• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

The curious case of Mohammad Abbas

flibbertyjibber

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Abbas is a lot like Philander IMO. Accurate, canny, attacks the stumps relentlessly, makes you play on both edges with every ball. But it is worth reminding everyone that this Aus batting lineup is minnow-tier.
Worth remembering a lot of batting line ups around the world are poor. An ATG bowler from the past would have a field day against some of the techniques or lack of them on display at present.
 

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Abbas moves the ball and bowls at the stumps. Seems a pretty good strategy, especially as modern techniques are less suited to dealing with movement than ever.
 

Victor Ian

International Coach
How do speed guns work? I assume they are accounting for movement in more than one direction.
They shoot two beams and measure the difference in return times. As such, I'd guess they only measure speed in one direction. I'm going to guess they also don't account for curvature of the ball which would make steeper angles take longer... Maybe. This is all supposition. Can someone correct this?
 

Woodster

International Captain
I think the quality of batting line-ups around the world when the ball is doing a bit is a valuable point. Even the strongest batting line-ups are prone to collapses when the ball nibbles or swings a touch and it’s such a shame there seems fewer and fewer players around that are willing to dig in and make some ugly runs.

That said, and it is a due consideration when assessing the success of Abbas, it’s not fair for that to take the focus away from the great things that he’s doing with the ball to this point.
 

Xuhaib

International Coach
Current test batting techniques are so poor against even slight movement I believe McGrath and Murali would average single digits in half the matches if they played today
 

trundler

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Yeah that's a bit hyperbolic. Steyn is that good too and doesn't average in the teens. Abbas has played all of ten matches. Law of averages and all that.
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Yeah just wait until Abbas has to play on some batsman- friendly UAE decks instead of juicy home tracks. Oh wait.
 

trundler

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Haha if you followed the tour thread you know how my much I love the man. He's unbelievablly good but still a small sample size. As a Pakistani I've had my heart broken far too often by a bowler who looked the goods early on but fell off afterwards.
 

vcs

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Abbas vs. Philander in SA should be awesome. Thing with Pakistan is, as hopeless as they can be from time to time, their bowlers always give them a shot at winning games anywhere.
 

smash84

The Tiger King
yeah, he has barely played 10 matches and we are comparing him to McGrath. Sounds familiar

We've had Mohammad - Zahid injured
shabbir Ahmed - chucker
Asif - fixer
Shoaib - more off the field than on it, genital warts and all
Amir - fixer
Malcolm Sami - brainless as a rock
Junaid Khan - fell off the wayside
Abbas - spot open in this list
 

Bolo

State Captain
You don't learn that much about quicks in RSA series these days. It's too bowler friendly most of the time and RSA are a pretty weak batting unit. He likely averages somewhere close to 20, with the amount of wickets fairly dependant on how the others do. This isn't an exceptional series in RSA. Even if he averages 15, it's just another series for him, and you would get more info out of him doing it again in the UAE.

Maybe he averages 10 or 30, which you can read something into, but I doubt it.
 

Xuhaib

International Coach
yeah, he has barely played 10 matches and we are comparing him to McGrath. Sounds familiar

We've had Mohammad - Zahid injured
shabbir Ahmed - chucker
Asif - fixer
Shoaib - more off the field than on it, genital warts and all
Amir - fixer
Malcolm Sami - brainless as a rock
Junaid Khan - fell off the wayside
Abbas - spot open in this list
Where is the McGrath comparison? In fact I said he is not like McGrath or Anderson at all hence I find his success especially in the desert bewildering pacers like him is just what you do not need for UAE however he still has the best record among all pacers who have ever bowled there.
 

trundler

Request Your Custom Title Now!
There have already been comparisons with McGrath because they're both corridor bowlers. Same happened with Asif if I'm not wrong.
 

smash84

The Tiger King
Where is the McGrath comparison? In fact I said he is not like McGrath or Anderson at all hence I find his success especially in the desert bewildering pacers like him is just what you do not need for UAE however he still has the best record among all pacers who have ever bowled there.
I didn't say you were comparing him to McG
 

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
It's more that playing in SA might say a lot about his style. It's constantly pointed out that he's taken these wickets on the dead UAE pitches, so therefore it follows that he should do better on bowling friendly SA pitches. However it's possible that this may not turn out to be the case, and perhaps his bowling style is simply suited to the UAE or it's 'one of those things' the same way that Anderson averages 21 in the UAE and 40 in SA.
 

Top