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**Official** Pakistan and England in the UAE 2015/16
- Thread starter broadyfan94
- Start date
nightprowler10
Global Moderator
never change Pakistan.
nightprowler10
Global Moderator
Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
Rashid did bowl very well..and on a turning track he can really trouble the Pakistani batsmen who are not as good at playing spin as the perception is.
Yeah that is a jaffa.
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How the **** do you play that? Amazing ball.
Niall
International Coach
To be fair the days of people blindly assuming just because teams are Asian are beasts against spin are gone. Pak of the current Asian sides do have the most spin bullies, Hafeez, Malik, Younis, Misbah and Sarfraz. Shafiq is not to bad but probably not in the class of the rest. Azhar can get bogged down, but the worst is probably Shezhad and Masood who has looked inept at times.
cnerd123
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I want to do an elaborate forum post on this one day, with stats and everything, but this whole 'Asian batsmen are amazing against spin' is an over-exaggerated myth.
Good quality spin bowling, much like good quality pace and swing bowling, will trouble any batsman, no matter their origins. Good bowling is simply good bowling.
Asian sides have always looked good against spin because they have generally been batting against mediocre spinners:
- Sides touring Asia have a tendency to bring over crappy spinners for the purpose of simply having a 'spin attack'
- The few good spinners that do visit tend to take a while to adapt to bowling to Asian pitches
- And then when Asian sides tour, the pitches tend to not suit spinners anyways
This all just leads to a glut of runs being scored by Asian batsmen against spin, while meanwhile their own spinners take bagfuls bowling in familiar conditions, all propagating the myth that somehow Asian batsmen are faaar superior to their counterparts against spin bowling.
In many ways they are better - they are more familiar with spin, and tend to have better techniques and temperaments. But they aren't immune to being dismissed by good spin bowling. No batsman is immune to being dismissed by good bowling of any kind. That's why we call it 'good' bowling. Because it's good. It gets batsmen out.
But everyone seems to forget this. Then when a non-Asian spinner wrecks an Asian batting lineup by bowling well, the media collectively goes 'OMG HOW DID THAT HAPPEN???'. Well the same way Asian spinners wreck non-Asian sides in Asia. By bowling in a way that suits the conditions and by bowling well.
Asian batsmen aren't blessed with an inherent gift to dominate spin bowling. They never have been and never will be. It's just a result of the conditions and players they faced growing up, which in turn shapes their techniques and their strengths and weaknesses. It was ridiculous for people to ever assume that Asian batsmen are beastly against spin to begin with, they just happen to enjoy filling their boots against poor bowling, as every batsman on Earth does. And this has been shown time and time again - we've seen good spinners who have adapted to the conditions run through Asian sides in the past, we've seen all-pace bowling attacks do well in Asia by just simply bowling well, and we've seen Asian batsmen and Asian spinners struggle overseas in foreign conditions.
Yet somehow media outlets and analysts and coaches and selectors and the players themselves keep propagating this myth that Asian batsmen are awesome against spin, and that Asian pitches demand you play spinners, and all this incorrect rhetoric leads to bad selections and poor tactics and just feeds into itself as a self fulfilling prophecy till someone half decent shows up and takes a five-fer.
It's ridiculous. Good spinners will take wickets against all batsmen. It may be a little bit harder against batsmen who are comfortable with spin, but it's not mission impossible as we are lead to believe.
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OverratedSanity
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Eh, I'm inclined to agree with parts of *****'s post but it ignores how Warne and murali got flattened virtually every time they toured India. And they didn't bowl badly at all. The ability of Asian teams to play spin is over exaggerated sure, but it's definitely not a myth. The simple basics of soft hands while defending and avoiding lunging at the ball on the front door have generally been more prevalent in the batting make up of an Asian batsman than that of an average non Asian batsman. Their tendency stay low at the crease and knowing when to cut and when to not (which is something ian bell is oblivious to) also helps vs spin.
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Jono
Virat Kohli (c)
Yeah OS is on point here. ***** just committed the same sin he is wahhing about in reverse, by making it black and white.
