Covered pitches and Protective helmets

[sreeku7]

The practice of covering pitches to protect them from rain,started in the late seventies.Naturally,the skill of a batsman to survive on a 'sticky' wicket is not tested nowadays.Similarly the introduction of helmets has allowed a lot of mediocre players to survive in Test arena.The point to be debated is this:

Have ''Covered Pitches and Protective Helmets'' lowered the standard of contemporary cricket?By allowing mediocre players to survive without undergoing the 'test by fire' has the quality of the game suffered.I think it has gone down alarmingly as far as batting is concerned.Since the quality of the batting has gone down there is no way to assess the contemporary bowling also.These points will be elaborated later after getting some response

 

[Goughy]

Certain batting skills have regressed while others have advanced at a fantastic rate.

Batsmen are products of their environment and adapt to take advantage of conditions. It is no longer essential to move the feet, watch the ball all the way onto the bat and play the ball late like had to be done when the ball did more of the track, mi****s meant a wicket and physical harm was a more real concern. Now a batsman can plant his front foot down the wicket to even the quickest bowlers and throw the bat at the ball. That is not denigrating modern batsmen as some of the things we see now are truly amazing. It is just that the conditions create a different skillset that is best suited to take advantage of them.

 

[Furball]

If the quality of batting has allegedly regressed so much then it doesn't say a great deal for today's bowlers.

 

[Spark]

The above two posts, tbh.

There's at least as much value in the brilliance of Sehwag as there is in the technically immaculate batting of Boycott or Gavaskar.

 

[Howe_zat]

mi****s.

Oh, and, yeah, AWTA.

And, on a personal note, aiming to break the batsman's face every ball isn't something I think I'd miss. Skillful and effective, yes, great to watch, no.

 

[Goughy]

The practice of covering pitches to protect them from rain,started in the late seventies.Naturally,the skill of a batsman to survive on a 'sticky' wicket is not tested nowadays.Similarly the introduction of helmets has allowed a lot of mediocre players to survive in Test arena.The point to be debated is this:

Have ''Covered Pitches and Protective Helmets'' lowered the standard of contemporary cricket?By allowing mediocre players to survive without undergoing the 'test by fire' has the quality of the game suffered.I think it has gone down alarmingly as far as batting is concerned.Since the quality of the batting has gone down there is no way to assess the contemporary bowling also.These points will be elaborated later after getting some response

Id love to see that hack Jack Hobbs do this

YouTube - Kevin Pietersen Switch Hit Shot Six vs Harbhajan Singh

 

[sreeku7]

batsmen of subcontinent benefited from helmets

Most of the contemporary batmen from the subcontinent(India,Pakistan;Sri Lanka)wouldn't have made Test grade without helmets and covered wickets..For example from India only Tendulkar and Dravid would have survived.From Pakistan probably Younis Khan would have made it and from Sri Lanka Kumar Sangakkara.Remember,Mohinder Amarnath,former indian batsman was once felled by a Richard Hadlee bouncer while playing a tour match against Nottinghamshire and lost his confidence and Test place after four successive failures.He made a successful return after the introduction of helmets into cricket field and made tons of runs against fast bowlers like Roberts ,Holding,Imran Khan and Thomson.Indeed at that time he was considered as the best player of fast bowling in India,rated ahead of Gavaskar and Viswanath who were used to facing fast bowlers without the protection of a helmet.See the difference made by the introduction of helmet to cricket.Similar examples can be cited from almost every cricket playing countriesIt is not fair to compare batsmen of the pre-helmet era with contemporary batmen.Batsmen like Boycott,Gavaskar,Ian Chappell,Richards,Kallicharran,Fredericks .Mushtaq and Sadiq Mohammeds etc.made most of their runs against fast bowlers without the protection of a helmet.Hence there is no comparison between those ones and the present crop of space suit batsmen

 

[sreeku7]

batting on uncovered pitches-a test of skill

Former England left arm bowler Derek Underwood was called England's umbrella,because he was unplayable on a drying wicket after rain.I remember a Test at Lord's(I think it was Lord's) against Pakistan in which rain stopped play when pakistan were hundred odd runs for the loss of two wickets and after rain stopped play on the second day.Next day ona drying pitch Pakistan lost the remaining eight wickets to Underwood to be dismissed for 182.Wasim Raja was the only batsman who could survive on that pitch.Time and again he had topscored for Pakistan on difficult pitches,but the value of his contributions were not recognized at that time.Uncovered pitches brought out the best of the better players whereas today's covered pitches only pampers the mediocre dashers and hitters of the baseball type of cricket.Brian Lara,if he had the opportunity to play on uncovered pitches,would have become the greatest batsmen of our time.Since the challenge was not there his batting lost its edge gradually and consequently we missed his best