Thinking bowlers

[MechEng]

They are a rare breed, aren't they? The perfect example is Zaheer Khan. He did not have the accuracy of Mcgrath or Asif, not as highly skilled and fit as Jimmy Anderson, also nowhere close to the present quartet of Ishant-Boomrah-Shami-Yadav in pace, I'd say even Bhuvi is 5 kph faster on average than Zak.

 

Yet despite of his limits in fitness/skill/pace he compensated it with excellent strategy skills. The way he would set up Graeme Smith with a surprise off cutter to send his off stump cartwheeling or surprise Dilshan with a short ball when he was committed on front foot waiting for a pitched up delivery are good examples.

 

Wasim Akram in his final years and Boomrah now are also similar apart from Zak having no competition with them in pace and skills. Name similar such bowlers you can think of.

[Turning_track]

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Edited October 19, 2019 by Turning_track

[YCCC]

No such thing lol. 

[IcarianStyles]

Every test bowler is a "thinker".

[Trichromatic]

Zak is seriously overrated by Indian fans. 

[MCcricket]

3 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

Zak is seriously overrated by Indian fans. 

He was great in that phase, but wasn't a great bowler because of fitness and took a long long time to mature. SHAMI N Bumrah are far. Better overall

[Trichromatic]

6 minutes ago, MCcricket said:

He was great in that phase, but wasn't a great bowler because of fitness and took a long long time to mature. SHAMI N Bumrah are far. Better overall

Shami for all his hidden age claims and whatnot, has shown capability of doing everything at great pace. Zak took forever to learn those and even didn't have many performances because of fitness. His initial days was like Ishant's career. No wonder even Ishant may end up with better numbers than Zak's. 

[rkt.india]

12 hours ago, MechEng said:

They are a rare breed, aren't they? The perfect example is Zaheer Khan. He did not have the accuracy of Mcgrath or Asif, not as highly skilled and fit as Jimmy Anderson, also nowhere close to the present quartet of Ishant-Boomrah-Shami-Yadav in pace, I'd say even Bhuvi is 5 kph faster on average than Zak.

 

Yet despite of his limits in fitness/skill/pace he compensated it with excellent strategy skills. The way he would set up Graeme Smith with a surprise off cutter to send his off stump cartwheeling or surprise Dilshan with a short ball when he was committed on front foot waiting for a pitched up delivery are good examples.

 

Wasim Akram in his final years and Boomrah now are also similar apart from Zak having no competition with them in pace and skills. Name similar such bowlers you can think of.

Did you actually see Zak or someone else? Even in his last year, Zak could hit 140 plus. He had started as a fast bowler. At least in first 4-5 years of his career, he would easily bowl 85-89 mph range. He did lose pace since 2006 but he was still hitting 85 plus mph on a regular basis and that isn't slower than Bhuvi.

[rkt.india]

4 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

Zak is seriously overrated by Indian fans. 

True. He good 2-3 years at max in a career spanning more than a decade.

[express bowling]

Chronologically ..... 

 

Marshall

Akram

Warne

McGrath

Steyn 

Bumrah

Edited October 19, 2019 by express bowling

[gakgupta]

Chronologically ..... 
 
Marshall
Akram
Warne
McGrath
Steyn 
Bumrah

Woow....
Bumrah in that elite list...
Hold your horses boyzz

Sent from my Nokia 6.1 using Tapatalk

[maniac]

4 hours ago, express bowling said:

Chronologically ..... 

 

Marshall

Akram

Warne

McGrath

Steyn 

Bumrah

I think Bumrah got some great advice from a certain team mate for setting up some of those dismissals 

[putrevus]

9 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

Zak is seriously overrated by Indian fans. 

So true, Zak never had fitness, but for few years Indian fast bowling was Zak. Dhoni was totally lost if he did not have Zak in the team.

[express bowling]

3 hours ago, gakgupta said:

Woow....
Bumrah in that elite list...
Hold your horses boyzz

Sent from my Nokia 6.1 using Tapatalk
 

 

You don't think Bumrah is a thinking bowler ?

 

He could well top that list ... as discussion is not about greatness or eliteness of bowlers.

[prudent_kreeda]

4 minutes ago, express bowling said:

 

You don't think Bumrah is a thinking bowler ?

 

He could well top that list ... as discussion is not about greatness or eliteness of bowlers.

      Just the fact that from basically in dipping bowler , now his armory has lot more weapons well mastered .

      the quickness with which he makes changes in his game to overcome deficiencies just proves that.  

[Gollum]

Thinking bowlers many....Roberts, Hadlee, Marshall, Akram, Warne, Steyn, Bumrah ityadi

Overthinking bowler only one...thoda kam sochta to hamare liye behtar hota. 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Gollum

[express bowling]

26 minutes ago, prudent_kreeda said:

      Just the fact that from basically in dipping bowler , now his armory has lot more weapons well mastered .

      the quickness with which he makes changes in his game to overcome deficiencies just proves that.  

 

Add to that the fact that he is often quicker than the home pacers in finding the right length for most away venue pitches.

[Suhaan]

4 hours ago, maniac said:

I think Bumrah got some great advice from a certain team mate for setting up some of those dismissals 

Ofcourse Sixhit Sharma,a better alternative to Virushka in lois

[Adamant]

They are a rare breed and they are also the most effective of all breeds.

I"ll take a thinking bowler anyday over faster and nore threatening bowlers. 

 

Mcgrath, marshall, curtly, asif, ryan harris are some examples. 

[vvvslaxman]

On 10/19/2019 at 4:41 AM, rkt.india said:

True. He good 2-3 years at max in a career spanning more than a decade.

But he was a thinking bowler. He set up batsmen really nicely. Shami has a pretty similar mentality.