Saying all Asian batsmen dominate spin is stupid. But saying that Asian batsmen on the whole are not better against good spin bowling than non-Asians is just wrong. Because the two greatest spinners of the last 40 years got belted in India despite bowling well. MacGill got bitchslapped in 2003 by India, and averages over 50 against both India and Lanka.
Saying all Asian batsmen dominate spin is stupid. But saying that Asian batsmen on the whole are not better against good spin bowling than non-Asians is just wrong. Because the two greatest spinners of the last 40 years got belted in India despite bowling well. MacGill got bitchslapped in 2003 by India, and averages over 50 against both India and Lanka.
cnerd123
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Murali and Warne had the bad luck to be bowling against basically an ATG batting lineup tho - Sehwag, Sachin, Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly flattened spinners all around the world regardless of conditions. It definitely hasn't been the case historically that Indian batsmen -or Asian batsmen in general- pwn good foreign spinners. But the recent lingering memories of two ATG's being taking apart in India definitely feeds into this perception that everyone seems to have.
That's why I want to a proper analysis of this phenomenon with stats and stuff. Good spinners before and since Warne/Murali have succeeded in Asia. Asian batsmen are equipped well to deal with mediocre spin, but good spinners will do well against them, regardless of where they are from.
I'll get to it one day I hope.
Jono
Virat Kohli (c)
Warne got pummeled in the 90s too.
Obviously gun spin bowling will get Asian batsmen out as well. But surely you agree that great spin bowling vs. India is less likely to be effective than against non-Asian teams, all things being equal? Sure its not like all Asian batsmen dominate and some are spuds, but the history is there.
Obviously gun spin bowling will get Asian batsmen out as well. But surely you agree that great spin bowling vs. India is less likely to be effective than against non-Asian teams, all things being equal? Sure its not like all Asian batsmen dominate and some are spuds, but the history is there.
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cnerd123
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Warne of the 90s was a mediocre spinner tbf. Still learning Test cricket.
Well yes, but I don't think the effectiveness of a bowling attack vs a batting attack is a linear scale.
Asian batsmen will dominate mediocre spin bowling to a greater extent than Non-Asian batsmen, but the better the bowling gets, the narrower the gap between an Asian batting lineup and a non-Asian batting lineup gets. I think Adil Rashid's match was a good example of that actually - when he was bad, he was torn apart, and I doubt a lineup that wasn't as well equipped against spin as the Pakistanis would have taken him apart to that degree. But when he bowled better and the conditions were more in his favour, he still bowled them out. He would have bowled a less-equipped side out faster probably, but in either case he would have been really really effective.
The myth applies when you think about playing a mediocre spinner like Xavier Doherty or Nathan McCullum against an Asian lineup, but if you have a genuine Test-quality spinner in your team, there is no reason the fear the might of the Asian batting lineup. He won't have it as easy against them as he would anywhere else, but he will still do well and it shouldn't be a shock when he does.
Well yes, but I don't think the effectiveness of a bowling attack vs a batting attack is a linear scale.
Asian batsmen will dominate mediocre spin bowling to a greater extent than Non-Asian batsmen, but the better the bowling gets, the narrower the gap between an Asian batting lineup and a non-Asian batting lineup gets. I think Adil Rashid's match was a good example of that actually - when he was bad, he was torn apart, and I doubt a lineup that wasn't as well equipped against spin as the Pakistanis would have taken him apart to that degree. But when he bowled better and the conditions were more in his favour, he still bowled them out. He would have bowled a less-equipped side out faster probably, but in either case he would have been really really effective.
The myth applies when you think about playing a mediocre spinner like Xavier Doherty or Nathan McCullum against an Asian lineup, but if you have a genuine Test-quality spinner in your team, there is no reason the fear the might of the Asian batting lineup. He won't have it as easy against them as he would anywhere else, but he will still do well and it shouldn't be a shock when he does.
Jono
Virat Kohli (c)
He was named top 5 cricketers of the century ffs. Come on.