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***Official*** India's Tour of Australia 2020/21 - General discussion

TheJediBrah

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He obviously wasnt a good 'hooker', if he was he would've scored some runs off it and he wouldn't have had to shelve it in international cricket. His hooking might have been good enough at domestic level but obviously not up to mark in the international level. Not everyone has all the shots in the book. He was a mentally strong batsmen to have the discipline to shelve a shot entirely but not skilled enough to execute it consistently at the top level. So yes he's a poor player of the short ball who had the mental fortitude to work around it.
That has nothing to do with anything I said but ok
 

Jfry

U19 Debutant
Mid 90s more than late 90s, and yes, I literally said he's a great batsman. But if he had an attacking game against the short ball in addition to his survivability, he'd be even better than he was. Do you disagree
I completely agree with this, but this does not mean he was a "not particularly good" player of the short ball. He was no Ponting, but he was more than proficient
 

Jfry

U19 Debutant
It can work in tests but in LO cricket today, if you cant attack the short ball or score off it, you will be a liabiliity. Which is interesting, considering how we keep saying test cricket is the ultimate test of a batsman. Its actually possible that when it comes to playing the bouncers, it may well not be, lol.
Yeah but LO has bouncer restrictions so it definitely cannot be considered the true test
 

gabbadan

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
The Pole should be dropped down a couple of rungs if he plays tests. Labu can do the job at the top.
He wouldn't be the first cricketer to cop this from the coach for the sake of the team's batting and himself.

who is MAD DOG?
 

the big bambino

International Captain
As for Steve Waugh, he was ugly against the short ball but effective. It can't have been comfortable for him but when I saw bowlers attacking him short I thought they were just playing him in and odds shortened (sorry about the pun) of him getting a good score. I was with a mate watching him on tv once, playing a domestic and facing Reiffel who attacked him in the corridor and soon got him out. We both hoped no coaches or bowlers from other countries would get a view of the contest because that's where you should have bowled to Waugh.
 

TheJediBrah

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I can see how the "Steve Waugh was a good/bad player of the short ball" could be kind of subjective.

If your personal definition of "being good at playing the short ball" is hooking and pulling, and scoring lots of runs off it then of course you're going to consider him bad at it.

Personally I would consider him a very good "player" of it, because as has been talked to death here already, he very rarely got out to it and bowling short to him more didn't hurt his output at all. He was outstanding against the best pace attacks of his time, which wouldn't have been possible if he wasn't great at handling the short ball. IMO if an increase in short-pitched bowling doesn't hurt your performance or output it's pretty hard to then claim you're "bad" at playing it.

Again though, I can definitely understand why those with an alternate subjective opinion of what constitutes "good at playing the short ball" would differ
 

GoodAreasShane

Cricketer Of The Year
Realistically the best we can hope for is something like 3, 0, 10, 4, 133, 0, 0, 9

Which actually might be marginally better than the alternatives the way things are heading
 

Spikey

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eh, that bozo hasn't got any inside knowledge, it's just an opinion piece. if they bring a senior player, it really oughta be usman. But if they want to pick The Man In Form....
 
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Nintendo

Cricketer Of The Year
Read that pucovski was up and walking around the dressing room/communicating with teammates an hour after the ball hit him and didn't need to go to hospital while the ambulance left without him. Unsure on how this kind of thing goes, especially with his injury history but he may be good to go when the first test rocks around.
 

Dan

Hall of Fame Member
eh, that bozo hasn't got any inside knowledge, it's just an opinion piece. if they bring a senior player, it really oughta be usman. But if they want to pick The Man In Form....
Oh yeah, it just conveniently fits the narrative
 

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