Sobers slams Australia and Shane Warne Performances

[C_C]

Sidhu struggled against Vettori and Saqlain in the past. Azhar was very good, so was Sachin. But I still think they all are just one small rung below Lara. Lara just has so many shots and unlike Sachin, he generally uses his full repertoire while batting against them. Gavaskar once said that playing against spin also depended on one's
attitude.

By the time Sidhu struggled against Vettori, he was on the decline,on the wrong side of 30 and it was over a decade after he started playing...
IMO Azhar and Sachin are every bit as good as Lara when it comes to playing spin. Lara looks more impetuous and dangerous while Sachin looks more solid and Azhar did so too in the past.
From what i've read and the few i've seen, i can say that Zaheer Abbas, Kallicharan, Kanhai and Chappell were every bit as good.

 

[social]

People bemoan the quality of current day bowlers but the fact is that the best 2 ever spinners are presently playing.

Batsmen of the 80s had no-one near the quality of Murali, Warne, Saqlain etc to confront.

That's not to say that great players of the past couldnt have adapted but, if you provide that leeway, then surely the same must be given to present day greats' ability to confront the WI pacemen.

 

[prossj]

Thats wrong buddy the aussies would flog who ever u go for

 

[Richard]

I personally reckon Simon Jones has a fair bit of improvement left in him which is rather frightening for opposition teams. In fact, I think his next long-term spell in the England team now he's back from injury will see him in the top 5 bowlers worldwide.

Now he's back from injury?
Sorry, I hadn't noticed.

 

[Richard]

People bemoan the quality of current day bowlers but the fact is that the best 2 ever spinners are presently playing.

It's much more common to bemoan the quality of the seamers, not the spinners.

Batsmen of the 80s had no-one near the quality of Murali, Warne, Saqlain etc to confront.

That's not to say that great players of the past couldnt have adapted but, if you provide that leeway, then surely the same must be given to present day greats' ability to confront the WI pacemen.

Sorry, how on Earth is Saqlain (or his clone Harbhajan) comparable to Murali and Warne?
And incidentally - just because batsmen in the 80s didn't get the chance to demonstrate their quality of spin-playing, why does it mean it didn't exist?

 

[social]

It's much more common to bemoan the quality of the seamers, not the spinners.

Sorry, how on Earth is Saqlain (or his clone Harbhajan) comparable to Murali and Warne?
And incidentally - just because batsmen in the 80s didn't get the chance to demonstrate their quality of spin-playing, why does it mean it didn't exist?

Bowling is bowling - it's a general complaint that it's easier to score runs now than in, say, the 80s.

Saqlain was a magnificent bowler. Have a look at his record.

As you say, how do we know batsmen of the 80s couldnt contend with Warne and Murali? In the same way that we dont know whether Bradman or Sobers or Roberts or anyone else from the past would be as effective today.

 

[Top_Cat]

And incidentally - just because batsmen in the 80s didn't get the chance to demonstrate their quality of spin-playing, why does it mean it didn't exist?

Ditto for everyone who says the WI pacemen would steamroll every known batsmen within the length of pitch in the 90's an 00's

 

[Richard]

Bowling is bowling - it's a general complaint that it's easier to score runs now than in, say, the 80s.

It is, because of the especially low quality of the seamers.

Saqlain was a magnificent bowler. Have a look at his record.

Err, what? Saqlain, like Harbhajan, is a fingerspinner and no more. His Test record is nothing special, it's the sort of thing you'd expect from a subcontinental spinner - good when it turns (which is often enough), not much use when it doesn't.
Both, of course, are very, very fine ODI bowlers but that's a different thing entirely.

As you say, how do we know batsmen of the 80s couldnt contend with Warne and Murali? In the same way that we dont know whether Bradman or Sobers or Roberts or anyone else from the past would be as effective today.

We can take a pretty decent guess IMO, that Bradman and Sobers would have been hugely effective in any era, probably more at the present than in the time both played.
Roberts, equally, would have been extremely effective in any era IMO.
And I think we can take a pretty good guess that Murali and Warne would trouble batsmen of the 1980s, oh, about as much as they trouble batsmen of today.
IE, they would cause significant problems, but not make run-scoring totally impossible.

 

[Top_Cat]

We can take a pretty decent guess IMO, that Bradman and Sobers would have been hugely effective in any era, probably more at the present than in the time both played.

Considering one guy retired 50+ years ago and the other 30+, that's a pretty unsupportable position. Even Bradman himself said he wouldn't have been as successful. And let's face it, Bradman only had a couple of shots which he absolutely nailed (pull-shot in the arc from mid-wicket all the way to mid-on and front-foot cover drive) and played in an era when it was considered most unsportsmanlike to bounce anyone; his weakness against the short ones and outside off-stump would be ruthlessly exposed these days. He was hardly the perfect batsman.

 

[Richard]

Where, exactly, does the story of Bradman's "weakness" against the short-ball stem from?
How often did you get pitches in his day that were uneven in bounce, a la Lord's 2005? If you watched that match in isolation you'd get the impression that every batsman was weak against the short-ball, because some pitches make playing the short-ball extremely difficult.
Short-bowling has always been part of the game, it's never been considered "unsportsmanlike" from what I've understood. Constant, non-stop, dangerous short-pitched bowling, yes - and it still is, too, and quite rightly.
I find it pretty simplistic to suggest that someone had some weakness or other that mightn't have been exploited in so-and-so year, because you could say exactly the same thing about batsmen 10 years ago - no-one would have been so successful with all the video-analysis of the last 5 years or so.
There are massive developments in cricket all the time, but talent is talent, and that's never changed.

