2nd Test, Lord's, London

[hazsa19]

I want to appreciate greatness, I really do, but he makes it very hard for me.

 

[Spark]

You'd get more decisions wrong if you stuck to it rigidly

Well you don't stick to it rigidly, but it's a good prior to have

 

[OverratedSanity]

You can pencil in another hundred here, yeah?

 

[Cabinet96]

One other thing I'll add to the conditions chat. In my experience rain is terrible for swing. If the outfield is properly wet it ruins the leather on the ball. I doubt the Lords outfield is anywhere near as wet as a lot of club matches I've played but they have played through bits of rain this morning, which might be making the ball do less through the air than it otherwise would've.

 

[morgieb]

You can't make decisions based on things like this though.

Well yeah you can. Unless you're bowling a yorker it's very unlikely that'll be either pitching in-line or hitting off-stump from that angle.

And that probably does it for today. At least we've sort of weathered the storm and Smith's still out there, so it's going to be hard for England to force a result.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Decent session's cricket. Aus didn't do too bad considering conditions and with Smith still there anything can happen. England bowled ok.

 

[Starfighter]

I absolutely agree with the latter. In general I'm a very scientific studies and logic over people's anecdotal evidence kind of guy. As a swing bowler who has played a fair amount of cricket though, I find it really tough to believe more humidity doesn't equal more swing on a lot of occasions. I'm definitely of an open mind to seeing evidence against it though.

The thing is there's not really any evidence against, more just lack of evidence for. Studying cricket ball swing doesn't exactly get the grant money rolling so it's hard to study, but if someone could get the resources it would be easy to get the Hawkeye data and compare it to recorded weather conditions where available to discern any relationships to confirm if the effect exists.

As a swing bowler myself Ive always never noticed the effect as much as some others, the wind direction and how well (or more normally badly) I'm releasing the ball are bigger influences. But it's something that has been noted a lot which means there might be something to it. We just don't know what the mechanism is, if the effect exists.

 

[vogue]

Lunch whilst the rain comes.. and more rain this afternoon...missed this mornings session ,but looks like England’s session.

 

[stephen]

I can't stand biology. High school chemistry though was a breeze. Coasted through on memory only, not bothering to take notes and ended up near the top of the class (beaten by someone who went on to be a doctor). Having said that, I heard that chemistry gets bloody hard at university level when you have to remember formulas for wave equations and the like. And I can't stand applied chemistry (can't think of much worse than performing chemistry experiments all day).

So I did software engineering. It's hard enough science that there's not much politics but not so much hard science that you spend your lifetime chasing theories that don't pan out. It's the lazy man's hard science that lets you make mistakes and use compilers to fix them for you.

 

[Burgey]

In a public hospital. Fantastic gig, would recommend it to anyone who doesn't want to work hard enough to be doctor or nurse.

Never mind the public hospital, I would hope you’re cooking privately. It’s the way forward, surely.

 

[Spark]

I can't stand biology. High school chemistry though was a breeze. Coasted through on memory only, not bothering to take notes and ended up near the top of the class (beaten by someone who went on to be a doctor). Having said that, I heard that chemistry gets bloody hard at university level when you have to remember formulas for wave equations and the like. And I can't stand applied chemistry (can't think of much worse than performing chemistry experiments all day).

So I did software engineering. It's hard enough science that there's not much politics but not so much hard science that you spend your lifetime chasing theories that don't pan out. It's the lazy man's hard science that lets you make mistakes and use compilers to fix them for you.

Oh man if you think the harder the science, the less the politics, have I got news for you

 

[Starfighter]

One other thing I'll add to the conditions chat. In my experience rain is terrible for swing. If the outfield is properly wet it ruins the leather on the ball. I doubt the Lords outfield is anywhere near as wet as a lot of club matches I've played but they have played through bits of rain this morning, which might be making the ball do less through the air than it otherwise would've.

The ball getting wet just wrecks it, so not surprised it doesn't swing there. Not sure this ball will be that wet, and it has swung a little for the past few overs.


This could very well be it for the day. England in a distinctly advantageous position.

 

[Spark]

The ball getting wet just wrecks it, so not surprised it doesn't swing there. Not sure this ball will be that wet, and it has swung a little for the past few overs.


This could very well be it for the day. England in a distinctly advantageous position.

If that is it for the day then the big winner is "draw" tbf with the void a distant second

 

[StephenZA]

Yeah this is why I always roll my eyes when commentators like Botham say "oh, scientists have no idea where swing comes from". No, ****, scientists don't care

I am sure that there is some scientist working on F1 flow dynamics that has a program somewhere... but yeah he does not give a ****.

Oh man if you think the harder the science, the less the politics, have I got news for you

Scientist aren't human... of course we have no ego or politics.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I can't stand biology. High school chemistry though was a breeze.

Everything in high school should be a breeze tbf

Never mind the public hospital, I would hope you’re cooking privately. It’s the way forward, surely.

just for personal use

 

[NotMcKenzie]

Funeral pace of scoring from Australia in that session

 

[flibbertyjibber]

So that'll do for the day then.

 

[morgieb]

The ball getting wet just wrecks it, so not surprised it doesn't swing there. Not sure this ball will be that wet, and it has swung a little for the past few overs.


This could very well be it for the day. England in a distinctly advantageous position.

I'd rather be England than Australia but at the same time we should avoid the follow-on so only having two days is gonna make it difficult to force a result. And Smith is still there....

 

[Burgey]

You see, I don't think it does myself. I think a lot of these things are perceptual and opinions vary from person to person. Test cricket in particular has a lot of that, and it's been very persistent over the years even when majority opinions are wrong.

You can still pick up the ball from the hand under lights but things like seam position and spotting which side is shiny can be more difficult. When you’re talking fractions of a second then yeah, it kind of is a perception thing but it’s maybe because the batsmen look more hurried

One other thing I'll add to the conditions chat. In my experience rain is terrible for swing. If the outfield is properly wet it ruins the leather on the ball. I doubt the Lords outfield is anywhere near as wet as a lot of club matches I've played but they have played through bits of rain this morning, which might be making the ball do less through the air than it otherwise would've.

Absolutely true. That’s why in the days before the umpire kept the ball I used to take it, squeeze the seam together and whack it in the pie oven to dry. Was a ****ing brick when it came out and seamed everywhere

 

[Cabinet96]

The thing is there's not really any evidence against, more just lack of evidence for. Studying cricket ball swing doesn't exactly get the grant money rolling so it's hard to study, but if someone could get the resources it would be easy to get the Hawkeye data and compare it to recorded weather conditions where available to discern any relationships to confirm if the effect exists.

As a swing bowler myself Ive always never noticed the effect as much as some others, the wind direction and how well (or more normally badly) I'm releasing the ball are bigger influences. But it's something that has been noted a lot which means there might be something to it. We just don't know what the mechanism is, if the effect exists.

Yeah wind is massive. I imagine especially so below the elite level where the pace of the bowling is lower. I've also had plenty of times where I haven't swung the ball and I know it's because of issues with my action and/or release rather than any external factors. We haven't even got to the ball and the fact that - even aside from the differences between good dukes balls, bad dukes, good kookaburra's etc - every individual ball is unique.

It's an enigma though. Find it pretty cool that even after well over a century of swing bowling being a thing, we still don't have a brilliant understanding of one of the game's most fundamental parts.