5th Test: Australia v England at the SCG - 3-7 Jan

[Highlander999]

This is a guy in his 4th test, I think mistakes are more forgivable for him. More importantly he polished off the tail - all of whom could have hung around for a while as they have earlier in the series and put Aus well past 350.

Is he a young all rounder who has shown a lot of promise in his firts four tests and put in a couple of very good performnces - one in each discipline? Unquestionably, and to say otherwise is ignorant and mean-spirited.

Totally agree with this. He is only 22 and has a long career ahead of him and will only get better.

It is very rare for a youngster to walk into a side and set the world alight - anyone remember Warne's first match? Why people are giving a Stokes a hard time, when senior members of the side like Cook and Anderson have been totally anonymous is beyond me. Stokes should be applauded for coming halfway in through an Ashes series in Australia, with the team at rock bottom and putting his hand up and making a difference.

 

[Saeglopur]

Rarely have I read anything more ridiculous, and I am a frequenter of the DBC Release Date thread.

So sigging that!

Not sure what else to say in terms of the cricket. Can't believe how much we've screwed up on getting the Aussie lower order out this series. They've obliterated ours. Nice way to end it off for Stokes who's played well though in my opinion.

 

[bigred]

Today just emphasised all of the reasons why Australia are dominating us. When the chips were down at 97-5, they went on the counter attack, and batted at 5 an over. This quickly turns the game around. It was 45 minutes after the 5th wicket fell that Gower said England had lost control, and he was right. Imagine what England would have done at 97-5. Poked aound, looking to hang on in there, waiting for a ball with their name on it. Fair play to Smith and Haddin. You are a breath of fresh air. I would say thet we could learn a lot from you, but that is how England used to play to years ago when the likes of Bell and Prior would get us out of trouble by playing in the same way. The personnel in the side have not changed, so England's new approach come from the coaches down. I'm afrad to say that I pin much of the blame on Gooch. I think he'll find himself out of a job in a couple of weeks, unless Flower can make a good case for him during his meeting with Downton.

And as for all of the Stokes haters out there- WAKE UP! Do you not watch the matches? He's bowled and batted well in this series, when all around him have failed. As I said last week, without a quality spinner we have to have the extra bowler. Therefore, you need a bowler that can bat 6 or 7. Can he do that? Of course he can. I also mentioned the fact that without Swann, who would bowl the extra overs when one of the main quicks got injured? The answer is an allrounder like Stokes.

There is a lot to moan about from this tour. However, he is the one good thing to come out of it, and yet people are still moaning about him. Show some support.

 

[midgetwars]

Is nobody worried about Clarke's form? He's average is not as bad as the other ashes but he hasn't got a decent score in a long time.

The top order in first innings is seriously troubling for Australia.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

Today just emphasised all of the reasons why Australia are dominating us. When the chips were down at 97-5, they went on the counter attack, and batted at 5 an over. This quickly turns the game around. It was 45 minutes after the 5th wicket fell that Gower said England had lost control, and he was right. Imagine what England would have done at 97-5. Poked aound, looking to hang on in there, waiting for a ball with their name on it.

You have a point, but with the form the england middle/lower order is in, if they came in and attacked they would get out anyway, so i doubt it makes much difference.

 

[barmyarmy]

Stokes is a great prospect but the decision to drop Panesar and Bresnan exposed England's change bowlers and let Australia off the hook again. As was entirely predictable...

 

[ste_mc_efc]

Was faffing around with statsguru before bed last night too and found that when England win Anderson averages 23, when england lose he averages 49. That seemed like a huge difference so this morning i tried to find some context.

For some context, steyn: 16 and 33. Broad: 22 and 32. Zaheer Khan: 26 and 39. Umar Gul: 26 and 36. Ryan Harris 22 and 25 (although his sample sizes are pretty small) Siddle: 22 and 36. Morkel: 26 and 39.

they are all the ones I checked. I'd like to break this down further by home/away records for wins/losses, but can't seem to find the data for that.

What I think that shows though is that obviously all teams struggle to win when their frontline seamers do not perform well, but Anderson is a bit of an outlier. Only Steyn's average doubles, and that's more due to him average an inhuman 16 when SA win more than a huge drop off in performance. But england especially struggle when Anderson is bad, because when Anderson is bad he is very bad. Match losingly bad. Whereas a few other bowlers average low 30s which won't cost you matches if your secondary/tertiary bowlers step up, they simply can't close that big a gap.

I'm normally quite a fan of bresnan (relative to most, at least), but this stat makes me doubt his selection. He works brilliantly to support Anderson/Broad if they are playing well. He's hard to get away, picks up regular wickets. But he isn't really capable of stepping up when the other bowlers are struggling.

