***Official*** Commonwealth Bank Tri-Series

Results don't mean much for me recently as we've been chopping and changing. In Melbourne we should be picking our first choice World Cup side, so from here on in we need to be getting serious.

They're getting it from home too
The Sun:
It's Jumbos for Dumbos

By JOHN ETHERIDGE in Perth
January 31, 2007

ANOTHER match on England’s tour, another crushing defeat. Will this agony ever end?

It will, thankfully, in a week. Then Andrew Flintoff, his players and every long-suffering one of us can board a Jumbo with LHR tagged to our luggage.

All that remains is a defeat against Australia in Sydney on Friday and the final encounter with New Zealand in Brisbane next Tuesday.

England’s only chance of reaching the best-of-three final is to win both of those matches which, frankly, is as likely as Duncan Fletcher performing a stand-up routine at the Comedy Store.

In this game, after a series of pathetic batting collapses, the bowlers and fielders were mainly to blame for a defeat to New Zealand by 58 runs.

Their profligacy allowed the Kiwis to reach 318-7 and England subsided to 184-7 before finishing with 260-8.

It is probably wrong to pick on individuals but what on earth is the matter with Chris Tremlett?

This fella is a6ft 7in giant with all the venom of a cuddly toy.

He looked disinterested and dawdled back to his mark at a pace that suggested he was terrified, injured or not bothered.

He fielded like a drain and was plundered for 22 runs in his final over to finish with 1-72. Even Flintoff took some punishment from Jacob Oram, who finished on 54 not out from 33 balls.

England conceded a staggering 22 wides and Flintoff admitted: “This is an inexperienced side and Oram took the game away from us.

“But it would be nice if we could get the batting and bowling going well in the same game.”

Ed Joyce made his first half-century for England and Paul Nixon 49, even though his innings resembled a circus routine of sixes, reverse sweeps, edges and dropped catches.

oh, I love it

Vettori would be in the same sort of position as Hogg if he was available for Australia right now. Both are quality ODI spinners, though Vettori is a better bat and probably not quite as handy in the field. The selectors really aren't interesting picking Hogg at the moment though, and I don't think Vettori would get a game either, though there's a fair argument that both of them would deserve it.

Oram would walk in ahead of White mainly on the strength of his bowling in certain conditions, but not ahead of Watson the way he was playing last year, though the last three games have improved Oram's case as a batsman somewhat.

Bond would make it into the regular rotation for seamers in the ODI side fairly easily, probably at the expense of Clark or Johnson.

Anyone beyond that would be a massive stretch, obviously. Perhaps Taylor in a couple of years, if Clarke ends up as an opener or something.

Regarding Eng as a test team, they'd still beat NZ quite easily, I think.

Isolator said:

Regarding Eng as a test team, they'd still beat NZ quite easily, I think.

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They might be able to beat an egg

Fiery said:

They might be able to beat an egg

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They got a series against the egg soon dont they? whats the egg paying?

I think there is lot of talk about vettori being the best left arm spin bowler in the world, but hogg is also a pretty good odi bowler if not better than Vettori is not any lesser than him either, he turns the ball on most surfaces, has one of the best wrong'un in the game, and he has got good control too. He has done his best in whatever limited chances he has had its just a pity that he is almost out of contention now.

pup11 said:

I think there is lot of talk about vettori being the best left arm spin bowler in the world, but hogg is also a pretty good odi bowler if not better than Vettori is not any lesser than him either, he turns the ball on most surfaces, has one of the best wrong'un in the game, and he has got good control too. He has done his best in whatever limited chances he has had its just a pity that he is almost out of contention now.

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While Brad Hogg is a very good bowler and quite under-rated, I think it's obvious that Vettori is the better bowler overall, Test's and ODI's. Even in First Class cricket Daniel Vettori has a far better record, playing on pitches that do not assist him.

I think on slow and flat surfaces(like the one in perth) has caused worries about effectiveness of bowlers like lee,johnson and clark to some extent even bracken. On surfaces with any help for fast bowlers these blokes are great, but on flat tracks they bowling has been found wanting. Clarke and symonds are handy spinners but against sub-continent sides there effectiveness is still pretty questionable.

ripper868 said:

They got a series against the egg soon dont they? whats the egg paying?

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Even money

definetly worth a flutter

Perm said:

While Brad Hogg is a very good bowler and quite under-rated, I think it's obvious that Vettori is the better bowler overall, Test's and ODI's. Even in First Class cricket Daniel Vettori has a far better record, playing on pitches that do not assist him.

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Hogg's average is a fair bit lower in ODIs. And incidentally, Hogg plays his FC cricket at the WACA, which until the last two years or so was one of the worst pitches in the world for spin bowling. Warne averaged about 40 there in test matches. There's no doubt Vettori is a better spinner in 4 and 5 day cricket, but the pitches thing isn't a great argument.

