Bowling Short

[The Fonz]

There's been all this talk about how England have been bowling too short.
Bowled too short four years ago, bowled too short at the Gabba, bowled too short at Adelaide.
Am I'm just trying to understand how a team could be so flawed in its tactics if its so obviously wrong.
The directive to bowl short came from the coaches? Or the bowlers just did it themselves? Root wouldn't have had a word on the field to them - pitch it up...
If you have a far lesser chance of taking a wicket if you bowl short, what is the reason to bowl short? Is there any upside?
Broad and Anderson have 1000 wickets between them. How could players who are so experienced make such a basic mistake?

 

[frankrizzo]

joe root:

"With ball in hand, we didn't bowl the right lengths," he said. "We needed to bowl fuller. As soon as we did in the second innings, we created chances.

"That's frustrating. We did it four years ago and didn't learn from it. We have to be better.

"We talk about what length to bowl all the time. We look at the data, what's going to hit the stumps on each surface.

"It's well communicated. But it's not always as simple as that and people get caught up in the emotion of the game."

broad:

"I think we held the game well on an opening day"

there was an argument that we could have bowled fuller, because the ball did so little, our economy rates would have gone through the roof.

So root is saying the plan was to bowl fuller and the plan was ignored and broad is basically saying bowling fuller would have ****ed our figures so we bowled a line that didnt create chances but kept our figures looking nice and neat.

 

[PhatBoy]

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. When you’re beating the edge a lot your brain as a bowler tells you to keep bowling it there.

Theyve dropped catches, had plenty of edges and miss hits go through gaps behind the wicket, taken wickets off no balls and beaten the bat countless times its not hard to see how a bowler in that scenario would think ‘I’m close here keep going.’

 

[Gethelred]

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. When you’re beating the edge a lot your brain as a bowler tells you to keep bowling it there.

Theyve dropped catches, had plenty of edges and miss hits go through gaps behind the wicket, taken wickets off no balls and beaten the bat countless times its not hard to see how a bowler in that scenario would think ‘I’m close here keep going.’

Hmmm...

I don't quite get how you can reconcile the fact that in a lot of ways their mediums did more with the old ball this test than ours did with the idea that our bowlers consistently bowled fuller lengths with the new and found the benefit. England - or, at least, Anderson, Woakes and Broad - are stumps bowlers; while they get catches behind the stumps, they're LBW and Bowled as main wickets. While edges from the new ball went through the cordon, an awful lot also just didn't carry due to the fact that they were bowling to Marnus, who will not play early unless you bowl on the stumps. A fifth stump line cannot commit him to a shot; you need to genuinely bowl on the stumps to get him to play.

The wickets from no balls thing is kind of silly; you can't really take that as a confirmation of a plan working for the bowler. They're releasing the ball sometimes almost a foot further forward than they usually would; of course you're going to seem significantly faster when you shorten the wicket in that way.

I do not agree that Stokes bowling nothing but pull/hook shots with a stacked leg side field is a good plan. Wagner makes an art of it because no two balls are ever the same; he'll cut one in at you, before backing his pace off and bowling a leg cutter, before skidding one through and aiming to hit you. Stokes is bowling the Kmart version, but I get the impression that he's bowling to fields and plans made for Jofra Archer there anyway.

There's a niggling thought behind this: they're playing to prevent damage, as opposed to winning. The bowlers are bowling to prevent being scored against, to prevent getting belted; the batters are not playing shots, trying to survive and bat for long periods without it being in their repertoire. It isn't as though their current setup doesn't collapse anyway; you'd be thoroughly better off telling Buttler to tee off and to pick Bairstow and get him to do the same.

Will they go out? Probably. But they genuinely need to realise that the English method since Cook of attritional cricket - get to a position of safety in which you cannot lose, then go for the win - does not work in Australia if you cannot pile those runs on first. The only reason 2010-11 happened was because Cook forgot how to go out for a series and Peterson was still at the height of his powers.

You don't win here trying not to lose.

 

[PhatBoy]

Hmmm...

