sussexpob wrote:alfie wrote:I will point out though that averages are just that : averages. They are designed to take into account a player's high and low points ; good years and bad. Once you start with the "in his last so many games " or "So and so averages abc ; but if you take out his best year (or his worst) it becomes xyz " you are talking selective stats , not averages.
I am not going to deny that I will manipulate stats to best represent an argument, but in the case of Bairstow, the sample range represents the majority of his very long career. I dont think its displaying much cunning to point out there are long trends in his form that have in the large part trended downwards and have lasted long enough to indicate terminal decline.
Gotta agree here. I am generally against cherry picking stats - after all, it's easy to make an argument that 'if you take our a player's best performances, they are not very good' for all but the top class most consistent players. But you also have to read stats in context, and I don't think it's cherry picking to say that Bairstow hasn't got it for test cricket. He's been in or around the side since 2012, and yet in only one year has he averaged over 35. He had one good year. Sometimes some players get on a roll in a particular year or against a particular side - sometimes you just find a bowling attack that you can do well against. Bairstow did great against South Africa and Sri Lanka in 2016, and has been mediocre since. I've got nothing against the fellow personally - I'd have him opening in England's all-time ODI side, he's been brilliant in that form of the game. But the evidence suggests that he just had a good trot of form in 2016, and then reverted to the mean, where the mean isn't very good.
(side note - my go to example of looking deeper into stats is Adam Voges, who was dropped in 2016 with an average of over 60 and never played again, so in the all-time batting averages is second only to the Don. But if you dig a little deeper, you find that average is: 562 vs West Indies, 99 v New Zealand, and under 30 v everybody else he played. He played four games on the trot v a pretty weak West Indies side, some of which were on absolute roads, and was only dismissed once, in part due to the fact that he was batting five, coming in at around 300-3 in most cases, and then Australia declared before he could get out. When he actually faced decent bowling or when the ball moved around, he wasn't good enough).
On Crawley, I think we agree, although perhaps from different angles. I was saying that I reckon the selectors 'think' they're pulling a Fletcher and picking him on something they like. Whatever their criteria are (I couldn't comment on the public school thing), they are quite clearly the wrong criteria, and not working.
Many players take time. Anderson and Broad did, Gooch famously so. That's fine. I think England should stick with Pope, and Crawley may be back some day, although I wouldn't pick him again until he's got a fair bit more first class cricket under his belt and lots of runs. But Moeen and Bairstow have been around since 2013, and just haven't delivered the goods often enough to justify the fact that England keep returning to them over the competition, IMO.