Smith

SuperMarcoRowell

SuperMarcoRowell

Central Defender
No plan, no idea. Our bowlers have been so poor. Jofra are you injured?? Smith is taking the right royal piss. My plan would be to stifle his scoring by crowding the offside with fielders then he has to try to manufacture runs artificially through leg thereby provoking a mistake. There, easy!
 


He’s shown he’s more than adept at working anything that isn’t 6 stumps wide of off to leg, so I’d go the other way. Bowl round the wicket aiming full and at leg stump or short into his body and pack the onside field.. See how easily he scores through the leg side then. Make him work for every single run.

Left arm seam is the only other option we haven’t tried.
 
Salem Street South said:
He’s shown he’s more than adept at working anything that isn’t 6 stumps wide of off to leg, so I’d go the other way. Bowl round the wicket aiming full and at leg stump or short into his body and pack the onside field.. See how easily he scores through the leg side then. Make him work for every single run.

Left arm seam is the only other option we haven’t tried.
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If only we had one of them in the 12 man squad(albeit Overton looked more threatening that Archer and Stokes today)
 
Salem Street South said:
Make him work for every single run.
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This is an issue for me also.

We seem to let him score at will through mid-wicket, square-leg and behind square. A lot of them are singles, admittedly, but before you know it he's got thirty plus and is set.

It's not defensive to set fields to cut off these areas - starve him of his easy runs and make him play into areas where he's less comfortable. That in itself is a form of attack. Also, try different angles of attack - I can't recall anyone bowling round the wicket at him.

Failing that, bore him out. Just bowl at the top of off-stump every ball until frustration gets the better of him and he tries to do something to break the shackles. McGrath used to do it for the Aussies and even the great West Indies attack of the '80s would resort to it, on the rare occasion a batsmen managed to blunt their usual method of attack. Unfortunately, you need bowlers with the requisite skill and discipline to make that tactic work and I don't think we have them - we always seem to bowl one 'release' ball per over for a batsman to score from.
 
Pretty funny to think that because archer hit him on the head he was suddenly going to become shite. Hes scored runs against far better bowlers than jofra ffs

Hes the best test batsmen in the world. He will score runs regardless of what we do
 
Jap Stammer said:
This is an issue for me also.

We seem to let him score at will through mid-wicket, square-leg and behind square. A lot of them are singles, admittedly, but before you know it he's got thirty plus and is set.

It's not defensive to set fields to cut off these areas - starve him of his easy runs and make him play into areas where he's less comfortable. That in itself is a form of attack. Also, try different angles of attack - I can't recall anyone bowling round the wicket at him.

Failing that, bore him out. Just bowl at the top of off-stump every ball until frustration gets the better of him and he tries to do something to break the shackles. McGrath used to do it for the Aussies and even the great West Indies attack of the '80s would resort to it, on the rare occasion a batsmen managed to blunt their usual method of attack. Unfortunately, you need bowlers with the requisite skill and discipline to make that tactic work and I don't think we have them - we always seem to bowl one 'release' ball per over for a batsman to score from.
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You can’t bore the cvnt out. The problem with top of off is that because he gets right across, the top of off becomes middle and leg and he works it to the leg side for easy 1s and 2s as you’ve said. Anything in his pads and it’s runs, he just doesn’t miss. Therefore for me it’d be round the wicket aiming at leg stump and short into his throat and neck. We had the chance yesterday to really go after him after being hit, but conditions and Jofra deciding he couldn’t be arsed bolloxed that one up.
SAFC 2012 said:
Pretty funny to think that because archer hit him on the head he was suddenly going to become shite. Hes scored runs against far better bowlers than jofra ffs

Hes the best test batsmen in the world. He will score runs regardless of what we do
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He’ll always just be a shit leg spin bowler to me.

Oh and a cheat that cries when he gets caught.
 
Salem Street South said:
You can’t bore the cvnt out. The problem with top of off is that because he gets right across, the top of off becomes middle and leg and he works it to the leg side for easy 1s and 2s as you’ve said. Anything in his pads and it’s runs, he just doesn’t miss. Therefore for me it’d be round the wicket aiming at leg stump and short into his throat and neck. We had the chance yesterday to really go after him after being hit, but conditions and Jofra deciding he couldn’t be arsed bolloxed that one up.
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Then you cut off his easy runs to leg by adjusting the field accordingly. Force him to play into the off-side instead - leave gaps at cover and extra cover to tempt him if needs be. He doesn't seem as comfortable through that area so try and exploit that perceived weakness. We can't just keep allowing him to nudge singles into the leg-side, whether he's taking them from top of off stump or wider.

I agree about the round the wicket option but the field also has to be right to cut off any 'release' runs.
 
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