I don't quite get how you can reconcile the fact that in a lot of ways their mediums did more with the old ball this test than ours did with the idea that our bowlers consistently bowled fuller lengths with the new and found the benefit. England - or, at least, Anderson, Woakes and Broad - are stumps bowlers; while they get catches behind the stumps, they're LBW and Bowled as main wickets. While edges from the new ball went through the cordon, an awful lot also just didn't carry due to the fact that they were bowling to Marnus, who will not play early unless you bowl on the stumps. A fifth stump line cannot commit him to a shot; you need to genuinely bowl on the stumps to get him to play.

The wickets from no balls thing is kind of silly; you can't really take that as a confirmation of a plan working for the bowler. They're releasing the ball sometimes almost a foot further forward than they usually would; of course you're going to seem significantly faster when you shorten the wicket in that way.

I do not agree that Stokes bowling nothing but pull/hook shots with a stacked leg side field is a good plan. Wagner makes an art of it because no two balls are ever the same; he'll cut one in at you, before backing his pace off and bowling a leg cutter, before skidding one through and aiming to hit you. Stokes is bowling the Kmart version, but I get the impression that he's bowling to fields and plans made for Jofra Archer there anyway.

There's a niggling thought behind this: they're playing to prevent damage, as opposed to winning. The bowlers are bowling to prevent being scored against, to prevent getting belted; the batters are not playing shots, trying to survive and bat for long periods without it being in their repertoire. It isn't as though their current setup doesn't collapse anyway; you'd be thoroughly better off telling Buttler to tee off and to pick Bairstow and get him to do the same.

Will they go out? Probably. But they genuinely need to realise that the English method since Cook of attritional cricket - get to a position of safety in which you cannot lose, then go for the win - does not work in Australia if you cannot pile those runs on first. The only reason 2010-11 happened was because Cook forgot how to go out for a series and Peterson was still at the height of his powers.

You don't win here trying not to lose.

On the flip side they’re playing against a team famous for its impatience with the bat. They are also playing against two batsmen, one in particular, who has cultivated one of the all time greatest careers In history, out of being able to not only avoid being dismissed by bowlers attacking the stumps, but who scores an incredible amount of runs when they do it. I’m not saying their approach has been right I am saying that it’s easy to watch and say ‘oh they’re beating the bat or making scoring tough but they aren’t taking wickets’ but as a bowler primarily through my underwhelming cricket career, the thoughts that go through your head when you are out there are vastly different to the observations you make when you are watching. If I’m beating the bat a lot my first thought isn’t ‘I need to change something here.’ It’s ‘surely I’m due a nick soon.’
It’s the same when you’re batting. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve got my innings started with a sprinkling of boundaries pulling short balls and in my mind it’s money for jam, bring on more of the same. Anyone watching me would probably say ‘he’s dragging balls from outside off stump to the inside here it’s only a matter of time until he pops one up.’

 

[Gethelred]

On the flip side they’re playing against a team famous for its impatience with the bat. They are also playing against two batsmen, one in particular, who has cultivated one of the all time greatest careers In history, out of being able to not only avoid being dismissed by bowlers attacking the stumps, but who scores an incredible amount of runs when they do it. I’m not saying their approach has been right I am saying that it’s easy to watch and say ‘oh they’re beating the bat or making scoring tough but they aren’t taking wickets’ but as a bowler primarily through my underwhelming cricket career, the thoughts that go through your head when you are out there are vastly different to the observations you make when you are watching. If I’m beating the bat a lot my first thought isn’t ‘I need to change something here.’ It’s ‘surely I’m due a nick soon.’
It’s the same when you’re batting. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve got my innings started with a sprinkling of boundaries pulling short balls and in my mind it’s money for jam, bring on more of the same. Anyone watching me would probably say ‘he’s dragging balls from outside off stump to the inside here it’s only a matter of time until he pops one up.’

I might be the weird one there; when I see a bloke pulling the ball from outside off, I'm going to keep from bowling back a length or bowl fuller on the stumps, because unless the surface is a bit suspect I shouldn't be bowling there in the first place. Don't feed the good shot; make them play a shot they either do not have or do not play as well.

