Wickets of Fortune

[King Pietersen]

Right, remember that TV show Wheel of Fortune? Well, this is Wickets of Fortune; where we talk about bowlers who have built a career out of getting fortutous wickets, or just had 1 particular match where they got a few Wickets of Fortune. It can be constantly getting wickets from wide balls, or a bowler that's managed to form a career even though their technique is poor (I'm thinking Matthew Hoggard and Andre Nel here, Hoggard who bowls round his arse, and Nel who chucks his front leg out way to the side).

I'll start us off, with Australian quickie Mitchell Johnson, who early in his career got alot of wickets thanks to batsman chasing the full wide delivery, thinking they could cash in on a rank half volley, but the pace and swing of Johnson often resulted in them edging behind. Johnson's Fortune comes from his pace. Another bowler who's been less successful with this method is Ryan Sidebottom, who often bowls far too wide of the off-stump, but due to his pace being down on Johnson, batsmen aren't tempted to play a shot. Johnson has sinced developed alot as a bowler, incorporating an inswinger, and now getting almost all of his wickets with superb deliveries, as opposed to balls that look like rank wide half-volleys!

Mitchell Johnson is our first Wickets of Fortune bowler.

Note: I did come up with a snappy title first, and based the content of the thread around the snappy title. Hopefully it'll work though. Fingers crossed.

 

[jordox]

Nice one Dan!

I think Muralitharan should earn a place in the wickets of fortune. He has gotten a bag full of wickets due to the fortune of being born with a double jointed wrist and elbow.

 

[aussie_ben91]

Stuart Broad is the definition of this thread. His a rubbish bowler and all of the wickets he gets are fortunate. He even gets more fortune then Midge Johnson used to get. Broad is also a very overrated ODI bowler.

 

[King Pietersen]

Stuart Broad is the definition of this thread. His a rubbish bowler and all of the wickets he gets are fortunate. He even gets more fortune then Midge Johnson used to get. Broad is also a very overrated ODI bowler.

As I proved on MSN, that's utter rubbish. You don't get the best batsmen from each country out by getting loads of flukey wickets. Broad does not get lucky tail end slog wickets. He opens the bowling in ODi cricket, and gets good players out. As proven by his list of wickets, lets take a look at the list:

How
Yuvraj
Bravo
Gibbs
Sangakkara
Silva
McCullum
Styris
Taylor
Gayle
Ramdin
Botha
Karthik
Raina
Ryder
Sehwag
Smith
Dhoni
Mills
Chanderpaul
Tendulkar
Ganguly
Gambhir
Oram
Powar
Sarwan
Razzaq
Agarkar
Duminy
Jayawardene
Fernando
Kallis
Akmal
Mubarak
Sammy
Vaas
Younis Khan
Samuels
R Sharma
Akhtar
Malik
Tharanga
G Smith

So out of all his ODi wickets, all 70 of them, he's only got 7 tail end wickets, meaning 63/70 of his wickets are proper batsmen or wicket-keeper batsmen. You don't get the best batsmen of the teams out with all flukey wickets. Obviously there are a few flukey wickets in there, every bowler gets the odd flukey wicket, but you don't get players like Chanderpaul, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Tendulkar, Kallis, Younis, Gayle and Sarwan out with all flukey deliveries. Johnson has 20 out of 87 tail-end wickets.

Getting good batsmen out is the key to making a good bowler, and Broad has a higher percentage of proper batsmen dismissed in his ODi career. I'm not saying Broad's better than Johnson, because he's not. But he's certainly not rubbish.

 

[aussie_ben91]

So you restrict 'flukey' wickets to only being bowlers dismissing tailenders? I've seen Broad bowl. He gets tonked around to the point of overconfidence and ends up picking up cheap wickets because of it. If your little theory of him dismissing top-order batsman because of skill then why is Broad such a failure in Test Cricket? There is more to cricket then just stats - Watch him bowl, his not that good.

 

[King Pietersen]

That's the thing, you've clearly only seen him bowl a couple of times, because his economy indicates that your main gripe with him is utter drivel. He has an ODi economy rate of just over 5, that in my eyes does not constitute being tonked. If you'd actually watched Broad, and not just claimed that you have to help back up your ludicrous argument, you'd know he's a very good ODi bowler and a much improved Test bowler. In T20i's Broad's been spanked, mainly by Yuvraj Singh in that 1 over, but in ODi's he's very rarely spanked, gets consistent wickets and more importantly gets good batsmen out.

 

[Howsie]

Well I can see this thread has started of well, lets hope it continues.

 

[Leicester Fox]

I'd like to buy a vowel please.

and I reckon Harmy's had his fair share.

 

[aussie_ben91]

That's the thing, you've clearly only seen him bowl a couple of times, because his economy indicates that your main gripe with him is utter drivel. He has an ODi economy rate of just over 5, that in my eyes does not constitute being tonked. If you'd actually watched Broad, and not just claimed that you have to help back up your ludicrous argument, you'd know he's a very good ODi bowler and a much improved Test bowler. In T20i's Broad's been spanked, mainly by Yuvraj Singh in that 1 over, but in ODi's he's very rarely spanked, gets consistent wickets and more importantly gets good batsmen out.

You are in no position whatsoever to be calling anything or anyone ludicrous when you are in favour of Stuart Broad because Broad is one of the worst International bowlers in the world.

I have seen Broad bowl, don't claim that I haven't just because I disagree with your opinion. If anything I should be accusing you of not watching Broad enough and just relying on stats.

 

[King Pietersen]

Relying on stats? I've not used any stats, bar his economy rate, and that was used to disprove your comment about him being spanked. I've watched alot of Stuart Broad, especially in ODi cricket, and he is one of the better ODi opening bowlers in the world, and certainly not one of the 'worst International bowlers in the world'.

Also, you saying that you should be accusing me of not watching Broad is laughable considering you said that he has a 'retarded' action on MSN, when frankly Broad has one of the most classical actions you could hope for. He's got a rhythmical run-up, he runs in straight, he has a very repeating action and a very solid action that doesn't put strain on any specific area of his body. Broad's action is far from 'retarded', one of the more solid actions you're likely to see.

 

[aussie_ben91]

I don't care about textbook or your opinion on a bowling action - Stuart Broad has a retarded looking bowling action. Fact. Broad also is one of worst regular International bowlers in the world, only Darren Powell & Mohammad Sami are worse then Broad.

 

[evertonfan]

Cricket's subjective Dan. Ben can think what he wants without having to have it be approved by anyone else first.

 

[King Pietersen]

LOL. It's a forum, we're discussing Stuart Broad. He's allowed to have an opinion, but if I don't agree with it, I'll contest it, that's the way forums work

 

[Howsie]

Mohammad Sami

Sami isn't a regular anymore, he hasn't been one for a few years now.

 

[evertonfan]

LOL. It's a forum, we're discussing Stuart Broad. He's allowed to have an opinion, but if I don't agree with it, I'll contest it, that's the way forums work

Damn, really?