"Doctored" pitches

[Swervy]

Probably not (though you never know...) but there are plenty of spinners who were IMO better than Laker (Rhodes, Verity, Lock, Underwood) who didn't either.
Series' of freak brilliance happen sometimes. Eg. Marshall in 1989(?). Marshall was IMO the best pacer ever, certainly of the 1930-2004 period but 39 wickets in a series is still something out of the ordinary.
Not to mention the fact that Terry Alderman twice took over 40 wickets in a series! And both of them, naturally, were in England. Other than that, his career wasn't particularly exceptional. And one of them, almost incredibly, still meant he finished on the losing side.

I dont really know how you know that Rhodes,Verity,Lock and Underwood were better than Laker, considering you would barely be able to remember the start of Giles first class career...but there you go.

Underwood was a bit different...more of a medium pacer who turned it..and he certainly reaped the rewards from bowling on rain affected pitches, basically unplayable by all accounts..but on drier pitches he became a mere mortal again.

Regarding Marshall. i agree with you that he was something special (I have said before that hadlee was the best I have seen, but I would in fact put marshall on a par with him). I can assure you that him taking 30 odd wickets vs England in 88 (i dont think it was quite as high as 39 though) was no freak performance. Admittedly England were a very poor team then, but his bowling that series was astonishing to watch.

Alderman was the perfect 'English' bowler. So accurate, but not fast, and great late swing. And talking of freakish things that 81 series for the ashes was a freak series.Yeah Alderman got 40 odd wickets on the losing team (I think Lillee got somewhere near 40 as well), but on the whole England were outplayed (in that for massive parts of the series Australia looked to be a class apart from what was generally thought of as being a pretty weak England team) that series....bar one player...Botham. It was a crazy series that I doubt we will ever see the likes of again

 

[Richard]

If no-one could pass judgement on what they had not seen nothing would happen.
Believe me, it's as simple as that.
If you look at the stuff, Verity and Rhodes were exactly the same as Underwood. Lock was slightly different. But IMO they were all better bowlers than Laker.
All the best spinners bowled faster than the norm.
Any fingerspinner will bowl better on a wet wicket than on a decent one. I have always said since I've thought about it that you can never judge a fingerspinner on his performances when the ball isn't turning. Because then they're all in the same boat - no chance to offer a threat. When the ball is turning is when it's fair to rate them.
Rhodes and Verity on a wet wicket were as unplayable as they come, believe me. I've watched footage of Verity (don't know how much exists of Rhodes) and he was frightening. But like Underwood, when it didn't turn he wasn't much of a bowler.
You're quite right it wasn't 39, it was 35 - still something out of the ordinary, though not quite as much as the fact that Alderman did it twice.
Yes, though, I do know one of the reasons he did it twice, he is one of my favourite bowlers. But the fact remains that there have been better ones. Marshall, for instance, and Hadlee, and Lillee (who took 39 wickets in '81)
The 1981 series for many reasons is a problem - because there were so many freaks, it really can't be taken entirely as normal. Certainly, like Laker's 46 in '56 (and Barnes' 49 :O:O:O:O in '13\'14) these things alone can't be used to say "he's better than him".
Which was my original point. Occurances like this are so infrequent, the fact that "he couldn't do that" isn't really significant.

 

[Swervy]

i dont know how you did it, but you have turned my post, in which i was actually agreeing with you on a lot of things,and just adding extra comments, into something where by I sound as though i was going completely against everything you said.

 

[Swervy]

although, just one point.....its ok seeing footage of players such as Verity etc, but I doubt you got to see much more than a few deliveries worth..it is impossible to make a judgement on a bowler without seeing how that footage fits in context of the other deliveries.

I could make a film of me bowling my leg spinners which if I edited it right, I could film a dozen or so brilliant deliveries that spin a couple of feet...meaningless when you know it took all day to film it,coz the other balls were embarressing...

Of course this is not to say Verity was a bad bowler..far from it.

 

[twctopcat]

although, just one point.....its ok seeing footage of players such as Verity etc, but I doubt you got to see much more than a few deliveries worth..it is impossible to make a judgement on a bowler without seeing how that footage fits in context of the other deliveries.

I could make a film of me bowling my leg spinners which if I edited it right, I could film a dozen or so brilliant deliveries that spin a couple of feet...meaningless when you know it took all day to film it,coz the other balls were embarressing...

Of course this is not to say Verity was a bad bowler..far from it.

Agree, can't believe Richard is trying to base his opinion of a player on 70 year old footage, of which he can only have seen 5 min with a jittery frame, ludicrous.

 

[Richard]

Regardless of how grainy the footage is, you can still tell exactly what's going on - that's no argument in any way.
I've seen plenty of deliveries, OK no full day\session worth of play, but that combined with an assessment of statistics is worth a good deal, I assure you.

 

[Richard]

i dont know how you did it, but you have turned my post, in which i was actually agreeing with you on a lot of things,and just adding extra comments, into something where by I sound as though i was going completely against everything you said.

I was mainly commenting on the Underwood\Verity issues, which you seemed to be disagreeing with me on.

