Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Batting average of over 45.
Bowling average of under 24.
Can field anywhere from 3rd slip to deep square leg.

He has a solid, repeatable bowling action, which allows him to hit a length regularly and shape the ball away throughout. He also has arguably the best bouncer in world cricket at the moment, despite what Stuart Broad may say. That's not even mentioning his ability to reverse the old ball as well.

His batting has always delivered less than it should, but he has begun to construct proper Test match innings. He presents a straight bat, plays every shot correctly and is able to defend and attack with equal aptitude. He's arguably the best bowling-batsman around at the moment, along with Vettori.

Obviously he'll struggle to maintain these stats, but is he the head of the next generation of International all-rounders? Is he even 1st XI for England?

He only averages 20 against a decent bowling attack

if i am being honest i didn't think he was a test match player when he first came into theteam , i thought he would be a ODI regular at best, just didn't think he would take wickets at test level

but boy has he proved me wrong. hes looked great with both bat and ball and its hard to believe he might not have even got a game had tremlett not got injured. i dont think we lose anything from a bowling perspective between him and tremlett and with bresnan's superior batting he has to stay in the team now. i still have reservations about calling him an all-rounder as imo an all-rounder should be close to being good enough with either bat or ball to get into the team and theres no way bresnan would get a game for his batting alone. however as a #8 he is a very good batsman, has good technique, he doesn't just slog away and has shown he can build an innings when needed or go and score quick runs as well when needed.

problem might arise now that he is such a valuable part of our ODI and t20 teams that will he end up being over-used.

we need to be careful how we handle bresnan, broad and swann as they cant play every game in all formats and stay effective imo.

How many of the "great" all rounders would get in on either or?
Would Kallis be picked as a bowler for SA? I doubt it- and would Botham, Hadlee and Imran Khan ever have been picked for batting alone? Probably not though.

On reflection Bresnan-so far is probably as complete as an all-rounder gets. As his career progresses we will establish the sort of player he is. There is probably only one genuine either/or test standard all-rounder, and that is Garfield Sobers.
.

It is tough to categorically define what makes someone a genuine all-rounder these days. Someone like Bresnan could probably develop into a top 6 county batsman if he was told he couldn't ever bowl again. But he'd never be good enough to bat top 6 for England, not regularly anyway! And as you say, not many, if any, could genuinely play as both a batsman or bowler in a strong Test side. I mean Shakib could, but that's because Bangladesh are abysmal!!!

So what makes someone an all-rounder? I would say for a bowling all-rounder, it means you have to be picked for your bowling (regardless of your batting talent, that's a bonus) and then you have to be able to score Test match fifties regularly, while maintaining an average of about 30+ or so.

While for a batting all-rounder, I'd say again you have to be picked for your batting alone (regardless of your bowling skills) and then you have to be able to bowl consistent spells with the ball and offer some sort of wicket-taking threat, averaging somewhere less than around 35 or so with the ball.

And obviously and most importantly, you have to average more with the bat, than you do with the ball as well!

Obviously this is very rough and not exactly conclusive, but let's face facts, no-one will ever produce a player capable of being a 1st choice batsman and bowler these days, because there are often so many options with both bat and ball for all the major Test playing nations. It's almost impossible!

If Bresnan ends his Test career with a batting average of over 30 and a bowling average of just under 30, he'd have to go down as one of our best ever all-rounders! Him and Broad should be challenging each other to achieve these sorts of figures for the remainder of their careers!!!

flyinginabluedream wrote:How many of the "great" all rounders would get in on either or?
Would Kallis be picked as a bowler for SA? I doubt it- and would Botham, Hadlee and Imran Khan ever have been picked for batting alone? Probably not though.

i think kallis would have got into the SA on his bowling alone , the guy has taken 270 test wickets at 32 whilst playing predominantly as a batsman.

i maybe was being a bit too severe in the standard for an all-rounder but i still get nervous calling bresnan or broad or swann all-rounders. they are bowlers who are useful with the bat , whether bresnan develops into a genuine all-rounder or not is another matter. atm he is a very good #8 and provides great depth to our batting.

Players like Broad and Bresnan should be put in context of team composition. Broad is the core player of the team. bresnan still has to get into the core team. rather than looking at statistics of Bresnan with bat and ball, i would think subjectively as per what the team composition needs to be.

