*Official* England in West Indies

[Uppercut]

Most pitches you can tell at least to some extent how they're going to play beforehand, and if you're a good reader of a pitch you can often tell with near exactness. From time to time you'll get a surface that confounds everyone (the last Test, for instance) but that's pretty rare.

Purely and simply, your best bowlers can (don't neccessarily always) change according to conditions. If you've got two good fingerspinners it'd be madness not to play both of them on a turner, but equally there's no point whatsoever playing either on a green deck that's clearly going to offer them nothing and other bowlers plenty. And vice-versa for a seamer who doesn't swing it much and doesn't get it to do much off a deck with no grass on but will always exploit anything that's there if there's just a bit in it off the seam.

Obviously, you hope that someone who can bowl reverse-swing well can also bowl conventional-swing well, and vice-versa. If they can't, you should be looking not to swap them around but to help them learn to use the other method. If you can bowl one, you can bowl the other if you practice enough. Swing and the pitch are two completely different things.

Equally obviously, the best bowlers can exploit almost any pitch. A high-class seamer, or a really top-notch wristspinner (the once-in-several-generation types), should be selected regardless of pitch or atmospheric conditions when fit, but such bowlers aren't extraordinarily common and you can't expect more than a couple of them in one team at a time.

Occasionally I think you give pitches a bit too much credit that should go to the players. How many times do we see a pitch that takes no turn for one bowler but plenty for another? Just see the first test with Benn vs. Monty. Likewise, often one bowler will get the ball to seam or swing on a particular day while another will struggle to, even if both are seam/swing bowlers. The pitch is important, but the guy with the ball in his hand is much moreso.

 

[Richard]

MSP turned the ball plenty at Sabina Park, he just bowled poorly, whereas Benn bowled well, and thus Benn got the figures and MSP didn't.

It's one thing getting the ball to seam\turn - it's quite another actually exploiting this to take the figures. People said Glenn McGrath could get the ball to seam where other bowlers couldn't; well, not really, he just hit consistently better areas than almost any bowler so you noticed the ones that did a bit for him because they beat\hit the edge, whereas for other bowlers they were often left harmlessly and hardly anyone takes notice of a ball that seams from way outside off.

Pitches can render certain types of bowlers useless, but they can never automatically make someone get the figures; the bowler still has to bowl well to do that. If someone takes wickets by bowling well, I'll always give them credit; it's just I'll also mention if they required the pitch to do it, whereas for some this would be interpreted as trying to detract from the performance.

 

[Precambrian]

Just hope the mid-wife doesn't drop as many deliveries as Prior.

The sheer thought of it makes me shudder.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Am curious where is Mr Simon Jones at? he was injured yea?

Yeah still crocked.

Not so much "still" as "again". Bowled as close to a full season as he has since 2005 but the need for yet another op is worrying. Turned 30 now as well so probly always destined to remain an unfulfilled talent.

 

[Woodster]

Poor indictment on the team if a guy who couldn't even bowl at the stumps at the most crucial juncture of the game did enough to warrant another go. That spell along should have been the death knell for him.

Ah, therefore drop the whole attack that played! At times in cricket these partnerships can happen, yes it was mightily disappointing, but that's cricket. I'm not suggesting it should simply be brushed under the carpet and forgotten, but I am judging Harmy's performance on the whole Test, rather than the bit you have picked out, and the outside factors he had to battle against. It could be said that it's a poor state of affairs that England should need to rely on a man that has had a stomach bug and visibly struggled for days to remove a number 10 or 11 !! It wasn't all Harmy.

 

[Woodster]

Much as plenty of decks currently tend to be slower and lower than what you'd call the halfway-mark, there's still enough of them with reasonably high bounce and speed. And I've seen Harmison bowl on more than one of such things and, bowling as he usually does, he's still going to be completely ineffective, because he just doesn't do much with the ball.

Good batsmen can simply camp on the back-foot to him and play him from the crease. You almost never see top-quality batsmen simply bounced out - it just doesn't happen, except on truly lightning pitches like you used to see at The WACA (and pretty much nowhere else).

There are not many pitches played on nowadays that offer such excitement for big quicks.

Very easy to say camp on the back foot, but quite tricky even for top batsmen to get on top of the bounce, off a good length, at close to 90mph.

 

[Richard]

I'm not saying it's easy, just that it's do-able and that most good batsmen generally manage to do it and thus don't very often lose their wickets to bowlers who pitch consistently short and don't do much with the ball. You have to be able to do something with the ball, and ideally threaten the stumps and draw the batsmen forwards, to be able to take wickets consistently.

I've seen Harmison bowl exactly as people are always advocating for him to bowl on more than a few occasions, and often enough it's been totally ineffective in terms of actually getting wickets - though yes, the batsmen generally look fairly uncomfortable.

 

[Furball]

Sourav Ganguly, talking about the merits of short bowling in 2003:

But the point is you don't get people out with short balls, you get them out by pitching it up. I have heard this short-ball rubbish for a long time now. How many times do you get batsmen out hooking or fending? I have played enough cricket, scored enough runs, but how many times have I got out to a short ball? They have been bowling short to Steve Waugh for years now, and while he might sometimes look awkward playing the short ball, how many times has he actually got out to it? He's got 32 centuries and people are still saying he can't play the short ball. I have no time for such nonsense.

