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"Doctored" pitches

Swervy

International Captain
Richard said:
Yes, but what other ways are likely to result from losing the ball in the flight?
Foot-movement (and being stumped) is almost invariably pre-meditated so no credit can go to the bowler for that (the best is if he's either fired it in or simply bowled on that turned past the bat).
What do you think can result from losing the ball in flight?
is there anything a bowler can take credit for in your eyes Richard?
 

prithvi

Cricket Spectator
Richard said:
Then clearly you haven't seen much.
Croft and Giles have always presented a very large threat when the ball is turning.
when eng toured ind in 2001-02, giles bowled from around the stumps, a sort of negative line where the intent was to frustrate the batsman into making a mistake. this is the impression i carry of giles, coz he doent have the class or the balls to bowl from over the wicket and attack an indian batsman.
and spinners cannot always get nice tailor-made wickets. the mark of a good spinner is when he still manages to exert some kind of pressure even when conditions are batsman friendly. so to make an assessment of giles and croft only when conditions suit them is quite ridiculous. when a batsman is judged, dont we all say how good he is coz he has played well under hostile conditions, when the ball is darting all over the place etc? in fact, a batsman is not judged to be a 'complete' player unless he had made runs in various countries in different conditions, and not all of them suit his style of play. pls extend that same rationale to judging bowlers too, specifically giles and croft.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Swervy said:
is there anything a bowler can take credit for in your eyes Richard?
In terms of a wicket?
An away-swinger that hits the outside-edge and goes in the air to a fielder. Or an in-swinging Yorker that hits the toe and would have been going onto the stumps or hits the stumps direct. Or an in-swinger that takes a thin inside-edge and goes to a fielder (usually the wicketkeeper). Or an in-dipper that pitches outside off and hits off.
In terms of just a good ball; anything that doesn't go off the middle of the bat to the boundary. Anything that does can't really be good bowling.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
prithvi said:
when eng toured ind in 2001-02, giles bowled from around the stumps, a sort of negative line where the intent was to frustrate the batsman into making a mistake. this is the impression i carry of giles, coz he doent have the class or the balls to bowl from over the wicket and attack an indian batsman.
On the only wicket of the series that offered anything in the way of turn (Mohali and Bangalore didn't) Giles took 5 wickets in the first-innings, mostly through good bowling, especially the ball that dismissed Kumble.
and spinners cannot always get nice tailor-made wickets. the mark of a good spinner is when he still manages to exert some kind of pressure even when conditions are batsman friendly. so to make an assessment of giles and croft only when conditions suit them is quite ridiculous. when a batsman is judged, dont we all say how good he is coz he has played well under hostile conditions, when the ball is darting all over the place etc? in fact, a batsman is not judged to be a 'complete' player unless he had made runs in various countries in different conditions, and not all of them suit his style of play. pls extend that same rationale to judging bowlers too, specifically giles and croft.
The mark of a good wristspinner is exploiting all conditions. However, it's not fair to say a fingerspinner must exploit all conditions, because they simply aren't capable of doing so.
No matter how good a fingerspinner is, he will not be any more dangerous than a below-average one on a normal wicket.
The only fair way to judge fingerspinners is to put them all in equally spin-friendly conditions.
The fact that you don't often get spin-friendly conditions means that fingerspinners aren't really worth a place most of the time in international cricket.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
prithvi said:
caught and bowled is also sometimes coz of a well flighted ball. u mean to tell me u've havent seen many caught and bowled dismissals? it might not happen every match, but it happens often enough.
I don't see much of it.
You see, batsmen have to make an error, and plenty of batsmen are good enough not to make that error.
 

Swervy

International Captain
Richard said:
In terms of a wicket?
An away-swinger that hits the outside-edge and goes in the air to a fielder. Or an in-swinging Yorker that hits the toe and would have been going onto the stumps or hits the stumps direct. Or an in-swinger that takes a thin inside-edge and goes to a fielder (usually the wicketkeeper). Or an in-dipper that pitches outside off and hits off.
In terms of just a good ball; anything that doesn't go off the middle of the bat to the boundary. Anything that does can't really be good bowling.
so really any bowler, not matter how successful they are,if they dont move the ball that much (for example Joel Garner,Jeff Thomson,Glen McGrath...and in the early days of Holding...probably plenty of others),they just dont deserve the wicket. You see I see accuarcy as being the most fundamental aspect of bowling,accuracy is the number one getter of wickets in cricket...and McGrath or Garner were deadly accurate..and in my opinion deserve every bit of success they got..ok the odd time they might have been a tad lucky,so is every bowler..some times they have been unlucky..it evens itself out.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
prithvi said:
well, no offence taken at the national-stereotype, but uve written off my opinion just coz of ur view that pitches in india offer more turn, and thats a little disappointing. by that very argument, i must say ive seen more spin bowling coz india breeds more spinners. also a lot of pitches are actually so flat in india that it doesnt aid spin bowlers too, contrary to popular perception. and ive seen some good spinners troubling batsmen with their loop and not so much with their spin/turn in domestic cricket. and another thing, a really good spinner needs the ball to turn only a little - little enough to take an edge and not too much where it would beat the bat. so 'significant turn' is not necessary to offer a threat.
It is.
Significant turn is enough to beat and catch the outside-edge.
Insignificant turn is enough to make the ball outer part of the bat instead of the full face, but that's never going to result in dismissal if the ball's being aimed on the ground.
If you've seen spinners troubling good batsmen with loop and dip in domestic cricket, good for you - I haven't seen much of it in international cricket.
 

