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A left arm dibbly dobbler (ok he is a decent bowler) but a left arm dibbly dobbler taking 11 wickets as an opening bowler...tells you all you need to know about the ball and the pitch.
I'm gutted though, I absolutely adore watching test cricket, anywhere, anytime, my alarm is set. To have it over in 2 days is annoying.
Never mind lads, we'll host them in the summer for 5 games on total greentops.
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*fishing*
Axar bowling around the wicket: if you drew a line from middle stump to middle stump, and then drew a line from Axar's left hand at the point of release to the batting crease, then you could see that Axar is bowling at an angle into the right hander. If he is going to get successful LBW decisions in his favour, then he has to turn it away from the right hander in order to get that ball to straight along the line of the stumps. Think of it as being no different to Wasim Akram to Allan Lamb in the 1992 WC Final. Left arm around, a ball that pitches outside of off stump, and moves away from the straight line you could draw from point of ball release.
What Axar did so well was to figure out that you have to bowl quicker on this pitch to get the rewards. Leach also bowled quicker but Axar bowled a few balls going from 85kph to just under 100kph. That variation in pace alone will lead to more variations in turn. Some will skid, some will not. Some will turn and rip, some will not. He comfortably outbowled Ashwin who tried to do a bit too much with the ball at times whilst Axar dropped it on the spot and let the pitch do its work.
God, I'm making myself dream of playing again
It tells you everything about the type of spin bowler who will wreak havoc on that wicket. Root has a lower arm than Leach and gets that ball more into the wicket. Root's closer to Axar than Leach in that regard.
One thing people have said: our batting in the first innings cost us. I don't think so. The crucial period of the whole game was the final two hours on day 1. India came into that session at 5/0 and ended it at 99/3. The five overs before dinner saw the variations in bounce from the new ball: this largely disappeared once the evening session kicked in. On a spinning track, Archer and Stokes were encouraged to bang it in. Release the pressure on the batsmen, increase the pressure on your sole outright spin bowler. That session was why we selected three outright seamers and that session showed us how wrong we got it. The swing disappeared, the up and down bounce disappeared, and the ball was harder to grip for the spinner compared to bowling in the day, as we saw this morning.
Simon Hughes wrote an interesting article in the Sunday Times about how DRS has effectively made the stumps bigger with the umpire's call margin, and how hawkeye has meant that the batsman can no longer just take a huge stride forward in the knowledge that no umpire would give him out LBW.
1. Amount of turn per Test. I'm not sure I'd measure deviation in quite the same way. By using the vertical, I can't see how the author can make accurate comments over the amount of spin. Consider this: A left arm spinner bowling around the wicket could bowl wide on the crease, pitch it dead on the middle stump to middle stump line, get it to turn and hit middle stump dead on, and going by how I see the author calculating things, that would count as zero deviation. Think Leach to Rohit Sharma: zero deviation there? Not if you calculate the angle the ball is delivered from.
It should be reinforced that the first day at Chennai is not included in the data. In three Tests, day 1 at Chennai was easily the best day for batting and the amount of turn was low so the data is decidedly skewed by this.
2. Bounce
"The bounce has generally been consistent. Shooters have not been observed. The general variation evident in the plot below is explained by the differing amounts of overspin, pace, trajectory, flight and point of release (contrast, for instance, Patel’s high release with Nadeem or Bess or Moeen’s lower release). Some of the variation is also due to the age of the ball and the nature of the ball. The pink ball is built differently from the red one."
Shooters in my experience tend to come from cracks. You do get the odd half tracker that dies (think Carl Hooper to Nasser Hussain) but the glory days of a cracked WACA pitch and Ian Bishop getting Aussie batsmen bowled at ankle height are the norm. On tracks where the ball bursts through the surface with some hardness underneath, you will get the balls that bounce and bounce. On this aspect, the data looks totally right.
This high release thing: Axar Patel and Moeen Ali are within 1 cm of height. Murali Kartik already did an analysis of Moeen in this series and found his release point was actually higher than it was in 2016. Axar bowls with a roundarm action. His arms might be slightly longer than Moeen's but longer arms bowling round arm versus Moeen's arm which is right up vertical and not roundarm at all... they're pretty level. The rule of thumb: roundarm = more sidespin, higher arm = more overspin. The most famous example of roundarm legspin below. Sorry, Gatt
https://i.imgur.com/7fkiIxN.png
3. Length.
I've literally marked out a crease in the lounge with a tape measure measuring 6ft from the batting crease in order to figure out if bowling in this area is really considered 'overpitching' as the author states. Pish, I say. It's also relevant to say that balls that got wickets would be deemed as overpitched (think Ashwin's lovely flighted ball that got Stokes out) and that the slow bowler who has overpitched the most, namely the England skipper, got a MIchelle for naff all. It seems a very arbitrary measurement to me.
