Fire in Babylon : Review

[gvenkat]

Cricket Web - Features: Fire In Babylon : Review

 

[Bun]

Good one mate

 

[EnglishCricket]

Good one mate

Can't recommend Fire in Babylon enough, great documentary, I rented it on iTunes for €3.99, sweet.

 

[Slifer]

Nice lil documentary. Thought they could have mentioned atleast one of the WC wins. All in all I love how they highlighted the hypocrisy in the cricket establishment. Meaning they were berated for their so called intimidating bowling, when for all intents and purposes they learned these tactics the hard way from the Oz tour of 75/76.

 

[EnglishCricket]

Nice lil documentary. Thought they could have mentioned atleast one of the WC wins. All in all I love how they highlighted the hypocrisy in the cricket establishment. Meaning they were berated for their so called intimidating bowling, when for all intents and purposes they learned these tactics the hard way from the Oz tour of 75/76.

Totally agree, the Aussies bashed them up and they came back with some fight and flair and the old style gentlemanly and probably racist establishment didn't like their own medicine.

Agreed on the World Cups, but that just shows how good test cricket can truly be far more inspiring than ODIs.

 

[EnglishCricket]

Helmets

I reckon that if the batsmen had helmets the Windies wouldn't have been such a successful team, for two reasons:

1. The short bowling would be more widely accepted and the added incentive and motivation to prove people wrong wouldn't be there.

2. And batsmen wouldn't have been as afraid as they were.

Still would have been a great team though.

 

[smash84]

I doubt that Malcolm Marshall's bouncers would be any different even with better helmets lol. It was a nasty and skiddy bouncer. Check out his awful bouncers to the tailenders in the video below. You can't do much about that tbh . Btw during the 80s there were decent helmets around.

‪WEST INDIES FAST BOWLERS OF THE 80'S - BRUTAL COMPILATION!‬‏ - YouTube

 

[EnglishCricket]

I doubt that Malcolm Marshall's bouncers would be any different even with better helmets lol. It was a nasty and skiddy bouncer. Check out his awful bouncers to the tailenders in the video below. You can't do much about that tbh . Btw during the 80s there were decent helmets around.

‪WEST INDIES FAST BOWLERS OF THE 80'S - BRUTAL COMPILATION!‬‏ - YouTube

Didn't realise that, most of the footage in Fire in Babylon shows batsmen without helmets. I agree a good bouncer still puts a batsman in trouble (I know that from personal experience).

But I still think that with a helmet on there would be less of a focus on the killer element of the bouncer.

Have you ever batted without a box, all you can think about is being hit, not playing cricket, same could be true.

 

[smash84]

true to some extent but then you need to have good technique to avoid that. Batsmen like the Chappells Viv Richards, Majid Khan, Gabaskar, could all play the hook shot well and could sway outside the line of the ball very quickly. I guess if you are playing at that level you must have a certain fearlessness

 

[Burgey]

I do love how we used to play the Windies first up in Perth then Brisbane when they used to tour every two years.

Always good to be an accommodating host.

Edit: the second test in Brisbane that series was Boon's debut. he made 50 odd int eh second dig (iirc) and as he acknowldged the crowd, Marshall walked past him at the non-striker's end and said "Well batted Boonie. Now are you going to do the right thing and get out, or am I going to have to come around the wicket and kill you?"

Harper's catch at about 17.20 is one of the great close in catches.

 

[Athlai]

One of my classmates is doing his thesis on this doco.

 

[NasserFan207]

I reckon that if the batsmen had helmets the Windies wouldn't have been such a successful team, for two reasons:

1. The short bowling would be more widely accepted and the added incentive and motivation to prove people wrong wouldn't be there.

2. And batsmen wouldn't have been as afraid as they were.

Still would have been a great team though.

Helmets actually don't make a huge difference to how people play the bouncer. Hooking and pulling becomes more viable, but the fact is that even with a helmet your natural reaction to a fast accurate bouncer is automatically self-presevation, plans go out of the window. You will never see someone simply letting the ball hit them. Some people naturally play the short ball better due to experience/instincts, and what made the west indies so effective was that noone had seen an attack like theirs before. It was something almost entirely new to deal with. To be totally comfortable facing a certain type of bowling you have to have grown up with it.

