On May 20, 4:11 pm, Mike Holmans <
m...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 20 May 2013 12:38:29 +0100, Hils <
h...@saynotospam.net> tapped
> the keyboard and brought forth:
>
> >On 19/05/13 20:58, Mike Holmans wrote:
> >> Why do sensible people like thee and me keep thinking about dropping
> >> him? In what sense can that possibly be rational?
>
> >His behaviour may have improved recently, but if he has one of his
> >wayward spells and another bowler breaks down in a match, England will
> >be stuffed. England would struggle to get out of jail even against the
> >Aussies with only two front-line bowlers. But since neither Tremlett nor
> >Bresnan have proved they're fit and England don't have any bowlers of
> >the calibre of Steyn, Philander, or Morkel in the wings, they're stuck
> >with Broad.
>
> So if one bowler is injured and another has an off day, England will
> be in trouble. Who could ever possibly have guessed that?
>
> Anderson has just about eradicated the badly-off day and Swann is
> rarely completely innocuous, so you can mostly bank on them not to be
> too much of a problem. All the other bowlers are capable of delivering
> spells of deep mediocrity, so why single out Broad?
>
> And by the way, you'd have some fun trying to persuade Yorkshire that
> Bresnan hasn't proved his fitness this year, and still more trying to
> persuade some of the batsmen he's dismissed.
>
> We know that Broad sometimes does come up with these steamroller
> match-turning spells, and that he does so a bit more frequently than
> the others do. Obviously we'd prefer him to be brilliant every day,
> but is the criticism of him for not being as brilliant as possible
> every time he bowls overblown? Why are his innocuous and bad days so
> much more heinous than Bresnan's or Finn's? Why do the knives come out
> for him more quickly?
>
> I'm not saying I don't have such thoughts. I do. What I don't
> understand is why, because all the rational analysis I can come up
> with seems to say otherwise.
As an outsider, and a hopefully objective one, I can't help but notice
this tendency of your media* to both hype up a promising entrant to
unwarranted levels and later put him down, again to an unwarranted
degree, when there's a trough in his performances. I've noticed this
especially with Bell and Broad over their careers, and to a somewhat
lower degree with Cook and Strauss. Three consecutive performances
either way and they're either heroes or have-beens.
Ramapriya
* only those who aren't ex-international cricketers