Sean Williams should be axed

[jaybro]

Williams 65 in the first ODI sure helped .....

Williams form has been down on his usual high standards ( for Zimbabwe ), but he still contributes with bat and ball ......

[Mueddie28]

Williams 65 in the first ODI sure helped .....

Williams form has been down on his usual high standards ( for Zimbabwe ), but he still contributes with bat and ball ......

Surely people Watermelon seriously...
Sean William, Raza & MWaller have earned they spots in the squad

[pariah]

watermelon here, thought I would revive another ZCF-favourite thread.

With the recent series against the Lankans in the books I thought it was time to revisit Sean Williams. This guy contributed nothing to our victories and everything to our defeats. His "bowling" was club level stuff and his batting was useless. White privilege or quotas have to be the reason he is still one of the first names on the team sheet. At least Ervine and Waller come good occasionally, Williams only offers little cameos and that is it.

-watermelon.

Once again ... deja vu https://www.zimcricketforums.com/viewto ... 085#p84085

I wonder when guys will realise that these double standards are hurtign Zimbabwe at the end of the day. It's part of why Whatmore was sacked, and why Zimbabwe has hit its lowliest points ever. FACT!

Raza couldn't buy a run in international cricket, as well as domestic cricket, but somehow he found himself in the team, a team that was losing very badly.

Malcolm had a woeful spell while doing ok in T20s. No harm in just selecting him for T20s and giving other players a run in the side, but he was still persisted with unnecessarily(granted everyone here said he should've been dropped).

Chibhabha has been poor, and rightly dropped. No complaints there.

Cremer had a horrible run, but kept in the side because he was captain, so Wellington/Chisoro couldn't exactly sack the captain. Sad, but understandable. Eventually Cremer picked up.

Craig Ervine goes through these poor patches of form but goes big when he eventually comes right. Still no harm in simply agreeing he's an absolute NO in T20s.

But Sean Williams has been bad at batting and bowling far too often, yet not dropped.

Hami was dropped for nothing, with stats in disagreement with that move, but it happened.

Peter Moor has been so bad, that I can't imagine guys here allowing a Joylord Gumbie or a Kudzai Sauramba the same patience. Moor has been so horrible it's not even funny. If that boy gets an ODI shirt again in the next 2 years, I honestly wouldn't know what to think. Moor's selection is indefensible. Period!

As for Sean Williams, he's definitely the Asghar Stanikzai of Zimbabwe cricekt seriously.

[jaybro]

It's all well and good for people to call for Williams to be dropped but who to replace him with that is capable of passing 50 every 3.9 innings and who can bowl some decent overs as well ????

Moor definitely has underperformed but he's been kicked around the order made to open or bat @7 or 8. He's now playing the late innings slogger role with mixed results. Again I ask who do we replace him with? Regis is possibly the worse ODI batsman in our history he's had so many chances and never passed 50 and a strike rate of 55. Mutumbami had many chances also an averaged 20. Gumbie and Saramba have done nothing to deserve a shot the only option is Mutizwa but he's barely setting the world on fire, hasn't played for Zim in 6 years and is also a rubbish keeper .....

Williams has scored 50's in the last 2 ODI series we've played and taken crucial wickets so I don't know why people want him dropped. Still averages 32 in ODI's which is very decent for Zimbabwe ......

[pariah]

It's all well and good for people to call for Williams to be dropped but who to replace him with that is capable of passing 50 every 3.9 innings and who can bowl some decent overs as well ????

Moor definitely has underperformed but he's been kicked around the order made to open or bat @7 or 8. He's now playing the late innings slogger role with mixed results. Again I ask who do we replace him with? Regis is possibly the worse ODI batsman in our history he's had so many chances and never passed 50 and a strike rate of 55. Mutumbami had many chances also an averaged 20. Gumbie and Saramba have done nothing to deserve a shot the only option is Mutizwa but he's barely setting the world on fire, hasn't played for Zim in 6 years and is also a rubbish keeper .....

