Third Test: England v South Africa, The Oval, July 27-31

[sussexpob]

I see the point rich, but both of you are kind of right.

I think the argument is every place you drop down, the less efficiency you are getting for each bat. You could ask Tendulkar to bat at 8, and he wouldn't perform anywhere near as well.

Once past 6 down, the likely hood is that person is going to be put into situational dynamics that forces him to play unnaturally.

So having an 8 that is a brilliant or even competent bat in likely hood means occasional uses, mostly undervalued

[rich1uk]

I see the point rich, but both of you are kind of right.

I think the argument is every place you drop down, the less efficiency you are getting for each bat. You could ask Tendulkar to bat at 8, and he wouldn't perform anywhere near as well.

Once past 6 down, the likely hood is that person is going to be put into situational dynamics that forces him to play unnaturally.

So having an 8 that is a brilliant or even competent bat in likely hood means occasional uses, mostly undervalued

of course the lower you bat the less potential is there, as you will have fewer opportunities to form a partnership but i'm still going to argue that whatever added value there is from an 8th batsman, its almost always going to be more than the added value of a 6th bowler, and i repeat, a 6th bowler who almost no-one would have picked purely for his bowling and has been outbowled by the "part-time" bowler who is now supposedly being picked as a top order batsman despite spending the last 3 years as our main spinner

[Arthur Crabtree]

What's wrong with this side?

Barlow
Jayasuriya
Hammond
Kallis
Sobers
Imran
Gilchrist
Warne
Marshall
Lillee
Steyn

It's got ten bowlers and a keeper who gets in for his batting alone. Do we drop Kallis or Sobers and bring in Mark Stoneman? An exaggeration, but the same principle.

[rich1uk]

when you have to go to a ridiculous extreme to make a point AC then you have lost the argument

[Arthur Crabtree]

It's the same point.

[rich1uk]

It's the same point.

no its not because you cant ignore the individuals involved

[alfie]

One last comment and them I'm going to stop partially repeating myself :

Yes , an eight batsman is sometimes "wasted" - as is a sixth on the rare occasions when you declare at 450/3

But when the team is collapsing (something England seem to do with a little too much regularity ) it is a huge comfort to have a Moeen and eight and maybe a Woakes at nine...
And it really doesn't matter if one or more bats are "wasted" at times , as by definition that means you've made a potentially winning score.
So as long as your five (or even four !) bowlers are good enough you are likely to win a lot of matches. If they aren't ; then adding a sixth (presumably less talented) bowler isn't going to help.

I just cannot see a downside to having "too much" batting. Except it might annoy some fellows who'd like to bat higher - but this is a team game.

Over and out.

[rich1uk]

the point i have made all along is if you can have 8 batsmen without gimping your bowling then you pick the extra batsman

by the same principle i would quite happily accept if you can pick 10 bowlers without gimping your batting then go for it

but we ARE gimping our batting and our bowling by picking Liam Dawson in a test XI

[rich1uk]

One last comment and them I'm going to stop partially repeating myself :

Yes , an eight batsman is sometimes "wasted" - as is a sixth on the rare occasions when you declare at 450/3

But when the team is collapsing (something England seem to do with a little too much regularity ) it is a huge comfort to have a Moeen and eight and maybe a Woakes at nine...
And it really doesn't matter if one or more bats are "wasted" at times , as by definition that means you've made a potentially winning score.
So as long as your five (or even four !) bowlers are good enough you are likely to win a lot of matches. If they aren't ; then adding a sixth (presumably less talented) bowler isn't going to help.

I just cannot see a downside to having "too much" batting. Except it might annoy some fellows who'd like to bat higher - but this is a team game.

Over and out.

one of the rare occasions we are in complete agreement

[Arthur Crabtree]

but we ARE gimping our batting and our bowling by picking Liam Dawson in a test XI

That's part of my point too. He's not convincing that he gets in for his batting or his bowling. I'd pick either the best bat available (irrespective of whether he can bowl) or the best spinner available (irrespective or whether he can bat). My preference is for the latter.