"The consequence of all this is evident in the rate of scoring. Ashwin has conceded 2.6 runs per over, Axar Patel 2.2 runs per over, and Nadeem 3.9. By comparison, Leach has gone for 3.2 runs per over, Moeen 3.7, Bess 3.7, and Root 3.2."
The rate of scoring doesn't necessarily reflect worse bowling. Moeen 1st innings and Bess 2nd innings, yes. They were erratic. But you also have to watch the sides when they bat. India are far better at getting the singles and rotating the strike. We aren't and that impacts the scoring rate.
In fairness to the author, his subsequent post does look at the respective batting approaches. We don't cash in on shit as well, we don't survive as well, and we don't rotate as well.
https://cricketingview.substack.com/p/more-on-the-spinners-in-the-first
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/world-cup-2011-icc-tweaks-2-5-metre-drs-rule-for-consistency-504570
So monster strides might save you.
But certainly playing from the crease is a lot harder for batsmen now with DRS. As a tall leggie in the 1990s, it was a rare umpire indeed who ever stuck the finger up when I appealed. One umpire in particular sticks in the memory bank. Bowled a googly to a right hander, he played back, got squared up and missed, and the ball lodged halfway up the stumps between his pads. I bellowed an appeal and got it turned down. Not out! Batsman laughed, reached down, and chucked the ball back to me. I gave the umpire a Paddington-esque stare to no avail.
Umpire was a good cricketer in his prime, Minor Counties level, nurdly batsman and offspinner. The spinners union didn't operate that day and neither did the family connection, for that umpire was my late grandfather!
My brother was a nightmare and we only ever played in three games together. First time we ever batted together, he came out on strike, I told him to play himself in and not do anything stupid. He taps it to very short midwicket and calls for the run. I turned my back on him. End of innings
Two years later, we batted together. He ran me out without me facing a ball. Sod.
Year after that was the finest hour though. We were playing in a u-16 club game and the oppo had one chap in there I'd faced at youth county level. Lovely guy, he was on Somerset's books at the time and we ended up at uni together. I bowled like an absolute legend for no wickets and sod all runs, whilst my friend took the other bowlers apart. In the end, they brought my brother on. He'd given it the big mouth before the game, saying how he was going to outbowl me.
We were on the left-hand wicket as pictured below. That first and only over to my Somerset friend went 0 then 2 and then three consecutive balls dropped on leg stump ended up in the top area of the large tree at the top of the pavilion. I'd started giggling after the second six. The third didn't help matters. The last ball was a horrible full toss that was dispatched over the car park and I was forced to sit down on the outfield due to hysterics.
We never played together after that.
Australia gave Riley Meredith a T20 debut. 150kph, picked up Tim Seifert and then gets Kane Williamson LBW early doors. The guy is unfinished but damn he does have some pace. Reminds me of Kasprowicz with the way he bowls.
The Aussie quick bowling is going to be good anyway. Cummins is in his prime. Starc and Hazlewood are not young, but they have 4 years on Stuart Broad. They probably won't be declining too much yet.
Starc's a bit more erratic but has that real "When he's hot, he's hot" ability. Meredith is a bit more in that realm. Raw but he's got some wheels to him. Ashton Agar's brother is similar.
Speaking of the Agars and the talk of sibling rivalry on the pitch, I hadn't seen this before. Ooooops.
Team talk this morning:
"Hi Jack, Joe here again. You know that whole seam bowler heavy attack last Test? We've decided to forget that approach now that we've turned up at a wicket giving assistance to the seamers. This is what we're gonna do: pack the line up with batting, give you 200 to bowl with, make sure that our two seamers are the old guy and someone who has barely bowled all series and is currently suffering from the shits, and we're gonna pair you with that guy who bowled utter gash in the second innings of the Test we won, meaning we had to drop him and bring back the guy we had pretty much given up on and probably definitely nearly will give up on now.
Any questions?"