Nathan Hauritz

[Johnners]

How can the batsmen gift the bowler wickets when only the bowler can be too good for the batsmen and not the other way around (or something.....)?

 

[Mister Wright]

Funny how no matter how "attacking" he supposedly is most of his wickets have come through batsman error rather than good deliveries that have actually turned.

In fact no fingerspinner can be "attacking" just through thinking "let's attack", because when you bowl at 50mph you are required to turn the ball to attack. Fingerspinners, and Hauritz more than most, cannot do that on most surfaces. Heck, even when Hauritz has turned the ball (both decks for the opening two Tests this series have indeed turned) he's produced a whole 1 genuine wicket-taking ball (that being the one to Strauss in the Lord's second-innings).

Hauritz to me is no different now from the start of the 2008/09 summer, he's merely profited from relatively poor England batting, same way Johnson has.

It amazes me that someone who knows so little about finger spin bowling can claim to know so much.

I bowled finger spin throughout my junior 'career' and the last thing I was looking for was turn. You don't get much on synthetic pitches, so what you're looking for is good flight and drift. You can attack just as much by deceiving a batsman in flight than you can through turn. In fact too much turn is a bad thing for a finger spinner.

What you really want is variety, ones that turn a fair bit, other that don't. Lots that drop late, others that drift. I often found the flat top spinner got me a lot of wickets.

There is far more to attacking finger spin than simply being able to turn the ball. I'd even go so far to say that any finger spinner who is thinking just about turn will not be a good one. I'd rather see a finger spinner mix their length and flight as attacking options for getting wickets.

 

[Richard]

More that we all view the game through the prism of our beliefs and understanding of the game, and that while I honestly think you spend a lot of time thinking about cricket and have some very interesting and valid views, you also have some very deeply held views that IMO are simply wrong. There are instances where those views lead to you assessments I don't agree with, and fair enough - it would be a boring site and world if we all agreed. That said, I think we've discussed some of those views enough for me to say that we'll simply have to agree to disagree - I'm not interested in repeating the same discussion over and over.

Yeah, fair enough. As I say, to me that fingerspin can only be effective under certain circumstances is as basic as the fact that when a ball is 20cm outside off-stump 99.9999999999% of batsmen would do better to try to hit it through extra-cover than square-leg.

 

[Richard]

I disagree that a spinner's greatest weapon is turn.

A spinner's greatest weapon is actually flight and drift. Warne himself said that a spinner does not beat a batsman off the pitch but through the air. You only need the ball to turn enough to catch the edge to take a wicket.

Drift alone is of little use against good batting. Drift merely accentuates the weapon that is turn. At 50mph, you need to move the ball off the pitch; moving it in the air merely accentuates the effectiveness of this. At 80mph, movement through the air and off the pitch are equally effective.

With no turn, you can drift the ball as much as you like, good batting will still see it have no effect.

By the way Richard, most batmsen get out by gifting their wicket to the bowler. They do so because it's ridiculously hard to concentrate for hours and not make a mistake. Yet out is out and the bowler rightly gets the credit because they were the one who caused the lapse in concentration.

Bowlers don't cause lapses in concentration - they are merely in the right place at the right time. And while it's true that more wickets than not are a result of batsman error exclusively and nothing to do with good bowling, it's not close to being "most". And obviously there's plenty of wickets which are both - eg the wideish outswinger that draws the drive and is edged to the wicketkeeper.

 

[Richard]

This is ridiculous, how can someone be that predictable?

Same way the question "who is the best batsman ever?" has a predictable answer.

 

[Richard]

How can the batsmen gift the bowler wickets when only the bowler can be too good for the batsmen and not the other way around (or something.....)?

More to the point, how are these two mutually exclusive? In fact how on Earth does one make the slightest impact on the other being supposedly impossible?

 

[Richard]

It amazes me that someone who knows so little about finger spin bowling can claim to know so much.

I know plenty about it. You do not need to be able to do something to know about it. All you need to have done to know something about something is watch it, and I've watched copious amounts of fingerspin.

 

[marc71178]

And there was me thinking multi-quote was there for a reason.

 

[Richard]

It is - and as you yourself pointed-out, it's not there for posts like the above.

IMO each individual post deserves an individual reply, not lumping several people's views in one reply (since it makes it hard for that person to respond easily)

 

[stephen]

Bowlers don't cause lapses in concentration - they are merely in the right place at the right time. And while it's true that more wickets than not are a result of batsman error exclusively and nothing to do with good bowling, it's not close to being "most". And obviously there's plenty of wickets which are both - eg the wideish outswinger that draws the drive and is edged to the wicketkeeper.

By the way I was refering to set batsmen, not ones fresh to the crease. Most spinners bowl to set batsmen and a big way that spinners get wickets is by variations that deceive the batsman, like what happened to Clarke in the second innings. He lost concentration at a pivotal moment in his innings and missed a good ball.

Of course you need to bowl well to exploit concentration lapses, but it's exactly the same as conditions - you have to bowl well to exploit them too. Bowling dross may occasionally get you the rare wicket, but not often.

 

[Uppercut]

Rich, i think you're just seeing everything more logical than it is. You have all these set rules in your mind- the batsman can't be too good for the bowler, finger-spinners can't be any use when the ball isn't turning square, lateral movement is necessary for any bowler to be top-class.

These aren't rules, they're just trends. And the first one is just odd.

 

[Richard]

You've exaggerated the point on the second one, considerably, and to a small extent the third as well. In my view, when expressed as I express them, they are indeed rules, which have no exception. If you wish to view them as trends that's your (and anyone else's) choice, but my experience leads me to believe otherwise.

 

[Richard]

By the way I was refering to set batsmen, not ones fresh to the crease. Most spinners bowl to set batsmen and a big way that spinners get wickets is by variations that deceive the batsman, like what happened to Clarke in the second innings. He lost concentration at a pivotal moment in his innings and missed a good ball.

Of course you need to bowl well to exploit concentration lapses, but it's exactly the same as conditions - you have to bowl well to exploit them too. Bowling dross may occasionally get you the rare wicket, but not often.

It's not so rare as you make it out to be. And of course bowling unthreateningly can of times get you wickets - batsmen are not superhuman, and in fact make errors regularly. Obviously, nothing close to every error results in a wicket.