Averaging 35 will be accepted again

[NotMcKenzie]

Look at Lindwall's description of his bowling grips:

Fingers apart for swing, together for cut. Davidson, who you see afterwards, did the same thing.

 

[Starfighter]

Here's Ambrose and Walsh against England in 2000 and knock me down with a feather, they're bowling wobble seamers indistinguishable to any Anderson has ever bowled. Except when Ambrose described his bowling method in a Sky masterclass a few years ago he said he simply held the ball in his preferred loose grip and bowled.

We might be able to conclude that not all bowlers bowl with a dead straight seam all the time and they may get movement because of this variation. The fact that Anderson is one of the those who can release the ball perfectly for long periods might explain why he has to think about it.

 

[Xix2565]

"If you wanted to say you were incapable of watching videos and making reasonable arguments."

I watched the video and presented a reasonable argument ... as opposed to regurgitating someone else's hypothesis.

You didn't? Reasonable arguments don't ignore or deny the content being discussed.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Dont' really get what the argument here. Bowlers have intentionally or unintentionally done it before as well, but in recent times its increased massively in how many bowlers specifically bowl entire spells of almost exclusively wobble seam. I dont really think this was the case before?

 

[NotMcKenzie]

I think people are reading too much into it for a start and seeing things where there's nothing.

 

[Starfighter]

Dont' really get what the argument here. Bowlers have intentionally or unintentionally done it before as well, but in recent times its increased massively in how many bowlers specifically bowl entire spells of almost exclusively wobble seam. I dont really think this was the case before?

Do you have the hours of ball-by-ball footage from hundreds of tests to tell? Look at those balls by Ambrose -what's the chance a lot of them had that kind of wobble. And I've seen plenty a spell where the bowler was consistently wobbling the seam. They weren't getting wickets and the commentators were criticising them for bowling with a 'scrambled' seam, visually indistinguishable from any 'wobble' seam spell. Almost as if it's context dependent, and on some pitches the ball will grip and jag and others it won't. I think it's best to just call it bowling.

 

[NotMcKenzie]

Incidentally, this obviously means that I definitely did bowl 'wobble seam', because I used to grip the ball deeply with my fingers apart and so far as I could tell, my seam presentation was far from bolt upright. I could get the ball to move a bit off the pitch too, but that's of limited utility when your seam-up is the pace of a professional spinner.

 

[Xix2565]

I think people are reading too much into it for a start and seeing things where there's nothing.

What is imaginary about a sudden drop in batting average that didn't happen for 17 years previously?

 

[NotMcKenzie]

What is imaginary about a sudden drop in batting average that didn't happen for 17 years previously?

1. It was a response to the post before.

2. Nothing. However, the reasons for it are up for debate.

Of course, you would never misconstrue what someone else was trying to say. I'm sure of it.

 

[OverratedSanity]

What is imaginary about a sudden drop in batting average that didn't happen for 17 years previously?

He's arguing why it happened not whether it has or not.

 

[Spark]

Do you have the hours of ball-by-ball footage from hundreds of tests to tell? Look at those balls by Ambrose -what's the chance a lot of them had that kind of wobble. And I've seen plenty a spell where the bowler was consistently wobbling the seam. They weren't getting wickets and the commentators were criticising them for bowling with a 'scrambled' seam, visually indistinguishable from any 'wobble' seam spell. Almost as if it's context dependent, and on some pitches the ball will grip and jag and others it won't. I think it's best to just call it bowling.

The question now though is what has changed for those spells which were ineffective, to bowlers from various countries saying they use it as one of their principal weapons in all conditions and are averaging low 20s. You could say they're all just bowling well and there's nothing more to it than that but then you'd be contradicting them directly.

 

[Xix2565]

1. It was a response to the post before.

2. Nothing. However, the reasons for it are up for debate.

Of course, you would never misconstrue what someone else was trying to say. I'm sure of it.

Apologies for that. What is up for debate as to why it has happened beyond your general disbelief?

 

[cnerd123]

I'm going to agree with Starfighter and NM here that the wobble seam has been around forever. We're in an age where the quicks are re-discovering the art of bowling it and are generally putting it to use effectively, but this isn't the 2nd coming of reverse swing. There isn't anything new in play here.

 

[NotMcKenzie]

Apologies for that. What is up for debate as to why it has happened beyond your general disbelief?

