Price v Utseya (in tests)

[eugene]

Price is mediocre?! Are you kidding me. Without Price Pakistan would have been scoring at an ODI pace. I would imagine once Cremer returns there will be a real battle for the spinners position, particularly at HSC where we will only play one spinner probably. I think the spin combo when we select two spinners will be either Cremer-Utseya or Cremer-Price.

[sillymid]

I dont doubt Price's ability but at the moment he isnt playing well. His dip in form happened just when Utseya has been looking good with both bat & ball. When Price isnt taking wickets we call it team strategy but when it is Prosper- we question his ability as a cricketer. Great players get dropped if they are not perfoming well and Price should not be an exception. What im worried about is that Prosper might get frustrated or even be affected by not playing continuously.

[andybligz93]

prices form has not dropped ! f**ck some of the people on this forum no nothing about cricket , he does his job day in day out , he hasnt bowled below avg yet and has the experience and heart to keep utseya out let alone being a better bowler. he has not done anything to deserve for people to call for him to be dropped.we have lamb spinning the ball in and price spinnng the ball away the combo is good and did work, it was just a batsmans pitch. everyone chill the hell out and start to learn to understand cricket , bowling is in partnerships , have a look at raymonds records and stats. price is by far a better bowler than utseya , utseya is one of y favourite players but he is not what we need in our test team atm yes when price retires or loses dramatic form utseya can come in but i would probaly rather creamer

[eugene]

I do sometimes wonder if some people on this forum actually watch the cricket matches in question or just look at the stats after the game. There is no way in hell that Price has been playing at a mediocre level. He was the most threatening bowler to the Pakistanis and they really struggled to get anything going against his bowling.

[Dr_Situ(ZimFanatic)]

So strange that people are questioning Priceless abilities of Price. Why dont u guys take a break and go fishing. Leave it for us to discuss things here

[Maweni]

Haha Price is a good player, by mediocrity I meant the strategy of including him in the team-he's a defensive bowler; he stems runs and won't take many wickets unless it's T20 or the opposition is piss poor. Prosper on the other hand, has returned taking wickets-we saw it against Bangladesh when he was taking wickets while Bangladesh were running away with the game. It's test cricket-to win you have to take 20 wickets. You might say Price is doing a great job allowing the guy at the other end to take wickets, but lets be honest-that's not what happened. And some teams may be happy to just take the draw-you need to attack them and for that reason I feel Prosper, and when he comes back, Cremer are more suitable to the job. Ha! If I needed any proof of you guys' love for Price, I have it. There will come a day when you'll have to accept he's in decline though, he's getting older, he's not been doing great and even the world rankings show it.
Also:

prices form has not dropped ! f**ck some of the people on this forum no nothing about cricket

Perhaps you just think you know everything? I had thought people should be allowed to share their fair opinions without being attacked like that. But I suppose you're not the only with with such an attitude judging by Dr Situ's suggestion that we who don't agree with his opinions go fishing and let you who do (and possibly know everything) continue to discuss. Let us oblige.

[sloandog]

Price is the number one spinner in the country, lets just get that straight. He's better than Utsea, he's better than Cremer (at the moment), and he's one of the few attacking options we have at our disposal. How can you say, Maweni, that Price is only used to stem the flow of runs ? How can you say he only takes wickets unless the opposition is piss poor ? He opened the bowling against Pakistan in the second innings because Taylor, and rightfully so, thinks he's the one guy he can depend on to take wickets...(and he took two wickets as a result!). His test record speaks for itself. Before the Bangladesh test he'd taken 89 test wickets in 18 matches. Utsea has never been a genuine wicket taker, I've got no idea where you got the idea that he is from he's a bowler than stems the flow of runs, not a wicket taker like Price. The following comments puzzled me too...

has returned taking wickets-we saw it against Bangladesh

Against Bangladesh....

taking wickets while Bangladesh...

Again, Bangladesh...
Price has been doing this against Bangladesh too mate, and also against other sides in the world. Put Utsea in a test match and he;d struggle because he doesn't spin the ball as much as price, and he's not got the experience that Price has.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Price's spot in the test squad being questioned. Hmm...

Let us take two other examples:

Heath Streak ended up with about 200 test wickets. For the number of test matches he played, had he played for, say, the Australian team of that time, he could have probably easily ended up with about 325 - 375 test wickets. Why? Test match cricket is all about team work. One quality bowler can't shut out the opposition. He needs support from the other end constantly, keeping things tight, asking questions, and creating the same amount of pressure from both ends. Streak rarely had this kind of support. Brief stints where he was bowling with Brandes, Paul Strang, Olonga and Blignaut when they were in red hot form, and Price towards the end, was when he was clearly more effective. Otherwise, the opposition can work out a strategy, and play safe against the one threatening bowler, no matter how much efforts he puts in, the oppostion always know that the next over is easy pickings. So, let us see through this spell. Also, if the batsmen haven't put up enough runs on the board, there is not enough pressure for the bowler to work with, which was the case for most of Streak's career.

