Ranking Zimbabwe's Match-Winners

[pariah]

You can do all your stats Kriterion, even up to 2018, but you'll once again see that Ashraful was/is your match-winner.

I did mention it recently, and used to argue the same in the past. Sometimes a Mushfiqur or a Sakib doing well in a losing cause gives the impression that they are winning matches for BD but they're not. Ashraful used to slay some of the biggest attacks in the game not a weakened IND side.

Lately I've seen guys like Morris, Phehlukwayo, Rusty, Parnell and even Madziva win matches for their sides. However, certain frontline batsmen in the middle order only play that way if it's a lost cause, but unlike say that Morris performance against England, they fail to cross the line because they remain suspect. Even Duminy and Maxwell have often struggled too. Unless you've got that extra bit like a Chigumbura or a Jacob Oram it's not easy.

[foreignfield]

I believe the way we look at Useya is shaped by what we think we know about the role he played as ZC's snitch inside the team. If you ignore that for a moment, hard as it is, you have a spinner who was never even whispered about as a potential chucker for ten years in international cricket. He clearly never cheated, in the sense that he wilfully altered his normal action to bowl something he couldn't otherwise bowl, as so many of the disciples of the doosra did, he just bowled and bowled, and bowled some more, and some day the authorities decided to crack down on suspect actions and technology showed him to exceed the limits.

Under normal circumstances, I would feel extremely sorry for the guy ... but I don't.

[CrimsonAvenger]

I believe the way we look at Useya is shaped by what we think we know about the role he played as ZC's snitch inside the team. If you ignore that for a moment, hard as it is, you have a spinner who was never even whispered about as a potential chucker for ten years in international cricket. He clearly never cheated, in the sense that he wilfully altered his normal action to bowl something he couldn't otherwise bowl, as so many of the disciples of the doosra did, he just bowled and bowled, and bowled some more, and some day the authorities decided to crack down on suspect actions and technology showed him to exceed the limits.

Under normal circumstances, I would feel extremely sorry for the guy ... but I don't.

+1

[CrimsonAvenger]

I will try and look at Bangladesh's stats since the 2015 World Cup tomorrow to see if there is a significant rise.

Making quite a bit of sense so far. Would be interesting to see this comparison. Once some clarity is established, we can cross-verify these insights against the pre-1996 SL vs 1996-1999 SL performances too. And may be post-Lara WI as well (excluding T20s of course).

[Kriterion_BD]

You can do all your stats Kriterion, even up to 2018, but you'll once again see that Ashraful was/is your match-winner.

I did mention it recently, and used to argue the same in the past. Sometimes a Mushfiqur or a Sakib doing well in a losing cause gives the impression that they are winning matches for BD but they're not. Ashraful used to slay some of the biggest attacks in the game not a weakened IND side.

Lately I've seen guys like Morris, Phehlukwayo, Rusty, Parnell and even Madziva win matches for their sides. However, certain frontline batsmen in the middle order only play that way if it's a lost cause, but unlike say that Morris performance against England, they fail to cross the line because they remain suspect. Even Duminy and Maxwell have often struggled too. Unless you've got that extra bit like a Chigumbura or a Jacob Oram it's not easy.

Pariah, numbers never lie. 5 is always 5, and never 4.

I too thought Ashraful was a good match winner (by minnow standards) but the numbers tell a VASTLY different story. He is even worse than Hamilton - who I have always regarded as being short of mediocre at his very very best. He is even worse than Chigumbura.

Now if Mustafiz also turns out to be stuck at 2% you will have a point, but I highly doubt that once I run the numbers, Fizz will be as low as Ash.

Ash blasted the ATG Aussie side and solid SA side as well and that gives the perception that he was a bigger mact-winner than he really was. The only thing you can say is that Ash at his best was as good as anyone else. But his consistency and overall ability was shitty.

[ZIMDOGGY]

I believe the way we look at Useya is shaped by what we think we know about the role he played as ZC's snitch inside the team. If you ignore that for a moment, hard as it is, you have a spinner who was never even whispered about as a potential chucker for ten years in international cricket. He clearly never cheated, in the sense that he wilfully altered his normal action to bowl something he couldn't otherwise bowl, as so many of the disciples of the doosra did, he just bowled and bowled, and bowled some more, and some day the authorities decided to crack down on suspect actions and technology showed him to exceed the limits.

Under normal circumstances, I would feel extremely sorry for the guy ... but I don't.

He nearly had me in terms of the accidental chucking argument. However he publically admitted he needed the elbow more than he should've because it got more tweak and kept him employed

[Kriterion_BD]

I finally finished Bangladesh's analysis since Jan 1, 2015 vs top 8 sides. In this period Bangladesh have won 18 matches across the 3 formats:

Batsmen:

Mahmudullah - 5 from 45 innings (11.1%)
Nasir - 3 (all bowling) from 29 innings (10.3%)
Soumya - 5 from 51 innings (9.8%)
Tamim - 5 from 61 innings (8.2%)
Mominul (Test specialist) - 1 from 18 innings (5.6%)
Shakib - 3 from 62 innings (4.8%)
Sabbir - 2 from 51 (3.9%)
Mushfiq - 2 from 55 (3.6%)
Imrul - 1 from 31 innings (3.2%)


Bowlers:

Shakib - 11 from 63 innings (17.5%)
Mustafiz - 6 from 35 innings (17.1%)
Mehidy - 3 from 20 innings (15%)
Taskin - 3 from 30 innings (10%)
Mashrafee - 4 (1 batting) from 70 innings (5.7%)
Rubel - 1 from 23 innings (4.3%)

I am also going to look at Steve Smith and Mitchell Starc since Jan 1, 2015 to see what the very best players in the world pull on average.

But looking at Bangladesh recently, its apparent that better teams have higher percentage MWPs. Not very surprising finding, lol. I was surprised to see Riyad was our best batsman, and Mushfiq one of our "worst". However, the reason Shakib is so low in the batting department has been that he has hardly gotten much chance to bat in our ODI lineup the past 2-3 years. Same with Sabbir and anyone else in the lower middle order.

On the bowling front, I was surprised by how consistent Shakib is. I didn't expect him to lead the chart. While he doesn't get to bat much, he certainly gets to bowl most of his quota. Mehidy has only played 20 innings, that mostly in Test cricket. But its much higher percentages here than the batsmen indicating that the parameters I have set are probably easier to fulfill if you bowl than when you bat.

[jaybro]

Disregarding any off field politics I still have zero sympathy for Utseya, he cheated for years and wasn't good enough to fix his action which shows the only way he could compete was to cheat.

[brmtaylor.com admin]

I've never really understood the Utseya hate. My main gripe with him was that he was a pretty uninspiring captain and could never be relied on to take wickets. He was however a very economical bowler and a more than handy batsman - and deserved his place in the ODI side for the most part.

Until he got done for his action, did anyone here think he was a chucker? I certainly didn't and I don't remember there being much discussion about it. When Murali played for so many years with his action, I think it is very unfair that Utseya had his career ended by it. He was in the best form his career around that time too, that 5-fer (hat trick match) against SA was special and my defining memory of him is the way he held his stance after the slog sweep for 6 in the win against Australia.

I wouldn't say he was ever a match winner for Zim in terms of individual heroics, but he had a number of achievements and he's earned his place in Zimbabwe cricket history.

[eugene]

My problem with Utseya is that he was a snitch, Hammy is too.