Bresnan is a batsmen who can knock a 50+ score and thereby build a partnership of 50+, 100+ , 150 + with other batsmen around him like Prior and Broad. Likewise Broad can do that easily. That is enough for any team for someone batting at 8. As a specialist batsman, he has not shown so far that he can knock a big hundred. So he should not bat at 6. He can be promoted to 7 . I do not see an issue with him on subcontinent with his long reach of front foot, both against pacers and spinners, given his okay technique. Short pitched bowling on subcontinent wickets are not tough to negotiate, unless you have someone like Morkel who kicks off the ball from good length. However will wait and observe his batting in sub continent to see how is technique is against spin on spin friendly wickets.


As a bowler Bresnan swings it both ways and reverses the old one enough. He can control the ball well when it swings and map his line as needed. Good bouncer, but the yorker is what he needs to polish. Lands the ball on the seam quiet frequently too which makes such a difference to his bowling. He is well capable of taking five fer. On subcontinent he will have to make way for second spinner.

Broad and Bresnan are five fer bowlers and the best lower order batsman across all teams as of now. They field well. Broad took a good catch yesterday in the outfield, Bresnan was given the slip position, so apparently it seems that he has good reflexes. I would put Bresnan in context of the team composition rather than looking at his runs and bowling statistics.

My team would be: (at home) Alistair,Strauss,Trott,KP,Bell,Prior,Bresnan,Broad,Swann,James and Tremlett
(on subcontinent) Alistair,Strauss,Trott,KP,Bell,Prior,Broad,Swann,James,(specialist spinner) and Tremlett

Adi

At Home,
We have knocked over arguably world's best batting line up under 300 SIX Times in a row with 4 bowlers and that too despite the fact that Swann hasnt made any significant contribution.

So why on earth do we need 5 bowlers?

In the subcontinent yes i agree that we need 5 bowlers but thats bcoz of the temperatures in that part of the world.
i would play 3 seamers and 2 spinners in the subcontinent but I would pick Bresnan instead of Tremlett bcoz he can reverse the old ball.

Adi

At Home,
We have knocked over arguably world's best batting line up under 300 SIX Times in a row with 4 bowlers and that too despite the fact that Swann hasnt made any significant contribution.

So why on earth do we need 5 bowlers?

In the subcontinent yes i agree that we need 5 bowlers but thats bcoz of the temperatures in that part of the world.
i would play 3 seamers and 2 spinners in the subcontinent but I would pick Bresnan instead of Tremlett bcoz he can reverse the old ball.

In simple words I look at 6 batsmen helping the team to get 500 runs and 4 main bowlers to get 20 wickets. If a team has Sobers or a top-order batsman who can bowl about 15 overs and take a few wickets like Kallis it is great but otherwise the 5 bowler theory has always looked absurd to me.

shankybiggestengfan wrote:Adi

At Home,
We have knocked over arguably world's best batting line up under 300 SIX Times in a row with 4 bowlers and that too despite the fact that Swann hasnt made any significant contribution.

So why on earth do we need 5 bowlers?

In the subcontinent yes i agree that we need 5 bowlers but thats bcoz of the temperatures in that part of the world.
i would play 3 seamers and 2 spinners in the subcontinent but I would pick Bresnan instead of Tremlett bcoz he can reverse the old ball.

I have already posted many times why i want 5 bowlers, so i don't wanna type an essay again.

Shanky, the approaches to the team composition and other opinions will differ in everyone's view. This is because we all have been brought up in different cricketing culture, we have played different levels of cricket and more importantly we think differently. You can play 4 bowlers in your team, i don't debate at all with your view

He's good, but he is no Andre Russell.

Is an extra spinner really needed ? wouldnt it make more sense to get more from KP and keep 3 seamers in the side for short,sharp spells in the long hot days ??

SaintPowelly wrote:Is an extra spinner really needed ? wouldnt it make more sense to get more from KP and keep 3 seamers in the side for short,sharp spells in the long hot days ??

Good batsmen will set up bowlers like KP for a sixer, rather than KP setting the batsmen for a wicket. And KP just bowls offie, no wrong one, no deceptive in pace. He even struggles to get wicket in T20 where batsmen throw wickets, i can't see how he is going to work out batsmen in ODI and tests.