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Standard of Bowling Today

Blaze

Banned
Is it just me or is the standard of bowling in world cricket quite poor at the moment

I mean in terms of all time great bowlers that are playing ATM I can only think of 3

McGrath, Warne and Murali...Apoligies if I have forgoten anyone blatently obvious.

Lots of batsman are averaging over and around 50 these days in test cricket which I don't think can be solely put down to the fact that test cricket is currently in an era where we have a plethera of outstanding batsman.

IMO after McGrath, Warne and Murali there is no one even close.. they are in a complete different league to all the other bowlers in test cricket.

I suppose after the retirement of the likes of Waqar, Wasim, Alan Donald etc there hasn't really been anyone else to come through and step up to that level of greatness.

I think it is sad that there seems to be such a dearth of all time great bowlers running round at the moment and the result is that the majourity of games these days are dominated by bat.. obviously there are other factors such as flat decks but great bowlers get wickets on any type of deck..

Thoughts?
 

archie mac

International Coach
Pollock's figures look pretty good. Bowling has a lot to do with the pitch, I think the first day of the Ashes showed that. On the whole though I agree bowling is a little down, but that should swing back around in the not to distant future, if Cricket history is any guide.
 

C_C

International Captain
One thing i really dislike about cricket today compared to cricket 6-7 years ago is the lack of balance.....
A sport is enjoyable when the various different facets of the sport are balanced....its like soccer through the 70s and 80s when dynamite offence met superb defence or Hockey in the early-mid 90s, when dynamite offence met rock-solid defensive games.

Instead, cricket seems to have gone awry...awry like Baseball(where pitchers dominate about 3x more than batsmen dominate cricket today), european soccer of the mid 90s ( lets kill the flow and have uber defensive games) and hockey of late 90s/early 2000s ( neutral zone trap anyone ?)
Overall, i think it is hurting the game... I dont know about the rest but one of the prime reasons i dont follow baseball is because it is so hopelessly skewered towards the pitchers. Hitters 'connect' in baseball about as often as a bowler beats the edge.... I dont like to see bowling where bowlers knock over batsmen like 9-pins every single game or batting when the batsmen whacks the bowlers no end every single game....
Dont get me wrong, i do enjoy seeing exponents at work - i do enjoy seeing the aussies or indians bat and i did/do enjoy seeing the WI pace quartet or the aussies bowling over batsmen like ninepins.... But they are enjoyable because they are rare.....when practically a score of 300 is seen as 'sub par', it is really getting away from the enjoyment factor......
seeing 10 runs come off every other over in every single match is boring....and what is most distrurbing, is the fact that the management ( ICC/boards/groundskeepers) arnt trying to alleviate the situation by trying to even the scales......instead they are further into the batsmen's corner.
 

Blaze

Banned
C_C said:
One thing i really dislike about cricket today compared to cricket 6-7 years ago is the lack of balance.....
A sport is enjoyable when the various different facets of the sport are balanced....its like soccer through the 70s and 80s when dynamite offence met superb defence or Hockey in the early-mid 90s, when dynamite offence met rock-solid defensive games.

Instead, cricket seems to have gone awry...awry like Baseball(where pitchers dominate about 3x more than batsmen dominate cricket today), european soccer of the mid 90s ( lets kill the flow and have uber defensive games) and hockey of late 90s/early 2000s ( neutral zone trap anyone ?)
Overall, i think it is hurting the game... I dont know about the rest but one of the prime reasons i dont follow baseball is because it is so hopelessly skewered towards the pitchers. Hitters 'connect' in baseball about as often as a bowler beats the edge.... I dont like to see bowling where bowlers knock over batsmen like 9-pins every single game or batting when the batsmen whacks the bowlers no end every single game....
Dont get me wrong, i do enjoy seeing exponents at work - i do enjoy seeing the aussies or indians bat and i did/do enjoy seeing the WI pace quartet or the aussies bowling over batsmen like ninepins.... But they are enjoyable because they are rare.....when practically a score of 300 is seen as 'sub par', it is really getting away from the enjoyment factor......
seeing 10 runs come off every other over in every single match is boring....and what is most distrurbing, is the fact that the management ( ICC/boards/groundskeepers) arnt trying to alleviate the situation by trying to even the scales......instead they are further into the batsmen's corner.

Yea I agree..
 

archie mac

International Coach
I think the first day of the Ashes Test was typicall of what we see now, as soon as it is a 'bowlers pitch' the batsman are easy pickings. Where have all the defensive techniques gone? It would be hard to image an England side of the 60s or 70s folding like the Poms at Lords yesterday. Not that the Aussies were much better, or have been of late, the last Test against India in India was a shocking display of batting.
 

Dasa

International Vice-Captain
archie mac said:
I think the first day of the Ashes Test was typicall of what we see now, as soon as it is a 'bowlers pitch' the batsman are easy pickings. Where have all the defensive techniques gone? It would be hard to image an England side of the 60s or 70s folding like the Poms at Lords yesterday. Not that the Aussies were much better, or have been of late, the last Test against India in India was a shocking display of batting.
Exactly. It's not as if the pitch was terrible. Batsmen have become used to flat pitches and poor bowlers so when they encounter some resistance, most just roll over.
 

