3rd Test at the SCG, Sydney, 7 Jan - 11 Jan 2021

[Senile Sentry]

So if someone in SCG crowd is found to have Covid, can the Indian team go.into quarantine for Brisbane test ? Pleeese?

 

[Burgey]

No, because they won't be interacting with the fans.

Just as they haven't had to quarantine after someone who was at day 2 of the Melbourne test has tested positive.

 

[honestbharani]

Very interesting piece this, by Monga -

How soon will we need to reconsider how essential bouncers are to cricket?

Taking the nasty short ball out of the game might seem unthinkable, but we might soon be at the point where we're seriously considering it

www.espncricinfo.com

 

[Son Of Coco]

Very interesting piece this, by Monga -

How soon will we need to reconsider how essential bouncers are to cricket?

Taking the nasty short ball out of the game might seem unthinkable, but we might soon be at the point where we're seriously considering it

www.espncricinfo.com

What I find interesting is when a batsman gets pinned trying to get out of the way. I suppose it's because the commitment to duck is made late, and therefore they don't have time to avoid the ball, particularly if it moves off the deck, but I agree with what Ponting said about this too. Younger batsmen need to learn to not get hit first. It's an essential part of the game. Standing in line trying to play the short ball when you haven't learnt the footwork to deal with it at younger levels (but where you're also unlikely to get hit hard and you're also wearing a helmet) isn't going to stand you in good stead when you're up against quicker bowlers. Obviously at international level, the pace is at the extreme end of the scale, and it only takes a small error to get hit, but the best players of the short ball rarely get struck. Maybe stricter rules need to be in place to protect tail-enders, but then there is a lot of variation in how well they bat, so how would you decide who bowlers can bounce and who they can't?

Personally, I don't like the idea of getting rid of the bouncer because it disarms the bowler to an extent. I guess it depends on how the rule would be implemented though. I would be interested to see what would be considered a bouncer - is it pitched in certain part of the pitch? Anything that goes over shoulder height, including one that hits the seam and takes off off a length? Given there are quite a few players who get hit ducking a ball that doesn't bounce as much as they first thought (i.e.: they duck into it), is this then considered a bouncer because the batter has been struck? It would be impossible to legislate against player error without going the whole hog and making it illegal to bowl above the hips/chest, and even then players would still make misakes at times and get hit.

 

[honestbharani]

What I find interesting is when a batsman gets pinned trying to get out of the way. I suppose it's because the commitment to duck is made late, and therefore they don't have time to avoid the ball, particularly if it moves off the deck, but I agree with what Ponting said about this too. Younger batsmen need to learn to not get hit first. It's an essential part of the game. Standing in line trying to play the short ball when you haven't learnt the footwork to deal with it at younger levels (but where you're also unlikely to get hit hard and you're also wearing a helmet) isn't going to stand you in good stead when you're up against quicker bowlers. Obviously at international level, the pace is at the extreme end of the scale, and it only takes a small error to get hit, but the best players of the short ball rarely get struck. Maybe stricter rules need to be in place to protect tail-enders, but then there is a lot of variation in how well they bat, so how would you decide who bowlers can bounce and who they can't?

Personally, I don't like the idea of getting rid of the bouncer because it disarms the bowler to an extent. I guess it depends on how the rule would be implemented though. I would be interested to see what would be considered a bouncer though - is it pitched in certain part of the pitch? Anything that goes over shoulder height, including one that hits the seam and takes off off a length? Given there are quite a few players who get hit ducking a ball that doesn't bounce as much as they first thought (i.e.: they duck into it), is this then considered a bouncer because the batter has been struck? It would be impossible to legislate against player error without going the whole hog and making it illegal to bowl above the hips/chest, and even then players would still make misakes at times and get hit.

The hardest part is the amount of judgement that is asked of the umpires with the current rule, as it stands. They have to judge if the bouncer is being bowled with an intent to injure, which is impossible to say with certainty, and they also have to judge if the batsman has the required skillset to handle it. I am assuming we are simply going by batting position but say, someone like Ashwin or Cummins, in good form, is still susceptible to the short ball and bats at 8. Perhaps they will feast on any other type of ball but the umpire may have to consider them as a lower order batsman and therefore, deem its not likely they have the skillset to handle the short ball. Its such a quagmire as it stands.

 

[vicleggie]

Lol sydneysiders have to wear masks at the ground?

What a shame, they have to inhale their own stench filled breath all day

 

[aussie tragic]

Lol sydneysiders have to wear masks at the ground?

What a shame, they have to inhale their own stench filled breath all day

Don't have to wear mask if eating or drinking so drink lots of beer

 

[Son Of Coco]

The hardest part is the amount of judgement that is asked of the umpires with the current rule, as it stands. They have to judge if the bouncer is being bowled with an intent to injure, which is impossible to say with certainty, and they also have to judge if the batsman has the required skillset to handle it. I am assuming we are simply going by batting position but say, someone like Ashwin or Cummins, in good form, is still susceptible to the short ball and bats at 8. Perhaps they will feast on any other type of ball but the umpire may have to consider them as a lower order batsman and therefore, deem its not likely they have the skillset to handle the short ball. Its such a quagmire as it stands.

