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*Official* New Zealand in England 2015

Hurricane

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
What are the laws for intimidatory bowling - that is our number 10 in there. Or is intimidatory bowling an old school concept.
 
Furball

Furball

Evil Scotsman
I'm going to qualify this by stating that I didn't watch yesterday's play so I have no idea if this was the case or not. I caught some of the highlights in between cooking dinner; Anderson got some lovely shape for his 2 wickets to induce edges to the cordon - if the ball was behaving like that for a lot of the day then there's absolutely nothing wrong with McCullum and Ronchi's approach to their innings (again I'm judging their innings by their strike rates here). If the ball is talking and you don't have great defensive technique then to be honest you're as well just attempting to smash the bowling. If it comes off then you make things easier for the bloke at the other end because you start throwing the bowlers off the length they want to be bowling at you, and if it doesn't come off - well so what, if you'd attempted to block the ball all day you'd have got one with your name on it anyway and nicked one to the cordon, except you'd be sitting in the pavilion with 20 less runs to your name.

Sure, McCullum's dismissal at Lord's in the 1st innings (using this as an example as I didn't see his wicket yesterday) looks much worse than Guptil's or Williamson's dismissals this innings, but that's because we've all been conditioned by Geoff ****ing Boycott that "attacking cricket = bad, defensive cricket = good. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with an attacking cricketer mistiming a shot and getting caught in the deep, it's most definitely not fundamentally worse than being drawn into playing at a ball you've got no need to play at and nicking off trying to block.

People mention Ronchi falling into an obvious trap but what if it comes off and he smashes an unbeaten ton yesterday? Then he'd be a hero. People on here are criticising Ronchi because they don't like him, you'd all be queuing up to give Williamson wristies if he'd played the innings Ronchi did with his team in dire straights and wickets falling at the other end.

If your strength as a batsman is playing shots and attacking the bowlers, then play that way, particularly if your defensive technique isn't up to much. Ronchi should not be getting criticised for getting out, he should be getting praised for dragging New Zealand into the game and batting at such a speed that despite losing overs, New Zealand are in with a shout of forcing a positive result if their bowlers lift their game.

edit: actually I caught a bit of Ronchi's innings on the highlights and he stuck away a lot of **** bowling. Point still stands, if you're an aggressive batsman, play your shots. One of the most frustrating things for me as a fan is seeing aggressive batsmen get out by trying to be responsible and playing all around straight ones and getting bowled or rapped on the pads or nicking off when a ball was there to be smashed out the ground. It was my biggest frustration with KP's batting post captaincy.
 
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