Cricketing skills that fascinate you

[honestbharani]

Personally found spinners with smooth actions easier to pick off the hands than guys with jumpy quirky actions.

 

[Shri]

I used to face **** spinners who were not that accurate. Never face anyone who made me think too much as a batsman. I only played the square cut, square drive, straight drive and the pull shot against spinners and getting out meant making a big mistake. Was mostly out lbw playing down the wrong line or out caught off a mistimed slog. I have never got stumped(dislike leaving the crease), rarely got bowled and have never edged anything behind off spinners.

 

[Burgey]

Personally found spinners with smooth actions easier to pick off the hands than guys with jumpy quirky actions.

^chuckers.

 

[thierry henry]

On the flip side of this ("skills that don't impress you", I guess) I have noticed distinctly that high level spinners often don't turn the ball significantly and can be effective despite "not being big turners of the ball".

However, all throughout my career even mediocre 14 year old spinners could give it a rip. Hell, I give a leg break a rip.

I have two direct examples of this from personal experience- I faced Tarun Nethula when he was 16 and Roneel Hira when he was a similar age. They were both accurate, bowled at a pace that hurried me and turned it BIG. Yet at FC level and up they are both seen as being "not big spinners". Hira is actually notorious for bowling darts, yet I've faced him turning it square.

Is it mostly due to needing to bowl faster at a higher level, or needing to be more accurate, or a combination of both?

 

[cnerd123]

Ye you do need to bowl it quit slow to get rip and high quality batsmen use their feet very well. No point being a big turner of the ball if the batsman can hit it on the full every single time.

Having said that, if they could turn it at a high pace, then the only thing I can think off that would make them bowl darts is that big amounts of spin beat the bat, and they probably want to turn it less to find the edge.

 

[thierry henry]

Ye you do need to bowl it quit slow to get rip and high quality batsmen use their feet very well. No point being a big turner of the ball if the batsman can hit it on the full every single time.

Having said that, if they could turn it at a high pace, then the only thing I can think off that would make them bowl darts is that big amounts of spin beat the bat, and they probably want to turn it less to find the edge.

Well when I say "at pace" I mean it was a good pace bowling to a hack like me.

My theory is that they were bowling maybe 70-75kph and that probably any decent spinner can rip it at that pace but it's dangerous to bowl that slow at a higher level.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Also can do with wickets - the higher levels you play, the less grass tends to be on the wicket so the ball spins less.

 

[Burner]

I've never played cricket at any level so I don't have anything to relate.

But slightly on a different note, how is it that cricketers always rarely hit the stumps when aiming for a run-out? I used to play dodgeball with a heavy tennis ball with friends and we would hit the target 9 out of 10 times every time. And these are moving and running targets.

Is it somehow very different with a cricket ball? There has to be some explanation. Of course I like to brag but these guys do it as a profession.

 

[thierry henry]

Also can do with wickets - the higher levels you play, the less grass tends to be on the wicket so the ball spins less.

This is a n00b question but how does that compare to artificial pitches?

I always thought that in essence the ball spins more when it "grips" more in the pitch, so logically bowling on a slab of concrete with a thin layer of carpet on top would mean a very low level of spin. But this "big turn" I'm talking about was mostly observed on bare artificial pitches.

Nethula bowled to me over after over on a concrete pitch turning the leggie a foot each time yet I've never seen him bowl like that on TV

 

[Shri]

I've never played cricket at any level so I don't have anything to relate.

But slightly on a different note, how is it that cricketers always rarely hit the stumps when aiming for a run-out? I used to play dodgeball with a heavy tennis ball with friends and we would hit the target 9 out of 10 times every time. And these are moving and running targets.

Is it somehow very different with a cricket ball? There has to be some explanation. Of course I like to brag but these guys do it as a profession.

Its the size of an actual cricket ground and they are only three stumps standing inches apart. Its a much smaller target than we think when we watch on TV. And I don't think direct hits are more common in a team that is well settled in all aspects and is in good form in general. It frees up time in training to do more fielding drills.

 

[Burner]

Its the size of an actual cricket ground and they are only three stumps standing inches apart. Its a much smaller target than we think when we watch on TV. And I don't think direct hits are more common in a team that is well settled in all aspects and is in good form in general. It frees up time in training to do more fielding drills.

Fair and I think maybe the weight of the ball might also be a factor. It might be difficult throwing a rock compared to a tennis ball. Still though even the best ground fielders in recent times times like Jadeja often miss it by miles. Warner is the only one consistently hitting in recent times.

 

[Burgey]

Nah you could make a lowlights reel out of Warner's misses in the past 12 months alone.

 

[Daemon]

They don't work on it hard enough, probably due to other priorities. Reckon most baseball players would throw down the stumps with Ponting levels of regularity simply because they throw all day.

 

[cnerd123]

Also a well maintained cricket ball swings in the air when you throw it

 

[Burgey]

Also a well maintained cricket ball swings in the air when you throw it

Not if you throw it cross seam, which ideally is what you're meant to do.

 

[cnerd123]

Not if you throw it cross seam, which ideally is what you're meant to do.

Hard to control in the heat of the moment though. It drifts if you throw it with the seam at any sort of angle and with a nice wrist snap.

 

[Burgey]

Hard to control in the heat of the moment though. It drifts if you throw it with the seam at any sort of angle and with a nice wrist snap.

If what you say is right, aren't the chances of the seam being in a position where it will behave that way no more or less than the seam being cross ways?

 

[Flem274*]

The guy has never even set foot in Bangladesh. Reminds me of that one Indian bloke on CW who randomly supported NZ for no reason. At least that guy hated India and supported just the one team though, unlike ***** who has his fingers in every pie.

hahaha raghav. he used to send me emails asking to be unbanned.

not sure how he got my email now i think of it. i think we used a moderator email back in the day.

 

[Adders]

Fair and I think maybe the weight of the ball might also be a factor. It might be difficult throwing a rock compared to a tennis ball. Still though even the best ground fielders in recent times times like Jadeja often miss it by miles. Warner is the only one consistently hitting in recent times.

This is a classic example where reputation overrides the reality..........Warner has been on a shocking streak for knocking the stumps down of late.

 

[cnerd123]

If what you say is right, aren't the chances of the seam being in a position where it will behave that way no more or less than the seam being cross ways?

sure, but its still a possibility that doesn't exist with the tennis ball, which is what Burner was comparing it to.