I would assume that not many bowlers are bowling the short ball in a deliberate attempt to injure someone. It's primarily used to push the batsman back/muddle up his footwork. At the moment, all the umpires can do is decide whether a lower order batsman is being subjected to too many short balls and at risk of injury. It's fairly straightforward, but I guess the question asked in the article is whether this is enough. Any change to the rule would have to be carefully thought out because if it's not, the game will descend it to complete farce. Another question is would bowlers be banned from bowling bouncers in all conditions? If so, they might as well not turn up to play on any deck that offers no movement.

 

[ankitj]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1346371205566091265

Should practice catching instead

 

[Daemon]

I would assume that not many bowlers are bowling the short ball in a deliberate attempt to injure someone

Some of the Starc/Cummins bowling to the Indian tail recently was not ideal and probably unnecessary. Shami got injured and Yadav copped a couple on the bicep and ribs.

But then again it's been a low scoring series so you can't fault the bowlers for going all out to get rid of the bunnies, especially guys like Yadav who will swing at everything in their arc.

Very very subjective.

 

[Starfighter]

Given there are quite a few players who get hit ducking a ball that doesn't bounce as much as they first thought (i.e.: they duck into it)

A significant majority of the incidents recently IMO

 

[honestbharani]

I think one way to judge intent is the follow up delivery and such. SoC rightly points out the difficulties in policing this in any way, which is why I think it is an absolute quagmire and the best hope is that the protective equipment become good enough that the long term injuries can be avoided.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Some of the Starc/Cummins bowling to the Indian tail recently was not ideal and probably unnecessary. Shami got injured and Yadav copped a couple on the bicep and ribs.

But then again it's been a low scoring series so you can't fault the bowlers for going all out to get rid of the bunnies, especially guys like Yadav who will swing at everything in their arc.

Very very subjective.

It's true that Shami got injured. Was that a bouncer? I guess it's considered one as it struck him, and it was shortish.

It's become pretty common to bowl short at the tail again too these days, so maybe that's something that needs to be looked at, but I don't think too many bowlers actually want to hurt a batsman with the short ball, unless the batsman is a complete **** that is, and even then I don't think they necessarily want to do serious damage. They have too little control over what that damage might be to set out intentionally to inflict it.

 

[Son Of Coco]

I think one way to judge intent is the follow up delivery and such. SoC rightly points out the difficulties in policing this in any way, which is why I think it is an absolute quagmire and the best hope is that the protective equipment become good enough that the long term injuries can be avoided.

If a bowler goes after a batsman with repeated short balls in a situation that clearly puts the batsman at risk, then maybe so. Repeated short balls may also be part of a plan to dismiss the batsman that doesn't involve hurting them - e.g.: repeated short balls followed by a fuller ball on off. In this case the focus is trying to get an edge with the fuller ball, not hitting the batsman with any of the short balls. Of course, the umpire still needs to judge whether or not the use of repeated short balls is appropriate.

The issue is that the short balls need to be good enough to force the batsman back, and this puts the batsman in danger if he doesn't have the technique to get out of the way/misjudges one.

 

[Spark]

A significant majority of the incidents recently IMO

Makes you wonder if the relative extinction of truly fast, bouncy pitches (how many times have we seen obvious edges fall short in Australia over the past few years) is having an impact

 

[Daemon]

It's true that Shami got injured. Was that a bouncer? I guess it's considered one as it struck him, and it was shortish.

It's become pretty common to bowl short at the tail again too these days, so maybe that's something that needs to be looked at, but I don't think too many bowlers actually want to hurt a batsman with the short ball, unless the batsman is a complete **** that is, and even then I don't think they necessarily want to do serious damage. They have too little control over what that damage might be to set out intentionally to inflict it.

Yeah I don't think they set out to hurt them, but at the same time they do seem to have little to no regard to should it actually happen. I don't really know how I feel about this issue tbh, but bouncing the Martins, Chahals and Bumrahs of the world seems like it may be a bit too much.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Makes you wonder if the relative extinction of truly fast, bouncy pitches (how many times have we seen obvious edges fall short in Australia over the past few years) is having an impact

Yeah, maybe a lack of consistency in some of the pitches that are played on too. In the past players often knew what they were going to get when they turned up at a certain ground. Now, with drop ins and the like, characteristics can change from game to game.

 

[Burgey]

SoC rightly points out the difficulties in policing this in any way, which is why I think it is an absolute quagmire and the best hope is that the protective equipment become good enough that the long term injuries can be avoided.

Agree, it's very difficult to police this sort of thing. Doers an umpire step in when a bloke has a history of being hit? Say Pucovski gets bounced, in this sort of scenario does an umpire step in because he's vulnerable to the effects of a head injury compared with the bloke he's batting with? Very hard to know where to draw the line.

 

[harsh.ag]

Fast bowlers bouncing each other is difficult to manage. If you are a decent batsman, like Stokes, Pandya, CdG or even Cummins, then ideally it's best to have some sort of recognition that you shouldn't be bowling bouncers at Rabada just because he bowled you some. The most extreme example of this being the famous Sobers-Lillee story.

But, messy.

 

[Spark]

I think one way to judge intent is the follow up delivery and such. SoC rightly points out the difficulties in policing this in any way, which is why I think it is an absolute quagmire and the best hope is that the protective equipment become good enough that the long term injuries can be avoided.

I said it a few weeks ago but helmet design needs to change, and take a lot more cues from car design with crumple zones and the like. It's clear that it's high impulse impacts (i.e. sharp movements of the head) which regularly do damage and having a helmet, as it stands, only mitigates some of that. Distributing that energy more slowly and evenly will help with that.