Pathan has come of age!

[tooextracool]

Which does not really influence good swing-bowlers - a top-bracket swing-bowler can move it in any conditions.

rubbish, there has never been a swing bowler who can swing the ball in any conditions. there are bowlers who can swing the ball more often than not(hoggard,caddick, pollock) and there are others who can only swing the ball when the conditions are completely in their favor(cork,mcgrath, akhtar)

 

[GladiatrsInBlue]

. Outstanding seamers will prevail in any conditions.

.

BUt that didn't happen with many greats!

Nope, playing more doesn't make people improve.

Who's saying that only playing more is going to improve averages? I have already said that there is improvement in IKP bowling and as such as he plays more and perform better his average is bound to improve.

No, he won't. But nor will anyone be justified in saying he's been a chucker throughout his career when he clearly hasn't.

So he won't be able to get respect everywhere, he is unlikely to bowl with a legitimate action for a long time , yet its unjustified to call hima chucker?
More than half of his 46 wickets were obtained by throwing the ball, like it or not the guy is a chucker and will go down in history as a chucker!

 

[GladiatrsInBlue]

Ignoring me won't make "club level" Indian bowlers stand in the list of legends.This thread is rubbish & really deserves to be closed.

 

[GladiatrsInBlue]

and there are others who can only swing the ball when the conditions are completely in their favor(cork,mcgrath, akhtar)

And many Pak bowlers excelled in Pakistan as the playing condition was indeed were in their favor, a kind of place which is ideal for reverse swing.

 

[tooextracool]

Who's saying that only playing more is going to improve averages? I have already said that there is improvement in IKP bowling and as such as he plays more and perform better his average is bound to improve.

i certainly havent seen this so called improvement, and its merely the pathan followers getting up from their seats after he swung the ball around corners against a zimbabwe side that couldnt play swing bowling in very very conducive conditions for swing.

 

[tooextracool]

And many Pak bowlers excelled in Pakistan as the playing condition was indeed were in their favor, a kind of place which is ideal for reverse swing.

and believe it or not you cant swing the ball unless the conditions allows you to do so in much the same way that you cant reverse swing the ball unless the conditions are in your favour.

 

[Eclipse]

rubbish, there has never been a swing bowler who can swing the ball in any conditions. there are bowlers who can swing the ball more often than not(hoggard,caddick, pollock) and there are others who can only swing the ball when the conditions are completely in their favor(cork,mcgrath, akhtar)

agreed!

I don't think Caddick was ever that good at swinging it though.

 

[tooextracool]

i dont see how caddick swung it any less than hoggard or any other quality swing bowler. he had a genuine outswinger and could also get the ball to swing back in occasionally. the problem with caddick was that he bowled too short too often,and was often cannon fodder when the ball wasnt swinging and when there was no uneven bounce.

 

[Richard]

So it's possible to use injury as an excuse for 6 years, but not for 4...

Except, as you've noticed, I've not done so - I've said that more often than not White has been injured in these 6 years, which as any fool can tell is true. He barely bowled a ball last season, is that not enough for you?
The excuse you have attempted to use for Flintoff's rubbishness between 1998 and 2003\04 is that he was never fit, which is utterly impossible. Of course, there were occasions where he wasn't fit, but they were brief.
Whereas I have said several times that there were occasions - relatively brief again, but in existence nonetheless - when White was fit, and when he was he generally bowled extremely well.

 

[Richard]

rubbish, there has never been a swing bowler who can swing the ball in any conditions. there are bowlers who can swing the ball more often than not(hoggard,caddick, pollock) and there are others who can only swing the ball when the conditions are completely in their favor(cork,mcgrath, akhtar)

Nope, good bowlers can swing a ball in the right condition (ie with sufficient shine) anywhere (except possibly some places in West Indies) as long as they've got everything right.
We see with Hoggard so often that something goes wrong and he fails to swing the ball (happens especially often when someone goes after him), we saw it with Cork many times too. McGrath usually pitches too short for swing anyway.
Some bowlers can even fail to swing the ball when everything's completely in-favour (see Cork in 2001, for instance).

 

[Richard]

BUt that didn't happen with many greats!

