Was McGrath a defensive bowler?

[SK_IH]

9 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

Did I say McGrath wasn't great? Most of the people here don't understand basic stuff. They mistake negative bowling with defensive bowling.  A defensive test bowler can never go wrong. A defensive bowler with attacking field is what McGrath was. Seems like I will have to make people understand basic cricketing stuff. 

 

A defensive bowler is who doesn't try too many variations in an attempt to take wickets, who tries to bowl at one spot ball after ball, tries to play on the patience of batsman even when nothing is happening from the pitch. McGrath was one such bowler. He was probably the greatest, second greatest for me. I consider Steyn the greatest of the bowlers I have watched. Philander, Pollock were similar to McGrath. Asif another one.

 

Aggressive bowler is a bowler who uses different varieties to get the batsman out, who employs different methods, bowl a barrage of bouncer, use reverse swing, and stuff, trying to bounce the batsman out. Steyn was one such bowler.

 

There is no such thing like a negative bowler. Any bowler can bowl negatively when he is trying batsman to not score runs, by bowling too wide outside off or down leg, etc.

 

The most important thing is your method and what is your strength or skill level.

 

In test cricket, defensive bowling with attacking fields is your best bet unless you have amazing skills like Steyn, you should not bowl aggressively. You will only leak runs.  Even defensive bowling needs a lot of patience and a great temperament. You just follow a process, trying to put every ball in that area of uncertainty.  Only if it was easy. McGrath made it look like but it wasn't and that's he why he is one of the greatest. 

 

Bizzare. Dude each bowler who plays cricket does that if he is capable of doing that. It's called trying to get wickets when conditions/situation are not conducive.

You are foolish enough to think McGrath did not try stuff & just bowled like a metronome for wickets. He did it all, reverse swing, yorkers, slower balls, bouncers, cross seam. It was McGrath's genius he didn't need to resort to that more often to trouble batsman & get wickets.

Similarly, Steyn relied on banana out swingers at pace to get wickets mostly, variations came in as per the demands of the situation/condition.

 

[SK_IH]

1 hour ago, rkt.india said:

 

Me calling McGrath defensive isn't an insult.  I want our bowlers to emulate McGrath in test cricket. In the past, our bowlers like Yadav, Aaron, shami used to leak runs trying to bowl aggressively without having those skills to execute their stuff.  You need accuracy even to bowl a bouncer. Being aggressive doesn't mean being wayward.  If you can't be accurate while bowling aggressively, you will leak runs which our bowlers used to do.  So the best thing is bowl defensively with attacking field. 

 

Skills and intelligence are the key words. Only if it was that easy to imitate great bowlers' modus operandi & be successful. Actually you have contradicted yourself, as you earlier said each bowler has different skill set & method.

You could have just said you want Indian bowlers to be more smart & accurate, instead of this weird classification of Aggressive & Defensive.

"Bowling defensively with attacking field" sounds funny though.

[Cricketics]

1 hour ago, rkt.india said:

Being defensive is an essential skill.

Yes, but you have different arguments going on with the OP and what I asked you earlier.  
 

 

I am not talking about what is mentioned in OP. You guys can continue to debate about what is negative and what is defensive line all day. I have no interest in that what OP put. 

 

 

However, I do want to mention where you keep confusing also. Simple thing  

here- if a bowler is bowling his stock delivery oon top of off stump or on 4th stump or 5th sometimes to set a batsman up, say Mcgrath who bowls that more often than trying to bowl on stumps all day, then thats not defensive bowling since that is Mcgrath’s regular stuff.

 

This is where both OP and you need to realize its not defensive or negative or whatever name you want to give.Thats Mcgrath’s bread and butter line. 

 

[Tattieboy]

No batsmen ever who faced McGrath would say he bowled defensively. He was an attacking bowler who attacked in three ways .

1) he attacked top of off stump 

2) he attacked the outside edge 

3) he attacked a batsman's mind by bowling in what they call " corridor of uncertainty" and got them thinking forward or  back , leave or play 

[rkt.india]

7 hours ago, Cricketics said:

Yes, but you have different arguments going on with the OP and what I asked you earlier.  
 

