Keeping the Faith

[Neil Pickup]

it is not just my word. I have had the good fortune to chat up to some cricketers, including Gilchrist, and they think that with a seamer, since the movement is predictable to a great degree, standing up is not such a tough thing, especially with all the protective equipment available. With a spinner, no one is sure how much the ball will turn, not even the bowler. For instance, Shane Warne knows he put in a lot more work to a certain ball so that it will turn more. But even he will not know how much the ball will turn, even to an estimate. That is why keeping to spin, IMO, is tougher. Our spinners aren't the most accurate going around, and it is so tough to keep to them and not give away byes. They don't have any variety, really, but they are so inaccurate that it is a pain to keep to them sometimes. I can only guess how much tougher it would be at the international level, especially since with sweeps and reverse sweeps abound, keepers easily get unsighted.

Granted, but I'd still rather take a thick edge off a spinner than a medium pacer.

 

[thierry henry]

Standing up to 130kph bowlers (which is what Styris is, or was, before he started bowling 80% off-breaks) makes taking catches off these bowlers a lottery imo. A lot are made more or less impossible by a substantial deflection, where they would have been very catchable standing back.

 

[honestbharani]

The thing is, unless the movement is pronounced, u can always have a decent guess of where the ball will end up. But like I said, most spinners never have an exact idea of how much a ball will spin. They know that certain balls will spin more and some will spin less, based on the work they put into the ball while bowling it, but no one knows how much a ball will turn, which is why keeping to test class spinners is tougher, IMO. Like I said, Gilchrist said that too. HE even mentioned that he would rather stand up to Harvey than to Clarke.

 

[chaminda_00]

Standing up to 130kph bowlers (which is what Styris is, or was, before he started bowling 80% off-breaks) makes taking catches off these bowlers a lottery imo. A lot are made more or less impossible by a substantial deflection, where they would have been very catchable standing back.

Considering this discussion is mainly about Test Cricket, how often does he stand up to these bowlers in Tests.

 

[Neil Pickup]

The thing is, unless the movement is pronounced, u can always have a decent guess of where the ball will end up. But like I said, most spinners never have an exact idea of how much a ball will spin. They know that certain balls will spin more and some will spin less, based on the work they put into the ball while bowling it, but no one knows how much a ball will turn, which is why keeping to test class spinners is tougher, IMO. Like I said, Gilchrist said that too. HE even mentioned that he would rather stand up to Harvey than to Clarke.

There's a difference in preferring to stand up to a dobber and finding it easier to take catches off a dobber.

 

[honestbharani]

There's a difference in preferring to stand up to a dobber and finding it easier to take catches off a dobber.

Fair enough, I thought u said that standing up to them was difficult. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

 

[Nate]

How's this for spooky? "Keeping the Faith" by Billy Joel was playing when I spotted this thread.

Well I thought it was spooky...

Great article Neil, seriously. I actually concentrated and read the whole thing, and enjoyed it. It must be good.

 

[Nate]

Actually, our `keep is really good, and I don`t think he gets much credit at all, to be honest. He`s only dropped one chance from me so far this season, and often backs it up with solid batting.

Go the `keeper.