one is obvious but Finn is by no mean a poor bowler though and when he gets it right he'll be very dangerous sprays it around too much though.)
I mentioned Onions since he is part of our bowling options still & presuming he is comes back fit or was still playing this summer. He conceivably would have been ahead of Finn going into the Ashes & Finn may not have even played @ home vs PAK.