Now then, it's time for a good old-fashioned fracas about the cricket in the modern age versus cricket in the halcyon days when one apparently withstood a swift one to the goolies without the slightest tremor of the upper lip.
Flippancy aside, one does hear a lot about how difficult it was to bat in the days of uncovered pitches with less compressed bats and less (and lower quality protective gear). Quite true. But, at the same time, the bowling speeds have gone up across the board (increased strength and fitness for athletes in general), the lbw law has changed, ground fielding and catching have improved out of sight, strategies and techniques have evolved....
Without coming down on one side of the fence or the other, I think it would be interesting to have a discussion about this.
An interesting tidbit to dwell on: an article in cricinfo written by a couple of boffiny guest columnists a couple of years ago indicated that post 90 (the era of the neutral umpire), the number of lbws increased noticeably i.e. statistically significantly). If one were to actually consider this in conjunction with the abolishment of the has to pitch in line with the stumps for both sides of the wicket, it could conceivably be argued that batting is actually harder now that it was in the days of the sticky dogs. After all, it's like adding a whole new mode of dismissal.
Flippancy aside, one does hear a lot about how difficult it was to bat in the days of uncovered pitches with less compressed bats and less (and lower quality protective gear). Quite true. But, at the same time, the bowling speeds have gone up across the board (increased strength and fitness for athletes in general), the lbw law has changed, ground fielding and catching have improved out of sight, strategies and techniques have evolved....
Without coming down on one side of the fence or the other, I think it would be interesting to have a discussion about this.
An interesting tidbit to dwell on: an article in cricinfo written by a couple of boffiny guest columnists a couple of years ago indicated that post 90 (the era of the neutral umpire), the number of lbws increased noticeably i.e. statistically significantly). If one were to actually consider this in conjunction with the abolishment of the has to pitch in line with the stumps for both sides of the wicket, it could conceivably be argued that batting is actually harder now that it was in the days of the sticky dogs. After all, it's like adding a whole new mode of dismissal.
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