Intro & Bowler Speeds

[anzac]

Just a line to say gidday. As the moniker indicates I'm a transplanted Kiwi & have been in Darwin since my arrival 8 years ago. I'm just starting to forage into these chat rooms so bear with me if I make mistakes etc.
I'm curious as to all the classifications you guys have - 'test selector' etc ??????
My 'back seat' view of the current world situation is as follows:
I think Australia is the best Test team and are streets ahead of anyone else because they have the best system & coaches turning out the best players with the best attitude and professionalism. Their weakness is the lack of a good 'part timer' to vary their bowling if their main 4 don't get on top (which is rare). I do not see their dominance ending as the old guard drops out as their system is so much better than anyone elses that they will still have class players coming thru, and then their approach to the game will put them on the front foot against most teams until such time as the rest can fight fire with fire.
The lack of one or two established international class 'all rounders' in the one day game will always leave them more vulnerable in that form of the game - the X factor, however they will still be the yard stick to beat.
My favorite team however are the Black Caps (the only team to give Australia a hurry up in Australia over the past 3 years), and I think they will surprise a lot of people over the next 5 years if they can keep their bowlers clear of injury - I can not think of any other team in any sporting code that has been so disrupted by long term injury over the past 3 seasons. With these players coming back from injury they now have a pool of players with international experience for the first time in decades. More importantly they are no longer a 2 or 3 man team with so much resting on Cairns, Vettori and Astle. Their bowling attack at full strength is now competitive with any with Bond being the missing link, and in Butler they have an even faster prospect in a season or two.
Their weakness is their opening partnership to set the platform for the rest of the team to play their game, but when this happens they can beat anyone. Inconsistancy is still their main hurdle but this is improving.
In the one day game they have 3 of the best fielders in the game in Harris (who set the bench mark with Ponting and Rhodes), Vincent and Oram. Unlike Australia they possibly have too many 'all rounders' in the team, but I expect some of these to concentrate more into their primary skills as the newer players settle into the team.
SA is probably the next best balanced and consistant side, certainly in the ODI. There are challenges with some of the old guard close to retirement. I do not like recent indications from their board regarding a quota system for their national team re coloured players - this may work at domestic levels but would be a big disadvantage at international level. Both NZ and Australia are multi cultural nations but neither has a quota system for any sport. I am aware of the various issues regarding a white minority population etc but I think this is going about it the wrong way.
Pakistan are either brilliant or brittle, and their politics may have a lot to do with it. Over the next 3 seasons they will probably loose both Akram and Younis (once the most feared opening attack in the world), and it will be interesting to see how they react to the loss of half their attack. India are great at home but do not travel - see last away series to Australia & SA where they were spanked good & proper & also 1st Test in England. They still lack a class seam attack - Srinath has been carrying the attack for some years but will not be around for much longer. Khan has potential but I do not rate Agarkar as a bowling weapon. India relys too heavily on it's spin attack to be effective on 'away' tours. Like so many teams they lack a strong balanced attack. Same for both Sri Lanka & WIndies. Take Muri out of a Test series and Sri Lanka struggle to run thru teams - something NZ found out post Hadlee. What Lara didn't do with the bat Walsh & Co could do with the ball. Now that the old guard has left the scene they are a one man show - again like NZ after Hadlee & Crowe - I think they are a victim of their success in the '80s and did not have the system to take advantage of their dominance to continue.
England are an enigma - again no proper system and too much domestic cricket - their players do not seem to have the hunger or fight. Recent results may indicate a change but the real test will be the next away 'Ashes' tour.
Zimbabwe have a great bat in Flower, but little else. Their lack of a domestic competition will not allow them to progress beyond 'good amature' status, and their recent political situation has probably set them back 5 - 10 years coinciding with the retirement of some of their experienced international players. Bangladesh are the current easy beats for everyone to improve their averages against, much like Sri Lanka were. Time will tell if they have the system and talent to come through this initial stage. I think it was a mistake to expose them to full internationals as has been done - I am not aware of their being blooded via 'A' team tours & via the various ODI comps - but my exposure to the game has been limited to TV coverage over the past decade so I could be wrong on that assumption.

A question I do have - does anyone know if there are any stats available on bowler speeds. Most TV coverage gives nearly a ball by ball speed, and recent OZ coverage even indicates fastest, slowest and average speed per over & this is the sort of info I am after. Everyone seems obsessed with 'fastest' balls but I think a truer indication is average speed. What are the criteria in describing what category a bowler is - express, fast, fast medium, medium fast etc? Are these classifications ever updated as players get older & slow down or injuries etc?
Your collective enlightenment would be most appreciated.
My apologies for the length of this 'intro' but I thought I would get it all out in the open from the start. Also my apologies re spelling of names etc - no offence intended by my ignorance / unfamiliarity.
Regards to all.

 

[luckyeddie]

Welcome, Anzac.

Interesting thoughts regarding the respective strengths (and weaknesses) of the various countries.

Couple of things I can help you with, possibly :

The 'rankings' are just down to the quantity of posts (if it was quality, then they would have to invent a couple of new categories for one or two 'characters').

Regarding bowler speeds, this tends to be down to the television companies covering particular matches. I actually think that it is a load of rubbish. I am yet to be convinced that fastest=best, but some think so. It's an interesting aside, though.

Regarding 'too much domestic cricket in England', that's an issue which is highly debated in some quarters around here (I'm UK based).
The 'no such thing as too much' debate goes along the following lines....

