The struggles of modern batsmen vs the moving ball

[War]

war, I do see what you're saying, but your efforts to discredit sehwag at practically every opportunity is becoming obsessional.

for someone that doesn't even support india you spend half your time talking about him.

Me bringing up this article about Sehwag with reference to that Hilfenhaus point is a simple coincidence, since the poster lancaster666 claimed that he bowled poorly during that 2010/11 india tour. The article discredits his point, since his bowling was praised by an indian sports reporter during that series.

Odly with a lot of cricket related topics on planetcricket, the many indian posters tend to bring him up, so i tend to fall in those discussions.

Nothing i could have said could every discredit Sehwag any more conclusively that his performances in 2011 alone on away tours to the big three nations. Series that i predicted he would struggle in mind you.

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I can't take anything in that post seriously I'm afraid, not after seeing the bit I've put in bold.
James Anderson is the best swing bowler in the world, with the new ball, the old ball, flat wickets, green wickets. Basically in all conditions.
Hilfenhaus is nowhere near his level

Up until the 2010/11 ashes, Anderson was pretty much seen as one-trick poney that only could take wickets in seaming conditions. It was only on the 2009/10 winter tour to S Africa after a poor effort on a Jo'burg pitch that flattened out, in the final test of that series, when he struggled to be effective.

Hilfenhaus out-bowled Anderson in the 2009 ashes in when conditions were swinging and not swing and generally between 2009-2010, hilfenhaus was the better bowler of the two in unfavourable conditions.

As we both know in the 2010/11 when Anderson finally proved he was a bowler for all conditions, hifly suddenly lost his form and he was dropped from the AUS set-up for a year.

Now on his return to AUS colours, Hilfy performances in the two test vs the much vaunted Indian batting line-up currently is very much comparable to the excellent bowling Anderson produced against them during the 4-0 whitewash in England.

Jimmy took one 5-wicket haul in 4 tests, while Hifly already has two against the same team. That certainly does show he somewhere close to Anderson's level on current form.

 

[Sedition]

war, I do see what you're saying, but your efforts to discredit sehwag at practically every opportunity is becoming obsessional.

for someone that doesn't even support india you spend half your time talking about him.

Haha, well at least you took the Phil Hughes sig out before calling the kettle black.

 

[stefan]

As far as batting is concerned, England topple every side. Each and every batsman contribute in the XI. One fails, the others click. South Africa are top heavy and depend highly on AB, Kal, Amla and Duminy. But their top four are mighty consistent and rarely fail. India and Aus are inconsistent ie. f their top guns fire then they command, if not then they're gone, and so are the other sides. New Zealand have also slumped with the bat, but Vettori rescues them.

IMO, accoring to me the top test sides go like this:

1. England
2. South Africa
3. Australia
4. India (they're kind of hit and miss, but well I'll just keep them here)
5. New Zealand

And then come all the other sides

Duminy?? He doesn't even play in the test side. I presume you meant smith. Kallis,AB,Amla and Smith still form the back bone. The opener,nr6 and keeper are still question mark areas especially with a rather lengthy tail.

 

[Dipak]

Duminy?? He doesn't even play in the test side. I presume you meant smith. Kallis,AB,Amla and Smith still form the back bone. The opener,nr6 and keeper are still question mark areas especially with a rather lengthy tail.

Yeah, I meant Smith, for some reason I thought it was about ODI's hence Duminy's name came into my mind.He's still an integral part of the limited overs side. As far as tests are concerned, Smith is the man! Still they are quite top heavy

ODI's

1. Smith
2. Amla
3. Kallis
4. AB
5. Duminy
6. du Plessis
7. Botha/ Boucher/ Kuhn

Tests

1. Smith
2. Amla
3. Kallis
4. de Villiers
5. Rudolph
6. Prince
7. Boucher

See the batting literally ends at six. You don't have a reliable batsmen at seven.

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James Anderson is the best swing bowler in the world, with the new ball, the old ball, flat wickets, green wickets. Basically in all conditions.

Yeah that's true. He could be unplayable at times.

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batting wise I wouldn't rate south africa second, they do have 4 really good players in their batting line up but how often is this proving insufficient to post good scores?

Yeah, even I hade a dilemma whether as to post them second. But their top four are too good and consistent (leaving the chokes aside) that I placed them second.