Still, like all good aggressive fast bowlers, short bowling was used to unnerve batsman and keep them on the backfoot to reduce feet movement, which aids in the caught behind or stuck in the crease bowled/lbw. It wasn't really a Steve Harmison scenario

Also, in that video one of the overlooked aspects is just how incredible the west indies catching was. That particular side may well have been the greatest ever in that dynamic

 

[kyear2]

My God, was Dujon and that slip cordon (death row) awsome. Marshall and Holding also showed the added fielding dimension they brought to a team. Great to see a young Marshall again, undisputedly the Greatest of All Time.

 

[smash84]

Helmets actually don't make a huge difference to how people play the bouncer. Hooking and pulling becomes more viable, but the fact is that even with a helmet your natural reaction to a fast accurate bouncer is automatically self-presevation, plans go out of the window. You will never see someone simply letting the ball hit them. Some people naturally play the short ball better due to experience/instincts, and what made the west indies so effective was that noone had seen an attack like theirs before. It was something almost entirely new to deal with. To be totally comfortable facing a certain type of bowling you have to have grown up with it.

Still, like all good aggressive fast bowlers, short bowling was used to unnerve batsman and keep them on the backfoot to reduce feet movement, which aids in the caught behind or stuck in the crease bowled/lbw. It wasn't really a Steve Harmison scenario

Also, in that video one of the overlooked aspects is just how incredible the west indies catching was. That particular side may well have been the greatest ever in that dynamic

great post awta

Yeah Rob made a great compilation and the fielding is absolutely superb

My God, was Dujon and that slip cordon (death row) awsome. Marshall and Holding also showed the added fielding dimension they brought to a team. Great to see a young Marshall again, undisputedly the Greatest of All Time.

Yeah Marshall is awesome in that vid

 

[Burgey]

Garner was superb in the gully too, it should be noted. They were way ahead of their time as a fielding unit.

 

[smash84]

awta

 

[bagapath]

Helmets actually don't make a huge difference to how people play the bouncer. Hooking and pulling becomes more viable,

not really. i see a lot less of hooking and pulling these days compared to the pre helmet - or early helmet - days when all the test cricketers had actually come from a hard core "non-helmet" training in FC cricket. we had a lot more hookers those days because there was no other way to play the bouncing ball. ducking was not always an option if the ball was directed at the batter and was heading towards fine leg. with helmets, batters these days are more comfortable in watching the ball till the last moment and let it pass. i would say helmets have reduced the hooking and pulling considerably.

i feel weird to write a post with the terms "hard core" and "hooker" in it.

 

[smash84]

not really. i see a lot less of hooking and pulling these days compared to the pre helmet - or early helmet - days when all the test cricketers had actually come from a hard core "non-helmet" training in FC cricket. we had a lot more hookers those days because there was no other way to play the bouncing ball. ducking was not always an option if the ball was directed at the batter and was heading towards fine leg. with helmets, batters these days are more comfortable in watching the ball till the last moment and let it pass. i would say helmets have reduced the hooking and pulling considerably.

i feel weird to write a post with the terms "hard core" and "hooker" in it.

awta

 

[vic_orthdox]

Helmets actually don't make a huge difference to how people play the bouncer. Hooking and pulling becomes more viable, but the fact is that even with a helmet your natural reaction to a fast accurate bouncer is automatically self-presevation, plans go out of the window. You will never see someone simply letting the ball hit them. Some people naturally play the short ball better due to experience/instincts, and what made the west indies so effective was that noone had seen an attack like theirs before. It was something almost entirely new to deal with. To be totally comfortable facing a certain type of bowling you have to have grown up with it.

Still, like all good aggressive fast bowlers, short bowling was used to unnerve batsman and keep them on the backfoot to reduce feet movement, which aids in the caught behind or stuck in the crease bowled/lbw. It wasn't really a Steve Harmison scenario

Also, in that video one of the overlooked aspects is just how incredible the west indies catching was. That particular side may well have been the greatest ever in that dynamic

You watch the older players pulling and hooking, and they all get a lot further inside the line of the ball to play the shot, or pull across their body more; they rarely had their head directly in line with the ball as players do these days because they have the protection of the helmet.

EDIT: bagapath is right, too. I guess a good example is the way you used to watch Steve Waugh duck, where he would get on the offside of the ball, a position where you can choose to hook or pull from as well, it was used a lot more back in the 1980s. Now players stay leg-side of the ball (like his brother did, for example) and drop the knees to sway out of the way.

 

[smash84]

awta