How Good Is Timothy Bresnan?

[HarryPotter]

The unhelpful attitude off the pitch thing is irrelievent IMO, it lost us several years of Swann.

As for the opportunity thing, I am being shot down because I suggest that 13 Tests is an opportunity. What opportunity exactly had Rashid had and how did he let people down?

He has had a few chances, but nothing like those that his record and match winning ability have warrented.

[Arthur Crabtree]

He melted in the spotlight. England did him a favour by leaving him out. He couldn't be trusted to bowl. No way did England want to go to Tredwell, but they had to. It's not the same as Morgan, who has a level of functionality that can be worked with. Rashid couldn't be bowled because he had no control over where the ball was going. The attitude was a secondary consideration.

[HarryPotter]

He was cool under pressure in 20TIs and bowled well.

For a leggie he shows decent enough control tbh (not everyone is Warne).

[Arthur Crabtree]

No, he delivered a couple of trauma eyed performances in SA where he couldn't land the ball. He had an ODI where the batsmen had to bowl his overs for him, and then an over in a T20 that went for 25. He didn't have a game, he was overwhelmed with the bat. England dropped him for his own good. Better to do that than destroy him. He has the chance to come back as a more mature player if he has enough about him.

If he'd been bowling length balls that were hit, fair enough. But he was bowling half trackers and wide full tosses. It was embarrassing.

[HarryPotter]

That 20TI all our bowlers were destroyed in a record breaking stand.

I was refering to the 20T WC in the UK where, when picked, he was one of our best bowlers. As usual (at that time) we didn't understand 20T and would not pick 2 spinners so reverted to Swann. After this he was unfairly treated IMHO.

Yes he had a bad game or two in SA, but show me a player who has never had a bad game, especially when not given any sort of a run. As usual bowlers are treated very different to batsmen, who will always get a run in the team.

[dan08]

That 20TI all our bowlers were destroyed in a record breaking stand.

Apart from Joe Denly...

[HarryPotter]

Haha. Indeed

[Arthur Crabtree]

Sometimes it is how you fail. I wanted to believe that Rashid was what the press were billing him as, because he was potentially a huge piece of the jigsaw. Especially as we were losing Flintoff. But he wasn't ready. And just because we wanted a wrist spinning all rounder, and would like to believe we might have one, the reality didn't match the need.

Swann says he wasn't ready when first picked, so maybe the comparison is apt. He is obviously in a reasonable position to rebuild a claim to play for England. England actually dropped him to the Lions team, but he wasn't really succeeding at that level and others rightly went past him.

[HarryPotter]

I guess we will disagree on this one.

I would say he stepped up in the biggest stage on the 20T format and was promptly dropped.

Offset against that a 6 ball chance in a 20TI, and 3 overs in a single ODI (a seamer would probably have had a second spell). That was his chance in SA, 24 balls.

And has being pointed out he is a FC player not a One Day player.

[Arthur Crabtree]

They were FC games he played for the Lions, but he wasn't bowling well for them in the West Indies. He averaged 14 with the bat and was outperformed by Danny Briggs with the ball. He was going backwards, and England made the sensible decision to give him a chance to find his game again in domestic cricket.

[Arthur Crabtree]

But it wasn't just that. he looked overawed at the top level, like he didn't believe he belonged. That's a hard lesson to learn. He just wasn't ready.

[rich1uk]

rashid is a good example of why "armchair" selectors like ourselves get things wrong alot as we dont get to see the player up close, see what his attitude is like in training and in the dressing room , how he reacts to bad performances and even good performances.

having a genuine leg spinner capable of batting at #6 or #7 is something almost any side in world cricket would love to have and i think england maybe rushed him a little as he could have been the missing link in our side from a balance perspective. however the feedback from the coaches at both england and also at yorkshire was he didn't handle the step up very well and wasn't ready for international cricket. nothing to do with his age as was suggested above, some people might never be ready for that step.

its easy to blame england for mis-handling him but we dont really see what goes on behind the scenes.

[m@tt]

England wanted to take Rashid to Bangladesh, but he bowled so poorly when given the chance that winter, and showed an unhelpful attitude off the pitch that he couldn't be picked. Ultimately Rashid wasn't good enough. People wanted to believe that we had a leg spinning all rounder. Who wouldn't want one. But he was being made to fit the part, rather being the real thing.

He has to start again. He wasn't let down. He was given an opportunity to impress.

I'm certainly not of of those people who moan about how England "ruined" Rashid, neither do I believe he's the best thing since sliced bread - he's a very promising leggie who gets good returns with bat and ball in County Cricket, performances probably good enough to warrant international call-ups. But England invested a lot of time and resources in him and, as you say, he performed poorly in several games, to the extent where we were bowling Joe Denly. The reasoning for dropping him was probably based on stuff off the pitch, such as nets, which we of course don't see, and I've also heard of Yorkshire encouraging England and the Lions not to select him, saying he's not ready.

That said, for a series against the worst Test nation on a spin-friendly track, I still feel he would have been a good pick considering his potential (and it's not like we were just picking on potential, his track record is very good). It was an excellent opportunity to get first Test nerves out (it was Bangladesh, what could go wrong?) and give the opportunity to show what he's like in the longer form - seemed like a win-win situation to me, even if it were to be his only Test caps for a few years.

[Arthur Crabtree]

If the Bangladesh series had come before the SA one, that may well have happened.

We made quite hard work of that Bangladesh series. We were quite glad for Tredwell's wickets when they came.

Rashid obviously has ability, otherwise he wouldn't do well at Yorkshire. He has plenty of time ahead of him. I didn't agree with the way his exclusion was often used as an example of the conservatism (and idiocy) of our coach and selectors. Which it was, with much venom. He had much more of a chance than Finn and Shahzad, who both made an impression just from bowling at training camps. Obviously Finn has done well.

[Slipstream]

I believe Rashid shoud have been the second spinner when we went to the WI and Flower was deciding whether to take the job. As for that over that went for 25, Cook should have held his nerve. Even de Villiers said he could have come in the next over and got a wicket and they were surprised he didn't get another over. He went out to the Big Bash and was the second leading wicket taker in the series and in the winning team with excellent figures. I think he is a great little character.