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June 3, 2006
Posted by Zainub Razvi on 06/03/2006 in Bowling
It was reported several days ago that when Shoaib Akhtar finally decided to turn up at the conditioning camp going on in Lahore he twisted his ankle. Whilst Cricinfo mentioned this latest injury was not serious enough to rule him out of the England tour completely, I'm really not sure if that says a lot.
Continue reading "Throwing out the stigma"
Comments (8)
March 31, 2006
Posted by Chandrahas Choudhury on 03/31/2006 in Bowling
Ramesh Powar is that rare thing: the genuinely slow bowler, someone whose bowling never quite "arrives". One knows that Powar is a tease even before he rolls his arm over: the substantial Powar waistline, the zany red Powar sunglasses, the glimmer of a Powar grin that appears on the ten-step Powar gambol to the wicket, all convey to the batsman the air of a seriously unserious cricketer having a bit of a lark. But there is no harm in all this. Spin bowling, after all, is basically about subterfuge.
But beneath the air of the court jester is a seriously good off-spin bowler. Powar's lack of speed (he bowls under 50 mph; as comparison, Harbhajan Singh bowls at around 55) has little to do with the speed of his arm and everything to do with how high he tosses the ball up. This makes it difficult to play him from the crease, not just because he gives you so little pace to work with but also because he gets bounce from flight.
Continue reading "On the bowling of Ramesh Powar"
Comments (102)
January 23, 2006
Posted by Scott Wickstein on 01/23/2006 in Bowling
Brett Lee is getting quite a few mentions in despatches in the cricket world, which is not surprising. Truly fast bowlers get our attention.
Not all the attention is favourable, of course. The cricket community has long had mixed feelings about the genuine express merchants. Certainly, the thrill of sheer pace and the element of danger that the batsmen face in taking them on is part of the attraction of the game. But the resulting adrenaline, conflict, and the injuries that speed merchants inflict on batsmen conflict with cricket’s ‘gentleman’s game’ heritage.
Continue reading "A few thoughts on intimidation and express bowling"
Comments (6)
January 15, 2006
Posted by Angshuman Hazra on 01/15/2006 in Bowling
This is a post that reacts to a view expressed in the Different Strokes post mentioned in the topic.
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Zainub, as far as highlighting Afridi's one-point approach to the game is concerned the piece is fine. We are all fortunate that Woolmer is so far quite unable to ‘rectify’ Afridi and rob us of such entertainment in the process. Shahid Afridi is unique in cricket and should be spared the conventions.
However your last paragraph indicates that just like most others who write about that Miandad six in the print media on either side of the Indus River you too think more from the point of view of a batsman than that of a bowler - least of all an attacking bowler like Harbhajan. Batsmen love to think that they ‘scar’ bowlers. Natural, as they would like to get even after being shaken by certain dismissals. That is why the Gavaskars, the Ramizes and others of their ilk – all batsmen - would invariably impress the thought (of an over-boundary being a mental injury to the bowler) on young followers of the game whenever a bowler is hit for a relatively big six.
Continue reading "Spirit of a bowler: A comment on "The power of a six""
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January 11, 2006
Posted by Angshuman Hazra on 01/11/2006 in Bowling
Right, we are talking about the England v Pakistan 1992 series, the benchmark event for all subsequent official usage of reverse swing in international cricket.
14 years is a long time in evolution of this eternally self-enriching game and these days it is passé to link the doosra of swing with ball doctoring. Back then though, the return of swerve in the ragged red ball was greeted with an apprehension distinctly reminiscent of the medieval times when likening an unknown craft to black magic and evil powers was preferred to assigning logical explanation to it.
The cricket world outside Pakistan was as much prepared to appreciate this still-obscure bowling skill as the australopithecus would be for invention of the wheel or a 14 year old Lancashire kid going by the name of Andrew Flintoff would be for the 1993 Ashes. ‘Orangutans’, rather than ‘fast bowlers’, would be an expected answer if people were to be asked to link banana with swing.
Continue reading "When WWW stood for Wasim Waqar and Wreckages…."
Comments (3)
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