10 matches, 75 runs

For a Batsmen, that’s not good.

For the 2nd best batsmen in the team,  its ridiculous.

For a captain, Unacceptable.

Those are Mahela’s stats.

Out of those 10 matches, 2 have been against India, the other 8 against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

It includes a run of 3 ducks on the trot, all against Zimbabwe.

His last 4 innings include two golden ducks.

What does that spell – a form fucking slump.

So what gives?

Pitches ? Although Zimbabwe was tough, it was hardly seamers in England or bounce in Australia.

Bowlers? Barring Mortaza and Sakib, the rest were not even international standard.

Every batsmen has a chink in their armour. For Ponting its the rising delivery outside off, For Tendulkar its the ball that moves back in late.

For Mahela its the ball that flies 2 feet outside his off stump. This is a gaping technical flaw that seems to come and go in Mahela’s career.

For a few months, when he puts it away, and leaves those balls he looks sublime. No one knows how it happens, but it comes back just as easily as it seems to go away. When it does, you score 75 runs in 10 games.

In nearly 300 games he has only 10 centuries. They all tell a story.

What is strange is that he is better at leaving those balls in tests and in ODIs, maybe he feels he needs to get going from the off, but SL will be better served the longer he bats than how fast he scores those runs.

There is only one solution – the nets.

At this point Ricky Ponting’s gentle trundlers could get Mahela out.

The problem for Mahela is that India and Pakistan have fast bowlers a kazillion times better than Ricky.

6 Comments

  1. we were having this discussion the other day after that crazy final. what all of us seemed to agree on was that mahela and sanga really don’t seem to be arsed against bullshit teams. and while that may be annoying, it is a hell of a lot better than batsmen whose entire laurels are built on plundering the minnows and scoring the odd century on the dead tracks at home.

    then again, for my argument to hold, we would have to assume that playing pakistan in karachi is also a minnow scenario for jayawerdene, and even i am not going to be that unfair.

    finally, you guys (or is it one person) have been dishing out some quality blogs of late. great work…

    January 20, 2009
    Reply
  2. Damith, look at it this way, if not for the last two no-shows, the last two blogs wouldn’t have happened.

    January 20, 2009
    Reply
  3. sam said:

    A new profession for Mahela : go fishing against minnows….may be he wud get form or 2…….

    but neways he says a lot and performs nothing…..i was shocked to read him say that he is in form!!

    do you guys need a non performing captain ? i guess he needs to be shown the door as was Arjuna!!

    January 21, 2009
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  4. damiths said:

    Khatmal- Cheers, I dont care if Mahela scores no runs against the minnows and manages something against the good teams. Right now neither is happening

    and it is just me 🙂

    NC> You make a good point 🙂

    Sam> Slow down the hate mobile !

    January 21, 2009
    Reply
  5. perhaps mahela couldn’t believe that he is still playing in pak rather than ipl…he will recover by 4th odi…which is not gonna happen ;-))

    SP

    January 21, 2009
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  6. insideEdge said:

    Mahela has never justified his potential in ODIs. The 2007 WC was the closest he got but failed to move on from that or even to maintain the same standard.

    Mahela’s record in ODI is mediocre at best
    Avg 32, SR 76 and 10 hundreds

    Sangakkara also should be doing better

    Avg 35, SR 73 and 10 hundreds

    they compare unfavourably with

    Aravinda De Silva
    Avg 35, SR 81 and 11 hundreds

    Arjuna Ranatunga
    Avg 36, SR 78, 4 hundreds

    and are pathetic when compared to

    Ricky Ponting
    Avg 43, SR 80, 26 hundreds

    Mohamed Yusuf
    Avg 43, SR 75, 15 hundreds

    Jacques Kallis
    Avg 45, SR 71, 16 hundreds

    even a limited player like Jonty Rhodes managed to average 35 at SR 80.

    I have not included any of Sachin, Sanath, Shewag, Ganguly, Glichrist because they were predominantly openers.

    January 21, 2009
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