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Originally Posted by Equinox
I don't expect most people to understand what Siddons is doing and realise his influence until after he's gone. Five-ten years from now people will hail him as the architect of our success. He came in with a long-term plan and wasn't in it for one or two fluke wins a year a la Whatmore.
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yes, mind boggling how some people think that champaka was a good pacer coach too.
yes, to some extent, development or performance is based on the players themselves. they're the ones who are bowling, batting, fielding, etc. however, Siddons' technical advice must be paying dividends. previously, a bowler of Jimmy Anderson's calibre would mercilessly run through our top, middle, and bottom order and inflict an innings defeat on us on a pitch 83 times as flat as this one. each one of these bowlers is good. forget player of the year Swann (the best offie in the world right now and one of the very few non-Bangladeshi players i support). Anderson is better than he's played this game (maybe we're just that good, haha). Bresnan was the leading pacer when they toured BD just a few weeks ago, and Finn has 6 for the match as it stands right now, so he's definitely not shabby.
lets just see where we were when Siddons first took over. recall, that Siddons got the job and was almost universally embraced due to his obvious batting pedigree. we didn't really expect him to turn us into a side that would blast the opposition out for under 150 runs in just 2 sessions. but we expected him to make us a team that would score 300 regularily and 400 frequently. and that is exactly what he's delivering. the way we are developing, there isn't any reason to think we won't be scoring 500 someday in the forseeable future. this was simply unthinkable in the past.
but even when Siddons took over, we were highly "inconsistent". that consistency is beginning to show through. just look at our averages over the past 12-18 months. everyone's is up. Habibul Bashar in his prime would struggle to get into this lineup. and he was the "Bangladeshi Bradman".
look at Siddons first test series, we had that record (broken today) opening stand of 161 between Junaid and Tamim, the remaining 39 wickets that series fetched us 486 runs @ an average of 12.46. this was in NZ against attack of Martin, Mills, Obrien, Oram and Vettori. not a minnow attack, but not world beaters either.
so far, excluding tamim and imrul's play today, we have 425-14 @ 30.36.