Cricketweb poster with the best understanding of the game

[Son Of Coco]

I tell them that so as to place some emphasis on not being too expensive and undoing the wickets with lots of Full-Tosses and Half-Volleys.

In my experience these type are far, far more common than everyone assumes.
If their eyes do light up, the ball usually flashes to the boundary and any pressure which might be present is eased.
Spells of sustained short-pitched bowling rarely - directly or indirecly - result in wickets.

Intelligent bowling rarely involves more than the very occasional short-ball - unless the batsman has a very obvious weakness with them.
Batsmen with weaknesses against the short-ball, I might add, are very few and far between.

I'm not talking about bowling a barrage of short balls, I'm talking about balls that force a batsman to play them off the back foot, that can't be played off the front foot. This doesn't mean 'short and trying to knock the batsman's head off'. Short of a length will do the trick.

You say that the ball usually flashes to the boundary, but then say that you see a lot of batsmen getting out to poor shots. I'd be happy to bet that quite a number of these poor shots you see are a result of bowling to a plan. Bowling away from a batsman's strengths and then giving him one to go for, but not in the perfect spot to drive/cut etc etc. Whatever his preference may be shot-wise.

Batsmen with a weakness for the short ball may be far and few between but equally, there are thousands of batsmen who love to drive. In fact I've never bowled to anyone who can't drive if you put it in the right spot (apart from in Under 12's etc). IF you push that person back though and then give them one to come forward to on more than the odd occasion they won't get their foot to the pitch of the ball as they'll be a fraction of a second late......and this'll get wickets. It'll also look like the description you no doubt have of a bad shot which is luck for the bowler, when this is not the case.

 

[anzac]

Nonetheless it's very easy to forget you and anyone who takes proper notice would actually notice someone with a very sound understanding of the game, even he's mostly concerned with New Zealand.

again thanx for the kind words........

my pre-occupation with NZL atm (apart from the obvious) is because they have been playing recently & more importantly are performing badly & I'm in favor of changes to squad & tactics...........

I am trying to broaden my involvement / appreciation of other teams & players but it is difficult as I don't actually get to see much cricket coverage at all.............eg I probably only got to see about a day's play in total for the ENG Test series & about the same for the AUS test series.........then I only saw some highlights from the ODIs in ENG (including the Trophy), and nothing at all of the recent Hadlee-Chappel series..........my working hours but a big dent in my viewing schedule..........

 

[anzac]

Stick to what you watch IMO, Anzac.

can't even blame that for my ignorance / limited appreciation of other teams etc...............as per above

 

[tooextracool]

I have a question for TEC, whilst I think he knows quite a bit about cricket, why does he support England yet he lives in India and I assume Indian?

the answer would be because im not indian....

 

[tooextracool]

The First Test at The Wanderers, fairly obviously. 8\49 in that match.
Get rid of it and his average for the series is 29.33 - not disgraceful, but coming after a series in which he averaged 65 it's not great, really..

then its another case of you misrepresenting facts to suit yourself.
the ball to Dippenaar was certainly a wicket taking ball that got the outside edge because of the hint of away movement. as i am sure was the one that got jacques kallis which had a bit of away swing as it took the outside edge.

I'm sure he'd be delighted with it, myself. Just like he would be on the other occasions something similar happened.

yet you call that performance poor then?

 

[tooextracool]

thanx for your kind words - as a self confessed rank plodder so far as my cricketing background goes I feel very privaleged to be included in such exhalted company........

however I must point out that some of my recent contributions have been rather questionable regarding historical accuracy to say the least!!!!!

you're welcome, i find it hard to believe that most of the people who are actually capable of understanding how and why players succeed or dont are often forgetten over people who post handful of garbage statistical data without being able to explain any reasons as to why his stats look the way they do.