 

[SJS]

Considering one guy retired 50+ years ago and the other 30+, that's a pretty unsupportable position. Even Bradman himself said he wouldn't have been as successful. And let's face it, Bradman only had a couple of shots which he absolutely nailed (pull-shot in the arc from mid-wicket all the way to mid-on and front-foot cover drive) and played in an era when it was considered most unsportsmanlike to bounce anyone; his weakness against the short ones and outside off-stump would be ruthlessly exposed these days. He was hardly the perfect batsman.

HUH !!

 

[Top_Cat]

Short-bowling has always been part of the game, it's never been considered "unsportsmanlike" from what I've understood. Constant, non-stop, dangerous short-pitched bowling, yes - and it still is, too, and quite rightly.

'Fast bowler's union' ring any bells? And I've seen footage of Keith Miller being boo'ed by a Victorian crowd for bowling short!

I find it pretty simplistic to suggest that someone had some weakness or other that mightn't have been exploited in so-and-so year, because you could say exactly the same thing about batsmen 10 years ago - no-one would have been so successful with all the video-analysis of the last 5 years or so.

Pitches in those days were pretty flat by Braddle's own reckoning. And there's no doubt that tactics have evolved out-of-sight since those days too; constant analysis of a player's weakness's are a relatively new phenomena, again, by the reckoning of players who actually played in that era. I've read it plenty of times!

 

[Top_Cat]

HUH !!

Well gee, what an argument - who could possibly counter that one?

 

[SJS]

Well gee, what an argument - who could possibly counter that one?

I always avoid arguing with people whose knowledge and understanding of the game is so much greater than mine and so greatly evolved.

 

[Richard]

'Fast bowler's union' ring any bells? And I've seen footage of Keith Miller being boo'ed by a Victorian crowd for bowling short!

Yes, indeed it does. And quite right, too, frankly.
What, prey, does that have to do with how bowlers bowled at batsmen?
You didn't hear Brett Lee being booed by the WA crowd (yes, I know Lee's a NSWman) in 2002\03 after nearly killing Alex Tudor and bowling a spiteful bumper at the useless Harmison next ball?

Pitches in those days were pretty flat by Braddle's own reckoning. And there's no doubt that tactics have evolved out-of-sight since those days too; constant analysis of a player's weakness's are a relatively new phenomena, again, by the reckoning of players who actually played in that era. I've read it plenty of times!

They're a phenomena of the last 4-5 years. Read NH's book - tactics and analysis in the early 1990s were pretty shambolic and amaterish compared with what we take for granted.
Does this mean that any player pre-Mike Walsh\Malcolm Ashton cannot possibly have their success taken seriously because if there'd been analysis people would've worked them out?
No, it doesn't. Analysis makes good players better. It can't turn poor players into good ones, or make the gap between a poor player and a good one smaller. Tendulkar is the prime example of that. Every time anyone's used analysis to work-out a fault in his game, he's probably done the same 6 months in advance and begun working on eradicating it.
If analysis could enable people to work-out Bradman's weaknesses, it could also enable him to eradicate them. You can't have it for one and not for the other.

 

[Top_Cat]

If analysis could enable people to work-out Bradman's weaknesses, it could also enable him to eradicate them. You can't have it for one and not for the other.

Depends on the weakness; being scared of short-pitched bowling is not something which can easily be eradicated. Even in the modern era, some players never get over it (Ganguly, for example). You can work on getting your foot across, you can work on moving your feet but working on not being scared and hesitant against short ones? That's something so intrinsically psychological (fight or flight) which you just can't change.

 

[Richard]

Bradman admitted he was scared of short-balls, did he?
If he did - you think this is something helmets, chest-pads and stomach-guards could not fix?
For getting-over weakness with short-balls - see Graeme Hick. He altered his game, and a player who in 1992 was a sitting-duck for bumper-assaults in 1993 embarked on a run of consistent run-getting against all kinds of seamers that lasted until 1995\96.
And for Ganguly - his supposed being scared of short-balls hasn't seemed to handicap him too badly, to me. He seems to have had, in fact, a pretty darn good career.

 

[social]

Bradman admitted he was scared of short-balls, did he?
If he did - you think this is something helmets, chest-pads and stomach-guards could not fix?
For getting-over weakness with short-balls - see Graeme Hick. He altered his game, and a player who in 1992 was a sitting-duck for bumper-assaults in 1993 embarked on a run of consistent run-getting against all kinds of seamers that lasted until 1995\96.
And for Ganguly - his supposed being scared of short-balls hasn't seemed to handicap him too badly, to me. He seems to have had, in fact, a pretty darn good career.

Hick was never a reliable test batsman and Ganguly has played much of his career on wickets where the ball has been lucky to get to hip height.

As for Bradman, you dont average 99 by having any weaknesses against the bowlers of the day no matter what length they bowled.

 

[Richard]

Hick was never a reliable test batsman

Rubbish, Hick was an utterly reliable Test batsman for a time, as demonstrated quite clearly here. He altered his technique and coped perfectly well with the short-ball in that period.

Ganguly has played much of his career on wickets where the ball has been lucky to get to hip height.

Rubbish, any fool can get the ball to bounce head-height on even the slowest pitches. Ganguly has played plenty in England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and West Indies, anyhow. His average is perfectly acceptible, his weakness against the short-ball exactly the same as the supposed weaknesses of Stephen Waugh and Gary Kirsten.

 

[Autobahn]

Rubbish, any fool can get the ball to bounce head-height on even the slowest pitches. Ganguly has played plenty in England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and West Indies, anyhow. His average is perfectly acceptible, his weakness against the short-ball exactly the same as the supposed weaknesses of Stephen Waugh and Gary Kirsten.

Yeah true but at speeds fast-enough to trouble a batsmen? Ganguly would have no trouble putting away rank long-hops but well directed fast bumpers?