Battle of the Test Bowling

[a massive zebra]

Spofforth.

 

[Matteh]

Spofforth

 

[silentstriker]

Given how terrible for batting the pitch looks to have been for Spofforth's effort (going on runs scored), and the fact that Srinath took 13 for the test, it's Srinath that gets my vote.

Australia 1st Innings: 63
England 1st Innings: 101
Australia 2nd Innings: 122
England 2nd Innings: 77


Yea, not exactly a batting paradise (neither was the Srinath pitch, but not like this). Actually, I was mulling getting rid of this performance, but people wanted it and I wanted at least 1-2 performances pre 1920. In any case, I'd be astounded if this got past this round, and would probably prove that people aren't really paying attention.

 

[Matteh]

Spofforth

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

I was going to vote for Srinath for a bit here, but India didn't win, and I can't go past Spoffoth. The guy was defending 85 and bowled unchanged for the entire innings to take 7 and win it. It's a unique achievement in tests. The pitch was obviously a nightmare and there's plenty of good reasons to vote against it, but I think the sheer fact that he managed to win the game from an impossible position is worthy of a place in the second round.

 

[Sanz]

Srinath.

 

[silentstriker]

I was going to vote for Srinath for a bit here, but India didn't win, and I can't go past Spoffoth. The guy was defending 85 and bowled unchanged for the entire innings to take 7 and win it. It's a unique achievement in tests. The pitch was obviously a nightmare and there's plenty of good reasons to vote against it, but I think the sheer fact that he managed to win the game from an impossible position is worthy of a place in the second round.

Heh, impossible? Impossible? The innings totals were 63, 101 and 122 preceeding the fourth innings, I would hardly call it impossible. If anything, it was dead even.

 

[Jono]

I was going to vote for Srinath for a bit here, but India didn't win, and I can't go past Spoffoth. The guy was defending 85 and bowled unchanged for the entire innings to take 7 and win it. It's a unique achievement in tests. The pitch was obviously a nightmare and there's plenty of good reasons to vote against it, but I think the sheer fact that he managed to win the game from an impossible position is worthy of a place in the second round.

This just shows how flawed putting so much weight on whether the bowler's team won the match is.

Its surely palpable that taking eight on a fairly regular pitch but then losing is more of an achievement then taking seven on a pitch where one could have bowled a team out with a rubber ball, but winning.

Srinath's 8-for would not have changed in quality had India not screwed up the chase from 0-100 to all out for 232. Before India went in to bat Srinath's bowling performance would have been marvelled, and it doesn't suddenly become 'less great' the next day because Ramesh couldn't go on with it or the Indian middle order collapsed.

Its fair enough using the match-winning criteria when two great bowling performances are equal in ability itself, and there needs to be deciding factor in terms of match influence or situation, but Australia were all out for 63 in the 1st innings for Christ's sake.

 

[a massive zebra]

but India didn't win,

If Spofforth had taken his 7-44 but the other bowlers had failed to take a wicket, England would in all probability have won, and one really does struggle to comprehend how the relatively poor performance of his colleagues could have any negative bearing on the merits of his display. If anything, I would say Spofforth's performance could be considered superior had his colleagues not taken a single wicket and his team had lost, for he would stand out more and could claim to have almost won the game all on his own without any help whatsoever, while if several bowlers perform well and his team wins, people would be far more justified in suggesting the pitch was all in favour of the bowlers. In this case the latter situation was lucky enough to materialise and Australia would not have won had Boyle not kept it tight at the other end, but how can his success make Spofforth's effort any more meritworthy?

 

[aussie]

Sppoforth, match winning effort.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Srinath's 8-for would not have changed in quality had India not screwed up the chase from 0-100 to all out for 232. Before India went in to bat Srinath's bowling performance would have been marvelled, and it doesn't suddenly become 'less great' the next day because Ramesh couldn't go on with it or the Indian middle order collapsed.

IMO, Spoffoth's performance would be significantly worse if he'd gone for 10 more runs and they'd lost the game. That is to say, worse to more than the value of the 10 runs, because that was the frame in which he was bowling - England needed 85 to win and Spoffoth needed to bowl them out to win the game. If he got close but they got over the line by a wicket it would have been a remarkable effort, but it wouldn't have been the stuff of legend as it is. When it comes to Srinath's performance, you're basically choosing a bowling spell that wasn't enough to win the game over one that was. In certain cases that's justified obviously, as the result isn't everything, and there's 10 other players in the team, but in a close battle like this it's a deciding factor.

Incidentally, as far as the "8-for on a normal wicket compare to 7-for on a minefield" thing is concerned, there's a reason that people rate Lara's 153 higher than a normal score in the 150 range under other circumstances, and it's not because he was batting on a 5th day pitch. There's something special about a performance in the 4th innings where a player goes it alone and wins the game in unlikely circumstances with minimal support from his teammates, and Spoffoth's bowling is up there with, say, Willis at Headingley '81 as the most famous example of that among bowlers.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

If Spofforth had taken his 7-44 but the other bowlers had failed to take a wicket, England would in all probability have won, and one really does struggle to comprehend how the relatively poor performance of his colleagues could have any negative bearing on the merits of his display. If anything, I would say Spofforth's performance could be considered superior had his colleagues not taken a single wicket and his team had lost, for he would stand out more and could claim to have almost won the game all on his own without any help whatsoever, while if several bowlers perform well and his team wins, people would be far more justified in suggesting the pitch was all in favour of the bowlers. In this case the latter situation was lucky enough to materialise and Australia would not have won had Boyle not kept it tight at the other end, but how can his success make Spofforth's effort any more meritworthy?

