I am still in shock after day 2 of the fourth test. When I discovered that Jason Krejza was in the Australian side at the expense of Stuart Clark while Cameron White gets to fill space once more, I was pretty confident I knew how things would turn out.
India would score 400+ runs, and Krejza would conceed at least 200 runs in the process. I was spot on.
What left my jaw hanging on the floor was the fact that he took 8 wickets! In a performance that could be described as the best and worst debut ever, he's gone ahead and equalled the record for most wickets taken in a debut innings, and broken the record for the most runs ever conceded in a debut innings.
Krazy is the word. So my question is - does a massive amount of wickets make up for conceding a massive amount of runs?
2 comments:
I guess some stats that could be used to assess his performance in the most general terms might be:
1. The quality of the batsman that he dismissed.
2. The number of runs he conceded per wicket taken (his bowling average).
With regard to the first criteria, Krejza appears to have dismissed top order batsmen in both innings.
And I think he took 12 for 358 for the test. So an average of 30 for a spinner is good but not exceptional.
By way of comparison with some other modern day off-spinners Harbhajan Singh has 306 career wickets at 30.78 and Murali has 756 at 21.96. So I reckon if Krejza can keep taking wickets at an average of around 30 (or preferably better) and he's useful with the bat, then he might get a few more games in the baggy green!
I think you're right, he'll almost certainly get a few more games.
With regard to his "good but not exceptional" average - I would suggest that usually the big wicket hauls are designed to bring down the average in relation to the innings where the bowler goes for heaps with little return. It's only going to take one innings with few wickets to completely blow out his average. He'll need to keep taking 8 wicket hauls in order to maintain his average at this rate!
I'd say between taking bags of wickets and conceeding truckloads of runs, I think I can guess which of the two he's more likely to be able to consistently manage...
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