And with that in mind, why wouldn't you commit Marnus to playing the ball early??? They clearly do not know how to get him out, and their best hope to get Smith is to do it without Marnus at the other end.

Course, if you're on a park turf wicket, you probably shouldn't be playing the pull anyway. Sure, one might sit there for you, but its mate bouncing in the same spot is likely to shoot and pin you dead in front.

 

[Jim Prideaux]

I am in the camp that they bowled too short, note that doesn’t mean they were always too short, but overall, across both tests they’ve been consistently a few feet too short.

At the Gabba I think they fell into the trap that visiting teams often do, thinking “it’s quick, it’s bouncy, I’ll bowl short and it’ll look real mean”. Also, the length you do need to bowl on the Gabba is a length that would not fly in the UK often. Having played over there and on bouncier wickets over here you do need to adjust your length a lot. Fuller balls at the Gabba bounce awkwardly, same length in the UK is right in the slot. As a bowler who fancied himself (without much reason) as a batter, in the UK you could often just take a big stride and swing through a lot of stuff on a good length, which was great.

In Adelaide I think a bit of ego and fatigue came into it. They bowled to protect their run rate, and after wasting the new ball they didn’t have much of a choice.

 

[Coops93]

I think it was a tactic for sure, and Root was definitely part of it. They set the leg side fields obviously indicating they wanted to bowl short, that doesn't happen without the captain.

The plan was to bore Australia out to a degree and worst case take the game deep by not letting Australia get away and then pin them in the night session. They realised that was the wrong tactic once it was clear the ball wasn't bending around corners at night and that Warner has matured and is a real test batsman now, Lasagne has got a test match temperament and that Smith is gonna Smith. It's worth noting that last time out here they tried to bore Smith out and he scored a 300 ball century, so they should've known it wasn't going to work.

They decided to actually attack the batsmen with aggressive length in the 2nd innings and it worked showing the initial gameplan was poor.

Perhaps what Root was trying to say, but delivered it clumsily, was that they got the gameplan wrong. Again, clumsily heaping blame directly on the bowlers instead of the plan. That's being generous to him though

 

[philreich]

Statistically, if the series continues along the same path throughout, England is on track to concede close to 3000 runs by the end of the Hobart Test. So surely they'll seek to do something different in Melbourne, or we're likely to see more of the same.

 

[The Fonz]

It's a pretty simply game that they've over-complicated.
Make the batsman play. Aim straight at the stumps so you get him to nick one, bowl him or trap him in front.

 

[Gethelred]

It's a pretty simply game that they've over-complicated.
Make the batsman play. Aim straight at the stumps so you get him to nick one, bowl him or trap him in front.

... you know, for all that I agree with you - kind of - you do realise that every single cricketer who has ever played the game could give precisely that advice? As in, you genuinely do not think they've thought of that?

Think of the myriad of ways opposition have tried bowling to Smith to get him out. They've tried bowling at what looks like an LBW weakness, only to get plastered to the leg side fence at a run a ball. They've tried bowling a fifth stump line, only to find him getting runs only marginally slower. They've tried bowling at off, only for him to still whip them through midwicket or drive them straight when he gets a length he wants. They've bowled at his cut, only to have him patiently wait for the ball to put into the gap. They've bowled at his pull, and he's been equal to it with a few hiccups.

They've starved him of runs, starved him of his leg side. They've bounced him for overs. They've done what you suggested and bowled on his ****ing stumps, and it hasn't worked. There was a period during Ricky Ponting's career when bowling within half a foot of outside off to half a foot down leg meant that he'd hit you for runs regardless of length. Brian Lara was notorious for setting your field for you. VVS Laxman should've been LBW fodder on the stumps; let's just bowl to him there, that'll turn out well.

'He misses, you hit,' is a lovely aphorism for junior cricket, but this is test level. You're going to leak hundreds of runs just bowling on the stumps, and England don't have the batters to defend that.

Imagine if England just decided to out of whole cloth adopt this advice to Steven Smith. He'd average 100 for the series, again.

 

[Jim Prideaux]

I think it was a tactic for sure, and Root was definitely part of it. They set the leg side fields obviously indicating they wanted to bowl short, that doesn't happen without the captain.