See my above post. If Spoffoth took 7/44 in a losing cause, it wouldn't be greater because of the lack of support, it would be lesser because he didn't do everything he could have done to win the match. The aim of a bowler isn't merely to return good figures, it's to help the team secure a win, and that's exactly what Spoffoth did. Obviously since he bowled throughout the innings you'd have to say he was unlucky to have no support if that did occur, but he could always have taken his wickets faster or simply taken more of them to match the genius of this spell. 7/44 in a losing cause defending 85 would of course be a remarkable performance, but it wouldn't really be any better than his bowling in the first innings.

 

[oz_fan]

Spofforth

 

[a massive zebra]

See my above post. If Spoffoth took 7/44 in a losing cause, it wouldn't be greater because of the lack of support, it would be lesser because he didn't do everything he could have done to win the match. The aim of a bowler isn't merely to return good figures, it's to help the team secure a win, and that's exactly what Spoffoth did. Obviously since he bowled throughout the innings you'd have to say he was unlucky to have no support if that did occur, but he could always have taken his wickets faster or simply taken more of them to match the genius of this spell. 7/44 in a losing cause defending 85 would of course be a remarkable performance, but it wouldn't really be any better than his bowling in the first innings.

If Spofforth had taken 7/44 in a losing cause his contribution to win the match would have been at least as effective and arguably more so, the real reason Australia lost would have been the ineffectiveness of the other bowlers. Hell, if Boyle had gone at just 1.5 an over the result would have been reversed, and Boyle's mypothetical ineffectiveness surely cannot be blamed in any way whatsoever on Spofforth. As I have shown, the result of a match is highly dependant upon the performances of other players in your team (which have no negative bearing on the contribution of the star performer), so marking a wonderful innings/bowling performance down because of the lack of support this player received is nothing short of farcical.

 

[Perm]

Fred Spofforth

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

If Spofforth had taken 7/44 in a losing cause his contribution to win the match would have been at least as effective and arguably more so, the real reason Australia lost would have been the ineffectiveness of the other bowlers. Hell, if Boyle had gone at just 1.5 an over the result would have been reversed, and Boyle's mypothetical ineffectiveness surely cannot be blamed in any way whatsoever on Spofforth. As I have shown, the result of a match is highly dependant upon the performances of other players in your team (which have no negative bearing on the contribution of the star performer), so marking a wonderful innings/bowling performance down because of the lack of support this player received is nothing short of farcical.

Of course it is "heavily dependant on the other players". That's really not the point at all.

I'll give a crude example. Imagine England is defending a target of 200 in the fourth innings of the deciding Ashes test this summer. Harmison and Hoggard take the new ball and rip through Australia, taking all 10 between them as they are bowled out for 120. Both bowlers bowl 20 overs, Hoggard takes 6/40 and Harmison 4/40, while the other bowlers are ineffective, take no wickets and bowl few overs. It'd be fair to say in this instance that both Harmison and Hoggard bowled brilliantly, and every bit as well as anyone could have expected of them. Hoggard in particular, obviously. Now imagine instead that Harmison is also ineffective and took no wickets, while Hoggard instead bowled 30 overs and took 6/60, and Australia won the test by 4 wickets chasing down 200. This is a good performance from Hoggard, but he certainly didn't do everything he could have to win the game, and it obviously isn't anywhere near as good as the first performance. In the first instance, he only took 6 wickets because Harmison denied him the opportunity to take more, and the team won the game so you certainly can't criticise him for not taking a bigger share of the workload. In the second instance he could have done much more to help England win. He still bowled well, but when comparing that 6/60 with another performance of a similar magnitude which did enough to ensure the win, for me the winning effort would always be superior.

It's simply one criteria by which you can judge a bowling performance. There's "how good were the batsmen?", "what was the pitch like?", "how much of an impact did the performance have?" and obviously the number of wickets and runs. Tied in with the impact of the perfomrance is the result of the game, as well as the state the game was in before the performance. Obviously taking 6 out of an opposition score of 400 chasing 500 isn't quite as impressive as taking 6 against a team that made 100 chasing 150.

edit: I should also add that the lack of support can work in favour of the star performer as well, by making their contribution more valuable by comparison. For instance, Ponting made a score of 143* in a 4th innings chase against South Africa last summer. As it happened, Hayden also made 90 and Australia won by 8 wickets. If Australia had collapsed and won by 1 wicket, obviously Ponting's performance would be far more memorable, in the same vein as the Lara 153. As it was, it was a good performance, but not a legendary one. If Australia had lost or drawn the match, it would have just been another century.

 

[silentstriker]

Spofforth wins it 6-4

AW Greig 8 for 86 Eng WI Port of Spain 1973-74
http://www.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1970S/1973-74/ENG_IN_WI/ENG_WI_T5_30MAR-05APR1974.html

vs.


Imran 7-40 vs Eng 1987
http://www.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1987/PAK_IN_ENG/PAK_ENG_T3_02-06JUL1987.html

 

[Sanz]

Tony Greig. Better batting line-up and a wicket more than the great Khan.

 

[silentstriker]

Tony Greig. Better batting line-up and a wicket more than the great Khan.

True, but one wicket extra, for 46 more runs...

 

[Sanz]

Greig was bowling to better batsmen and hence had to bowl more overs to get them out. If you notice, his economy rate during this inning is very similar to Imran's.