Garry Sobers, The Bowler?

[weldone]

Consider a batsman who goes to open the batting in swinging conditions and drops him to no. 4 in spinning conditions. Of course, he isn't optimizing his runscoring, he is rather sacrificing himself for the team. Of course, he's being a ****ing moron doing so!

I remember one comment made by Ian Chappell, which is not quite apt here. Still. He once said "Geoff Boycott played every second of his cricketing life for himself and averaged 48. And Sir Garry Sobers played every second of his cricketing life for the game of cricket and averaged 58."

 

[honestbharani]

Who is debating if it is stupid or not? IF you got proof he didn't do it for those purposes, show that. Right now, based on all accounts that one has read and based on informed opinion of those who were around at that time (including both cricketers and journos), this is what HE DID. I think the Don not hitting in the air in those days was STUPID and that he could have averaged 150 if he did.. It might or might not make sense but it is of no use discussing coz it has already happened.


Jeez, CW sometimes...

 

[GotSpin]

Again, its not a zero sum game. What the extra bowler bowls does not serve as a restricting factor to the style of bowling Sobers could go on to employ in the said match. If the conditions were pace friendly, Sobers would have bowled pace to maximize his chances of picking up a wicket. If the wicket was still spin friendly, he'd bowl spin to maximize his chances of picking up a wicket. What the other four bowlers bowl is still irrelevant to which style gives Sobers the best chances of picking up a wicket on that pitch..

Mate, I dunno what he was really thinking when he decided to bowl spin or not. The point I was trying to put across before is that the ability or his willingness to bowl a style unfavourable to the pitch at hand was a positive for the team, rather than himself.

 

[weldone]

Who is debating if it is stupid or not? IF you got proof he didn't do it for those purposes, show that. Right now, based on all accounts that one has read and based on informed opinion of those who were around at that time (including both cricketers and journos), this is what HE DID. I think the Don not hitting in the air in those days was STUPID and that he could have averaged 150 if he did.. It might or might not make sense but it is of no use discussing coz it has already happened.


Jeez, CW sometimes...

Were you replying to my post, by any chance?

If yes, then read it again.

 

[GotSpin]

Who is debating if it is stupid or not? IF you got proof he didn't do it for those purposes, show that. Right now, based on all accounts that one has read and based on informed opinion of those who were around at that time (including both cricketers and journos), this is what HE DID. I think the Don not hitting in the air in those days was STUPID and that he could have averaged 150 if he did.. It might or might not make sense but it is of no use discussing coz it has already happened.


Jeez, CW sometimes...

Really? You can't get caught if you don't hit in the air.

 

[honestbharani]

Were you replying to my post, by any chance?

If yes, then read it again.

no no.. that was to PEWS, GI Joe and Teja.

 

[honestbharani]

Really? You can't get caught if you don't hit in the air.

You CAN get more runs though. And honestly, you can't be caught if you hit the ball away from the fielders and you WILL get more runs by hitting them in the air, right?

 

[Teja.]

Could someone quote an extract from a book/article which explains Sobers' doing the act of intentionally bowling spin on pace-friendly wickets/intentionally bowling pace on spin-friendly wickets for the sake of accommodating an extra bowler? Thanks.

Even if he did do so, There is no limit on the number of pace/spin bowlers carried per match nor is there one on overs bowled by the above. After having established that, resorting to bowling a style of bowling which is far from your best suit is not very smart tstl.

 

[GotSpin]

You CAN get more runs though. And honestly, you can't be caught if you hit the ball away from the fielders and you WILL get more runs by hitting them in the air, right?

It's a far greater risk to hit in the air though - For someone like Bradman, it'd present a needless opportunity to be dismissed especially when considering how good he was at hitting it through the gaps.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Who is debating if it is stupid or not? IF you got proof he didn't do it for those purposes, show that. Right now, based on all accounts that one has read and based on informed opinion of those who were around at that time (including both cricketers and journos), this is what HE DID. I think the Don not hitting in the air in those days was STUPID and that he could have averaged 150 if he did.. It might or might not make sense but it is of no use discussing coz it has already happened.


Jeez, CW sometimes...

Proof Exhibit A: Common Sense.

I'm not the one suggesting he was daft enough to not use the conditions to his advantage. I'd give him much more credit that you do.

 

[Prince EWS]

Who is debating if it is stupid or not? IF you got proof he didn't do it for those purposes, show that. Right now, based on all accounts that one has read and based on informed opinion of those who were around at that time (including both cricketers and journos), this is what HE DID. I think the Don not hitting in the air in those days was STUPID and that he could have averaged 150 if he did.. It might or might not make sense but it is of no use discussing coz it has already happened.


Jeez, CW sometimes...