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
Dasa said:
Exactly. It's not as if the pitch was terrible. Batsmen have become used to flat pitches and poor bowlers so when they encounter some resistance, most just roll over.
Absolutely, it almost appears as though a bad pitch gives the batsmen an excuse to play their usual 'flat-pitch' game, having a bash and more often that not, getting out far too early.
 

Sir Redman

State Vice-Captain
Blaze said:
I mean in terms of all time great bowlers that are playing ATM I can only think of 3

McGrath, Warne and Murali...Apoligies if I have forgoten anyone blatently obvious.
To be fair, how many are we expecting? Do we think that there should be all-time greats popping up all over the place?
 

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
Sir Redman said:
To be fair, how many are we expecting? Do we think that there should be all-time greats popping up all over the place?
Also to be fair, exactly how many all-time great batsmen are there today?

I'd probably include Sachin, Lara, Dravid, maybe Kallis or Inzimam but there's not exactly a huge list.
 

Sir Redman

State Vice-Captain
Somerset said:
Also to be fair, exactly how many all-time great batsmen are there today?

I'd probably include Sachin, Lara, Dravid, maybe Kallis or Inzimam but there's not exactly a huge list.
Possibly Ponting, Gilchrist and a few others I'm forgetting as well

I'd say more batsmen than bowlers would come close to making an all-time list at the moment.
The sad thing is no Kiwi comes close.
 

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
Somerset said:
Also to be fair, exactly how many all-time great batsmen are there today?

I'd probably include Sachin, Lara, Dravid, maybe Kallis or Inzimam but there's not exactly a huge list.
That's quite a few for one era. The standard of batting in the world is very high at the moment, imo.

Regarding poor bowling, well it's worth remembering we have the most generally flat pitches since the 1930s right now, and if you recall, the 30s had one guy who averaged 100, two in the low 60s and a few others averaging in the high 50s.
 

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
Sir Redman said:
Possibly Ponting, Gilchrist and a few others I'm forgetting as well

I'd say more batsmen than bowlers would come close to making an all-time list at the moment.
The sad thing is no Kiwi comes close.
Oh yep, don't know how I missed those two Australians...

Was just thinking the same thing though - Fleming and Vettori would probably currently be our best but neither are near the same bracket as the other two great groups.
 

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
FaaipDeOiad said:
That's quite a few for one era. The standard of batting in the world is very high at the moment, imo.

Regarding poor bowling, well it's worth remembering we have the most generally flat pitches since the 1930s right now, and if you recall, the 30s had one guy who averaged 100, two in the low 60s and a few others averaging in the high 50s.
That's only five batsmen though - compared with three bowlers. I'm not going to disagree with the overall standard however, definitely is high but maybe needs a little work on more difficult pitches.
 

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
Somerset said:
That's only five batsmen though - compared with three bowlers. I'm not going to disagree with the overall standard however, definitely is high but maybe needs a little work on more difficult pitches.
Well how many all time great batsmen played in the 90s? We had lots of good bowlers of course... wasim, waqar, pollock, donald, ambrose, walsh, bishop, mcgrath etc

Batsmen... well Lara, Tendulkar and Steve Waugh. Who else?
 

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
FaaipDeOiad said:
Well how many all time great batsmen played in the 90s? We had lots of good bowlers of course... wasim, waqar, pollock, donald, ambrose, walsh, bishop, mcgrath etc

Batsmen... well Lara, Tendulkar and Steve Waugh. Who else?
Yeah I do see your point - off the top of my head no other batsmen immediately comes to mind, while the bowlers dominate...but I guess the types of legends of the game in terms of batsmen and bowlers really can change during even a five year period.
 

archie mac

International Coach
Sir Redman said:
Possibly Ponting, Gilchrist and a few others I'm forgetting as well

I'd say more batsmen than bowlers would come close to making an all-time list at the moment.
The sad thing is no Kiwi comes close.
Everytime I see NZ play, they seem to be waiting/hoping for Shane Bond to be fit again. Is it all over for the man named Bond?
 

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
archie mac said:
Everytime I see NZ play, they seem to be waiting/hoping for Shane Bond to be fit again. Is it all over for the man named Bond?
He's been bowling reasonable well for the NZ Academy (Kiwis correct me if I'm wrong with the team) in Australia and is set to play against Zimbabwe. So I wouldn't say it's all over yet but he realises that if something goes wrong, his cricketing days are effectively over.
 

Sir Redman

State Vice-Captain
FaaipDeOiad said:
Well how many all time great batsmen played in the 90s? We had lots of good bowlers of course... wasim, waqar, pollock, donald, ambrose, walsh, bishop, mcgrath etc

Batsmen... well Lara, Tendulkar and Steve Waugh. Who else?
For the sake of having a Kiwi in there, how about Martin Crowe?

From other countries...Border played into the nineties didn't he? Gatting maybe?
 

Sir Redman

State Vice-Captain
archie mac said:
Everytime I see NZ play, they seem to be waiting/hoping for Shane Bond to be fit again. Is it all over for the man named Bond?
That's been our mentality for the last 2 years..."it could have been so different if we had Bond"

He has said that if something goes wrong this time then he's calling it quits.
 

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