Not Enough Pace for this Level

[Uppercut]

There's a repeated assumption when it comes to bowlers of around 80mph or less that, even if they've taken bucketloads of wickets in first-class cricket, they're not good enough for tests. It's applied pretty heavily by selectors, even when- as in the case of Stuart Clark- the player in question has already taken boatloads of cheap test wickets. And by fans, hence Darren Sammy's place is constantly being whined about despite him having the most successful start to a West Indian test career since the 90s. The Sri Lankan selectors believed it so strongly that they selected Suranga Lakmal ahead of Nuwan Kulasekara for the test series in England. It's a dogma so strong that it was used to justify a bowler with an enormously successful first-class and ODI career (and a decent start to his test career) being left out in favour of someone who's never had any remote success at any level.

So I'm questioning that assumption. Where did it even come from, and why is it applied to such a serious extent? What makes test batsmen so notably better at playing medium-fast bowling in comparison to first-class batsmen relative to their ability to play fast-medium or fast bowling? I haven't seen anywhere near enough evidence for this idea to justify the extent to which the hypothesis is accepted by the cricketing community.

 

[lockton2skipper]

bloody good point, but on good pitches medium pace bowlers are generally inefective.

 

[Jarquis]

Seriously?

 

[Uppercut]

So are all bowlers. That's what makes them flat pitches .

 

[GIMH]

I guess what he's saying though, is that on a flat pitch, a batsman is more likely to be undone by raw pace

 

[Xuhaib]

Most of the great fast bowlers over the past 30-40 years have been bowlers with good pace even the slower ones among them regularly his 85 mph at the peaks( Mcgrath,Pollock,Walsh)The likes of Prasad,Aaqib, Paul Reifel despite being accurate and decent movers of the ball struggled to consistently pick test wickets like their quicker counter parts. A genunie quick can be uesful if he develops reasonable accuracy case in point Edwards, however a medium pacer apart from being accurate also has to have a lot of ball skills in order to stay successful.

 

[Uppercut]

Unless your opening attack consists of Steyn and Zaheer, you won't take wickets on a flat deck. That's how cricket is these days. Every bowler needs conditions to be in their favour to some extent except the very, very best.

When Nuwan Kulasekara went for runs in India, he was dropped after on game and granted the status of "not fast enough for this level". When every other bowler in the entire world went for runs in India people complained about pitches, praised the Indian batting lineup or acknowledged that they'd had a bad game.

Basically, when a fast bowler doesn't take wickets in a test, it's because his rhythm was off or the batsmen played him well or he just didn't have a good game. But when a medium-fast bowler goes a test without wickets, it's always because he's too slow. There's an unbelievable level of confirmation bias upholding this hypothesis, and as a result medium-fast bowlers are often written off so quickly that we never get the chance to see it tested. To get a decent run in a test side as a medium-fast bowler you generally need to have started out a bit faster and dropped some pace later in your career, as was the case with McGrath, Pollock and Asif.

 

[Spark]

Yeah Clark was an odd one. Never mind it was a flat pitch entirely unsuited to his style of bowling and Strauss and Trott were in top form. He suddenly became "too slow" and his Test average of 24ish got thrown out the window.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Asif's not a sub-80mph bowler & gets good bounce and carry.

It's not just about speed-gun pace, because I think it's an overrated way of judging a bowler's pace, the likes of Luke Wright & early period Shane Watson are/were consistently up around or even over 85mph, but because of their trajectory don't get much in the way of leap off the pitch to trouble the batsman.

Gus Fraser, on the other hand, rarely troubled 80mph once his back woes had reduced his youthful zip, but because of his height and great seam position was consistently a threat.

The bowlers I think will struggle at test level are sub-80mph wicket-to-wicket bowlers. Praveen Kumar has had (statistically at least) decent start to his test career, but because of his lack of anything but swing I still think when he faces a real test-quality batting line up he'll be fodder. Kulasekera doubly so because he doesn't get Kumar's swing.

 

[Uppercut]

Indeed. Siddle didn't take wickets either, but no one decided he was too ugly for test level and permanently threw him out of the side.

 

[GIMH]

Yeah Clark was an odd one. Never mind it was a flat pitch entirely unsuited to his style of bowling and Strauss and Trott were in top form. He suddenly became "too slow" and his Test average of 24ish got thrown out the window.

Got carted about by Broad and Swann at Headingley too

 

[Uppercut]

Got carted about by Broad and Swann at Headingley too

True but he ate England alive in the first innings of that match and it's a bit of a stretch to declare that he suddenly became inadequate halfway through a test .

Besides, Siddle got carted too. You're allowed to when you bowl sort-of fast.

 

[silentstriker]

Who doesn't get carted around once in a while?

 

[Spark]

Got carted about by Broad and Swann at Headingley too

When there was zero thought of conserving one's wicket on a pitch which is good for batting (which that definitely was at that time) with two capable sloggers at the crease, that can happen. It's such a rare situation though that for me it has zero relevance as to whether someone is still a Test-quality bowler.

 

[Top_Cat]

Less about pace, more about seam. If you're med-quick and can hit the seam on a regular basis, you probably won't get the 'too slow for Test level' charge levelled at you. If you're med-quick and don't, probably not going to take regular Test poles these days. Certainly the days of the 10-pace, does a bit each way with cutters Test bowler are long gone.

Has been the most conspicuous thing missing by it's absence from Stuey Clark's bowling since he was injured a couple of years back. BB's example of Shane Watson is a good one too, remember remarking at the time of his first Test how I'd never seen a bloke stopping the gun at 140Km/h look so much like a medium-pacer. Comes down to seam movement and why I reckon Kumar's going to get carted in England.

EDIT: Re: Clark, I do wonder how much tooling about with his bowling to be a better ODI bowler affected his long-form game.

 

[GIMH]

True but he ate England alive in the first innings of that match and it's a bit of a stretch to declare that he suddenly became inadequate halfway through a test .

Besides, Siddle got carted too. You're allowed to when you bowl sort-of fast.

Who doesn't get carted around once in a while?

Wasn't using it as evidence of him being past it; fact is though, he played amazingly in one innings and was pretty bloody poor in the other three

 

[Spark]

Surely that doesn't even come close to outweighing the fact his Test average was about 23-24 though

 

[Uppercut]

Less about pace, more about seam. If you're med-quick and can hit the seam on a regular basis, you probably won't get the 'too slow for Test level' charge levelled at you. If you're med-quick and don't, probably not going to take regular Test poles these days.

I don't disagree, I just don't think that's any more true at test level than it is at FC level. A medium-fast bowler who doesn't find any seam movement or bounce really isn't likely to be a big success in FC games either.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Surely that doesn't even come close to outweighing the fact his Test average was about 23-24 though

Clark may or may not have been dumped too quickly, but his last three test series produced modest returns and, coupled with his age, one can sort of see what the selectors thought, even if one disagrees.

 

[keeper]

Interesting question. I believe there is room for an 80 mph bowler who can swing it both ways, use subtle variations in pace, cutters etc. it does, however, need to be built around a very, very high degree of accuracy. Bedser style I suppose. If all other things are equal then a good quick 'un is preferable to a slower good 'un but there's other things besides pace.