The plan was to bore Australia out to a degree and worst case take the game deep by not letting Australia get away and then pin them in the night session. They realised that was the wrong tactic once it was clear the ball wasn't bending around corners at night and that Warner has matured and is a real test batsman now, Lasagne has got a test match temperament and that Smith is gonna Smith. It's worth noting that last time out here they tried to bore Smith out and he scored a 300 ball century, so they should've known it wasn't going to work.

They decided to actually attack the batsmen with aggressive length in the 2nd innings and it worked showing the initial gameplan was poor.

Perhaps what Root was trying to say, but delivered it clumsily, was that they got the gameplan wrong. Again, clumsily heaping blame directly on the bowlers instead of the plan. That's being generous to him though

Agree with some of that, but I’m fairly sure Anderson and Broad set their own fields - and as such bowl what they’d like to bowl. FWIW Root has doubled down today and said he meant what he said - well, at least that’s how I read it.

 

[The Fonz]

I think it was a tactic for sure, and Root was definitely part of it. They set the leg side fields obviously indicating they wanted to bowl short, that doesn't happen without the captain.

The plan was to bore Australia out to a degree and worst case take the game deep by not letting Australia get away and then pin them in the night session. They realised that was the wrong tactic once it was clear the ball wasn't bending around corners at night and that Warner has matured and is a real test batsman now, Lasagne has got a test match temperament and that Smith is gonna Smith. It's worth noting that last time out here they tried to bore Smith out and he scored a 300 ball century, so they should've known it wasn't going to work.

They decided to actually attack the batsmen with aggressive length in the 2nd innings and it worked showing the initial gameplan was poor.

Perhaps what Root was trying to say, but delivered it clumsily, was that they got the gameplan wrong. Again, clumsily heaping blame directly on the bowlers instead of the plan. That's being generous to him though

... you know, for all that I agree with you - kind of - you do realise that every single cricketer who has ever played the game could give precisely that advice? As in, you genuinely do not think they've thought of that?

Think of the myriad of ways opposition have tried bowling to Smith to get him out. They've tried bowling at what looks like an LBW weakness, only to get plastered to the leg side fence at a run a ball. They've tried bowling a fifth stump line, only to find him getting runs only marginally slower. They've tried bowling at off, only for him to still whip them through midwicket or drive them straight when he gets a length he wants. They've bowled at his cut, only to have him patiently wait for the ball to put into the gap. They've bowled at his pull, and he's been equal to it with a few hiccups.

They've starved him of runs, starved him of his leg side. They've bounced him for overs. They've done what you suggested and bowled on his ******* stumps, and it hasn't worked. There was a period during Ricky Ponting's career when bowling within half a foot of outside off to half a foot down leg meant that he'd hit you for runs regardless of length. Brian Lara was notorious for setting your field for you. VVS Laxman should've been LBW fodder on the stumps; let's just bowl to him there, that'll turn out well.

'He misses, you hit,' is a lovely aphorism for junior cricket, but this is test level. You're going to leak hundreds of runs just bowling on the stumps, and England don't have the batters to defend that.

Imagine if England just decided to out of whole cloth adopt this advice to Steven Smith. He'd average 100 for the series, again.

I get your point 1000%
I think the key point is to be smart.
Smith has scored 7651 at 61.20
By any definition this makes him an all-time great and if you're bowling to one you need a plan if not several plans.
This needs to be backed up with specific field placings and you bowl to these.
It has to be more sophisticated than whatever they did in Brisbane and Adelaide.

 

[Themanbun]

... you know, for all that I agree with you - kind of - you do realise that every single cricketer who has ever played the game could give precisely that advice? As in, you genuinely do not think they've thought of that?

Think of the myriad of ways opposition have tried bowling to Smith to get him out. They've tried bowling at what looks like an LBW weakness, only to get plastered to the leg side fence at a run a ball. They've tried bowling a fifth stump line, only to find him getting runs only marginally slower. They've tried bowling at off, only for him to still whip them through midwicket or drive them straight when he gets a length he wants. They've bowled at his cut, only to have him patiently wait for the ball to put into the gap. They've bowled at his pull, and he's been equal to it with a few hiccups.

