Do SC Pacers Deserve More Credit For Home Performances?

[subshakerz]

Do you think Pak was objectively tougher for a short, skiddy (R)swing bowler than Aus?

Pace is not a monolith. Different skills work to differing extents in different places. We draw the distinction between pace and spin. It is less notable for styles of pace, but still present.

Waqar is a very specific example. But yeah, give Waqar Australia or South Africa over the course of a home career and whatever tradeoffs he would make for toning down his reverse he gains with conventional swing and bounce IMO.

But even if we don't accept that counterfactual, the fact still remains that Waqar succeeding in the SC required a level of skill of adapting that you wouldn't need for SENAW bowlers to achieve those level of figures outside of SC.

 

[TheJediBrah]

yet Imran and Wasim not as much for excelling on pancake wickets which have a bigger portion of their career.

I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere already in this thread, but the issue with this in particular is that both these guys didn't average any better away than they did at home. Imran actually averaged a lot better at home than he did away.

So even if we accept that the home wickets they played on "shouldn't" help pace bowlers, the evidence clearly shows that they, or something about home conditions, did help their bowling specifically.

So to answer the thread, I don't know. not really, I guess? There's no reason to think that these guys growing up in another country more suited to pace bowling would have done any better, or even as well. They evolved to suit their conditions.

 

[centurymaker]

I think your memory might be a bit foggy since Pakistan managed to draw test series in 76 and 79.

And India drew in Australia in 1980/81 and 1985/86

 

[TheJediBrah]

I think most of us here can agree that Wasim and Imran evolved to be reverse swing bowlers attacking the stumps looking for lbws because of their home "conditions" suiting it.

And by conditions I mean rampant ball tampering helping the reverse swing and unmatched cheating home umpires giving everything that struck a pad

 

[HouHsiaoHsien]

To your opening question, no and here's why. That's their home conditions and great bowlers learn to adapt and make the best of their conditions regardless. And if you go around giving SC bowlers credit for I assume doing well in less favorable home conditions, my logical deduction is that SENA +W are more conducive to pace relatively speaking. So then, do we give spinners from those SENAW more credit for doing well in less favorable conditions at home?? Do we give pacemen from SENAW more credit when they perform in Asia. What about Asian pacemen who underperform in presumably more favorable conditions outside Asia. Should we downgrade them even more??

And wickets in countries outside Asia have never been uniform regardless of era and don't all favor pace. Australian wickets have been flat as you've attested to in your rants about Steve Smith, yet Australian pace bowlers have excelled. Other times they've been prepared to be spicy. In the 90s 2 of the wickets in the WI were generally spicy, one uneven bounce and the others flat. In the 2000s they were all generally flat and slow (except for a few occasions). Now with the emergence of some talent they're generally spicy again.

And we haven't even touched on the batsmen. Maybe give South Africans bonus points and downgrade Asian batsmen? Opening an unnecessary can of worms imo.

Exactly

 

[subshakerz]

I think most of us here can agree that Wasim and Imran evolved to be reverse swing bowlers attacking the stumps looking for lbws because of their home "conditions" suiting it.

And by conditions I mean rampant ball tampering helping the reverse swing and unmatched cheating home umpires giving everything that struck a pad

As opposed to all those NZ seamers who never picked the seam and their neutral umpires.

 

[subshakerz]

Exactly

Bro, if you are a pacer, where would you like to adapt, in Headingley or in Faislabad?

 

[Slifer]

Again, if we're going to give extra credit to Asian bowlers who do well at home, we're also going to downgrade them when they do worse in more favorable conditions? Yes or no? Imran who is the reason for this thread (let's be honest) was amazing in Pakistan but was distinctly worse in England and Australia to the tune of an extra 5 and 10 runs in his average and + 15-20 or so more balls in his strike rate.

Give them extra credit for doing well in Asia but they're getting points deducted when they underperform in more favorable conditions.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Exactly

No, that's stupid. It's more difficult to adapt to more difficult conditions.

 

[Burgey]

And India drew in Australia in 1980/81 and 1985/86

How they didn’t wipe the floor with the Australian side in 85/86 like NZ did is beyond me tbh. Probably the weakest era in Aus cricket

 

[OverratedSanity]

Again, if we're going to give extra credit to Asian bowlers who do well at home, we're also going to downgrade them when they do worse in more favorable conditions?

Well, yes? Are you saying his away record isn't criticized on CW?

 

[OverratedSanity]

How they didn’t wipe the floor with the Australian side in 85/86 like NZ did is beyond me tbh. Probably the weakest era in Aus cricket

I think that was the tour where India had a chance to win by chasing 100 odd in a session but Gavaskar came out and scored 5 in 70 balls or something to get a heroic draw.

 

[subshakerz]

I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere already in this thread, but the issue with this in particular is that both these guys didn't average any better away than they did at home. Imran actually averaged a lot better at home than he did away.

So even if we accept that the home wickets they played on "shouldn't" help pace bowlers, the evidence clearly shows that they, or something about home conditions, did help their bowling specifically.

So to answer the thread, I don't know. not really, I guess? There's no reason to think that these guys growing up in another country more suited to pace bowling would have done any better, or even as well. They evolved to suit their conditions.

Sorry, but away performance is irrelevant to the status of their home conditions. And their success at home isn't proof that suddenly conditions were great. If I was faced with difficult pace conditions (low bounce, less new ball swing, etc) and I thrived, that is to the bowlers credit and skill, not because it became easier to bowl.

Otherwise you would have an assembly line of SC pacers averaging in the 20s but we don't see that. Clearly you need a special set of skills.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

Yea judging difficulty of home conditions by away performances doesn’t make sense

 

[TheJediBrah]

Yea judging difficulty of home conditions by away performances makes no sense

Not what I said, was it.

 

[ankitj]

No, that's stupid. It's more difficult to adapt to more difficult conditions.

"How difficult it could be if he could do well"

 

[subshakerz]

Give them extra credit for doing well in Asia but they're getting points deducted when they underperform in more favorable conditions.

The latter happens all the time.

The former never happens though, which is the entire problem.

 

[Burgey]

I think that was the tour where India had a chance to win by chasing 100 odd in a session but Gavaskar came out and scored 5 in 70 balls or something to get a heroic draw.

Yeah. Was so random. I get cold sweats thinking about that era of Aus cricket. Fmd they were soooooooo bad, mostly due to inexperience and the SA tour blokes being out but just levels below where they needed to be.

not that a lot of the SA blokes were world beaters, but a lot better than the likes of Dave Gilbert and Chris Matthews

 

[HouHsiaoHsien]

No, that's stupid. It's more difficult to adapt to more difficult conditions.

While that is true and SC conditions are tougher, some things need to be taken into account, for example if a bowler has grown up in and trained according to certain conditions, they are more likely to do well there than an overseas bowler on those pitches on average. So to some extent, if SENA bowlers grew up in SC, their bowling styles and strengths would be different according to the conditions. Hence we can’t know if SENA bowlers were born in Asia, how would they perform. Further specifically in the Steyn comparison, he was a god of reverse swing, so if he played for a majority of matches in SC, he would’ve succeeded.

 

[Slifer]

Bro, if you are a pacer, where would you like to adapt, in Headingley or in Faislabad?

Ok. Would you prefer Faislabad or the Antigua Recreation Ground??