King Pietersen
ICC Board Member
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2006
- Location
- Manchester
I never doubted that Australia swings, I actually said it does. But conditions are not as bad as England in April. It's dreadfully cold, players are on and off for rain, there's always moisture in the pitch, it's overcast so swings and the bowling's not much worse, if at all. Guys like Mark Davies, Matthew Hoggard, Kabir Ali, Simon Jones, Tim Bresnan, Liam Plunkett are all swing/seam bowlers and thrive in English conditions, check out Mark Davies' record in FC cricket for example.
My point was that the sheer change in conditions (South Africa isn't much different to Australia in terms of conditions) compared with Australia, plus the workload, lack of preperation and the break up of play thanks to rain delays makes things much harder for a young overseas player to perform at the same high levels they did in Australia. A few players have done it, David Hussey and Brad Hodge spring instantly to mind, but they were not 19 when they came into County Cricket, they'd played alot of cricket, especially Dussey who was 27.
I just don't think the difference between the 2 systems is much different in terms of difficulty to perform. In Aussie State cricket the standard is generally abit higher, but in England the demands are different. It's taken a player like Bopara a long time to find his feet in County Cricket and now that he knows his game he's scoring runs. If Hughes comes to England early season and makes big runs, then good on him, and I'll applaud him for it, but I don't think he'll be averaging 68 like he did last year in Australian Domestic Cricket.
My point was that the sheer change in conditions (South Africa isn't much different to Australia in terms of conditions) compared with Australia, plus the workload, lack of preperation and the break up of play thanks to rain delays makes things much harder for a young overseas player to perform at the same high levels they did in Australia. A few players have done it, David Hussey and Brad Hodge spring instantly to mind, but they were not 19 when they came into County Cricket, they'd played alot of cricket, especially Dussey who was 27.
I just don't think the difference between the 2 systems is much different in terms of difficulty to perform. In Aussie State cricket the standard is generally abit higher, but in England the demands are different. It's taken a player like Bopara a long time to find his feet in County Cricket and now that he knows his game he's scoring runs. If Hughes comes to England early season and makes big runs, then good on him, and I'll applaud him for it, but I don't think he'll be averaging 68 like he did last year in Australian Domestic Cricket.