They've starved him of runs, starved him of his leg side. They've bounced him for overs. They've done what you suggested and bowled on his ******* stumps, and it hasn't worked. There was a period during Ricky Ponting's career when bowling within half a foot of outside off to half a foot down leg meant that he'd hit you for runs regardless of length. Brian Lara was notorious for setting your field for you. VVS Laxman should've been LBW fodder on the stumps; let's just bowl to him there, that'll turn out well.

'He misses, you hit,' is a lovely aphorism for junior cricket, but this is test level. You're going to leak hundreds of runs just bowling on the stumps, and England don't have the batters to defend that.

Imagine if England just decided to out of whole cloth adopt this advice to Steven Smith. He'd average 100 for the series, again.

Really good post. I agree, for 99.95% of it.

The only factor which I think should have had England reconsidering and opting for a fuller length is that the Gabba and MCG pitches, and even Adelaide to a degree, aren't the same roads we were trotting out from 2000-2018/19.

There was a period there, and Cummins became the number one bowler in the world by doing it, where short bowling was the only thing that really worked in Australia.

I'm glad the pitches now have a bit of life in them again, and the 'old adage' we trot out to juniors is probably gonna work more often now than it had for a few decades there. Still it's not a sophisticated enough plan and you need several plans at test level, but I can absolutely see why Root was frustrated. It's nowhere near as simple as 'attack the stumps', and what works for Labuschagne will be different to what works for Travis Head, but I genuinely think the English bowlers may have missed a trick and Root may have already pointed that out to them which it sounds like they somewhat disregarded.

 

[Gethelred]

Really good post. I agree, for 99.95% of it.

The only factor which I think should have had England reconsidering and opting for a fuller length is that the Gabba and MCG pitches, and even Adelaide to a degree, aren't the same roads we were trotting out from 2000-2018/19.

There was a period there, and Cummins became the number one bowler in the world by doing it, where short bowling was the only thing that really worked in Australia.

I'm glad the pitches now have a bit of life in them again, and the 'old adage' we trot out to juniors is probably gonna work more often now than it had for a few decades there. Still it's not a sophisticated enough plan and you need several plans at test level, but I can absolutely see why Root was frustrated. It's nowhere near as simple as 'attack the stumps', and what works for Labuschagne will be different to what works for Travis Head, but I genuinely think the English bowlers may have missed a trick and Root may have already pointed that out to them which it sounds like they somewhat disregarded.

Look.

I agree with you that England's length to this point has been too short. They've been entirely too willing to try to bowl at the cordon in order to avoid going for runs. Their entire game this series has been to play on our impatience.

... which is an entirely acceptable option to take.

They have every reason to believe that playing on our patience will work. They have every reason to believe that starving us of runs will allow them to bowl us out. For whatever reason, the English system produces bowlers who bowl disciplined lines and lengths and wait for the bat to make a mistake; it's reactive rather than proactive, but that's a style/manner thing rather than a flaw, exactly.

Their problem isn't their bowling strategy; they make more runs, our bats are under more pressure and we feel the pressure to force things along more, they take more wickets because we take more risks. You can't play the way they're playing when they don't have enough runs.

The point that I'm getting at is that people who are not super cricket literate put an overemphasis on bowling on the stumps. They look at bowling off them as a real flaw, and while it is sometimes at the top level - because the overwhelming majority of bowling thought indicates that bowlers should bowl on the stumps - the majority of batters at the top level become very, very good at scoring off the stumps. In order to bowl and hit the stumps, you need to bowl full, and Williamson and Smith take guard on off, and Kohli and Root are sublime off their pads. We can get into Labuschagne, Latham, ABD, Cook, Pieterson and their ability to play off the stumps in a minute; suffice to say, if you bowl fuller lengths to the middling to the exceptional, you're going to go for a few runs.

So if you're going to take the risk, you need to be making more runs than they are.

