. He canes all the blokes everyone on here worships
Like who ?
Didnt know these so-called half-baked opening bowlers are 'worshipped' here.
except England in 05 when he was hopelessly out of form.
When England happened to assemble a good fast pace attack. Surprise Surprise.
Let me tell you when he was 'hopelessly out of form' too - pretty much throughout the 90s. His form just happened to come roaring back when the pitches became easier than hookers to score on and good quality fast bowlers all decieded to retire en mass.
Good timing on Haydos' part i gotto say!
Well, I'd rather walk from here to Perth to watch Hayden walk down the deck to a quick in the 1st session of a test match and deposit him 15 rows back than stroll across the road to snore through 65 overs a day of boring fast stuff, which is what the 80s was all about.
The point is, if this were the 80s or 90s and you walked from 'here'(wherever here is) to Perth to watch Hayden walk down the deck to Ambrose/Wasim/Waqar/Walsh/Marshall/Garner/Holding/Imran/Waqar/Wasim/Hadlee etc, you'd have either seen Hayden's blood on the pitch or Hayden walking back to the pavillion really really soon. Walking down the pitch is just about the most taunting thing a batsman can do to a fast bowler. And if the fast bowlers happen to be any of the abovementioned name and my backfoot play as weak as Hayden, i'd be making sure my will is in order before i tried walking down the pitch to those bowlers. And i mean it seriously.
I've wondered for a while whether the Windies demise as number 1 in the world coincided with the developments in the game post the requirement to lift over rates.
No.
You wondered wrong.
largely because they take fast bowling on like no one ever has before.
I wont comment on Lara or Tendulkar- because they've proven it over and over again against quality bowlers on much harder surfaces. But the likes of Sehwag, Ponting, Hayden, Kallis, Dravid, etc- ie, all those who happened to find form when pitches flattened out and good bowling died, would suffer majorly against good fast bowling. Dravid the least and Hayden the most in my opinion from that group.
Trust me, if Hayden is taking on a bunch of nobodys of today, those nobodys would've been murdered by Gavaskar, Richards, Miandad, Chappell and dozen others.
but how would the Windies react when they bowled short to Ponting or Tendy or The Prince and then had to go and get another ball out of the box, all while sending down 90 overs a day in the heat?
Look- i don't care if its Bradman, Tendulkar or Lara, let alone lesser bats like Ponting - the # of games where the WI bowlers of the 80s/90s would've to go get another ball from the box would be far rarer than the # of games the batsmen would've returned trembling.
The fearsome-foursome was an indominatable attack. Best you could hope for is survival. But so far, i've never seen anyone dominate 4 bowlers (more than once or twice in their entire careers)who are accurate to the inch, bowl above 90mph and/or routinely bowl balls at good length that shoots for your throat.
The *only* way to dominate bowling like that is to utterly master one shot : the hook. And even Mohinder Amarnath- who was 10 times the player of that shot than Tendulkar,Lara or Ponting are, spat blood a few times against the fearsome foursome.
His game and technique are products of the era which he plays in
No. His game and technique are substandard for an opener. Very very substandard. He was a product of the era he came in- a mediocre product at that- then brought back when it became easy money to bat.
) - Smith is no more or less susceptible to the inswinger than Hayden. As I did mention in an earlier post.
