Morning - hope we're good.
I was just looking at an interesting post about the SA ATG XI for limited overs cricket and picked up on a detail which would pose a selection headache, namely that the OP had Allan Donald batting at #9 in his team. Great bowler as AD certainly was there is no way in this lifetime or the next that he would be a credible #9 batsman in international cricket. Certainly not the worst #11 in the world and a #10 at an absolute push (indeed he batted there in front of the likes of Ntini etc) but it opens up an interesting conversation, particularly as Jacques Kallis was left out of the same side.
I can see the logic, namely that if we bowl well and restrict them to a low score and/or bowl them out then who we've got coming in at 7 wickets down is rendered something of an irrelevance. We 'shouldn't' be in the match situation where 7 wickets down becomes an issue.
When you look at the excellent West Indies sides of the 1980s into the early 90s one of the themes that emerges is that, of the regular bowlers, you could only really attribute Malcolm Marshall with any sort of genuine batting acumen. The likes of Garner, Ambrose, Holding, Walsh, Patterson et al were not up to a great deal with the bat, albeit to slightly varying degrees. It was a classic 'division of labour' case where the batters were backed to score runs and the bowlers entrusted with the specific task of bowling the opposition out.
Now that worked largely because of the quality of the personnel on both sides of the equation - the question of why this great side struggled to produce an all-rounder has come up and if we're honest it's a moot point because they didn't really need one.
So I suppose the question is...at what point do you consider 'tail length' as a factor before deciding who gets into your side and who doesn't?
Does the prospect of runs don the order provide a bit of security or is it something of an over-rated concept. In the event that you have elite level bowlers who contribute pretty much nothing with the bat it would be at least very tempting to play all three and back them to blast the opposition out. There's also a risk of not playing one of them, the lower order runs not materialising and looking somewhat foolish when it doesn't work out.
The flipside of that is the psychological effect that one side having a 'spider monkey' tail has on both teams. It creates added pressure for the recognised batsmen and, later on in the innings, conundrums about whether people need to be protected, farming the strike etc. Even in a decent position with 3 or 4 wickets down the fielding side can remain positive, knowing that they're a couple of wickets away from being right in business.
My all-time 'favourite' in this regard was the England 'lower order' against New Zealand in 1999, where 8-11 read Caddick, Mullally, Tufnell, Giddins. Now...you could possibly justify that were this an elite level bowling attack but it demonstrably wasn't. It makes me smile remembering that Graeme Swann was 12th man for that match and in many ways the likes of Cairns, Nash, Vettori giving the NZ lower order a much tougher look was a deciding factor in that series.
So it's really a question about what you consider before taking that risk - the quality of the bowlers involved, the strength of the opposition, Presumably fielding ability would come into it as well.
Thoughts appreciated as always - thanks.
I was just looking at an interesting post about the SA ATG XI for limited overs cricket and picked up on a detail which would pose a selection headache, namely that the OP had Allan Donald batting at #9 in his team. Great bowler as AD certainly was there is no way in this lifetime or the next that he would be a credible #9 batsman in international cricket. Certainly not the worst #11 in the world and a #10 at an absolute push (indeed he batted there in front of the likes of Ntini etc) but it opens up an interesting conversation, particularly as Jacques Kallis was left out of the same side.
I can see the logic, namely that if we bowl well and restrict them to a low score and/or bowl them out then who we've got coming in at 7 wickets down is rendered something of an irrelevance. We 'shouldn't' be in the match situation where 7 wickets down becomes an issue.
When you look at the excellent West Indies sides of the 1980s into the early 90s one of the themes that emerges is that, of the regular bowlers, you could only really attribute Malcolm Marshall with any sort of genuine batting acumen. The likes of Garner, Ambrose, Holding, Walsh, Patterson et al were not up to a great deal with the bat, albeit to slightly varying degrees. It was a classic 'division of labour' case where the batters were backed to score runs and the bowlers entrusted with the specific task of bowling the opposition out.
Now that worked largely because of the quality of the personnel on both sides of the equation - the question of why this great side struggled to produce an all-rounder has come up and if we're honest it's a moot point because they didn't really need one.
So I suppose the question is...at what point do you consider 'tail length' as a factor before deciding who gets into your side and who doesn't?
Does the prospect of runs don the order provide a bit of security or is it something of an over-rated concept. In the event that you have elite level bowlers who contribute pretty much nothing with the bat it would be at least very tempting to play all three and back them to blast the opposition out. There's also a risk of not playing one of them, the lower order runs not materialising and looking somewhat foolish when it doesn't work out.
The flipside of that is the psychological effect that one side having a 'spider monkey' tail has on both teams. It creates added pressure for the recognised batsmen and, later on in the innings, conundrums about whether people need to be protected, farming the strike etc. Even in a decent position with 3 or 4 wickets down the fielding side can remain positive, knowing that they're a couple of wickets away from being right in business.
My all-time 'favourite' in this regard was the England 'lower order' against New Zealand in 1999, where 8-11 read Caddick, Mullally, Tufnell, Giddins. Now...you could possibly justify that were this an elite level bowling attack but it demonstrably wasn't. It makes me smile remembering that Graeme Swann was 12th man for that match and in many ways the likes of Cairns, Nash, Vettori giving the NZ lower order a much tougher look was a deciding factor in that series.
So it's really a question about what you consider before taking that risk - the quality of the bowlers involved, the strength of the opposition, Presumably fielding ability would come into it as well.
Thoughts appreciated as always - thanks.