They're pushing shit uphill. They can't make the runs required to make their plans work. But this isn't plan A; plan A was playing all three of Wood, Archer, Overton, with Leach, Stokes and Root the change up. Plan B is essentially a revamped version of their 2010-11 plan; make 500+, then bowl confining lines to force us to try and be the hero.

They can't make 500, and we're unwilling to play the hero.

All of which is to say that bowling at test level is a good deal more complex than just pitching it up.

 

[Mateyman]

Look.

I agree with you that England's length to this point has been too short. They've been entirely too willing to try to bowl at the cordon in order to avoid going for runs. Their entire game this series has been to play on our impatience.

... which is an entirely acceptable option to take.

They have every reason to believe that playing on our patience will work. They have every reason to believe that starving us of runs will allow them to bowl us out. For whatever reason, the English system produces bowlers who bowl disciplined lines and lengths and wait for the bat to make a mistake; it's reactive rather than proactive, but that's a style/manner thing rather than a flaw, exactly.

Their problem isn't their bowling strategy; they make more runs, our bats are under more pressure and we feel the pressure to force things along more, they take more wickets because we take more risks. You can't play the way they're playing when they don't have enough runs.

The point that I'm getting at is that people who are not super cricket literate put an overemphasis on bowling on the stumps. They look at bowling off them as a real flaw, and while it is sometimes at the top level - because the overwhelming majority of bowling thought indicates that bowlers should bowl on the stumps - the majority of batters at the top level become very, very good at scoring off the stumps. In order to bowl and hit the stumps, you need to bowl full, and Williamson and Smith take guard on off, and Kohli and Root are sublime off their pads. We can get into Labuschagne, Latham, ABD, Cook, Pieterson and their ability to play off the stumps in a minute; suffice to say, if you bowl fuller lengths to the middling to the exceptional, you're going to go for a few runs.

So if you're going to take the risk, you need to be making more runs than they are.

They're pushing sh*t uphill. They can't make the runs required to make their plans work. But this isn't plan A; plan A was playing all three of Wood, Archer, Overton, with Leach, Stokes and Root the change up. Plan B is essentially a revamped version of their 2010-11 plan; make 500+, then bowl confining lines to force us to try and be the hero.

They can't make 500, and we're unwilling to play the hero.

All of which is to say that bowling at test level is a good deal more complex than just pitching it up.

Craig Overton...

 

[Gethelred]

Craig Overton...

That is his name, yes.

 

[PhatBoy]

That is his name, yes.

I think you mean Olly stone. Don’t worry I get the two confused almost as a rule as well

 

[Marcel Proust]

Bowling short to the English tail was very clever in hindsight

 

[HTPunter]

The thing is, every time a team loses in Australia, they've either bowled too short or "not enough short stuff". Really Tubby Taylor level of analysis. I think they did bowl too short in Adelaide but generally they're just not threatening enough with their pace for Australia (Anderson nailed it in Melbourne with his level but not so troubling in Adelaide) and they haven't taken chances when created.

Wood troubled the batsmen no matter his length. As does Starc when his line is right. In Australia I often think pure pace will make up for minor issues in length.

Likes of Broad, Woakes can pitch it up or bowl short, in Australia they'll likely be dispatched without swing.

 

[anchor man]

joe root:

"With ball in hand, we didn't bowl the right lengths," he said. "We needed to bowl fuller. As soon as we did in the second innings, we created chances.

"That's frustrating. We did it four years ago and didn't learn from it. We have to be better.

"We talk about what length to bowl all the time. We look at the data, what's going to hit the stumps on each surface.

"It's well communicated. But it's not always as simple as that and people get caught up in the emotion of the game."

broad:

"I think we held the game well on an opening day"

there was an argument that we could have bowled fuller, because the ball did so little, our economy rates would have gone through the roof.

So root is saying the plan was to bowl fuller and the plan was ignored and broad is basically saying bowling fuller would have f’ed our figures so we bowled a line that didnt create chances but kept our figures looking nice and neat.

As I said in my post on Root V Broad and Anderson, they do as they please. They don't want Root telling them how to bowl.
Root will never be in charge while those two are in the test team. They cause divisions. Same happened with Hughes V Lillee, Marsh and Chappell.