Ashes MVP
Those familiar with American sport will be familiar with the concept of MVPs - Most Valuable Players. So here's my take on the order of value to their team of players in the Ashes - purely subjective - and takes into account how many games they played to some extent - i.e. just because you played 1 or 2 games you don't necessarily end up bottom of the list!
MVP: Andrew Strauss
2. Michael Clarke
3. Stuart Broad
4. Marcus North
5. Jonathan Trott
6. Ricky Ponting
7. Brad Haddin
8. Ben Hilfenhaus
9. Graham Onions
10. Matt Prior
11. Graeme Swann
12. Shane Watson
13. Peter Siddle
14. Nathan Hauritz
15. Andrew Flintoff
16. Simon Katich
17. Mitchell Johnson
18. James Anderson
19. Steve Harmison
20. Stuart Clark
21. Mike Hussey
22. Paul Collingwood
23. Ian Bell
24. Alastair Cook
25. Monty Panesar
26. Graham Manou
27. Philip Hughes
28. Ravi Bopara
Let me know who I've missed, or (no doubt) where you disagree!
11 comments:
I think Monty has gotta go a bit higher for his batting! If we'd lost the Cardiff test it would all have been different...
And Broad at 3?! Yes played very well at the Oval and deserved MOTM there, and contributed with the bat throughout the series, but didn't do a lot with the ball (unless I've missed something whilst away)
These things are highly subjective, but I have to question some of the logic behind the order. For me the value someone brings isn't just about stats, and those performances the alter the outcome of the series have a much higher premium than anything else. For me, these for England were:
1. Paul Collingwood's innings, with support from Monty and Jimmy at Cardiff.
2. Strauss' runs, Anderson's first innings wickets and Fred's final morning spell at Lords.
3. Broad and Swann's bowling in the first innings at the Oval, plus Strauss and Trott's runs.
You could argue that perfoemances at Edgbaston should be in there, but due to the weather, there was nothing that really contributed to the outcome of the series.
Trott performance was good, and I believe we have found a star for the future, but it can only really be on a par with Collingwood at Cardiff, so to have Trott at 5th and Colly at 22nd seems odd. In the same way I would also question why Onions is so high compared to Anderson, who is only 1 place above Harmy.
Agreed....all very subjective!
Trott was out once in an unusual way so to have scored 160 runs on debut and only been got out by the bowlers once was an amazing achievement so I put him right up there. Colly's was a valuable knock but he got himself out playing away from his body exposing England's last pair, so hence he's down there, but still above Bell and Cook.
I'm going from memiry here but Onions got 10 wickets in 3 matches at 30 I think. Anderson got 12 from 5 at 45ish. So for me Onions was the stronger performer. Anderson perhaps should be a little higher given his batting and fielding though.
Panesar averaged over 100 with the ball I think in his one game so difficult to put him anywhere but near the bottom, even though he did bat out at Cardiff.....
Sam - Broad is up there because he averaged 30 with ball and bat....only Kallis of world cricketers is capable of that so I've got him right up there. That's despite the fact that I was advocating dropping him after Edgbaston - all credit to him for learning quickly and coming good.
Didn't Flintoff average 30 with ball and bat? Maybe not this series but throughout his career
Flintoff averaged nearly 33 with the ball in Tests.
I was determined enough (and bored enough) to prove you wrong on this point that I searched through cricinfo...
Mitchell Johnson averages 30.73 with the bat and and 28.8 with the ball in tests. Maybe not quite up to Kallis' batting average of 50 odd though.
Broad needs to push on from this and continue this form, and we have a ready-made replacement for Freddie there. I think he's already able to bat at 7, perhaps even try him at 6 against Bangladesh next year..?
Well done!! My prediction is that Johnson won't average 30 with the bat for much longer....it'll be interesting to see if he does!
Personally for Bangladesh I like Warne's proposal of Rashid at 7, Broad at 8 and Swann at 9. Rashid has just scored a hundred and got 5 wickets in the same game twice in a row....that's pretty handy. It now feels the right time to bring him in, where as before it seemed a bit early....
The thought has occured to me that if Swann and Broad keep batting well, you start to wonder if there may be matches when England can go in with a batsman at 6 who averages only 30-35. So Prior could move to 5, Rashid 6 etc and that way you can have 4 seamers and 2 spinners and adapt to the conditions. Can't see it happening just yet but if the batsmen keep underperforming I suppose it might be an outside possibility....
Bringing Rashid in and putting him straight at 7 may put unnecessary pressure on him. So for me Broad at 7, Rashid at 8. Although I think Swann is also too low at 9, but it's great to have him and Broad down there with our often underperforming batsmen
But the thought of Prior at 5 is not a good one...
I'm going totally on reports having not seen him bat, but rumour has it that Rashid is better than Broad with the bat. He has 4 first class centuries to Broad's 0, but then Broad hasn't played much County cricket and you could easily argue that if he had he'd have scored a few hundreds.
Can't say I remember having seen Rashid bat (probably have for Yorks on sky though). How many times do we see Broad stranded on 30-60 runs when he runs out of partners, or hits out because he's running out of partners. If batted higher and given proper batsman as partners I'm sure Broad could score more runs. Not doubting Rashid's obvious talent with the bat though (according to his stats)
Was Monty - 'Man of the Series'- in partnership with Anderson? 45 mins unbroken?? Or is Ponting to blame for using the wrong bowlers? I ws away at the time and only following it on Internet ( no cricket on Japanese TV!!!)
If England had gone one down in Cardiff - then it is unlikely that they would have able to 'win' the series!
nEIL
Post a Comment