Anil Kumble, around 2002-2003, at the age of 33-34, was being seen as a spent force. He hadn't even reached 400 test wickets back then. The Ganguly regime was clearly favoring Harbhajan Singh as the lead spinner, investing in him prematurely thinking that they have a decade and a half of his "magic" to follow. Kumble got a chance break on the Australian tour of 2004, took 24 wickets again in 3 tests, and never looked back for the next 5 years that followed, finishing as captain of the Indian test side, with 619 test scalps. And it is now being proven clearly that apart from a couple of flashes of brilliance, all the success that Harbhajan could boast of was due to the fact that he had a Kumble guiding him all the way through, and the fact that he was bowling in tandem with Kumble. Every Indian captain since the 1990s has looked to Kumble for wickets in the direst of situations, because he was the only one who could build pressure on the opposition by shutting out the runs.

Now, back to the topic, I see alot of Streak and Kumble in Price, and Price himself says Streak was his role model. In grit, determination, and the never-say-die attitude, he looks a mirror image of Kumble. When he gets on to the the cricketing field he knows what he is doing. He is a statesman, thinker, and contributes in every form he can. If you saw him diving around the field to stop singles when the much younger comrades were dropping catches left, right and center, you get the point. If you saw him talk to Taibu, Hamilton, Taylor, and other bowlers during the drinks breaks and over breaks, you get the point. His contribution is not just as a bowler, but he is the unofficial on-field Guru. And you don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that the wickets that fell at the other end were influenced by Price's stranglehold at the opposite end. Price is as attacking a bowler you can get around the world. It is the conditions and match situations that demand him to change his approach to a slightly defensive restrictive mode, but he, by nature is an attacking bowler and there is no denying that.

I say this by not being a fanatic supporter of Price, but as just an observer of cricket, and I have nothing against Prosper or Cremer for that matter. In fact, I would have put in Prosper in place of Lamb for the Pakistan test, as Price - Prosper is a proven combination, also with Prosper's batting having improved by leaps and bounds. But the fact is, both Prosper and Cremer need to be consistantly performing notches better than Price for a while for one to start thinking about them replacing Price. What is this "Price is on the decline" comment? He was pretty much our only saving grace with the ball in the CWC 2011, and he was probably slightly below par for the high standards he has set for himself on a couple of occasions this season. And anyway, with the parallels that I have drawn with Kumble, I firmly believe that like Kumble, Price will move on himself, leaving the field to the younger generation, the day he feels he is not fit for this anymore. He has always been the one who has put team before himself, and I'm sure he will continue to do so as long as he is involved in whatever capacity.

[andybligz93]

Haha Price is a good player, by mediocrity I meant the strategy of including him in the team-he's a defensive bowler; he stems runs and won't take many wickets unless it's T20 or the opposition is piss poor. Prosper on the other hand, has returned taking wickets-we saw it against Bangladesh when he was taking wickets while Bangladesh were running away with the game. It's test cricket-to win you have to take 20 wickets. You might say Price is doing a great job allowing the guy at the other end to take wickets, but lets be honest-that's not what happened. And some teams may be happy to just take the draw-you need to attack them and for that reason I feel Prosper, and when he comes back, Cremer are more suitable to the job. Ha! If I needed any proof of you guys' love for Price, I have it. There will come a day when you'll have to accept he's in decline though, he's getting older, he's not been doing great and even the world rankings show it.
Also:

prices form has not dropped ! f**ck some of the people on this forum no nothing about cricket

Perhaps you just think you know everything? I had thought people should be allowed to share their fair opinions without being attacked like that. But I suppose you're not the only with with such an attitude judging by Dr Situ's suggestion that we who don't agree with his opinions go fishing and let you who do (and possibly know everything) continue to discuss. Let us oblige.

i dont think i know everything i just know the simple things unlike you my friend .

[sillymid]

Andybligz9 swearing is just not appropriate. Different views should be debated without such unfortunate comments. Price no doubt is a overally a better bowler than Prosper but ever since the IPL he has been bowling way below his average. Prosper has on the other hand been taking wickets and at crucial times too. If we are sticking to our rewarding good perfomance strategy then Prosper should be in the next test.