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These slow surfaces
- Thread starter Twisted
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Silly Point
Striker
Not sure why they would want slow pitches since their strength is pace and their batters like pace on the ball. The pitches seen so far are purely the result of unusually wet weather (for them) in the build up to both games. We saw how the Gabba pitch reverted to type later on and the convicts loved it.
Twisted
Striker
Aye, probably giving them too much credit for psychological games but i wouldn't put it past them.
Bri
Striker
There's been talk for while about how the drop in pitches are changing things. Maybe that's part of it.
Not sure, but even on a slow pitch at Brisbane they still smashed us. 95mph bouncers are menacing no matter what the surface is like - we still can't play short stuff, nor can we bowl it.
Twisted
Striker
Nor can we bowl a good length which is most infuriating. Sick of hearing about how Broad and Andersen need to pitch it up everytime we tour
D
Deleted member 35923
Guest
Not looking all that slow with quick bowlers on them
Huge bugbear for me, this.
It's like their egos won't let them accept they aren't as quick as the Aussies, and they try to bowl the Aussie-style line and length, without having the pace or accuracy to do so.
Infuriates me that they won't just do what they're good at - nagging line and length.
Our bowlers inability, or refusal, to bowl to their strengths is one of the main reasons we regularly lose 5-0 over there. They never seem to lose by that margin over here, indicating that they adapt better than we do to unfamiliar conditions.
A
Ageing trundler
Guest
Spot on. Sides only bowl poorly when they don't pitch it up, gives the ball time to swing or get the batsman driving and nip it off the seam. Simple really and within your power to execute. Bloody hell, even I can do that and I'm hopeless.
Bri
Striker
But I that's fine if it's swinging which it doesn't do for very long.
So I wonder if Anderson and Broad, once it stopped swinging, just dragged their lengths back a bit to stop them scoring and to bore them out. Anderson's runs per over suggests something like that.
Whatever, if that was the plan it didn't work.
Agree that it doesn't swing for very long Down Under - combination of the playing conditions and the crap Kookaburra ball they use - but there has to be a plan B.
McGrath wasn't the quickest, but bowled a nagging, good length all the time. So what if it bores them out - at least they're out.
I'm old enough to remember the West Indies teams of the '80's regularly blowing teams away with pace and a four- or five-man slip cordon. However, on the rare occasion a batsmen got in against them, or there was a large partnership formed, the slips disappeared and they ringed the field, bowled a steady line, and waited for the batsmen to make a mistake.
It always got them the breakthrough they needed, then the slip cordon re-appeared when the new batsman came in.
We need to do something similar - modern-day batsmen aren't geared up to grind an innings out. Frustrate them long enough, and they'll make a mistake.
Or does that only work against English batsmen?
Bri
Striker
Yea.
But it is concerning that when we do get a fast bowler they seem to spend most of their time injured. Is it something we're doing wrong or is it just one of those things - do Aussie quicks suffer the same number of injuries?
Too much onus on being 'gym-fit' and having a bio-mechanically tuned action. By doing so we produce bowlers who can be quick in bursts but can't maintain it over long periods of time because it's not natural to them.
Why take a promising youngster, who bowls fast and takes wickets, and change his physique and bowling action to fit a computer-generated profile that his body can't deal with? Parts of his body that were never previously under great stress then come under pressure, resulting in injuries.
It's not a 'one size fits all' situation. Jeff Thompson was lightning quick, but no-one would ever describe his action as 'textbook'. Same with Malinga.
It's almost like we take everything that brought them success in the first place and strip it away to make them 'better', when in actuality what we're doing is confusing them and producing a whole swathe of robot-like clones, all with similar actions, all bowling at around the same pace.
Whatever happened to embracing and encouraging individuality?
Can you imagine if Shane Warne had been born English? He would probably have never played first-class cricket, never mind represented his country.
Why take a promising youngster, who bowls fast and takes wickets, and change his physique and bowling action to fit a computer-generated profile that his body can't deal with? Parts of his body that were never previously under great stress then come under pressure, resulting in injuries.
It's not a 'one size fits all' situation. Jeff Thompson was lightning quick, but no-one would ever describe his action as 'textbook'. Same with Malinga.
It's almost like we take everything that brought them success in the first place and strip it away to make them 'better', when in actuality what we're doing is confusing them and producing a whole swathe of robot-like clones, all with similar actions, all bowling at around the same pace.
Whatever happened to embracing and encouraging individuality?
Can you imagine if Shane Warne had been born English? He would probably have never played first-class cricket, never mind represented his country.
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