There were several better swing bowlers around the country, who'd proven their calibre far more than a 29-year-old who'd barely played First-Class cricket - never mind in this country - had done.
I was shocked Hoggard wasn't in. He had a perfectly good reason for being below form in New Zealand and the ECB's reasoning is "we wanted a swing bowler", er how about picking the best swing bowler we've had in recent times?
Very rare, in my experience. Usually the precise opposite happens, in this country or anywhere else. Most young players with an unusual talent in their promise tend to be rushed, hopelessly.
It still seems inendurably odd that such a thing happened so apparently behind-closed-doors.
Medium-pace and sub-90 mph are two totally different things. You can be successful at Test level by bowling fast-medium and even medium-fast. Out-and-out medium will rarely if ever produce any real success at Test level, but that's 70-74 mph or so. Medium-fast merchants can be successful, and most of the most successful bowlers have been fast-medium. Truly fast bowlers who've had sustained sucess are rare - in no small part due to the fact that bowling 90 mph fast for more than 4-5 years isn't easy at all.
Opposite is true. The quicker you bowl, the smaller your margin-for-error, because it only needs a half-decent contact and no real backlift, and once it misses the fielders it's runs. The slower you bowl the more the batsmen have to make the pace. It's height that gives you greater margin-for-error, and there in length only, not in line.
I'd hope he can make-up the difference rather quicker than 7 years' time. Maybe 3-4.
I've said it before, but the only conceivable reason for Hoggard's exclusion is that he's upset someone. The notion that various bowlers who've been picked ahead of him in the last year are all unequivocally better is, well, simply nonsensical. No-one who knows a thing about cricket would perport it. So there has to be more to it. Maybe we'll find-out someday.
As I say - sub-90 mph isn't medium-pace, there's two whole divisions before you get down there. Neither Cork nor Caddick were flash-in-the-pan bowlers who were worked-out, they simply didn't bowl as well as they could have for long enough. Cork's 1995 and 1996 didn't last due to a number of factors; Caddick's 1999-2001 didn't last due to a few others. Asif may be a drug cheat but he wasn't drugging the batsmen - his success came due to the fact that he bowled damn sensationally and had huge success (admittedly short-term, but any fool could see that all he needed to do was keep bowling like that and he'd keep being successful) at no more than fast-medium speed. It had nothing to do with drugs.
It usually does, but the coaches at Essex and Surrey seem to have their heads screwed on. It's not the same for every county, but those 2 have great youth systems and don't rush players through unless their confident they can make the grade.
As far as I know, the ECB hold speed tests every year to check on fast bowling development. It's probably because someone clocked a ridiculous speed that it has been mentioned.
I didn't mean 90mph dead on, but 88mph upwards.
I don't get the point.
I disagree. I've seen many a bowler who was poor or average but beat the batsman for pace cos they were bowling 90mph+. I've seen a lot of bowlers 85mph- get spanked. Great batsmen have no trouble exerting power on a ball of 85mph-. It's more difficult to time a 90mph+ delivery.
Well he definitely wont do that. In 4 years' time he may get in the team but will probably emulate Stuart Broad and be nothing really special to start with.
So 2-3 years each ISN'T "flash in the pan"?
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I know you have your tongue firmly in cheek but his increase in pace was attributed to a stint at the MRF Pace Foundation.Remember watching Asif bowling to Gilchrist at about mid-to-high 120s and getting a walloping at the SCG.
He gained a fair bit of pace from then to when he became a world class bowler...
I'm just saying that he bowled well regardless of whether he took drugs or not. His bowling being so effective had nothing to do with drugs, because he wasn't drugging the batsmen - that sort of bowling is simply too good for batsmen, regardless of anything else.
I don't know about "a fair bit" TBH - I'd say 5-6 kph or so. He was never regularly over 140 kph, UIMM.Remember watching Asif bowling to Gilchrist at about mid-to-high 120s and getting a walloping at the SCG.
He gained a fair bit of pace from then to when he became a world class bowler...
Glad to hear that, and I know it's not the same at all counties, but as I say - it's so rare to see really good handling of an up-and-coming player that I rarely hold-out much hope.
As I say, I'll be surprised if any of Jordan, Westfield or Chambers make the grade; Meaker I'm more ambivalent about as he's not done anything much anywhere yet, but I still think people who've got him in their minds as a certain England prospect have gone hopelessly premature.
It only ever seems to have been mentioned in unofficial capacity though. Is there any firm evidence anywhere of just when and how it happened? I'd love to know.