Swervy

International Captain
Richard said:
I don't see much of it.
You see, batsmen have to make an error, and plenty of batsmen are good enough not to make that error.
i have seen plenty of great batsmen fall to a well flighted ball
 

Swervy

International Captain
Richard said:
It is.
Significant turn is enough to beat and catch the outside-edge.
Insignificant turn is enough to make the ball outer part of the bat instead of the full face, but that's never going to result in dismissal if the ball's being aimed on the ground.
If you've seen spinners troubling good batsmen with loop and dip in domestic cricket, good for you - I haven't seen much of it in international cricket.
that is because you rarely see an off spinner using flight as a weapon these days
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Swervy said:
that is because you rarely see an off spinner using flight as a weapon these days
If you ask me it's because it never worked in the first place, and the fact that nothing else works as much as it used to makes people assume that it's not being used.
If something's such a useful weapon, I find it hard to believe that hardly anyone would use it.
 

Swervy

International Captain
Richard said:
How often?
And how many runs conceded during the interims?
It happened a lot more years ago, simply coz spinners (esp from the sub continent) back then used it a lot more.

Bedi,Doshi,maninder all used flight with success...neither one was a big spinner of the ball.
 

Swervy

International Captain
Richard said:
I point to the post above.

its because one day cricket has basically drummed it out of people...these days an off spinner is really being used as a way of tying down one end..stopping the scoring,building pressure ....offies bowl with a flatter ball these days.

It is a known fact that a ball that is coming towards a batsman at above eye level is a lot harder to judge in terms of path and speed than a ball at or below eye level. (an example of this principle is if you stand on a bridge over a motorway, it is a lot easier to judge the on coming cars speeds, then if you were just stood by the roadside).

I would say that any offy that uses flight generously but intelligently will be successful even on pitches that offer only slight turn
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
That's a perfectly valid argument, except for one thing - spinners (those who bowl at 50 mph) are no real use in one-day cricket, as they're too slow - batsmen can use their feet, so even accurate bowling is not that dangerous to dispatch.
Except, of course, if the ball is turning. And fingerspinners will only turn it on a small number of wickets outside the subcontinent.
I don't see how one-day cricket can drum something out of someone when it's not working anyway - and in any case, a good bowler will be able to bowl in one way one day, different the next. For instance, bowl one way in the nets, different in the centre; one way in the one-day game, another in the First-Class.
I've never actually checked-out the records of Bedi, Chandra and the other guy away from home; think I will do in a mo.
Just to see if they really were as good as people thought they were at exploiting unhelpful conditions or whether they were just older Kumbles.
 

prithvi

Cricket Spectator
Richard said:
If you ask me it's because it never worked in the first place, and the fact that nothing else works as much as it used to makes people assume that it's not being used.
If something's such a useful weapon, I find it hard to believe that hardly anyone would use it.
easier said than done. i think that quality among spinners has declined today and hence the ability to bowl flighted balls, which are accurate and trouble the batsman are rare. its like saying - "we all know yorkers are the best way to get wkts and contain batsman in the death, yet we dont see enough yorkers being bowled." does that mean that yorkers are not effective and hence bowlers dont bowl them, or that bowling them is so difficult that the ability to deliver them is lacking in todays bowlers ? the latter is the point i think swervy is trying to make and i agree with him.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
The thing is, Yorkers have always been difficult - flight isn't exactly quite so.
Very, very few bowlers have ever been able to bowl an over of pure Yorkers.
The army of supposed flight-and-loop-as-a-wicket-taking-method bowlers has been much larger.
 

prithvi

Cricket Spectator
Richard said:
The thing is, Yorkers have always been difficult - flight isn't exactly quite so.
how would u know? ever tried both?
i know this is ur personal opinion, but i wouldnt bet on too many people agreeing with it. but u say it with so much confidence - it sounds quite ridiculous to me.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I've seen plenty of bowlers lob the ball up all the time, and batsmen not have any trouble with it.
I've also seen countless bowlers try their best to aim in the blockhole and find it almost impossible to do right time after time.
Personally I'm not very good at either.
 

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