 

[Aalay]

Steve Smith has made two brilliant centuries now in this series, hardly offered a chance in either and has done the business when his team really needed him. Top stuff! Glad to say I was right on the idea that he should have been retained after India.

My man Steve Smith, where is War?

 

[War]

My man Steve Smith, where is War?

Haa, clearly you have not been monitoring my posts as well as you might have thought - if you are going to label me a Smith critic currently.

I was at the start of 2013, but i have come around to him since the Ashes in England.

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Well he can't do much worse than Simon Kerrigan did...

At least Kerrigan was performing domestically & had good numbers - whether one rated him as international standard or not.

Borthwick did nothing in FC cricket last season to be thrown into a ashes tour. All this pre talk about him having a "x-factor" was complete nonsense really. The safest bet was to call up Tredwell alone.

 

[bigred]

Was it just me who thought Gillespie and Willis were hinting at Brad Haddin's retirement at the end of the series? I suppose it would make sense. No better way to go than a 5-0 whitewash, scoring 500 runs. There are a couple of others who can't be far away from retirement. Rogers and Harris must be thinking about it. Although if they could manage Harris' workload, they may get another couple of years out of him.

 

[War]

^^

Yea i heard them & the channel 9 commentators say it. However somehow i doubt it, since i believe that Haddin given the year of cricket he missed due to personal issues - had rejuvenated to prolong his career.

Ryan Harris is a interesting one though. AUS entire aim for the last few years was to keep him fit to try and win back the Ashes. Its amazing really that he played 5 consecutive tests. They have now done this, so i'm not sure what's next to counter, of course they want to challenge S Africa to be # 1 - but you never know how long Harris's knee will allow him to play tests.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

Was faffing around with statsguru before bed last night too and found that when England win Anderson averages 23, when england lose he averages 49. That seemed like a huge difference so this morning i tried to find some context.

For some context, steyn: 16 and 33. Broad: 22 and 32. Zaheer Khan: 26 and 39. Umar Gul: 26 and 36. Ryan Harris 22 and 25 (although his sample sizes are pretty small) Siddle: 22 and 36. Morkel: 26 and 39.

they are all the ones I checked. I'd like to break this down further by home/away records for wins/losses, but can't seem to find the data for that.

it's a pain in the butt but I can think of a way of doing with a spreadsheet and a lot of statsguru copy and pasting. I had a glance at the general won math averages and the lost match averages to see if anyone stood out.

the ones I noticed with the biggest jumps of about 20ish to 40ish were harbhajan, kumble, kaneria, murali (more steyn like, 16 to 30), saqlain, prassana, vettori...

all spinners for sub-continental teams (barring vettori)

maybe you're right in that anderson isn't allowed an off game or his support seamers crumble, but it's also interesting to think of andersons role as that of a spinners to a sub-continental team. very conditions orientated and relied on, not simply for the majority of the wickets but for certain types of wickets (perhaps where a spinner mops up tails in the 1st innings and is expected to to do real damage in the 2nd, andersons has been to blow through top orders in the 1st innings or polish off tails or something like that)

now, obviously that would be reading a lot into two simple numbers but it's an interesting idea given how anderson is often labeled as one of the most conditions affected fast bowlers in the world.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

it's a pain in the butt but I can think of a way of doing with a spreadsheet and a lot of statsguru copy and pasting. I had a glance at the general won math averages and the lost match averages to see if anyone stood out.

i've just managed to do it. surprisingly simple actually.

Anderson averages 22 in home victories, just under 27 in away victories.

A somewhat surprising 50.27 average in home defeats, from 9 matches.

55 in away defeats, but this comes back down to 49 in away defeats if you count the UAE neutral venue, which you probably should.

 

[War]

Just wondering ste_mc_efc was your stats breakdown based on Anderson entire test career? If it was was that could be a bit misleading, when assessing Anderson performances when ENG win/lose.

Anderson's peak started from the 2010/11 Ashes when he finally proved he was not "clouderson" i.e only good when the ball is swinging - otherwise before he that he was only ENG frontline bowler if the ball was swinging.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

Not that relevant when those figures are compared to whole careers of similar players.

filtered for may 2009 onwards it's down to 45 average when england lose. 22 when they win. Still a much bigger differential than the others. From the start of the ashes in 2010 onwards it's 39 in losing causes. Which is high when you compare to Broad, who will have played in near identical conditions. I suspect you'll see other players benefit if you take only the best years of their careers, too.

But it's always a tough one, people play relatively few test matches per year that if you filter too strongly you end up with smaller samples.

So yes, he has been less of a liability in losing causes recently relative to his entire career, but still moreso relative to that group peers.