Mister Wright said:
Do you understand the One Day game at all? If a team is only five wickets down they still have a batsman in the top 6 who is in and the number 7 (unless someone is retired hurt). And by your theory the batting team would be 4/150 after 40 overs. Now unless a team only wants to set a mediocre total of 200 or are chasing 200 to win, I cannot see how a team would settle for 50 runs off the final 10 overs. The batsman will try and increase the run-rate and therefore score more than 200 or lose more wickets which would either reduce the score to under 200 or make it just over 200 with the loss of more than 5 wickets.
So therefore it is important to take wickets early to keep the batting side under pressure, because the batsman won't be there to score the runs at a quicker rate at the end of the innings, and it is then important to keep the runs down at the end of the innings. This is awfully hard to do against batsman, but alot easier to do against bowlers.
I give the recent ODI Australia v India at the 'Gabba as an example. Australia were unable to take wickets and restrict the Indians. Infact they were able to score 23 runs off the final 2.1 overs which is much easier to do with your number 3 & number 6 in then it is your 10 & 11.
First of all, no, by something resembling my theory they'd be 160\4 after 40 overs. However, I never actually said "each 10 overs of the innings have 40 runs scored and 1 wicket lost.
There are different places at which to aim if you want to bowl economically at various stages of the innings. For most of the first 40 overs, that's the top of off stump. In the last 10, it's the Yorker length, varying in line depending on if you see the batsman giving himself room.
Even if batsmen don't give their wickets away, there are lines and lengths, especially with the wicketkeeper standing-up, that it's simply not possible to score that quickly from, with a decent field.
If you can't contain batsmen in the last 10 overs, it's not just because they're "set", it's also because your bowling is not good enough.
OK, it's not the easiest task aiming in the blockhole ball after ball, but it's certainly possible. West Indies have been doing it surprisingly well in the present series.