 

[prithvi]

Regardless of how grainy the footage is, you can still tell exactly what's going on - that's no argument in any way.
I've seen plenty of deliveries, OK no full day\session worth of play, but that combined with an assessment of statistics is worth a good deal, I assure you.

whoa - i dont think u can make an honest assessment from TV -ask any intl player (in fact, i was listening to wasim akram when he said that). TV just does not tell u everything, including how fast a bowler actually is. with a spinner, its impossible to tell how much fizz he gets, and while the only thing u may judge properly is the amount of spin, thats not what spin bowling is only abt.

"No fingerspinner will ever threaten if the conditions are not spin-friendly, and hence to be the best at fingerspin you don't have to offer a threat regardless of the pitch."
i will disagree with u on this one too. i think the great indian fngerspinners like prasanna and bedi used guile (variations in line, length, flight, loop, wrong uns etc) along with spin to get their wickets. i think the impression going arnd here is that to get wickets, u need mainly spin (meaning spinning and turning the ball, i presume - coz u could spin the ball in the air and still not manage to turn it). sorry to burst ur bubble, but spin bowling is so much more.

 

[prithvi]

Without a question they were - and of course the fact that they weren't covered exaggerated that.
In my opinion it is beyond question that if pitches helped spin as much now as they did in those days that England's attack would have been based around Giles and Croft for the last 7 or 8 years or so, possibly even a bit longer.

from what ive seen of these 2 so far, i highly doubt such a thing happening. but from an eng viewpoint, i guess would have been a good thing coz they are really struggling. i mean, the Eng A side is touring india right now, and a 'south zone' team (one of only 5 zones in this country) actually chased 502 successfully in the fourth inning of a first class match. imagine it wasnt even a second string side from india - it was something like a fourth or fifth string team. if these are the future bowling stars, then god save england.

 

[marc71178]

imagine it wasnt even a second string side from india - it was something like a fourth or fifth string team

That's not what we were all being told before the Tournament started, we were told they were all far better than that.

Also, bear in mind how much experience in the conditions these youngsters have...

 

[twctopcat]

Regardless of how grainy the footage is, you can still tell exactly what's going on - that's no argument in any way.
I've seen plenty of deliveries, OK no full day\session worth of play, but that combined with an assessment of statistics is worth a good deal, I assure you.

Balls, i've seen some snippets of old footage. Very often frames are missing and the footage is very twitchy. And the cameras were very rarely positioned directly behind the bowlers. How all this points to meaningful analytical footage is beyond me.

 

[Richard]

Well it seems I've seen rather more footage than you. No, the cameras weren't in as good a position as they have been for the last 40 years or so, but the fact that the odd frame here and there is missing doesn't matter in the slightest.
It is perfectly possible to see what is going on.

 

[Richard]

from what ive seen of these 2 so far, i highly doubt such a thing happening.

Then clearly you haven't seen much.
Croft and Giles have always presented a very large threat when the ball is turning.

 

[Richard]

whoa - i dont think u can make an honest assessment from TV -ask any intl player (in fact, i was listening to wasim akram when he said that). TV just does not tell u everything, including how fast a bowler actually is. with a spinner, its impossible to tell how much fizz he gets, and while the only thing u may judge properly is the amount of spin, thats not what spin bowling is only abt.

"No fingerspinner will ever threaten if the conditions are not spin-friendly, and hence to be the best at fingerspin you don't have to offer a threat regardless of the pitch."
i will disagree with u on this one too. i think the great indian fngerspinners like prasanna and bedi used guile (variations in line, length, flight, loop, wrong uns etc) along with spin to get their wickets. i think the impression going arnd here is that to get wickets, u need mainly spin (meaning spinning and turning the ball, i presume - coz u could spin the ball in the air and still not manage to turn it). sorry to burst ur bubble, but spin bowling is so much more.

You are quite right that there is more to spin bowling than turn.
However, you are wrong that you can still present a threat if you don't get significant turn. Indian-residers are generally not in the best position to judge this, not wishing to be national-stereotypical, because so many Indian pitches simply offer turn as a matter of course.
Without sideways turn, no fingerspinner will ever threaten a competant batsman.

 

[Swervy]

You are quite right that there is more to spin bowling than turn.
However, you are wrong that you can still present a threat if you don't get significant turn. Indian-residers are generally not in the best position to judge this, not wishing to be national-stereotypical, because so many Indian pitches simply offer turn as a matter of course.
Without sideways turn, no fingerspinner will ever threaten a competant batsman.

I do see what you mean Richard but i dont think that is always the case....a well flighted ball (above eye level when fairly close to the batsman) that might not turn that much CAN get players into bother more than a sharply turning ball

 

[Richard]

Then why do you so rarely see batsmen losing the ball in the flight and hitting it in the air to a fielder?

 

[Swervy]

Then why do you so rarely see batsmen losing the ball in the flight and hitting it in the air to a fielder?

there are other ways of getting out you know

 

[Richard]

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?

 

[prithvi]

Then why do you so rarely see batsmen losing the ball in the flight and hitting it in the air to a fielder?

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.

 

[prithvi]

You are quite right that there is more to spin bowling than turn.
However, you are wrong that you can still present a threat if you don't get significant turn. Indian-residers are generally not in the best position to judge this, not wishing to be national-stereotypical, because so many Indian pitches simply offer turn as a matter of course.
Without sideways turn, no fingerspinner will ever threaten a competant batsman.

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.