Ian Chappell's Latest Whinge

[Sean Flynn]

Root,yes. Ali - let's see how he goes when he's facing some real venom.

At the moment England rely on Broad and Anderson turning up, catching fire and destroying the opposition. The moment there is resistance, they've looked clueless in the field and don't have any other option to turn to. The bowling of Ali has been laughable, because the dismissals he's getting are pure batting error. If I had his luck, I'd have made the World XI side in 2005/2006.

He is putting some revs on the ball though, just needs to bowl better lengths but that will come. His pace is a touch quicker now against Test players which shows he's learning. He may well become a specialist spinner and occasional batter....he can't handle the short ball.

 

[Spark]

I think he needs to add a bit more nuance to his game longer-term. At the moment he more or less tries to bowl the exact same ball every single delivery, which is actually a very reasonable way for a young, developing offie to bowl, but it won't quite cut it against batsmen who show more brains than the Indians have.

 

[grecian]

I don't know where to put this, so I'll put it here as we're discussing the best legal off-spinner in cricket today.

Ravi Shastri, a much bigger gob****e than Chapelli(my relevance), was on some Sky prog talking about spinners. Obviously most of the time I think is comments are self-interested nonsense, and you could tell the rest of the panel felt the same with his Theory.

Yet I thought it was interesting and might be worth discussion, he reckoned a conventional spinner is very much advantaged by being shorter, because the dip will work better that way. Of course it's a decent excuse for him for being rubbish with the ball, but has he a point? Are there any tall good finger-spinners.

I don't know whether this opinion of Shastri has been discussed on CW before, because generally I avoid him like the plague, but he made some good points about Monty being perhaps too tall and bowling flatter.

Obviously I'm quite happy for it to be dismissed as nonsense as it came from him too.

 

[GIMH]

I've actually found him tolerable this summer tbf

 

[grecian]

I've actually found him tolerable this summer tbf

Maybe he is, I tend to turn him down whenever he's on.

 

[DriveClub]

Perera from SL is the best legal off spinner currently, anyone who does well against Amla and AB is automatically better.

 

[G.I.Joe]

I've actually found him tolerable this summer tbf

I think it's mainly down to Ganguly and Dravid handling the 'experts' role this tour, with Shastri relegated to mere commentator, unlike last time around.

 

[hendrix]

I agree about short fingerspinners having an advantage. It's not a hard and fast rule and there are plenty of exceptions, but you could never have a tall Rangana Herath, for example. Vettori would be the closest approximation of that and while they might have a similar MO, Herath is much more effective and zi think his lack of height helps. Vettori gets the same massive drift and has the same good arm ball, but because the ball's trajectory has to be much flatter from where he delivers it, it's much easier to spot. Herath's arm ball is actually flighted, so it's much harder to pick.

 

[Flem274*]

so what you're saying is vettori should hit the crease on his knees?

would take his achilles injury out of play too.

 

[grecian]

Yes, it does make you wonder if people should crouch, but that's probably not going to go with a fluid bowling action.

 

[hendrix]

Or just bowl from further back in the crease

 

[Cabinet96]

I think more specifically he was saying that you can bowl quicker and still achieve that dip. Taller bowlers will naturally bowl a much flatter trajectory at the same pace and thus have to slow it down to get it up and dipping.

 

[Dan]

In addition, a guy like Herath benefits from his height in that he can never get the ball above stump height unless it's a rank half-tracker, so LBW is always in play. Basically means that it's a lot harder to go back to shorter finger spinners because you can never really bank on height saving you if you miss.

So being able to put that "don't go back" mentality in the batsman's mind means he's almost always committing forwards, where the drift can be that much more dangerous.

But that's tempered somewhat by the ability of taller finger spinners (or even just spinners with higher actions, like Lyon) to get the ball kicking out of the rough a lot more on bouncier pitches, causing problems that way.

 

[Blocky]

I have no doubt that Vettori would have 400 wickets had DRS been available earlier in his career - he's actually gotten quite a high number of LBW's through review since it came into effect and has always been one of those bowlers who has a lot of close shouts and not much luck.

 

[Howe_zat]

so what you're saying is vettori should hit the crease on his knees?

would take his achilles injury out of play too.

Powersliding into every delivery. It's the future of spin bowling

 

[Maximas]

I don't think tall or short bowlers have an advantage, it just comes down to how you use your physical attributes, Lyon uses his height well to get bounce and Herath uses his lack of height well to conceal his glorious arm ball

 

[Blocky]

If you can make it work for you then being tall is OK - but it definitely hampers the ability finger spinners have to use flight, drift and get a lot of revs on the ball - because you're actively having to spin downwards to keep the ball on the pitch, versus say a Herath who is short enough that he (like most wrist spinners) can spin upwards and take advantage of flight/getting it above the batsman's eyes...

 

[91Jmay]

If you can make it work for you then being tall is OK - but it definitely hampers the ability finger spinners have to use flight, drift and get a lot of revs on the ball - because you're actively having to spin downwards to keep the ball on the pitch, versus say a Herath who is short enough that he (like most wrist spinners) can spin upwards and take advantage of flight/getting it above the batsman's eyes...

Had never thought about that before, really good point. Would love to see some video analysis/examples of it, I bowl (very loose use of the term) off break and am only 5'10 so wonder if its natural or something you can incorporate into your game?

 

[grecian]

I don't think tall or short bowlers have an advantage, it just comes down to how you use your physical attributes, Lyon uses his height well to get bounce and Herath uses his lack of height well to conceal his glorious arm ball

Yep this is probably my opinion. Shastri mentioned Panesar as being disadvantaged, yet he got quite a lot of wickets through bounce (despite what Richard may have thought), he really loves the pacy wickets.

Interesting discussion though.

Oh and I'm glad that people are being banned for being Moeen unbelievers. I am pleased with this development

 

[vic_orthdox]

I don't know where to put this, so I'll put it here as we're discussing the best legal off-spinner in cricket today.

Ravi Shastri, a much bigger gob****e than Chapelli(my relevance), was on some Sky prog talking about spinners. Obviously most of the time I think is comments are self-interested nonsense, and you could tell the rest of the panel felt the same with his Theory.

Yet I thought it was interesting and might be worth discussion, he reckoned a conventional spinner is very much advantaged by being shorter, because the dip will work better that way. Of course it's a decent excuse for him for being rubbish with the ball, but has he a point? Are there any tall good finger-spinners.

I don't know whether this opinion of Shastri has been discussed on CW before, because generally I avoid him like the plague, but he made some good points about Monty being perhaps too tall and bowling flatter.

Obviously I'm quite happy for it to be dismissed as nonsense as it came from him too.

Yeah, more likely to cause the batsman to have to move his eyes more. Whereas from a high point, you have a pretty straight point from release to where the ball pitches.