Shane Bond - how good?

[cbuts]

those two test against aussie were his first in interantional cricket and as i recall he bowled pretty well. he then made a name for himself in the vb series, where he screwed the aussies mostly. in something like 6 odi's agianst aussie he has 19 wickets at 9 a piece. i dont think that bond is overated. before his injury he appeared in most, if not all of the major bolwing rankings. even now he still appears in some.

bond and akthar are deffantaly superior to lee. both bond and akthar move the ball a hell of a lot, and at 150kmph + thats very dangerous. lee, from waht ive seen dosent appear to have the ability to move it much.

 

[Marmers49]

That's true, lee can outswing it but the far most dangerous weapon which akhtar and bond use is the inswinging yorker. Just ask Brian Lara and Gilchrist...

 

[anzac]

Re: Re: Shane Bond - how good?

If you ask me Bond is overrated.
People seem to take it for granted that he is one of the top Test bowlers in The World.
Let's go through his Test career:
2 Tests against Australia, averaged 96.33 (wow, that's fantastic, ain't it?)
2 against Bangladesh, averaged 13.63 (wow, that's hard, Bangladesh have so many good batsmen, and the series was at home on very, very seam-friendly wickets)
2 against West Indies, averaged 18 (while West Indies have a respectible batting-line-up, they were hardly as good then as they are now)
2 against India, averaged 16.33 (agan, at home on incredibly seam-friendly wickets - Tuffey and Oram did equally sillily well)
2 against Sri Lanka, averaged 38.8 (and that's fantastic, ain't it?)
If you ask me circumstances have conspired in his favour in Test cricket and in the likely event that we prepare some customary no-seam wickets over here next summer and bat well, I can see another poor series. For me the only occasions he's come up against circumstances remotely challenging, he's failed.
In ODIs, naturally, it's a totally different question, and there's no disputing that he's a very, very accurate and extremely good one-day bowler. He also actually seems to swing the while ball.
Yes, he's better than Brett Lee in Tests but that's not exactly difficult, is it? Lee has to be up with the worst Test bowlers of the last 3 years, and that's saying something.

in those 2 Tests v Aussie he may have been ordinary in the 2nd Test (his debut), but in the 3rd Test at Perth he bowled without much luck (thanx to the Zimbabwian Ump) - his bowling to Mark Waugh was unreal & IMO was the death knell for Waugh's Test career - kept cutting him in half with balls seaming back in from outside off & he couldn't score & could / should have been out several times.......

so far as the England Tour goes I don't think a lack of seam movement will help the English batsmen as he can swing the ball as well as move it off the seam........Bond is quicker than anything RSA had to offer & has a variety of deliveries at pace that they do not - he probably has the best late inswinging yorkers outside Pakistan!!!!

the batsmen just better pray that he has lost some pace otherwise they may be facing Butler bowling short of a length at one end at about 140 ks, and Bond bowling 145k+ inswinging yorkers from the other.......

 

[Token]

Shane Bond is a 15 minute wonder. He's hardly done anything yet and he's unlikely to do much in the future due to his injuries and age. I don't see him reaching 100 test wickets.

He is only 27.
3 more years=100+ wickets - I don't see why not.

 

[Tim]

You can forgive Bond for his 2 tests against Australia....his 1st test was at Hobart where NZ were pretty much getting rolled & some of his spells in Perth were great, in one spell he gave Steve Waugh a good going over & eventually got his wicket too.

To just flag Bond off as overrated, in what has been quite a short test career is ridiculous.

 

[Tim]

Brett Lee can bowl fast in-swinging yorkers, don't you guys remember the World Cup match at Port Elizabeth?

 

[Eclipse]

Brett Lee can bowl fast in-swinging yorkers, don't you guys remember the World Cup match at Port Elizabeth?

yep he has stacks off wickets from inswinging yorkers over the years.

 

[Richard]

Brett Lee can bowl fast in-swinging yorkers, don't you guys remember the World Cup match at Port Elizabeth?

Anyone CAN bowl them - you just need to practice.
The skill comes in being able to bowl them regularly.

 

[Richard]

To just flag Bond off as overrated, in what has been quite a short test career is ridiculous.

Surely it is the other way around...
The shorter the career, the greater chance of misleading stats. Knock out the Bangladesh series and it's one very poor series, two very good ones and one poor one.
One of the very good ones was in extreme favourable conditions.

 

[Richard]

those two test against aussie were his first in interantional cricket and as i recall he bowled pretty well. he then made a name for himself in the vb series, where he screwed the aussies mostly. in something like 6 odi's agianst aussie he has 19 wickets at 9 a piece. i dont think that bond is overated. before his injury he appeared in most, if not all of the major bolwing rankings. even now he still appears in some.

The VB Series was very good - it was one-day-cricket, therefore it doesn't have the slighest bearing on Test-matches.
Bond didn't bowl well at all in the Trans-Tasman Trophy - OK, he didn't bowl as badly as 96.33, but he still bowled pretty poorly. If you just forgive someone for bowling poorly simply because it was their debut series I really think you're missing a point if it fits another pattern.
And there is a clear pattern of Bond being someone for whom circumstances have conspired in the favour of as far as Test-cricket is concerned.

