For sure.
But, as far as I know, there really wasn't much preperation of wickets in the 50's (and even thru the 70's). The groundsmen maintained the wickets but the natural wickets of Australia (barring the absolute north of the country like Darwin where the climate is humid a la Indonesia), South Africa & West Indies are fast and bouncy.
Well, some of them are (eg, The WACA, Kensington and Kingsmead). Others are slower and lower (eg Newlands, The MCG and Bourda).
Either way, I really don't believe that wickets of the '50s were quicker than those of the '70s, '80s and '90s, at comparable grounds.
I'm of the opinion that wickets (like uncontrollable things unique to a country such as climate and atmosphere) should remain as natural as possible. All the wickets nowadays are batting strips regardless of country.
Well, I'm in favour of plenty of preparation, but I don't like in the slightest the standardisation of wickets whereby a very large majority (not quite all) are prepared to be pretty dead. I like the preparation to preserve the historical traditions of a square.
The max sped could possibly be similar, but I'm almost possitive with the advantages nowadays (diet especially), that bowlers wouldn't be able to bowl 90mph+ consistently.
Even these days there aren't many who can. The likes of Mitchell Johnson, who rarely loses pace throughout a day's play, are very rare gems.
Even Darren Gough, who gave 100% to virtually every delivery he bowled, was often down on pace towards the end of a day.
I'm not an expert, though I do know the specifics of swing bowling (regular and reverse).
I'm pretty sure the fact there are both turbulent AND laminar flows acting on a ball shaped to swing (the seam pointed towards the direction you want the ball to swing and the boundary layer points of seperation offsetting resulting in the turbulent flow sticking to the surface of the rough side of the ball longer than the laminar flow on surface of the smooth side. The drop of pressure will move the ball towards the rough side) will slow it down moreso than having only 1 type of flow (laminar- which I'm sure will happen wtith the seam pointed straight as opposed to in 1 particular direction) on a ball shaped to go straight and the boundary layer's points of seperation leaving the ball's surface at the same time therefore not moving the ball.
Hope that makes sense, double check with a credible source (ie not the internet unless it's from a book published by a respectable publisher).
It makes sense (ie, I understand what you're saying) but I still don't know that it's conclusive. I'd like to see some actual observations of pace of many swinging and non-swinging balls (this is now possible to do - since the advent of HawkEye the speed of the ball as it travels down the pitch is clocked as well as straight out of the hand with the standard speedgun) and see whether there's a correlation that swinging ones slow down a bit more than straight ones.
Maybe, but then unlike Akhtar, as the day goes on his pace drops to that of fast-medium pace. I can't remember Shoaib bowling many deliveries below 90mph but I've seen Tait go as low as 84mph.
As I say, that isn't the point I'm making - I'm simply saying that Tait appears able to bowl 155kph+ with less effort than Shoaib. Shoaib could sustain 145-150kph pace far better than Tait, so far, has (mostly) been able to.
A guy "clocked" Tyson from real time video (most were 160kph+) using a frames per second method, but that (or any high motion camera methods) isn't a credible method IMO.
I don't think so either - Larwood has been "clocked" at something like 133kph (that's at fastest) via those methods and I don't believe that for a second - if he was incapable of even 140kph I'll eat my computer. It can be unreliable high and low.
Of course, he might have got the speed right but that doesn't mean the method was neccessarily reliable.