[rich1uk]

but we ARE gimping our batting and our bowling by picking Liam Dawson in a test XI

That's part of my point too. He's not convincing that he gets in for his batting or his bowling. I'd pick either the best bat available (irrespective of whether he can bowl) or the best spinner available (irrespective or whether he can bat). My preference is for the latter.

i think i said before the first test if we had been picking Rashid in front of Dawson i still think we would have the balance of the team wrong but i could live with it

but we are picking a 6th bowler who doesn't really add anything as a bowler, and imo picking him for all the wrong reasons

[Slipstream]

One last comment and them I'm going to stop partially repeating myself :

Yes , an eight batsman is sometimes "wasted" - as is a sixth on the rare occasions when you declare at 450/3

But when the team is collapsing (something England seem to do with a little too much regularity ) it is a huge comfort to have a Moeen and eight and maybe a Woakes at nine...
And it really doesn't matter if one or more bats are "wasted" at times , as by definition that means you've made a potentially winning score.
So as long as your five (or even four !) bowlers are good enough you are likely to win a lot of matches. If they aren't ; then adding a sixth (presumably less talented) bowler isn't going to help.

I just cannot see a downside to having "too much" batting. Except it might annoy some fellows who'd like to bat higher - but this is a team game.

Over and out.

agreed

[sussexpob]

Of course, if it's a mere question of accepting the additional benefit of more batting, bring it on. But it's not. The whole team fabric is built on selecting players to mask existing deficiencies. And this is where it's really going wrong.

Aside from specialists failing, there is a general acceptance that Stokes and ali are good enough to be in roles specific to batting specialists. Yet take their average of 32/35, this simply isn't good enough to get you even into a harmonious top 6. Prior averaged 45 for most of his career, colly above 40. Bell also averaged well above 40 until his decline. These two would get nowhere near that sides top 6.

In a failing batting line up it's felt more. To have these two in the team, you either bat at 8 like ali has a lot, simply to cover failures above, or you have to have bowlers lower down who add something.

Dawson pick might make little sense, but it makes 100% sense in light of the thinking behind it. With those above offering inadequate returns, they believe he has to be there to make the difference up.Stokes plus dawson (32 + 30) = KP + Hoggie (47+ 13). The added benefit is seen as the bowling offered by both.

Yet batting returns are not proportional by position. Dawsons average of 30 runs an innings is cut significantly as you place him down the order. And as a bowler, the same equation simply doesn't work. You can't add two half skills with bowlers like runs, you are simply left with two part time skills.

So while in England's head, Dawson plus Ali creates one complete 5th bowler for a team, and one complete specialist bat, in actuality you end up with the same failing batsman being supplemented minutely by the extra batting weight, and no improvement from numbers in bowling. It's a poor ideology.

An all-rounder only works when his additional skills are adequate to hold his own in the position his batting dictates. Stokes at 6 requires deeper batting, which requires inefficiency to pick lesser bowlers to provide, which wastes a slot in the team, which makes his all-round skills essentially no overall benefit.

At 7, totally different story. His batting is adequate. His position at 6 hopefully taken by a batsman, meaning number 8 doesn't need to be compromised. Then the extra batting below doesn't have so much importance. You pick another specialist. Stokes would even work at 8.

[sussexpob]

Bottom line. Stokes isn't a 6, ali needs to be dropped unless he performs as a top 6. Dawson needs the boot, and replaced with a bowler.

Woakes is a perfect 8

[rich1uk]

i argued for a long time that we shouldn't have Stokes and Ali in the same side, and whichever one played should be dependent on conditions, for the very reasons you describe there Sussex

as you end up either having just 3 frontline bowlers supported by two that are not really good enough to get in the team on their bowling alone, or you are forced to pick a 4th specialist bowler and end up with a longer tail and a top 6 with two guys that might not justify their place on their batting alone

so either way we end up with a dilution of the quality of either the batting or the bowling

and with the Dawson pick we ended up just diluting both even more, we still end up just having 3 frontline bowlers without really strengthening the batting