I think you're barking up several wrong trees. You always have to be top-notch to take a lot of wickets, 90mph+ or 85mph-. And fast is every bit as easy for top-class batsmen as fast-medium and medium-fast, when the ball isn't doing anything. Any bowler who doesn't move the ball sideways (or extract uneven bounce) has next to no hope of any sustained success at any remotely serious level. Higher pace merely accentuates any weapons a bowler has - it isn't a weapon in itself.
I wasn't making that comment in relation to how good and how quick a bowler is - merely stating how things were with McGrath. For more of his career than not, he was no more than fast-medium.
I've seen the opposite (lots of 90mph+ bowlers get spanked and lots of 85mph- get good figures). And no, top-class batsmen are not beaten for speed purely by a ball of 91-92 mph - it needs to be 97-98 mph for that. The sort of speed only the odd bowler in history has ever been able to manage - and even then only in isolated bursts. If you're seeking to beat batsmen purely for pace, you've next to no hope. As I say above, pace is only something which increases the effectiveness of weapons - it isn't a weapon in itself.
It's also less important to time a 90mph+ delivery, because the pace is already on the ball. All you need is a slight deflection, and bam - once you've beaten the fielders, it races away. Obviously, at lower pace you have more time to get the right timing, but nonetheless, the margin-for-error is higher at 80mph than 90mph.
Harris is already a class above Broad, so thus I hope he can mature at a slightly younger age.
But it does mean that it wasn't to do with pace. I wish people would stop concentrating on an issue I've no interest in and thus am not posting about, and interpreting my posts as if I was.That doesn't mean his being effective wasn't to do with drugs though
Of course it's not. 6 or 7 matches over a few months (like for example Stephen Harmison in early-2004) would be a flash-in-the-pan.
Caddick mostly bowled well below his best. The only time he bowled sustainedly well at Test level was between July 1999 and May 2001. Otherwise he was often way below, with only odd spells (like, 7-8 overs in 3 or 4 games) where he hit his best. He was not worked-out.
Of course he was never going to be as good as Dennis Lillee but he could easily have been as good as Bob Willis or John Snow if he'd been sounder of temperament, and bowled at his best more often.
Again, I fail to see how Asif's drug-cheating is of the slightest relevance to how good his bowling was or wasn't, but if you seriously think that the sort of bowling he produced for most of 2006 was ever going to be worked-out then, well, I'm afraid you don't really understand cricket. Such bowling is simply too good, and will never, ever, under any circumstances, be worked-out. I didn't see the 2006/07 Pak-vs-SA series so I don't know how Asif bowled, but there is absolutely no way that he bowled the same, in the same conditions, as he had for the rest of the year.
Eh? Waqar was always a swing bowler - he was just initially an extremely quick swing bowler who later became a slightly less quick swing bowler. Ditto Malcolm Marshall, Richard Hadlee, Dennis Lillee and countless others.
Almost every Test bowler in history has done so.
I'm honestly not really all that bothered whether drugs made a massive impact or a small impact; as I've said before, drugs are no use without the talent. I and 95% of the population could start taking nandrolone tomorrow and we'd never have a hope in hell of being remotely as good as Mohammad Asif.Okay, I think it's fair enough to say it wasn't to do with pace - it just sounded to me like you were 100% certain that drugs were nothing to do with his success which in all honesty is something we can't be certain of either way.
Making a bowler quicker isn't the only way drugs could help improve a bowler.
Caddick fan-boy much?
Yeah and I saw all of Caddick's test career and he wasn't as good as you think he was. I don't see why you like him so much, he had 3 good years, not even great years- just good.
Temperament is part of being a bowler btw.
Because Asif's drug taking added pace which turned him from decent to good. That added A LOT to his bowling. Not his accuracy, no steroid can do that otherwise Sami would've taken some, but added that extra zip which got wickets. That's cheating, simple as.
He always swung the ball but early (very early) in his career, he was much faster. As he got better, he mastered swing and it became largely irrelevent how quick he was. The same with Akram. Both slowed down a lot as they mastered swing.
Brett Lee has still gotten wickets though whereas others of a slower pace haven't and hasn't often been smashed since he's got into the Aussie team "full time".
I don't want to sidetrack the discussion too much but that isn't true. A bowler's ability to bowl well can be reliant on how much work they can put into the bowling, which can be aided by using illegal performance enhancing drugs that allow you to train for longer than other athletes. And consistent performances can rely on stamina as much as anything else, which can be aided by illegal performance enhancing drugs.