My thoughts, musings, opinions and rants on cricket.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Legalise Ball-Tampering

Its been 3 days since the Oval test and still ICC hasn't made it clear how exactly Darrell Hair & Billy Doctrove arrived at the conclusion that Inzamam or any other Pakistan player tampered with the ball. The hearing which was to be held on friday is most likely post-poned. Lawyers are being called upon and media is rife with criticisms and condemnations about the incident.

Now this post is not about who is right and who is wrong. The umpires followed the rule book and Inzy is too proud a man to be labelled a cheat. It is just unfortunate that the common sense was over-looked and the situation descended to become what it has now.

However, if there is one good thing that can come out of this controversy is that the ICC pay heed to Bob Woolmer's call to abolish the law 42.3 which deals with ball-tampering. For quite some time now, I've been of the belief that ball-tampering should be allowed. Simply because the game is too lop-sided against the bowlers. I'm sick of watching second class batsman plunder runs on flat pitches aided with heavy bats and short boundaries. Even a mis-timed edge goes over the ropes leaving bowlers to curse their fate. Add to this the fielding restrictions and bouncer rule and you have batsmen who can virtually plant their front leg and swing with their eyes closed. Darren Berry in The Age also talks about the same thing.

By empowering the bowlers we're only going to benefit the game and make it more competitive. Bowlers have to be careful about how to make best use of the ball and batsmen have to come up with ways to counter the late swing and seam. There is more to it than simply scratching the ball and letting it go and who better than Simon 'The Analyst' Jones to explain how its done .

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Friday, August 11, 2006

The Merely Very Good

Shaun Pollock has always been termed an all-rounder but like his profile says, any team would have him in the side for his bowling alone. I don't think that can be said anymore. His 395 test wickets at an average of just 23.42 are undeniably brilliant but a once great bowler is now merely very good. And let me tell you there is a big difference between being great and being merely very good. The best example I can give is Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh.
Back to Pollock, its a well known fact that his bowling record over
the past 2 or 3 years has been ordinary and comparisons to McGrath should no longer be made. Yes, McGrath has been out of action and it will be almost a year when he bowls again in the Champions Trophy but I can bet on my non-existant cat that he will never be reduced to such an ineffective and harmless bowler that Pollock has become.
To read that Polly resorted to
bowling off-spinners against SL in that fantastic Colombo test came as a disappointment to me. Bowling after a nice break of 3-4 months one would expected him to come back fresher and faster. He was never express but he could move the ball both ways at a decent clip. Age and injury do take its toll but at 33 he's not too old and hasn't suffered the long list of injuries that Jason Gillespie has endured.
It's interesting to note however that Pollock is the
#1 ranked ODI bowler (LG ICC Cricket Rankings) and his lack of pace and bite hasn't dimished his effectiveness. The same goes for Irfan Pathan who has lost considerable pace in recent times but has developed into a thinking ODI bowler. It will interesting to see how these 2 perform in the forth-coming India-SL-SA tri-series. Pathan will be looking to regain some confidence after his dismal performance in WI and Pollock reclaim some of that old magic.

Update : The Numbers Game chronicles Pollock's recent decline and Sanjay Manjrekar shares my disappointment of watching Polly bowl off-spinners.

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