You ascribe it in this post soley to improvements in bowling. If one is going on numbers alone, it is impossible to distinguish the effects of a deterioration in batting standards and techniques (with respect to Test-match batting) from one from an improvement in bowling. This needs qualitative argument, and furthermore, the two could happen at the same time. Not to count that there is a general agreement that pitches at least in Australia are less flat than in, say, 2015. Neither quantitative nor qualitative arguments are beyond dispute.

I have actually offered arguments as to the non-innovativeness of claimed innovations, as well as my observations that they may be less effective than claimed and overstated in how distinct they are from earlier test bowling. Similarly, @Line and Length offered several counterarguments which you then ignored, saying he 'incapable of watching videos' he had in fact watched. You are reliant on making arguments based off a video that is itself disputable: my statements with respect to the video have been solely to point out that graphs and numbers are not definite proof of anything.

I am not stating 'general disbelief' (drifting back towards your first misrepresentation, eh?); I am disputing specific things which people say must be the cause. A surfeit of good fast bowlers could be an explanation without resorting to saying they are suddenly displaying new skills which have made the difference. I don't think, by and large, the 'new' skills have made the difference.

 

[NotMcKenzie]

I think coaching could be an influence: if people have been taught that to bowl seam/swing, you must have the fingers close together and grip it in the fingertips, then the fact that you don't have to do that might appear a revelation (and that, of course, a different grip produces different outcomes). Doesn't make it a new skill or mean people haven't been doing it unnoticed.
Individuals may even have been doing it anyway, and whoever pointed out 'wobble seam' might have made them notice it and try cultivate it deliberately.

 

[Spark]

I think coaching could be an influence: if people have been taught that to bowl seam/swing, you must have the fingers close together and grip it in the fingertips, then the fact that you don't have to do that might appear a revelation (and that, of course, a different grip produces different outcomes). Doesn't make it a new skill or mean people haven't been doing it unnoticed.
Individuals may even have been doing it anyway, and whoever pointed out 'wobble seam' might have made them notice it and try cultivate it deliberately.

I think it's not just fingers split though that matters; some bowlers basically bowl with their fingers at a 45 degree angle across the ball, and the seam comes out wobbling as a result (but not outright cross seam like you see in LO games to get inconsistent pace off the wicket). I don't think Cummins does that though, he seems to be able to get the seam to "wobble" without resorting to that.

For e.g. New ball, but it's the same release as he'd use regardless, and there's certainly no way the ball comes out of his hand was anything but deliberate (though the end result probably wasn't):

I can certainly agree with scrambled seam deliveries being a thing for a long time, but not as a stock delivery to be bowled ball after ball after ball on all pitches including ones where the traditional advice was to bowl with an upright seam whenever possible - the entire theory behind the wobble seam ball is that it has to be a stock ball to exploit the inherent inconsistency in movement and pace off the wicket, not a change up variation. That I think has changed, likely in response to pitches where traditional seam upright bowling did absolutely nothing.

 

[Starfighter]

The question now though is what has changed for those spells which were ineffective, to bowlers from various countries saying they use it as one of their principal weapons in all conditions and are averaging low 20s. You could say they're all just bowling well and there's nothing more to it than that but then you'd be contradicting them directly.

Lemme see, have there been more wickets friendlier to that kind of bowling (like the pitches Ambrose bowled on '00)? Yep. More movement in general. And if I contradict them, so what? I strongly agree @NotMcKenzie disputation of Cummins' self assessment of his own bowling. Do I trust bowler's opinions? The human mind works a funny way, especially when one is emotionally invested. What about when they had that kind of release and it didn't work? In the 18/19 India series Hazlewood was criticised in one spell for bowling with a 'scrambled seam' identical to any other spell of his.

 

[Bolo.]

The wobble seamer definitely wasn't around before about 2008-09 (I think Asif might have been the one who started the trend, but he got banned so). McGrath said he hadn't even heard of it during his career. It's explicitly not a cutter.

I remember watching Pollock describe how he used to bowl as 'wobbling the seam' nearly a decade ago. It has been around longer than this.

 

[honestbharani]

I guess it was always around as a rare or a hail Mary variation, but its now used as much as any other regular variation is used. That I suppose is the biggest difference.

 

[Starfighter]

By the @Spark, if you're going to claim that a) Asif was one of the progenitors and b) the wide grip is vital, you're going to have to explain around the fact Asif used a narrow grip.