Show me a batsman who's in great form and then takes a fortnight off because he's playing 'too much cricket' and I'll show you a batsman out of form two weeks later.
Bowling, though, is slightly different. Once he's into the swing of things (say 2 months into a season), then by all means miss a game if it's in the test side's interest (which it would be to keep him 'fresh').
Geoff Boycott's opinion of why so many cricketers are injured at the moment is quite interesting.
Bowlers - "too much bottled milk"
Batsmen - "can't bat".

His 'bowlers' comment is a reflection of the lifestyle over here - no exercise as a kid, no PE at school, in short an 'easier' lifestyle. That and stupid footwear.
His 'batsmen' comment is that batters tend to grip the bat too tightly too low, and play too much with the bottom hand, hence so many finger injuries.

Me? Dunno. I just watch the game.

 

[anzac]

thanx for your reply - much appreciated.
i tend to agree re the 'fastest' situation eg a bowler may have a v quick fast ball but does / can not produce it often, yet the way they look at things he ranks with the quicks - i think the ranking should be done on their average speed per over as that's a better indication as to the reaction time available. There's a few that are still referred to as 'fast' when they are obviously a good yard or so slower than yester year - I wouldn't call either Wasim & Waqar 'fast' at their current pace & I don't think any of the current England or India bowlers are 'fast' at around 80 - 85 mph.
maybe i've been spoilt recently watching Lee, Gillespie, Ntini, Hayward, Bond, Ahktar - all of whom are averaging mid 140 kmh which is 90 odd mph. either that or they need to expand their vocab with yet another category.
A season or so ago i saw an article that made the observation that because the domestic season was so compact in the UK there was less likelyhood of a player being dropped for a bad game / run, and hence there was less competition / likelyhood for someone to break into the side once the season was underway. Here the local comp has only just been extended to include home and away games, and there is only about a half dozen state teams involved. The season is spread out more and the international players do not play much at state level unless they are dropped or recovering from injury. State players are more likely to get chopped because there is more riding on each game as it is harder to make up for lost points - hence the players have a hardened attitude to performing well to keep their spot - the inference being in UK a single result does not have much weight as there are so many games - a mental toughness as opposed to physical, but that also makes the match competitions more fierce - like State of Origin in League is far tougher than a Test match - that's why OZ can put 50 pts on Gt Britain - i'm not having a dig at the UK as they do the same to NZ - it's just my observation that the aussies have this mean competitive streak drummed into them via local competition & then they also have a coaching system to produce the players as well - a package that other teams don't seem to have.
i recall the same arguement re 'soft' used to explain the decline in hard men from the welsh rugby union pack when the mines closed - that they became soft 'townies'!!!!

 

[luckyeddie]

You may well be right regarding everything you said.

I'm a big fan of 'mental toughness' - you will notice from my signature that I'm a huge fan of Dominic Cork because he is an 'in your face' character who does not know the meaning of the word 'schism' er sorry, 'defeat'.

There's too much of a 'play the game' attitude as opposed to 'rip their heads off (in the nicest possible way)' in British sport, but we are learning (Aussie coaches help, of course).

 

[scorpio]

anzac...it might help if u break up ur long posts into paragraphs. It is hard to read ur post dude...

 

[anzac]

oooopps !!!!!

sorry folks - I wasn't functioning too well at 0230am !!!!!

 

[Neil Pickup]

There's too much of a 'play the game' attitude as opposed to 'rip their heads off (in the nicest possible way)' in British sport, but we are learning (Aussie coaches help, of course).

I'm going to bring this back up as it's a new, interesting topic everyone seems to have missed. Fire Away..

For my part, I reckon this does ring true, as there isn't enough 115% commitment on show currently in English sport. Take the football team for example, they stopped trying almost when Ronaldinho scored. Hard but fair, that's what counts.

 

[luckyeddie]

Dead right.

And I'll re-introduce Corky into the argument (it was either here or in the 'most overrated' thread).

The guy makes things happen. Even if performing badly (which he certainly did in the second test) Hussain would throw him the ball and something would happen (either 3 fours in an over or a wicket).

I think that it was Athers on the commentary on Monday who summed Corky up - he described him as having 'a golden arm'.

I'm not going to compare him with Botham - that would be ridiculous, because Both was world class. But DC has that similar ability to dislodge batsmen who are set - even with a tripe ball. The only reason I can come up with is 'aggression'.

 

[anzac]

no arguement from me, it's also part of my theory re the pros & cons of so called ball tampering ......

i was thinking of a post in another thread re Cairns - wasn't rated a world class until a few years ago because of a perception he was a bit 'soft'...then he got some mongrel in him.....

now if you apply that across a team as opposed to the individual it makes an interesting thread....if we get any takers on this we could ask...how important is mental toughness, who are the toughest teams & players.....or similar...

in professional sports it is a situation where the men stand out from the boys when it comes time to stand up and be counted...i think it is a very necessary ingredient for any player to succeed, and even more so for any team to succeed.

 

[marc71178]

I would say the England team now is far more mentally strong then it ever has been for a long time. I also think it's more a team unit then it has been for a long time, and I credit central contracts with that.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Look at Australian cricket for a prime example, and to a lesser extent the Irish football team plays to a far higher level than the sum of its parts.

How to filter this mentality down through the rest of England?

 

[anzac]

if the Australians are the best exponents of this then I would say that NZ is possibly 2nd. my reason being is that they manage to remain competitive, yet lack the resources in either talent or depth that most of the other nations have at their disposal.

if you look at their squad player stats they fall short when compared head to head with most other nations - only a couple would be considered as squad members in any other team. definately a situation where the team is greater than the sum of it's parts!!!!!