Razzaq is one example, but even the innings in Aus when Laxman made 160 odd, McGrath got rattled by Laxman's aggression and was bowling short to him, i.e. chaging his gameplan (TC let me know if I remember incorrectly). I do not remember particular innings rihgt now but I have the feeling that McGrath starts bowling short (shorter than he normally does) when he gets hit around. Almost says to the batsman, 'hey you are making me nervous, what you are doing is not written in the script, so go back to whats written in the script, and dont make me nervous!'. That routine he does with his shoulder and pulling the sleeve up, also becomes more intense and more frequent
That Laxman innings was something out of the box, though. The series was lost, the game was lost and Laxman had nothing to lose so he went for his shots and most of them came off. It was quite a brilliant innings. So in that sense, the pressure was off a little. So who knows; maybe Glenn McGrath was experimenting a little too?
Anyway, I can actually remember the times I've seen McGrath dominated in any form of cricket where someone has won a battle against him. That says something about how seldom it happens. The reason Glenn might get agitated by people not 'sticking to the script' is because he's simply not used to it.
Other bowlers, like Akram, or Amborse, when hit kinda go 'what the hell, I'll show you', and then proceede to almost kill him with a bouncer. I dont see that in McGrath.
Ambrose was only like that early in his career. Apparently one particular instance against Boonie (which Boonie documents in his autobiography) where Ambrose got hit around in a one-dayer precipitated the development of the great bowler we saw in the 90's. Boonie hit him for a few boundaries and Curtly just started bowling shorter and shorter, going for more and more runs.
Apparently he learned a valuable lesson that day; stick to the plan and don't lose your head. When Dean Jones asked Curtly to remove his wristband a few years ago, did Curtly lose his head? No. He bowled magnificently and took 5 wickets.
Look, I hate to break to you guys but against the best batsmen you have to sacrifice your pride somewhat to take wickets. If that means bowling boring line and length then so be it. You can't just blast out top batsmen on a whim. Wasim and Waqar where able to do stuff like that quite a bit but there were also other times when they were trying to blast batsmen out that they bowled utter tripe. Anyone else remember when Wasim lost his head in Hobart in 1999? What happened when he had a catch behind the wicket turned down? He bowled a bouncer. It was his fastest ball of the series and it ended up in the gutter at mid-wicket as Gilchrist pummelled it to the fence.
Guys like Curtly were brilliant at not losing their heads in situations like that and settled back into their immaculate line-and-length. It's what builds pressure and takes wickets. Just trying to blast players out is a low percentage way of doing things and you have to be an exceptional bowler to do it all the time.
Precisely. You just illustrated what i was saying earlier. If its not in the script, I haven't found (I'll say it difeerently) the Australian attack terribly inventive.
That's because they don't need to be. The West Indian attack in the 80's wasn't terribly inventive either. They'd put the pressure on with aggressive fields and sit on an immaculate line-and-length until the batsman got out. If a batsman got a reasonable score, it didn't matter a jot because they had faith that their batsmen would do the job. If things didn't go their way, they weren't terribly effective. Anyone remember when Michael Holding booted a stump out of the ground in NZ in 1981?
The West Indians were masters at developing a game plan against a player and relentlessly sticking to it, just as this Aussie team are. If a player gets away, they accepted that because they knew it was going to happen occasionally. Most importantly, as long as the team kept winning, that was paramount.
I mean, the Aussies hammered England by an innings in Adelaide despite Vaughan scoring 177.
Sometimes you have to sacrifice your personal ambitions to be part of a winning team which wins consistently in most conditions. Michael Holding would have taken 350+ Test wickets if he played for anyone else but in sharing the ball with Garner, Marshall and Roberts, he ended with less Test wickets.
I guess the crux of my point is that if your plan A works so well for you in the majority of cases, the need for a Plan B is less. You still need one but if your Plan A works so well, it must be hard to let go of.
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