 

[Richard]

Re: Re: Re: Shane Bond - how good?

in those 2 Tests v Aussie he may have been ordinary in the 2nd Test (his debut), but in the 3rd Test at Perth he bowled without much luck (thanx to the Zimbabwian Ump) - his bowling to Mark Waugh was unreal & IMO was the death knell for Waugh's Test career - kept cutting him in half with balls seaming back in from outside off & he couldn't score & could / should have been out several times.......

Yet he still managed far better scores than he had all series...
IMO the death-knell was that horrible shot he played at Astle in the 1st innings of the series. That started it all off - that WACA Test was one of the few moments that threatened to arrest the slide.
OK, Bond didn't have the greatest of luck at The WACA but it still doesn't excuse a series average of 96.33. A bit of better luck might have brought it down to around 60.

the batsmen just better pray that he has lost some pace otherwise they may be facing Butler bowling short of a length at one end at about 140 ks, and Bond bowling 145k+ inswinging yorkers from the other.......

What a terrifying prospect - Bond and Butler.:rolleyes:
A sane batsman would be licking his lips. Just like Gayle and co. should be when they learn Jones and Harmison are likely to open in The Caribbean.
Two vastly overrated pairs of quick bowlers, IMO.

 

[marc71178]

Anyone CAN bowl them - you just need to practice.
The skill comes in being able to bowl them regularly.

If only the game were that simple...

 

[Richard]

If it were, everyone who ever picked-up a ball would be McGrath, Pollock, Warne or Muralitharan.
Sadly, some people don't realise that.

 

[KishanTeli]

I personally have not seen enough of Bond to judge whether he is over/under rated or not, but from what i have heard most of the feedback is positive.

As regards to his test record i feel it is to early to judge if his average is a true reflection or not, as mentioned earlier judge after 30 tests or so.

From what i have seen he is a very good bowler but I do have doubts about his short and long term fitness. For a bowler of his pace he is consistent which makes him a better choice ahead of Lee, hence his good ODI record.

 

[Marmers49]

OK - forget about the Aussie series. He was called on very late because he was a backup for three bowlers, Martin, O'Connor, Nash, all which were not expected to break down so dramatically. There was no mention of him in any form of media as a real prospect to be brought into that test series or international honours at all. That is why he had little success, he was hardly mentioned.

An average of 96 is poor - fine. Look what is now - 24. All those people that try and pull apart his very short test career are really trying to clutch at straws and are missing the point as i thought i emphasised clear enough earlier on: judge him after 30+ test matches!! (Its also fine to discuss how good he is at the one-day game..)

 

[cbuts]

sure his average was **** in that test series, but he bowled pretty impresivly. he impressed the aussie commentators hard out, and from those test they picked him as one of the next stars. which after the world cup he was close to becoming, bugger those injuries aye

 

[thierry henry]

He is only 27.
3 more years=100+ wickets - I don't see why not.

Wrong, he's 28, turning 29 mid-year (which will probably be the next time we see him in action). His career is more than likely to be decimated by injuries as well.

And Richard- I always enjoy the level-headedness of your comments but do you realise how unrealistically negative you are? To suggest that "anyone can bowl fast inswinging yorkers" or that "any sane batsman would lick their lips at the prospect of facing Bond and Butler" shows a complete lack of comprehension of 99% of the worlds population. As far as I'm concerned, no sane person would go within a million miles of a ball being propelled at them at 150 kph (and I've gone just far enough in my limited cricket career to have faced some reasonably brisk bowling). Perhaps you yourself achieved something in cricket and therefore are quite understandably unimpressed by what you see as mediocre players? I'm all for being realistic and having a proper perspective on things, but surely you have a healthy respect for anyone who has played first class cricket? In all seriousness, the ability required to even play county cricket (or, closer to home for me, for an NZ first class side) is something that me or most people could never dream of, but you seem convinced that an overwhelming majority of first class cricketers are just plain hopeless.

 

[Jono]

The world hasn't seen enough of Bond unfortunately. It's ashame that his injury has kept him away from cricket, because he is/was (we'll see soon) a fantastic prospect for NZ and added a lot to NZ's attack. Tuffey, Bond, Oram and an improving Butler wouldn't be too bad, especially if Tuffey and Butler keep improving the way they are.

That being said he hasn't played ENOUGH to rate him as a great. He's a brilliant fast bowler who hasn't played enough cricket to show off what he really can do over a long period of time.

However he is much, much better than Bret Lee in every way. His in swinging yorkers are more threatening and is basically a better all round player. However if you are here in Australia, Bret Lee has been hyped/marketed as a fast bowling God in the past 2-3 years and so the Australians are brain washed believing he is actually... wait for it... good :O It's annoying arguing with these fans too, because they are so ignorant to true, great pace bowling which I believe Bond could have offered and hopefully still can. At least Lee has been exposed as the **** poor bowler he really is by the Indians. Thank God for Dravid and Laxman

 

[Tim]

Bond can bat too, boy can he hit some sixes...I remember at Hobart 2 years back he was thumping them everywhere.

No-one has ever said he's one of the greats, but he's probably already one of NZ's best bowlers we've produced.

 

[thierry henry]

Daryl Tuffey will go on to be the better bowler/make the bigger contribution to NZ cricket, mark my words. And I'm not even a big Tuffey fan.