 

[Richard]

Funnily enough I actually mentioned that back at the time he said it.

 

[Woodster]

I agree, to a degree, with Ganguly, and I think you have clearly mis-interpreted my Harmison stance, and I personally have never advocated Harmy take up a short length and attempt to bounce batsmen out?? There is a subtle difference between bowling an effective length that gets steep bounce leaving the batsman little option but to play the stroke, and banging the ball in halfway down. Not sure how these wires have been crossed, but I have made no reference to short pitch bowling.

 

[Richard]

Even if he were to be able to find the right length, it's not much use without doing something with the ball, in my experience - and this is an area in which Harmison has always lacked. Most of his deliveries just go straight through, so whatever length he bowls, he does not beat the batsmen.

 

[Woodster]

Even if he were to be able to find the right length, it's not much use without doing something with the ball, in my experience - and this is an area in which Harmison has always lacked. Most of his deliveries just go straight through, so whatever length he bowls, he does not beat the batsmen.

I think if he consistently hit the right length with the steepling kind of bounce he can find, he would remove even the top batsmen, despite not getting it to dart about a great deal. The problem is these are areas he has struggled with, which is why there's all this talk of him being finished. His pace has been down and length and direction off, which is not ideal for his style of quick bowling. The temptation to continue including him is in hope of him finding his range, pace and length, no-one expects him to start being a swing bowler or a seamer that gets huge movement.

 

[Furball]

I think if he consistently hit the right length with the steepling kind of bounce he can find, he would remove even the top batsmen, despite not getting it to dart about a great deal. The problem is these are areas he has struggled with, which is why there's all this talk of him being finished. His pace has been down and length and direction off, which is not ideal for his style of quick bowling. The temptation to continue including him is in hope of him finding his range, pace and length, no-one expects him to start being a swing bowler or a seamer that gets huge movement.

The other problem is that domestically, there's not many bowlers knocking on the door.

Kabir Ali and Simon Jones, if they can translate their success last season into division 1 are about the only England qualified bowlers other than Mark Davies who should have a serious shot based on domestic results. Like him or not, there's no denying that Harmison is an excellent bowler for Durham, and were he to be dropped and play regularly for Durham, Harmison's figures will demand his inclusion.

 

[Woodster]

The other problem is that domestically, there's not many bowlers knocking on the door.

Kabir Ali and Simon Jones, if they can translate their success last season into division 1 are about the only England qualified bowlers other than Mark Davies who should have a serious shot based on domestic results. Like him or not, there's no denying that Harmison is an excellent bowler for Durham, and were he to be dropped and play regularly for Durham, Harmison's figures will demand his inclusion.

No there isn't anyone really demanding inclusion into the Test squad. The pace attack currently for the England Lions in New Zealand is Mark Davies, Saj Mahmood, and Liam Plunkett, with Luke Wright offering some back-up. I am one of the few that quite likes Mahmood, although would not have him near an England Test XI at this moment.

 

[Uppercut]

Mark Davies is a bit slow. I wouldn't let that stop me from picking him if he can take wickets, but I'd sooner have Matthew Hoggard back if they're going for a medium-fast man.

 

[Richard]

I think if he consistently hit the right length with the steepling kind of bounce he can find, he would remove even the top batsmen, despite not getting it to dart about a great deal.

Yes, and you're certainly not alone in thinking that. However, my experiences in watching cricket for the last 11 years have led me to believe that this just doesn't happen much. So I don't like to see bowlers picked in the hope that it does.

In my experience, a bowler simply has to do more than this in order to be successful.

 

[Richard]

Mark Davies is a bit slow. I wouldn't let that stop me from picking him if he can take wickets, but I'd sooner have Matthew Hoggard back if they're going for a medium-fast man.

I'd have Davies over Mahmood or Plunkett without a backward thought, but I still wouldn't neccessarily expect him to be a successful Test bowler.

 

[Woodster]

Yes, and you're certainly not alone in thinking that. However, my experiences in watching cricket for the last 11 years have led me to believe that this just doesn't happen much. So I don't like to see bowlers picked in the hope that it does.

In my experience, a bowler simply has to do more than this in order to be successful.

It has certainly happened for Harmison, hence the hope he can re-kindle that type of performance. It's not a case of just hoping he is the one that manages it, whether you agree or not, that is how he is most successful and why the selectors are, rightly or wrongly, persevering.

A big, tall, fast bowler on a pacy and bouncy track is definitely a wicket-taking threat, in my experience.

 

[superkingdave]

Looks like its Bopara for Flintoff given Strauss' comments about Ian Bell. Would seem to be Harmison vs Khan for a spot as well.

"The reality is that the reasons we dropped Ian Bell haven't particularly changed," he said Strauss.

"We feel that he needs to work on a few things and he needs to freshen up mentally.

"If he comes into the game then he wouldn't have had the opportunity to do that, or at least it would only have been a very short window to do that."

Swann to play

 

[Uppercut]

Straussy sure does talk great sense. Shame about some of his decision-making in the last test.