I was looking up historical stats for Indian bowlers and couldn't find anyone in India's history with an average below 28 (at least 20 tests)! Not sure if I looked hard enough but there it is
............................ "The prisoner Pierre Laval is in no danger of dying"
Simon Jones has an average of 28.24 as well as an exceptional strike rate and will presumably walk back into the England side when, and if, fit. Like Vaughan, he may well feel fortunate he didn't participate in the recent Ashes series.
Jermaine Lawson has an average of 29.64 and an even better strike rate than Jones but hasn't played for the Windies since the end of '05 , partly due to fitness problems and partly due to questions about his action. It will be interesting to see if they pick him for the England tour as he didn't much on the last one. Richard Johnson has the Lohmann type average of 17.18 but that's largely due to 1 game against the Zimbas (at home) and 1 game against the Bangas (away) in which he took 15 of his 16 wickets.
Originally posted by Furriner: I was looking up historical stats for Indian bowlers and couldn't find anyone in India's history with an average below 28 (at least 20 tests)! Not sure if I looked hard enough but there it is
You're right about the regular bowlers (2000+ balls), 7 Indian bowlers have averaged under 30 including Kumble & Harbhajan from the present side. The list is headed by Kumble on 28.65, a remarkable performance by a legspinner bowling on Indian wickets.
However if you look at the bowling irregulars the only one who bowled more than 100 overs with an average of less than 28 (although he only played in 29 Tests) was Sandeep Patil who took 9 wickets@26.66:
While factually true (I don't suppose Simon Jones counts since he hasn't played in a long time), the statistic is a bit misleading. England certainly have a better bowling attack than some teams who do have bowler(s) averaging under 30
Stats can be misleading as we all know England's fully fit attack is World class, especially in favourable conditions.
Also Jerome Taylor averaged 80 odd before this year and an excellent year has seen that drop to 33. I bet it will be under 30 by the time the England series has finished. Corey Collymore's average is hovering just above 30, and a sub 30 average is 1 good match away.
Lawson has just had his first match back in a while and he took 6 wickets. We will have to wait and see if the WICB are prepared to risk his action. So far in his career he has only been effective when chucking, which is why he was not so flash on his last tour of the UK as he tried to bowl properly.
In fact the Windies pace unit is developing nicely IMO, I am more worried about our batting lineup which has performed dreadfully over the last 2 years particularly.
Originally posted by please: I thought hoggard and harmison were both around the 27-28 mark per wicket?
Harmy did, but his figures have declined over the past 2 years.
Hoggard has always hovered around the 30 mark. In conditions that didn't suit him at all in Aus, he could be pretty pleased with his work - i don't think many expected him to do much there.