Such as?
How many acclaimed great bowlers have struggled to swing the new-ball in the subcontinent having been able to swing it elsewhere?

Who's saying that only playing more is going to improve averages? I have already said that there is improvement in IKP bowling and as such as he plays more and perform better his average is bound to improve.

Yet there has been no improvement as of yet.
Whether or not there has been an improvement since Pakistan we don't know, as he hasn't played a Test-standard team since then. And until the next tour of Pakistan we will remain in the unknown.

So he won't be able to get respect everywhere, he is unlikely to bowl with a legitimate action for a long time , yet its unjustified to call hima chucker?
More than half of his 46 wickets were obtained by throwing the ball, like it or not the guy is a chucker and will go down in history as a chucker!

We don't know how many of his wickets were obtained by throwing the ball, especially given that the rules have changed in his career.
All we know is that sometimes his action has been suspect.

 

[Richard]

and believe it or not you cant swing the ball unless the conditions allows you to do so in much the same way that you cant reverse swing the ball unless the conditions are in your favour.

Or rather you can't do so unless the ball is in the right state.
Conditions (pitch, air, etc.) don't actually have much of an influence so far as stopping swing happening is concerned, although obviously they help it swing more than it otherwise might.

 

[Richard]

I don't think Caddick was ever that good at swinging it though.

Caddick when he pitched it in the right areas was always a very fine swing-bowler and that's how he took most of the wickets he took when there was no uneven bounce.
Sadly when there was no uneven bounce and the ball wasn't in the right condition to swing he was never a wicket-taking threat, and too often after May 2001 he lost his accuracy.

 

[Tom Halsey]

McGrath is 5-10 mph quicker than Bicknell.

I'm not in the know here, as I didn't see enough of him in a while ago, but Bicknell when he was younger must have been quicker than he is now?

 

[Tom Halsey]

So it's possible to use injury as an excuse for 6 years, but not for 4...

Except Flintoff was fit batting wise - he was just not all that good really until the SA series 2003 IMO.

Of course he wasn't really able to bowl much so that is a much more valid excuse.

 

[Richard]

As far as I know marc has only ever attempted to use the excuse for Flintoff's bowling.
Yet there were only rare stages that he was unfit, most of the time it was because he wasn't good enough.
Of course, this summer he has been - since last summer he's been bowling differently to how he bowled before, and in the winters of 2003\04 and 2004\05 he was immensely flattered by his figures.

 

[Richard]

I'm not in the know here, as I didn't see enough of him in a while ago, but Bicknell when he was younger must have been quicker than he is now?

He was, he used to be in the 80-82mph range in 1999, so presumably he was a bit quicker still in the pre-speed-gun days.
McGrath's fastest was always about 87-88, though he occasionally touched 90.
Bicknell has always been slower than McGrath but he didn't used to be massively so.
Even now Bicknell still hits 80mph sometimes.

 

[Tom Halsey]

As far as I know marc has only ever attempted to use the excuse for Flintoff's bowling.
Yet there were only rare stages that he was unfit, most of the time it was because he wasn't good enough.
Of course, this summer he has been - since last summer he's been bowling differently to how he bowled before, and in the winters of 2003\04 and 2004\05 he was immensely flattered by his figures.

Fintoff bowled immensely well in SA, I don't see how he was flattered.

I heard a while ago during the WI tour in 2004 that Flintoff had always seen himself as a defensive bowler, and from then on he's bowled more aggressively - and since then his figures have improved.

 

[Richard]

Yes, and it's just typical media opportunism - fact is Flintoff had been getting the figures for 5 Tests before that chat with Troy Cooley.
He bowled, if you ask even as esteemed a correspondant as tooextracool, poorly throughout the winter of 2003\04. According to tec he only started bowling well at the start of 2004. IMO he bowled differently then, but still not anywhere near as well as he bowled this summer and not well enough to get these figures.
Flintoff did NOT bowl well in SA, he just got wickets with average or poor deliveries - as he did the previous winter.

 

[marc71178]

The excuse you have attempted to use for Flintoff's rubbishness between 1998 and 2003\04 is that he was never fit, which is utterly impossible. Of course, there were occasions where he wasn't fit, but they were brief.

So of course, Flintoff himself couldn't possibly have known his body wasn't right, could he...