Man of the match
Now those who know me understand that I don't approve of the idea of a man of the match award in team games in principle. Very often it goes to the footballer who scores the winning goal or the man who runs in the most spectacular try whilst ignoring the member of the peloton who's put in all the graft.
Statistics-based games like cricket, however, are often different since you can quantify the runs and wickets (although in the last match Collingwood must have improved his chances with those two wonderful catches). Nevertheless it does beggar belief when the man of the match award goes to the man who creates a new record for conceding byes ! (although he does bat really well, doesn't he?)
4 comments:
Nice to see from today's Times that Mike Atherton agrees with me. He also compares the award to that to John Abrahams in the 1984 B&H final - he made a duck. But he did take a stunning catch and the award was said to be for captaincy which was indeed a major part of the very succesful Lancashire side of that time.(in much the same way Fred Titmus won an award as captain of Middlesex in a Gillette cup game against Yorkshire in 1964 - I had to check that in Wisden having thought that it was in 1965 against Sussex)
Good to know such detailed research goes into your burbles!!
Prior was discussed on Tuesday night when I went to nets at the Hove indoor school. Obviously we're a bit bias towards Sussex players, but you can't argue with a Test average of 48 (although a real average would of course better represent how he has batted). As I think I've burbled before, I would prefer to see Prior at 6 and Flintoff at 7, despite the fact that Flintoff has batted far better since his injuries than before them.
But despite all that, Prior needs to get his act together - 30+ byes in an innings is not defendable in professional cricket on any wicket anywhere in the world!
Not at all anoraky then ?
Mark Taylor also once won Man of the Match despite not performing with the bat. Can't remember if he got a duck,but I'm pretty sure it was less than 5. He then, however took four excellent catches, and captained the side brilliantly to defend a very low total
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