irfan
State Captain
In modern times, ODI cricket has evolved rapidly in the favour of batsman with flat pitches, decline in bowling stocks and conditions tailor made for run scoring.
With the Powerplays and fielding restrictions in the early overs. Batsman are going helter-skelter in the early overs knowing that mi****s will more than likely land safely in the outfield. Which brings me to my point, are talented batsman with supreme hand-eye co-ordination and timing more important than batsman with solid footwork and good classical techniques ??
I'm purely referring to ODI cricket and I'm kinda confused as regularly (over the last couple of years) we're seeing flat track bullies average higher and score at far higher S/R when conventional wisdom suggests that the more technique-oriented batsman would have the wherewithal to handle most conditions and average higher scores even it they score at a lower S/R. It's kind of worrying that batsman get away with almost anything these days and it just feeds into the argument that you need to be a dasher to play ODI cricket.
To put it succinctly, if you are a manager of a cricket team and the No. 4 slot was open to two batsman - one of whom can play all the shots in the book put has poor shot selection and judgement and another batsman who relies on a couple of shots but has great temperament - who would you pick ??
With the Powerplays and fielding restrictions in the early overs. Batsman are going helter-skelter in the early overs knowing that mi****s will more than likely land safely in the outfield. Which brings me to my point, are talented batsman with supreme hand-eye co-ordination and timing more important than batsman with solid footwork and good classical techniques ??
I'm purely referring to ODI cricket and I'm kinda confused as regularly (over the last couple of years) we're seeing flat track bullies average higher and score at far higher S/R when conventional wisdom suggests that the more technique-oriented batsman would have the wherewithal to handle most conditions and average higher scores even it they score at a lower S/R. It's kind of worrying that batsman get away with almost anything these days and it just feeds into the argument that you need to be a dasher to play ODI cricket.
To put it succinctly, if you are a manager of a cricket team and the No. 4 slot was open to two batsman - one of whom can play all the shots in the book put has poor shot selection and judgement and another batsman who relies on a couple of shots but has great temperament - who would you pick ??