 

[honestbharani]

oh believe me the amount of movement that you get in the morning is minimal, certainly not enough to suggest that its anywhere close to being threatening to a quality batsman. unless of course the conditions are used to full effect by a very good bowler, which is what glenn mcgrath is. needless to say that the 01 series took place in feb-march.



wickets like the first test in chennai, offered absolutely nothing for the pace bowlers, and slow turn for spinners. reverse swing as useful as it is, will not help you get an average of under 20 on its own. it requires considerable skill and accuracy.

I watched that Chennai game in person and the traditional Chennai bounce was very much there. And the reason the wicket slowed down to such a large extent after the first two days was because of the fact that this was amongst the first 4 or 5 day matches being played on that wicket. During the series against Pakistan (if a match happens at Chennai) you will see the true Chennai wicket, bounce, a bit of pace and a lot of turn over the last couple of days, generally making it a pretty good sporting surface, relatively speaking, of course.

 

[tooextracool]

I watched that Chennai game in person and the traditional Chennai bounce was very much there. And the reason the wicket slowed down to such a large extent after the first two days was because of the fact that this was amongst the first 4 or 5 day matches being played on that wicket. During the series against Pakistan (if a match happens at Chennai) you will see the true Chennai wicket, bounce, a bit of pace and a lot of turn over the last couple of days, generally making it a pretty good sporting surface, relatively speaking, of course.

bounce isnt exactly helpful for the bowlers. bounce is in fact more helpful for the batsmen because the ball comes onto the bat more. unless of course it is excessive bounce. which is why most of the pitches in australia of late(particularly in the ind-aus series) have been extremely flat, because they allow the ball to come onto the bat better and therefore its a lot easier to score runs.

 

[Richard]

again thanx for the kind words........

my pre-occupation with NZL atm (apart from the obvious) is because they have been playing recently & more importantly are performing badly & I'm in favor of changes to squad & tactics...........

I am trying to broaden my involvement / appreciation of other teams & players but it is difficult as I don't actually get to see much cricket coverage at all.............eg I probably only got to see about a day's play in total for the ENG Test series & about the same for the AUS test series.........then I only saw some highlights from the ODIs in ENG (including the Trophy), and nothing at all of the recent Hadlee-Chappel series..........my working hours but a big dent in my viewing schedule..........

Yeah, I kinda remember you telling us the reasons for mostly talking of New Zealand. Gawd, I wasn't criticising you.
Nah, you have my utmost sympathies in your predicament. It's a real shame, I've never doubted you'd like to watch more cricket than you have the opportunity to.

 

[Richard]

I'm not talking about bowling a barrage of short balls, I'm talking about balls that force a batsman to play them off the back foot, that can't be played off the front foot. This doesn't mean 'short and trying to knock the batsman's head off'. Short of a length will do the trick.

Yeah, I knew what you meant.
Nonetheless you don't often see batsmen getting out because they should have been forward and have played back because they've been in the habit of it.

You say that the ball usually flashes to the boundary, but then say that you see a lot of batsmen getting out to poor shots. I'd be happy to bet that quite a number of these poor shots you see are a result of bowling to a plan.

Sometimes they are, yes - on those occasions I'd say batsmen have blundered into an incredibly obvious trap.
On other occasions they're simply the result of the inevitable facet that no-one can play the right shot every ball. Far more occasions, in fact. No matter how well or poorly they're hitting the ball, poor shots are played quite a bit, and result in wickets quite a bit.

Batsmen with a weakness for the short ball may be far and few between but equally, there are thousands of batsmen who love to drive. In fact I've never bowled to anyone who can't drive if you put it in the right spot (apart from in Under 12's etc). IF you push that person back though and then give them one to come forward to on more than the odd occasion they won't get their foot to the pitch of the ball as they'll be a fraction of a second late......and this'll get wickets. It'll also look like the description you no doubt have of a bad shot which is luck for the bowler, when this is not the case.