 

I am not talking about what is mentioned in OP. You guys can continue to debate about what is negative and what is defensive line all day. I have no interest in that what OP put. 

 

 

However, I do want to mention where you keep confusing also. Simple thing  

here- if a bowler is bowling his stock delivery oon top of off stump or on 4th stump or 5th sometimes to set a batsman up, say Mcgrath who bowls that more often than trying to bowl on stumps all day, then thats not defensive bowling since that is Mcgrath’s regular stuff.

 

This is where both OP and you need to realize its not defensive or negative or whatever name you want to give.Thats Mcgrath’s bread and butter line. 

 

I am not confusing.  This is the term for such bowling. You are confusing defensive bowling with negative bowling.

[don_corleone840]

McGrath was arguably greatest bowler of all time. He was soo good in exploiting weakness of batsman. Any batsman with even small technical flaw did not survive against him. 

 

I only rate Wasim Akram higher than him 

[rkt.india]

In batting terms, Kallis, Dravid, Gavaskar were defensive batsmen but they are greats. Likes of Viv, Sehwag, Ponting were attacking batsmen. Jaysuria was attacking batsman but less successful like Lee, Johnson were aggressive bowlers but less successful.

[Cricketics]

31 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

I am not confusing.  This is the term for such bowling. You are confusing defensive bowling with negative bowling.

Where did I say negative pleae find. I think you are talking to too many people here and mixing it up. You are dodging what i said. What Mcgrath bowls is his regular line and thats his bread and butter line which you keep calling defensive.

 

Defensive is a bowling which you do when needed. Mcgrath was always bowling such line. Nothing negative about it, but nothing defensive about it either. 

 

If Mcgrath, someone who played over 15 years, is bowling similar line for 15 years in international cricket, thats not defensive bowling. Thats just his regular stock deliveries. 

 

 

[rkt.india]

9 hours ago, SK_IH said:

Skills and intelligence are the key words. Only if it was that easy to imitate great bowlers' modus operandi & be successful. Actually you have contradicted yourself, as you earlier said each bowler has different skill set & method.

You could have just said you want Indian bowlers to be more smart & accurate, instead of this weird classification of Aggressive & Defensive.

"Bowling defensively with attacking field" sounds funny though.

Bowling defensively with attacking field sounds funny to you because you are confusing defensive bowling with negative bowling.

 

Regarding me wanting Indian bowlers to emulate McGrath, Ishant has started doing that successfully, may not be as good as McGrath in accuracy but good enough to be successful.

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by rkt.india

[rkt.india]

17 minutes ago, Cricketics said:

Where did I say negative pleae find. I think you are talking to too many people here and mixing it up. You are dodging what i said. What Mcgrath bowls is his regular line and thats his bread and butter line which you keep calling defensive.

 

Defensive is a bowling which you do when needed. Mcgrath was always bowling such line. Nothing negative about it, but nothing defensive about it either. 

 

If Mcgrath, someone who played over 15 years, is bowling similar line for 15 years in international cricket, thats not defensive bowling. Thats just his regular stock deliveries. 

 

 

You are right and that type of bowling is called defensive bowling. For example, Hazelwood is a defensive bowler while Starc is an aggressive bowler. None of the two is a bad thing if you are good at what you do. McGrath was great at what he did which made him one of the greatest ever.  Some bowlers mix up both the aspects and that makes you Wasim Akram. 

[Cricketics]

12 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

You are right and that type of bowling is called defensive bowling. For example, Hazelwood is a defensive bowler while Starc is an aggressive bowler. None of the two is a bad thing if you are good at what you do. McGrath was great at what he did which made him one of the greatest ever.  Some bowlers mix up both the aspects and that makes you Wasim Akram. 

Bhai jo tujhe dil kush krta hai okay. 

 

i just feel 15 years if someone bowls similar line, it can't be termed Defensive line. Again, I don't need explanation that Defensive is not negative, I know that. Just feel its not the correct word to describe.

 

 

[SK_IH]

27 minutes ago, Cricketics said:

Bhai jo tujhe dil kush krta hai okay. 