Williams has scored 50's in the last 2 ODI series we've played and taken crucial wickets so I don't know why people want him dropped. Still averages 32 in ODI's which is very decent for Zimbabwe ......

Why do Zimbabwe need Williams when Cremer is doing a better job that him with both bat and ball?

Secondly, all the keepers have got questionable keeping. Why should Moor be in the side if Malcolm Waller bats better and keeps equally as bad?

This is not about replacing white players with Black players. It's about making changes to the team to make it better. Wasn't Mumba dropped after battling against SL in ZIM, and Mpofu picked instead?

Hami was dropped, Vusi dropped, Elton dropped and recently Chibhabha dropped. All suposedly for poor form. But what message does it send if a Moor is kept as the main ODI keeper for 2 years despite being as pathetic as he has been? Again, what message does it send if a Raza is so horrible for so long and kept until rediscovers his form, but Williams is dropped before he makes his own recovery. Yes he's had some decent knocks last year and this year, but so have Hami, Vusi, Elton and Chamu. There must be consistency. That's why it took an injury to drop Burl despite poor form. If it wasn't for that injury how do you drop Burl when you never dropped Malcolm, Sean and Raza for similar "crimes"? Whether you like it or not, Zimbabwe has and will suffer because of this.

[jaybro]

Raza & Waller have been dropped .....

I guess it's all about what class of player they are, Raza, Williams, Ervine and any batsman averaging over 30 will get more chances to redeem them selves because they're a level above the others who are averaging under 25 and those guys I guess get less time .....

[TapsC]

PJ has been struggling badly.. that definitely needs to be addressed. We shouldn't ignore it any longer. He has actually done as badly as Mutumbami. In fact Richmond has played 5 more games than PJ but he has a better average and believe it or not better strike rate as well in ODIs.

Richmond is a better keeper who struggles with the bat at international level whilst PJ is supposed to be the better batsman who is struggling but learning with the gloves.the stats say otherwise in limited overs cricket. In fact both players have terrible list A records. Richmond averaging 21 after 96 games and PJ a woeful 18 after 70 games!

how long do we continue picking someone on potential?and who exactly here has more potential based on the stats? If they are both terrible then for me the better keeper has to play until we find a suitable successor. It might also mean Taylor keeping again until Murray finishes uni. At least he is a quality batsman. Raza and Waller(his stats are also dodgy but he has improved and his list A average is 26 at least) are fully capable of playing the finisher role. It might be worth giving burl a run in the team if Taylor agrees to keep wicket.

[pariah]

Raza & Waller have been dropped .....

I guess it's all about what class of player they are, Raza, Williams, Ervine and any batsman averaging over 30 will get more chances to redeem them selves because they're a level above the others who are averaging under 25 and those guys I guess get less time .....

Once again, stats are very important. Without them you lose objectivity and put forward subjective arguments.

I think the last 7 years, particularly since it coincides with Zimbabwe's reintegration into mainstream cricket, is a fair period of analysis. Since 2011, Vusi Sibanda averages 57 in matches that Zimbabwe have won, while for example, Brendan Taylor averages just 30. Only Taibu is ahead of Vusi averaging 69 (then again, he was Zmbabwe's standout batsman and Zimbabwe almost always won whenever he turned up). But proportionally, Vusi and Taibu have scored the most runs in ZIM ODI wins. Hami too averages 40, and is the most consistent across formats - win or lose. Guys like Raza, Elton, Williams and Craig are boosted by not outs, and Craig and Williams - just like Taylor, fall below 30 in matches Zimbabwe won over that period. The exception being Raza who still averages 41 without not outs taken into consideration.

But what is remarkable is that Vusi and Hami still manage to average so high despite opening. Overall since 2011, when you consider all players whether win or lose since 2011, Vusi averages 30. In any event, over that period Chigumbura averages 28, but Malcolm Waller just 21 - but guess who is in the team, and who was dropped? The same player who scored 2 centuries and 2 half-centuries more than he did. Even Chibhabha has thoroughly outperformed Malcolm Waller, and again while batting much higher.

