Starfighter
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
If one person encapsulates my approach to cricket, it's Trevor Bailey, who played the game rather cynically. In 1953 at Headingley, Australia were chasing 177 in 115 minutes. Bailey came to the bowling crease with the score at 3/111, 38 runs having come off the previous five overs. Eschewing the gentlemanliness expected from his amateur status, and taking a long run and slow walk to keep the over rate check, fired the ball down the leg side and conceded just 9 runs in six over, a stark contrast to Lock's 48 in eight. The momentum went out of Australia's chase and they fell some 30 runs short when the match was drawn.
Anyone who follows the game time knows trying to arrest run scoring like this is 'negative' and if you do it, you've got a big yellow stripe on your back. English fans would remember their 'flipping murder' of Zimbabwe, albeit there was some terrible umpiring there too. But with umpires over-generous on the wide rule, why not take advantage if the situation calls for it? Or at least do something else, like T20 style bowling? Yet reading about Johnny Bairstow's tornadic innings last night, it seems New Zealand only tried two strategies - length and short, apparently the entirety of every team's plan A and B for pace bowling these days.
Now judgement is an issue here. A defensive line well outside off or on leg is easy, like those India's pace bowlers employed in Australia the last two tours. These may not contain a rampaging batsman on a lifeless pitch. But really negative bowling is a bigger conundrum. If the batsmen have wits, you might just be tiring the bowlers out, and your chances of getting a wicket except through frustration decrease. And often innings can shift momentum before you know it. But if someone's reached 55 off 45, why wait till they've got a ton? Or in the case of Stokes' 258, even later?
The same goes with changes of pace. Now not being willing to pay for overseas broadcasts I hardly have the highest viewership. But I keep getting the sense that changes of pace are employed less in tests than ever. Even when the ball is seventy overs old and not reversing, no-one seems to think of trying a few slower balls. This goes doubly when the batsmen are really rattling along. It's hardly a secret that batsmen who are playing their shots tend to pre-meditate a little and are vulnerable to hitting one up. I can hardly remember recent quick innings, or descriptions thereof, where changes of pace were tried before the horse has well and truly bolted.
So is it a new thing for bowlers, in tests, to feel compelled to keep bowling at a batsman's strengths (presumably 'to try keep taking wickets') when they're getting hammered? Or has it always been like that? Am I right that bowlers are less inclined to use 'negative bowling' and changes of pace, or just talking baloney like I usually do?
Anyone who follows the game time knows trying to arrest run scoring like this is 'negative' and if you do it, you've got a big yellow stripe on your back. English fans would remember their 'flipping murder' of Zimbabwe, albeit there was some terrible umpiring there too. But with umpires over-generous on the wide rule, why not take advantage if the situation calls for it? Or at least do something else, like T20 style bowling? Yet reading about Johnny Bairstow's tornadic innings last night, it seems New Zealand only tried two strategies - length and short, apparently the entirety of every team's plan A and B for pace bowling these days.
Now judgement is an issue here. A defensive line well outside off or on leg is easy, like those India's pace bowlers employed in Australia the last two tours. These may not contain a rampaging batsman on a lifeless pitch. But really negative bowling is a bigger conundrum. If the batsmen have wits, you might just be tiring the bowlers out, and your chances of getting a wicket except through frustration decrease. And often innings can shift momentum before you know it. But if someone's reached 55 off 45, why wait till they've got a ton? Or in the case of Stokes' 258, even later?
The same goes with changes of pace. Now not being willing to pay for overseas broadcasts I hardly have the highest viewership. But I keep getting the sense that changes of pace are employed less in tests than ever. Even when the ball is seventy overs old and not reversing, no-one seems to think of trying a few slower balls. This goes doubly when the batsmen are really rattling along. It's hardly a secret that batsmen who are playing their shots tend to pre-meditate a little and are vulnerable to hitting one up. I can hardly remember recent quick innings, or descriptions thereof, where changes of pace were tried before the horse has well and truly bolted.
So is it a new thing for bowlers, in tests, to feel compelled to keep bowling at a batsman's strengths (presumably 'to try keep taking wickets') when they're getting hammered? Or has it always been like that? Am I right that bowlers are less inclined to use 'negative bowling' and changes of pace, or just talking baloney like I usually do?