 

[Ahmad94]

England and South Africa have by far the best quick bowlers of all nations.

Completely incorrect. I would say Pakistan have players like Gul, Cheema, Asif, Aamir. Nothing can stop them once on a role. Not to mention Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma when he is on a roll

 

[Sedition]

Lol Gul's been terrible lately and players like Asif and Aamir? You mean cheats? Yeah sure, Pakistan has players like that.

 

[War]

Lol Gul's been terrible lately and players like Asif and Aamir? You mean cheats? Yeah sure, Pakistan has players like that.

Ha true. But its sad though, as much as pace attack among all nations have clearly improved in recent years (except for India and Sri Lanka) - if Pakistan still had Asif and Aamir, they would have the most talented bowling attack in the world now, just ahead of South Africa.

A 4-man attack of Asif, Aamir, Gul or Junaid, Ajmal would have been beautiful viewing.

 

[Owzat]

I think Tests would be a lot more interesting if the tradition of the new ball every 80 overs was shortened to say 50-60.

Or better still sides were given three new balls from the off and they decide when and how to use them. If they open with one from each end then fair enough, if they decide to save one for when they need it then equally fair enough.

The tactical implications would be fantastic, you could see a side deciding they needed a push after tea, or maybe wait until morning when bowlers are fresher. Only restriction I'd have is not changing the ball mid-over so the umpire would have to watch if not look after the balls.

The batsmen may decide to become more "brutal" to try and damage the balls legally

 

[sifter132]

^Interesting idea. Kinda like the Formula 1 teams getting a certain amount of tyres they can use.

As long as spinners didn't get shut out by the tactics. Because looking back past Warne and Murali, spinners were just workhorses to give the fast bowlers a rest - even greats like O'Reilly had a high strike rate.

 

[Owzat]

As long as spinners didn't get shut out by the tactics. Because looking back past Warne and Murali, spinners were just workhorses to give the fast bowlers a rest - even greats like O'Reilly had a high strike rate.

Actually there has been some speculation before about giving the spinners a new and hard ball before. You could use one ball from one end until it gets roughed up a bit, then only use it when you have a spinner on whilst having another ball for the seamers.

It could certainly reduce the one-sidedness of some Tests where the only real prospect of taking wickets is with the new ball.

 

[War]

Very good idea Owzat, i think that would be certainly help to bring a further balance between bat and ball.

 

[sami ullah khan]

Standard of quick bowling is not improving. Admittedly there are quite a few prospects on the horizon but none of them is too scary for a batsmen to face. Last time I saw a bowler bowl an over of terrorising pace of over 150 KPH was Steyn in IPL . There are good fast medium bowling options around though. I think genuine quick bowlers tend to slow down on purpose with amount of cricket these days. Bowling fast is risky business and that is compounded with amount of cricket now a days.

 

[Epic]

Actually there has been some speculation before about giving the spinners a new and hard ball before. You could use one ball from one end until it gets roughed up a bit, then only use it when you have a spinner on whilst having another ball for the seamers.

It could certainly reduce the one-sidedness of some Tests where the only real prospect of taking wickets is with the new ball.

Sorry, but my dumbass can't seem to comprehend that, rephrase please.

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Nvm, makes sense, 2 new balls, 1 at a time though.

 

[War]

Standard of quick bowling is not improving. Admittedly there are quite a few prospects on the horizon but none of them is too scary for a batsmen to face. Last time I saw a bowler bowl an over of terrorising pace of over 150 KPH was Steyn in IPL . There are good fast medium bowling options around though. I think genuine quick bowlers tend to slow down on purpose with amount of cricket these days. Bowling fast is risky business and that is compounded with amount of cricket now a days.

Indeed no bowler except for Steyn bowls 150 in tests (although i reckon Kemar Roach can). If you are comparing the general standard of quick bowling by each top 8 nations right now compared to what they had individually from 2000-2009 - then the standard has certainly improved.

Only India or Sri Lanka have a decline in quick bowlig stocks.

 

[sifter132]

^I guess the question for India and SL is...did they have any good quick bowlers in the first place to decline from? Nah they get some occasionally...

And Steyn has been well under 150 this series. I'm not sure he even cracked 140kph last night. Roach wasn't real quick this morning either, bowling mostly in the high 130s. Tino Best has consistently been about 5kph quicker than Roach.