By and large fans remember the highs of the team - which are when the team wins, so that is why it's no surprise to find some of us rate these players very highly. If that wasn't the case then Alec Stewart would be far more highly regarded than a lot of the England batsmen idolised today.

In South Africa (and every other cricekt nation for that matter), stats have played a huge role in selection. That's why today guys like Faf, Miller and Morkel have been dropped a number of times in various formats -purely based on stats not quotas. I nthe past 10 Tests, Duminy scored 2 centuries and 2 fifties, plus bowled very well. That's an average of 35, but he also bowled. Technically he should not have been dropped, even by SA standards, but he was dropped. Bavuma's contribution won SA Tests in NZ and AUS. Because of that he was not dropped even though he averaged less.

In the history of Zimbabwe cricket in ODIs, Hamilton Masakadza has got the most centuries in matches Zimbabwe have won - 3. Vusi and Craig have 2, while Taylor has just 1. Williams zero, just 6 half-centuries.

Arguments can be made about batting position, quality of opposision, stage of innings etc, but the law of averages still holds either way. And if the roles were reversed - batting lower or higher - one would suspect those averages can only get worse.

We've dealt with Moor, but what I am against is a situation where Malcolm averages 21 plus scores just 4 ODI fifties in 7 years(56 matches) yet still finds himself in contention for the ODI team, yet vastly superior players (Vusi, Elton, Chamu) are dropped. All should be dropped considering the likes of Mire and musakanda have come in and lifted up their hands, even though they are still inferior than those dropped but time will tell.

So surely if the agreement is Williams is a class player who deserves patience, and his stats hold true over time, what on earth is the logic behind picking Malcolm and Moor low done the order to add nothing, while standouts like Jongwe, Chisoro, Wellington and Madziva are ignored in a team with no ballance and whose bowling severely lacks bite purely to accomodate such medicrity?

[brmtaylor.com admin]

I think for full transparency you should also filter those results by home and away, whether said player was captain/wicket keeper at the time and if the game was played under floodlights. Otherwise it looks like you are just doctoring the stats to suit your argument.

[pariah]

I think for full transparency you should also filter those results by home and away, whether said player was captain/wicket keeper at the time and if the game was played under floodlights. Otherwise it looks like you are just doctoring the stats to suit your argument.

Then I would really be accused of doctoring. It must be done for the right reasons.

The reality is if a guy like Williams contributes 50s just 20% of the matches he's played in that Zimbabwe have won as a whole (most of them having no impact in the Series result), while another guy does so 35% of the time, it hardly changes the prevailing and factual notion that Williams is a dead rubber specialist or excels when there is no pressure no matter how much I filter the results. Fallacies are a common thing, and here a lot of guys used to throw up phrase like "Williams is mentally weak" or "not strong enough to bat at number 3", but the reality is a simple glance at stats would have confirmed this. So why pick him in a crunch game? I've questioned this before, and successfully predicted it (based on common sense not any 6th sense) well over 90% of the time. Often times in the IPL, they pick or drop a player strategically - match temperament and to exploit a particular area or player in the opposition. That's the latest trend.

Everyone here used to bash me for saying Taylor is very weak away. But you read Butcher's book yourself, and one of the things he bemoaned the most was Brendan Taylor's peculiar incompetence away from home, so was I mad? Taylor had already made up his mind to leave, ne wcoach that he liked, had no weight on his shoulders and he delivered during the world cup(away), but then he still left when he was in a better place to continue with that form as Elton did in Pakistan away. If or when Brendan comes back he must start all over again to work on his away form - at an advanced age and we've seen how tough that is with Stephen Cook and Heino Kuhn recently. Sadly he's played about as many 2nd XI matches as he has County Division games, purely because of his struggles away, and to be fair to Notts, they've tried him everywhere from 1-7. Guys in Engalnd can confirm this. In fact he's playing at number 3 in this latest match, selected after some time, possibly as reward for his List A exploits, but again he's failed. So using stats to zone in on a weakness, and working on it actually improves the player.

I never use stats to discredit a player which is why guys here often argue something else, not those stats I put forward themselves - which is precisely what you have done.