Anyway, I'd probably them about equal in ODIs. Vettori generally keeps it a bit tighter through the middle overs and is a better batsman, but Hogg is more of a wicket taker. His wickets per match ratio is great, and that's despite bowling less overs per game than other spinners. By way of comparison, Hogg takes 1.24 wickets per match compared to Harbhajan's 1.17 and Vettori's 0.98. Only Murali's 1.51 is better.

Overall he has 112 wickets @ 27 with an ER of 4.48, which is very good indeed. Vettori has 183 wickets @ 33.16 with an ER of 4.19

But the men who matter(selectors and the captain) don't seem to be impressed with hogg's stats. With warne(retired) and Mcgill(retired from odi's) out of the frame its pretty safe to say he is the no.1 spin bowler in australia at the moment.

FaaipDeOiad said:

Hogg's average is a fair bit lower in ODIs. And incidentally, Hogg plays his FC cricket at the WACA, which until the last two years or so was one of the worst pitches in the world for spin bowling. Warne averaged about 40 there in test matches. There's no doubt Vettori is a better spinner in 4 and 5 day cricket, but the pitches thing isn't a great argument.

Anyway, I'd probably them about equal in ODIs. Vettori generally keeps it a bit tighter through the middle overs and is a better batsman, but Hogg is more of a wicket taker. His wickets per match ratio is great, and that's despite bowling less overs per game than other spinners. By way of comparison, Hogg takes 1.24 wickets per match compared to Harbhajan's 1.17 and Vettori's 0.98. Only Murali's 1.51 is better.

Overall he has 112 wickets @ 27 with an ER of 4.48, which is very good indeed. Vettori has 183 wickets @ 33.16 with an ER of 4.19

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I think those stats are more indicative of the quality of their bowling partners than anything else. Vettori, for the majority of his career, has been the best bowler NZ has had to offer in ODIs, so the opposition would just see him off and attack, more wayward bowlers.

Conversely, batsmen see Hogg come on to bowl and think of it as an opportunity to break the shackles created by the pace of Lee and the consistent accuracy of McGrath. Thus, he goes for more runs, but also takes more wickets as the batsmen take more risks against him.

I'd rate Vettori a slightly better bowler overall though. His bowling really doesn't suit a team with no support where he has to lead the attack. He'd do better in Australian colours than Hogg has as far as I'm concerned - although only marginally.

ripper868 said:

definetly worth a flutter

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Egg to hit the most 6s is paying well

But the men who matter(selectors and the captain) don't seem to be impressed with hogg's stats.

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How many times must the whole balance thing be explained to you? I'm sure the selectors are more than impressed with Hogg's stats, but given Johnson's stats are also very impressive, and the fact that three of the top 7 bowl spin and none of them bowl pace, they've opted for Johnson more often than not.

Vettori > Hogg as an ODI bowler. By a fair way. It's fair to say, IMO, that Hogg has benefited a lot from the bowlers that come before him, and often is bowling when sides need 7+ an over over 20 overs.

I still think Hogg is a very important cog in the side, and I'd play him more often than not, but Vettori is a much better ODI bowler than him.

I don't actually disagree that Hogg benefits from the situations he bowls in with regard to wicket taking, and that people generally try and see Vettori off by comparison. But really, the difference between their economy rates isn't all that stark. If Vettori was a much better bowler than Hogg in ODIs but Hogg got a lot of wickets from people attacking him, I'd expect Hogg to have a higher economy rate than 4.48 or so, or at least for the gap between the two to be bigger. Hogg is very good at getting batsmen out who are looking to go after him though, and he'll quite regularly come on in the middle overs and take a couple of important wickets.

Hogg would certainly take less wickets if people didn't look to go after him as they do, but it's a measure of his quality as an ODI bowler that he is as economical as he is, despite generally being attacked more than someone like Vettori. I'd rate them fairly comparable, though obviously who you'd rather have bowling would depend on the game situation and so on.

Having said that, Hogg probably benefits a bit more from playing the weaker ODI nations, with a great record against Bangladesh and so on. I daresay if you took those countries out, the gap between them average-wise would drop a bit.

Vettori's has been great in his last 80 ODI's, bringing his average down significantly after his first 107 ODI's.

FaaipDeOiad said:

Overall he has 112 wickets @ 27 with an ER of 4.48, which is very good indeed. Vettori has 183 wickets @ 33.16 with an ER of 4.19

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While that is true, if you look at Vettori's record from his last 90 games (the same as the total number that Hogg has played) his average falls to around 28, and his ER drops further to 3.9.