Why will it get wickets?
How is it so certain they won't get the foot to the pitch? Like I say, I've seen countless times where people have been "pushed back" (personally I prefer the simple description "forced to play the deliveries bowled"; ie if a ball is short-of-a-length you're pretty stupid if you try and go forward to it) then got a full one and smashed it through the covers, eased it down the ground or tucked it into the leg-side (depending on the line).
If the ball is moving, of course, that's a different matter, but then the main thing is the ball has moved - the bowling-short-of-length-previously is a secondary consideration and the thing the bowler really has to be credited for is a good ball that took a wicket.
The basic thing is, length-changes don't get wickets anywhere near as often as people usually think.
In my experience, anyway.

 

[Richard]

then its another case of you misrepresenting facts to suit yourself.
the ball to Dippenaar was certainly a wicket taking ball that got the outside edge because of the hint of away movement. as i am sure was the one that got jacques kallis which had a bit of away swing as it took the outside edge.

I'm not going to deny that I don't really remember it too clearly because I was so depressed I was only half-watching.
If he did bowl a good ball or two, fine - then was a pretty good spell.
Nonetheless, it was out-of-character as he produced few similar ones during the rest of the winter. As shown by his average for it when that game is deducted.

yet you call that performance poor then?

I call it good figures despite nothing-special bowling.

 

[tooextracool]

I'm not going to deny that I don't really remember it too clearly because I was so depressed I was only half-watching.
If he did bowl a good ball or two, fine - then was a pretty good spell.
Nonetheless, it was out-of-character as he produced few similar ones during the rest of the winter. As shown by his average for it when that game is deducted..

oh ok so you deliberately didnt watch the times that he bowled well closely enough, and ony watched the games that he bowled badly in and then say that in his entire career hes got wickets only due to poor strokes. that makes a lot of sense.

I call it good figures despite nothing-special bowling.

do we need to go through the wickets in that series too?

 

[Richard]

oh ok so you deliberately didnt watch the times that he bowled well closely enough, and ony watched the games that he bowled badly in and then say that in his entire career hes got wickets only due to poor strokes. that makes a lot of sense.

I watched the Adelaide Oval game, didn't I? Even though it was getting on for 4 in the morning.
I think I explained pretty well why I didn't watch that game too closely.

do we need to go through the wickets in that series too?

Up to you.
You know what the result will probably be.

 

[tooextracool]

I watched the Adelaide Oval game, didn't I? Even though it was getting on for 4 in the morning.
I think I explained pretty well why I didn't watch that game too closely.

so why then does mcgrath have lucky wickets then? despite the fact that as i've just shown he does take enough wickets of wicket taking balls to be considered just as lucky as every other successful bowler

Up to you.
You know what the result will probably be.

yes i do, it'll probably end up with you saying that you didnt watch that series closely enough either and you talking about his performance in those 2 poor series he had against NZ and the WI in the last 5 years.

 

[Richard]

so why then does mcgrath have lucky wickets then? despite the fact that as i've just shown he does take enough wickets of wicket taking balls to be considered just as lucky as every other successful bowler

You've shown it to yourself - I still don't see quite the same pattern you do.

yes i do, it'll probably end up with you saying that you didnt watch that series closely enough either and you talking about his performance in those 2 poor series he had against NZ and the WI in the last 5 years.

And as I've said I don't think it's as simple as that.

 

[tooextracool]

You've shown it to yourself - I still don't see quite the same pattern you do..

because?

And as I've said I don't think it's as simple as that.

oh commone, no matter how wrong i prove you to be, you wont admit that mcgrath isnt a lucky bowler.

 

[Richard]

because?

Because you look at it in series only - I look at the stuff match-by-match.
The winter of 2001\02, especially, takes on a different perspective for me than it does for you. And that's quite important given that it was the start of me watching McGrath playing on flat pitches.
We do largely, though, see the rest the same way.
You just don't attribute most of his good figures from the Pakistan series onwards to poor strokes in the way I do.

oh commone, no matter how wrong i prove you to be, you wont admit that mcgrath isnt a lucky bowler.