I don't think it's a mitigating circumstance though. If you do something that makes you less effective as a bowler... then you're less effective as a bowler. I don't think deliberately bowling in such a way that the conditions never favour your bowling helps your team.

 

[honestbharani]

Proof Exhibit A: Common Sense.

I'm not the one suggesting he was daft enough to not use the conditions to his advantage. I'd give him much more credit that you do.

Counter Exhibit A: His consensus rating by his peers.


And I am giving much more credit to the people who actually watched him play than you do.

 

[honestbharani]

I don't think it's a mitigating circumstance though. If you do something that makes you less effective as a bowler... then you're less effective as a bowler. I don't think deliberately bowling in such a way that the conditions never favour your bowling helps your team.

It won't, if you are a specialist bowler. But if your captains looks at your bowling as a bonus, then it makes some sense right.. I mean, it is not exactly justifiable but somewhat understandable.


And secondly, you guys keep missing the point that for a period of his career, he was pretty good as a bowler alone and got a number of 5 fers.. That would definitely make people rate him, irrespecitve of how bad he may have been before and after that, esp. if that particular peak was a considerable period of time. Maybe the people of the time think it was enough proof that when he was in the right frame physically and mentally, he was good enough to do that as a bowler. Sometimes you just gotta understand that numbers aren't the be all and end all, esp. in cricket when each ball is pretty much an independent event and yet somehow affected by things that went on before... That is the gist of cricket and that is why, as a famous poster of CW said, comparisons in cricket ultimately end up being futile. And that is the reason I sigged that.

 

[G.I.Joe]

And I am giving much more credit to the people who watched him play than you do.

By making him seem like an idiot? I'll be blunt, you're posting generic BS that is irrelevant to, and absolutely fails to address the issue of why bowling a less effective style wrt the wicket supposedly helps the team more than bowling the style that is more likely to fetch you wickets. Maybe, just maybe you might want to consider that he had more sense than to handicap himself by bowling an unsuitable style, and doesn't require this irrational excuse being spouted here that clearly only serves to diminish his greatness rather than celebrate it.

 

[Teja.]

By making him seem like an idiot? I'll be blunt, you're posting generic BS that is irrelevant to, and absolutely fails to address the issue of why bowling a less effective style wrt the wicket supposedly helps the team more than bowling the style that is more likely to fetch you wickets. Maybe, just maybe you might want to consider that he had more sense than to handicap himself by bowling an unsuitable style, and doesn't require this irrational excuse being spouted here that clearly only serves to diminish his greatness rather than celebrate it.

Strongly, Strongly AWTA.

 

[marc71178]

I wonder if there's been some sort of misinterpretation here.

When it was a seamers track, the WI could pick 4 specialist seamers with Sobers doing the filling in as a spinner if required.
Likewise when it turned, they could pick 2 specialist seamers plus Sobers and 2 specialist spinners.

 

[smash84]

There's not a mandatory amount of spin overs to be bowled though. If the wicket was so pace friendly, why not just bowl pace anyway? And if the variety his spin was providing was making it more likely to get a wicket than bowling pace would despite the surface.. then his average wouldn't actually suffer.

Basically, bowling in a way that is less likely to get you a wicket just goes against any sane cricketing logic. It either didn't really happen in the way people portray it, or it was just really stupid.

Strongly, Strongly AWTA.

Well said

 

[weldone]

I'm not quite sure about the exact situations when Sobers did this. But saying that'll always be foolish is being foolish only.

Consider a spin friendly track when you need to drop one of your opening bowlers to accomodate an extra specialist spinner. In such a situation if Sobers opens the bowling (and doesn't bowl off spin with the red cherry in his hand, of course), will that be considered foolish?

 

[GotSpin]

I'm not quite sure about the exact situations when Sobers did this. But saying that'll always be foolish is being foolish only.

Consider a spin friendly track when you need to drop one of your opening bowlers to accomodate an extra specialist spinner. In such a situation if Sobers opens the bowling (and doesn't bowl leg spin with the red cherry in his hand, of course), will that be considered foolish?

Yeah, this.

 

[G.I.Joe]

I'm not quite sure about the exact situations when Sobers did this. But saying that'll always be foolish is being foolish only.

Consider a spin friendly track when you need to drop one of your opening bowlers to accomodate an extra specialist spinner. In such a situation if Sobers opens the bowling (and doesn't bowl off spin with the red cherry in his hand, of course), will that be considered foolish?

He'd be foolish not to bowl his spinners later, yes. Bowlers are allowed to bowl more than one spell, you know. And if he was handicapped by having to open the bowling with the new ball, it stands to reason that he wasn't a much better pace bowler than the average he maintained doing so. Opening the bowling on spin friendly surfaces is something new ball bowlers are conventionally expected to do the world over, without complaint.