True. Matlab kuch bhi bakchodi karlo in the garb of knowledge of bowling. Defensive bowler, aggressive bowler & Wasim Akram was the mix.

45 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

Bowling defensively with attacking field sounds funny to you because you are confusing defensive bowling with negative bowling.

 

Regarding me wanting Indian bowlers to emulate McGrath, Ishant has started doing that successfully, may not be as good as McGrath in accuracy but good enough to be successful.

 

I am not confusing anything with negative bowling. If you attack the stumps, make the batsman play each ball, bowl full etc, it's called attacking line for a reason, it brings the so called attacking field into the game as well.

Well, Ishant has come to know his game, his strengths better and has become more consistent now. He still sometimes wastes the new ball by not making the batsman play enough but bowls his stock ball more often now, in dipper to the right hander plus now has the ability to bring ball back into the left handers. It is called evolution & has nothing to do emulating Mcgrath or McGrath's "defensive bowling" style.

[Stan AF]

He was a dominating bowler. 

[MechEng]

There has never been a bowler till now who shares similarities with McGrath. 

Asif bowled much fuller lengths and got massive lateral movement off the seam, he never had precision and accuracy of McGrath also McGrath barely got any lateral movement.

Ambrose gets compared with McGrath but Ambrose was more like Asif going super saiyan, he was never a metronome.

Anderson has shades of Wasim Akram in him while Steyn/Bumrah remind people of great Carribean bowlers, Cummins is similar to Lillee but there has never been another McGrath.

[Nikola]

15 minutes ago, MechEng said:

There has never been a bowler till now who shares similarities with McGrath. 

Asif bowled much fuller lengths and got massive lateral movement off the seam, he never had precision and accuracy of McGrath also McGrath barely got any lateral movement.

Ambrose gets compared with McGrath but Ambrose was more like Asif going super saiyan, he was never a metronome.

Anderson has shades of Wasim Akram in him while Steyn/Bumrah remind people of great Carribean bowlers, Cummins is similar to Lillee but there has never been another McGrath.

Pollock during mcgrath's time had similar style of bowling and even hazlewood nowadays.

[MechEng]

13 minutes ago, Nikola said:

Pollock during mcgrath's time had similar style of bowling and even hazlewood nowadays.

Pollock bowled fuller but never had that crazy precision, Hazlewood bowls outswing and is different. 

[Rightarmfast]

If I had to put in cricketing terms the meaning of defensive bowler, it would be someone who's brought in to contain runs. Not with primary objective of taking wickets. That bowler would under normal circumstances be the 4th or 5th bowler. Robin Singh for India would be an example of defensive bowler. 

But in my lifetime, I dont recall a single instance when Mcgrath tried to curb runs and not go for wickets. Terming him defensive is not just bizarre and outrageous, it is humorous. Ask any batsmen from Mcrgath's era if they were not scared of him. 

[Tattieboy]

30 minutes ago, Rightarmfast said:

If I had to put in cricketing terms the meaning of defensive bowler, it would be someone who's brought in to contain runs. Not with primary objective of taking wickets. That bowler would under normal circumstances be the 4th or 5th bowler. Robin Singh for India would be an example of defensive bowler. 

But in my lifetime, I dont recall a single instance when Mcgrath tried to curb runs and not go for wickets. Terming him defensive is not just bizarre and outrageous, it is humorous. Ask any batsmen from Mcrgath's era if they were not scared of him. 

What people on here are not doing or can't do is take it in the perspective as a batsman . Batsmen would have fear in them , not physical fear but fear in knowing McGrath was going to test their ability as a batsmen more than anyone else because he attacked most batsmen vulnerable areas .

A defensive back of a length bowler posed very very few  problems to half decent players 

[Trichromatic]

@rkt.india if McGrath had bowled more half volleys and full on pads hit me balls, would he been attacking for you then? 

[Nikhil_cric]

What nonsense is this? When did bowling a high percentage on a good line and length become defensive bowling? If you want to see Mcgrath bowling more "attacking" lengths, watch his tours of pakistan and India in '98 and '01 respectively when he was reversing the ball at 140 +. Some defensive bowler with a Strike rate lower than both Akram and Ambrose .