You've certainly made a small impact, I'll give you that, but no, I still believe McGrath to put in very few wicket-taking-ball-filled spells on even, non-seaming wickets.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Yeah, I knew what you meant.
Nonetheless you don't often see batsmen getting out because they should have been forward and have played back because they've been in the habit of it.

Sometimes they are, yes - on those occasions I'd say batsmen have blundered into an incredibly obvious trap.
On other occasions they're simply the result of the inevitable facet that no-one can play the right shot every ball. Far more occasions, in fact. No matter how well or poorly they're hitting the ball, poor shots are played quite a bit, and result in wickets quite a bit.

Why will it get wickets?
How is it so certain they won't get the foot to the pitch? Like I say, I've seen countless times where people have been "pushed back" (personally I prefer the simple description "forced to play the deliveries bowled"; ie if a ball is short-of-a-length you're pretty stupid if you try and go forward to it) then got a full one and smashed it through the covers, eased it down the ground or tucked it into the leg-side (depending on the line).
If the ball is moving, of course, that's a different matter, but then the main thing is the ball has moved - the bowling-short-of-length-previously is a secondary consideration and the thing the bowler really has to be credited for is a good ball that took a wicket.
The basic thing is, length-changes don't get wickets anywhere near as often as people usually think.
In my experience, anyway.

Yet you can put so many things down to luck seemingly without taking this into account.

I'd presume any change of length should be accompanied by a change of line otherwise you're simply over-pitching. Let's face it, a ball that's driveable on middle stump isn't a stretch for most batsmen.

I'm not talking about a batsman than has played the completely wrong shot here either Richard. You don't often see Test class batsmen pick the completely wrong shot and go back to a full one, or come forward to a ball that is obviously short.

What I am talking about is a change of line and length after concentrating on a particular area for some time, and yes it does work - I've seen it happen time and time again and actually used the same tactic when bowling myself. The ball doesn't necessarily have to move, it could be a quicker ball that the batsman is a bit late on or indeed a slower ball - obviously movement is an added bonus though.

As for whether it'll get wickets.........Will it work every time!? No, of course not. But it is a part of the bowler's tactics that should be acknowledged as good bowling and not just attributed to luck. You can't say 'gee the bowler was lucky there' without taking into account everything that happened up to that point and recognising what he may have being trying to do that lead up to that point in the first place. If you don't have an understanding of that then any summations you make are misleading. I mean, let's face it, there are plenty of pitched up balls that move a bit a still get hit so obviously pushing a batsman back and then giving him something to hit (but not in the perfect spot) is a better way to go than simply pitching it up in the same spot and hoping he eventually edges it.

As a bowler you should be trying to bowl in the areas a batsman is weak in before giving him one in an area around that where he plays well and 9 times out of 10 his eyes will light up and he'll have a go at it. The key when doing that is not to put it in the perfect spot, if the batsman's been waiting for one in that area chances are he'll have a go - if he's good enough to let it go then good luck to him and you start again. It's kind of like how any cricket team worth its salt comes up with a plan for each batsman - and you need to take that into account.

 

[Richard]

Can't argue with that!

 

[tooextracool]

Because you look at it in series only - I look at the stuff match-by-match.
The winter of 2001\02, especially, takes on a different perspective for me than it does for you. And that's quite important given that it was the start of me watching McGrath playing on flat pitches.
We do largely, though, see the rest the same way.
You just don't attribute most of his good figures from the Pakistan series onwards to poor strokes in the way I do..

even if you look at it innings by innings,against SA he had 7good innings + 5
bad ones, against pak he had 1 bad innings and 5 good ones and against england he had 3 bad innings and 5 good ones. it seems to me that he has more good innings than he has bad innings. and im sure if we were to analyze each of those innings, wed find several wickets of wicket taking deliveries.

You've certainly made a small impact, I'll give you that, but no, I still believe McGrath to put in very few wicket-taking-ball-filled spells on even, non-seaming wickets.

yet you dont seem to be able to give me a perfectly good reason as to why you do. we've analysed several of those series now and in all of them we've seen him bowl a few wicket taking deliveries for his wickets.