English bowlers - the bare facts Nov 2005-Dec 2008

Bottom line: These stats don't lie - they are farkin Tino Best-esque!

Harmison 69 @ 40
Hoggard 71 @ 32
Anderson 72 @ 34
Flintoff 58 @ 34
Broad 25 @ 44


Plunkett 23 @ 40
Mahmood 20 @ 38

Panesar 119 @ 33

Sidebottom 76 @ 26

The only one who comes out with any credit is Sidders, and it's fair to point out his figures are Inflated by picking off woeful Snoozers (although somewhat counter-balanced by having 356 catches dropped off him in SL)

TA'O'POC

The one with the worst stats is playing and the one with the best (barring Sidebottom) has been dropped. If I was English, I'd be pretty mad (mad crazy and and mad angry).

I'm not sure that tells the whole story, really. We've played a fair few matches on the sub-continent where our batsman have failed to score the big runs necessary for the bowlers to apply the pressure. Likewise, in Australia our batsmen were repeatedly rolled over for nowt on good pitches leaving our bowlers needing to perform a miracle.

Not that runs are necessary towards taking lots of wickets, but the pressure of big runs helps. Simply, the whole team apart from Pietersen have been rubbish since 2005. The other batsmen, the keeper, the bowlers. Lots of tripe involved in English cricket.

Surely Flintoff has been better than that? Weird. Can't really remember him having a shocker (no where near as bad as Anderson has been yet they have the same average).

vilkrang wrote:Surely Flintoff has been better than that? Weird. Can't really remember him having a shocker (no where near as bad as Anderson has been yet they have the same average).

Flintoff takes a surprisingly low amount of wickets, compared to how well he bowls. I imagine it's because he often has no support from the other end, so batsmen just concentrate on surviving against him safe in the knowledge that they can pick off the other bowlers.

You can't always rely on stats to tell the whole story.

Flintoff hasn't had the pleasure of New Zealand and the Windies though - his wickets have been against Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Australia from what I can work out.

Though Flintoff has actually taken 63 wickets at 32.93 in the time-frame JK's quoting, so take all the other figures with a pinch of salt as well :p.

Flintoff never really runs through sides though does he, he's a brilliant containing bowler but he won't blitz a side. I imagine his s/r is pretty high.

Augustus wrote:Flintoff hasn't had the pleasure of New Zealand and the Windies though - his wickets have been against Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Australia from what I can work out.

Though Flintoff has actually taken 63 wickets at 32.93 in the time-frame JK's quoting, so take all the other figures with a pinch of salt as well :p.

Meh - cricinfo's stats, not mine. Probably doesn't include the current test.

Those numbers will come down soon, as England have back-to-back series against the Woeful Indies.

In fact, under Peter Moores, they will have played five of nine series against New Zealand and the West Indies by the time Australia comes to town in 09.

That's a lot of minnow bashing. Of course the four series they played against non-minnows they lost (or are in the process of losing).

But I'm sure it'll all change against Australia. I'm sure they're bang on track. I'm sure everything is going just as they planned it...

We'll have no problem with the Aussies - Botham told me.

Make it so, he said.

Today. Wait and see what he concludes tomorrow. And then tune in for his expert about-turn the next day.

Don't miss his brand new take on England's predicament the following day...

Botham should be a politician then...

Terribly disheartening stats for any English supporter.

I wrote fisheartening at first ... perhaps I shouldn't have changed it.

An interesting comparison is how many bowlers in world cricket have taken 50+ wickets at under 30 in that time?

Murali 188 @ 21.12
Ntini 153 @ 25.55
Lee 149 @ 27.63
Steyn 132 @ 21.43
S Clark 90 @ 22.96
Warne 79 @ 28.46
Vettori 77 @ 27.64
Sidebottom 76 @ 24.84
M Johnson 72 @ 27.11
Kallis 64 @ 28.81
M Asif 51 @ 21.41

A fairly short list, most of them Australian and South African, and not too many real stand-out figures among them. It seems most countries have the same problem, how many bowlers are there around who can dismiss good batsmen consistently on unhelpful pitches?

M Johnson 72 @ 27.11

FFS.