It's an interesting series to watch because these aren't just snippets of wickets taken and milestones reached. It's an extended set of highlights so you get to notice a lot of that stuff. One thing I found was how those blokes dealt with balls which misbehaved - in his 130 odd you could see Lawry (and others in their knocks) almost take his bottom hand off the bat as they turned balls off their hips - it seemed they were conditioned to ride the bounce and play with much softer hands than today.On the topic though, that sort of **** is really interesting to me. The evolution of batting craft has always been an area of fascination for me.
I'd think almost certainly it was a result of the pitches. Driving a ball that wasn't a half volley back then was always fraught with danger because there was a propensity for it to hold up in the wicket, whereas today the pitches are far truer, and you can simply drive through the ball with relative surety that the ball would have a regulation speed and bounce to it.
Having slower pitches simply allows one more time to sit on the back foot and hit it along the ground.
Hey Rob,
Just noticed you posted a clip from Sharjah (Pak/Aus 2002) of ponting vs sami, Man I would looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove to see the inning of Hayden, the one he played under scorching heat of UAE, against us.
and if you think that I couldn't be more happier, you can try uploading that inning, ball by ball....I'd surpise you!
ouch......this was soooo painful
My to do list is over 4000 requests long......no joke.Hoping the M D Crowe 188 in Brisbane 1985 is still on the to-do list Rob
Watched it live and I'm pretty sure that was the breeziest day too.....Max temp 39C, humidity 95%.
Ouch.
Need to see Pollock's batting from that match. Was a great knock anyway but so sad when he really got into stride and people started to remember that the reason many of them hadn't seen him before was because he only got to play 20-odd Tests.Hahaha I remember that match. So awesome.
Need to televise more celebrity matches imo.
ouch.....you are out to hurt us today