Harmison - underachiever or overrated ?

[SJS]

And square on you have Marshall, Ambrose, Walsh, Croft, Clarke, Willis, Fraser, Proctor, Imran - pre '78/9, McGrath, Hughes, Srinath, Lillee/Bishop/Bond/Reid (post injuries), Clark, Ntini, Ishant, Flintoff etc etc etc

They all have one thing in common, they took a stack of wickets

Bottom line is that there is no one way to get the ball from one end to the other effectively

Square on refers to the position of the hips at delivery

In the old days, coaches would have you believe that you had to be side on to swing the ball.

Guys like Marshall and Imran disproved that myth and proved that it was largely due to wrist position rather than trunk rotation

You clearly know more about cricket than I do, I bow to superior knowledge.

 

[Son Of Coco]

I gave you the period I was referring to - here it is again.

Oh, I'm sure he did. But he did not move it enough to get large numbers of wickets with such balls (or bowl lots of them before then get wickets with balls that did not move, as he did quite often later on).

I find there to be no inconsistency there. Conjecture, yes, fair enough.

Anyway, I think we'd best leave this until I can find time to assess every single McGrath wicket on the non-seaming pitches. Might be a while, however. I'm rather busy at the current time.

That's probably a good idea...the inconsistencies come on when you say he didn't move it enough to get large numbers of wickets yet you obviously haven't watched a large number of the deliveries he bowled. How he got lucky for this period, yet didn't before or after, while still maintaining his spot and performing as the best fast bowler in the world is also a mystery. (With a couple of brief take-overs by the likes of Harmison of course). I can only assume batsmen must have given up completely during these tough times on flat decks before finding some heart again in 2005 causing McGrath to pick his act up and start taking wickets with good balls again lest he look foolish.