Cricket things that annoy you
- Thread starter Gethelred
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I'm on a roll. Modern batsmen not being able to handle real pace, getting in the wrong position and getting hit. Have a look at the first 3 balls faced here by Bruce Laird:
Playing the line of the ball. Actually, a broader gripe is that modern batsmen hardly ever get tested by real pace on fast wickets any more. Those 80s summers against the West Indies was like watching gladiators.
p.s. Jesus, the length of that Holding run-up....
Playing the line of the ball. Actually, a broader gripe is that modern batsmen hardly ever get tested by real pace on fast wickets any more. Those 80s summers against the West Indies was like watching gladiators.
p.s. Jesus, the length of that Holding run-up....
People reminiscing about the WACA when it was a s**t of a place to watch cricket.
Totally, just miss the pitch.
Cricket commentators getting the sack because of their social media wars vs politicians
Vale Slats
Vale Slats
Cricket commentators getting the sack because of their social media wars vs politicians
Vale Slats
THIS IS GREAT NEWS
SLATER IS HORRENDOUS
MADE MY DAY
peternorth
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t20 teams wearing similar colours
Carbine Chaos
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Couldn't you say the same about Test sides?
peternorth
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Couldn't you say the same about Test sides?
Hahaha maybe
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Yep.
Watching the degree to which that ball was flying off a length is just terrifying. You just don't see that anymore, not really; you'll see a green deck which has the ball seam in or out, but not a hard, pale deck which has the ball fly at the player.
The big thing for me in there was Border's first ball. He looked to go back foot defense, before recoilling into a duck when he realised how high it was and he could get under it. None of that taking the eyes off the ball or reflex big push forward; he wanted to play back foot, properly back foot, instead of just lifting the elbow and playing the high ball on the front foot.
We've lost the art of back foot straight bat cricket in this country. It's all been subsumed by the big front foot press, the Australian cut, the front foot pull; all good shots, but we used to be the best players off the back foot in the world. Now, you never see a player play off the back foot through mid off or on aggressively or defensively.
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You would be the only person bemoaning the fact that he got the flick. Has been the worst part of the coverage for ******* years.Cricket commentators getting the sack because of their social media wars vs politicians
Vale Slats
It might be the manner in which he got sacked. Not to do with the person himself
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Not exactly in direct relation to your point but I do find it funny this idea that players in the 80s played the West Indies fast bowlers well and yet no one beat them in a series for 15 years. I'm not sure they were really playing it that well.
I think they were playing them about as well as it was possible for batsmen.
The big difference (apart from the relative lack of protection, smaller bats, bigger boundaries and faster pitches) was that the West Indies had 4 great fast bowlers in their team at any one time. Look at players even as good as Smith getting into trouble against one bowler in an attack (e.g. Archer).
Geoff Marsh and David Boon have talked about getting mentally worn down facing the Windies because, apart from the element of fear, they just gave you nothing to hit. Their standard balls could be fast and up under your arm pit. You were lucky to get 10 balls in a session that you could score off.
And this may be my failing memory playing tricks, but I just can't remember players getting into trouble as regularly as batsmen do now. Yes, they got hit (bits of Gatt's nose bone getting picked out of the pitch at Sabina Park), but not getting the line wrong so often. Your point about going on the front foot and attacking is spot on.
He was on shaky ground two years ago, ie pre-Scomo.Cricket commentators getting the sack because of their social media wars vs politicians
Vale Slats
These guys are all on contracts so if he wasn't offered a new one, it's technically not being sacked. But even so, if they had to drop someone, he made himself the number one target a long time ago.
reggie
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And raising both arms above their head like they've just won an Olympic gold medal. Take your helmet off and raise your bat to wave to your team mates and acknowledge the applause from the crowd.
Absolutely. Going way back it seems the Oval was always the best batting track over there. You had Viv making 291 in 1976, Botham's only test double hundred there in 1982 (he's always said that was the best batting track he ever played on), Miandad making 270 there in 1987 and so on. As long as I can remember it was the closest to either the WACA or a good Melbourne pitch (fast, and good even bounce) that you could get in England.
100%. It's not just your memory, and it's not playing tricks. I tell my nephew (to his astonishment), that the number of times batsmen were hit would be in single figures for an entire summer. It was very, very rare. For one simple reason - you were taught as soon as you picked up a bat to watch the ball. Pitches quite reasonably gave the bowlers some encouragement too. It's perfectly possible at Test level to play short pitched bowling and not even play the hook shot. There are plenty of examples going back from Jardine to Len Hutton to more recently Graeme Pollock to Steve Waugh. You can either sway out of the way, or if you're tall enough play with a straight bat (apparently that's what Hutton would do). The key is - I bet all of them were watching the ball.
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Let's not get carried away.
Australian scores in Windies tests at the WACA in the glory years:
1984: 78 & 223
1988: 395/8d & 234
1993: 119 & 178
1997: 243 & 194
They were a fantastic side but batsmen still scored runs. It's not like every series was a 5-0 whitewash. Plenty of times we scored 300 or 400 at other venues.
100% agree with this. I remember Mal Loye touring with England and playing a few ODIs. Bit of a Max Klinger type who played FC cricket for years then a few internationals late in the piece. Used to play a funny front foot sweep/pull and copped a short one from Glenn McGrath.
Listen to the commentary from David Gower and Nasser Hussein. Spot on. Smith getting hit by Archer in the last Ashes tour was scary. He's unorthodox at the best of time but you won't find this tecnique in many cricket text books:
Players play more attacking and unorthodox strokes because batting is about scoring runs and with bigger bats and shorter boundaries the margins for error are higher. Players with technical weaknesses that nuffy BigFooty posters can spot (e.g. Aaron Finch who kept getting his back foot pinned in concrete) get picked in the test team.
Plus here in particular someone (broadcasters) determined that high scoring = exciting cricket and test matches should last for 15 sessions. We get pitches that don't do much on day one and play well for a few days before starting to break up a bit. A few times in recent years we've been presented with good bowling conditions (not unplayable) and barely survived 20 or 30 overs.
Yeah from memory Adelaide and Sydney they were able to score runs. Sydney was obvious as particularly in the 1980s it started being prepared to spin much earlier than normal. But they always struggled against them in Perth. I remember that 1992/93 test, as much as everyone remembers Ambrose's insane 7-1 spell in the first innings, Bishop tore through them in the second like a knife through butter.
Listen to the commentary from David Gower and Nasser Hussein. Spot on. Smith getting hit by Archer in the last Ashes tour was scary. He's unorthodox at the best of time but you won't find this tecnique in many cricket text books:
Players play more attacking and unorthodox strokes because batting is about scoring runs and with bigger bats and shorter boundaries the margins for error are higher. Players with technical weaknesses that nuffy BigFooty posters can spot (e.g. Aaron Finch who kept getting his back foot pinned in concrete) get picked in the test team.
That technique but Smith there is just horrible. First most basic thing - he's not remotely watching the ball. No wonder it looks so bad. As you rightly say, it's because they've grown up murdering bowlers on (mostly) superb pitches so they get away with not being able to play proper short pitched bowling (and swing bowling while we're at it).
