Was McGrath a defensive bowler?

[Gollum]

Retired McGrath

 

[zen]

  Viru, Lara (avg 68 in Mo when McGrath & Warne are playing) would consider him defensive:

 

 

 
 

[rkt.india]

12 hours ago, SK_IH said:

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

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.

McGrath hardly attacked stumps. His modus operandi was bowling 4th and 5th stump line. From where, ball also moved of the seam in or out.

[rkt.india]

6 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

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

That would have been spraying the ball. Even attacking bowlers need to be accurate. I had also said Steyn was less accurate than McGrath and that is because of this. Steyn looked for wickets most times and and in doing that he also bowled half volleys when trying to swing the ball. Here Steyn is attacking because he is asking batsman to take him on, drive him on half volley because he trying to buy a wicket. But it doesn't pay off every time. He can go for boundary if batsman connects well, can get edge to if ball swings.

 

I can explain you giving example of a spinner.  An attacking spinner is who flights the ball, invite the batsman to hit him and not just defend him. An off spinner who bowls outside, make batsman drive is called an attacking spinner. Because he is asking batsman to score off him and trying to lure him to get wickets.  

 

Similarly, in fast bowlers, what is defensive bowling. A bowler who makes batsmen to defend him, doesn't bowl attacking length often, bowls short of good length a lot, who doesn't invite batsman to drive. Any bowler who has this basic modus operandi is a defensive bowler.

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by rkt.india

[Rightarmfast]

6 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

McGrath hardly attacked stumps. His modus operandi was bowling 4th and 5th stump line. From where, ball also moved of the seam in or out.

Let me get this right. You are saying, because Mcgrath did not try hitting the wicket, he was a defensive bowler?

[rkt.india]

8 hours 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. 

Robin Singh was a part time bowler. And no where I said batsmen can't be scared of defensive bowler.  Such bowlers don't give batsmen anything to score. They find it difficult to rotate strike or hit him for boundaries. An aggressive bowler will always give you some chances to score because he is trying to buy your wicket.

[rkt.india]

7 minutes ago, Rightarmfast said:

Let me get this right. You are saying, because Mcgrath did not try hitting the wicket, he was a defensive bowler?

No. It's not that simple. I just explained. But It's basic stuff really. 

[Rightarmfast]

4 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

Robin Singh was a part time bowler. And no where I said batsmen can't be scared of defensive bowler.  Such bowlers don't give batsmen anything to score. They find it difficult to rotate strike or hit him for boundaries. An aggressive bowler will always give you some chances to score because he is trying to buy your wicket.

So what you are saying is, defensive bowler is a special kind of specie which/who has certain traits. What happens when a defensive bowler gives hit balls in a match? Does he become an aggressive bowler for that match or for the entirety of his career?

[Rightarmfast]

11 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

Robin Singh was a part time bowler. And no where I said batsmen can't be scared of defensive bowler.  Such bowlers don't give batsmen anything to score. They find it difficult to rotate strike or hit him for boundaries. An aggressive bowler will always give you some chances to score because he is trying to buy your wicket.

Robin Singh used to give a lot of hit me balls. He was an extremely aggressive bowler! 

[rkt.india]

10 hours 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.

There will never be absolute copies but similar styles. There a former india u19 fast bowler Yatin Mangwani from Maharashtra who is 6 feet 4 who idolizes Hazelwood and has a similar style to h but isn't an absolute copy. There another India u19 Sabir Khan from Bihar who idolizes Brett Lee, is quick to, has similar style to him but not an absolute copy.

 

 

Here is Sabir Khan. He idolizes Brett Lee. He bowls quick too. 19-20 year old. Has similar style but there is a difference that completely differentiate them. Can anyone find that difference in this video.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by rkt.india

[coffee_rules]

Very few batsmen in few occasions have been able to dominate him. He was accurate in line and length and would be patient to set up batsmen to make mistakes. He would sledge and intimidate batsmen as well, but mostly accuracy was his strngth. It works both ways when batsmen give too much respect because of his accuracy and would get set up.

 

 

[rkt.india]

19 minutes ago, Rightarmfast said:

So what you are saying is, defensive bowler is a special kind of specie which/who has certain traits. What happens when a defensive bowler gives hit balls in a match? Does he become an aggressive bowler for that match or for the entirety of his career?

Bhai, bhai, bhai. Getting hit doesn't make anyone an attacking bowler. I don't get why people are getting so touche and offensive. I just explained two different type of bowling styles for both pacers and spinners.  There are different type of bowlers with different styles and I am talking about great or very good bowlers, not random pie chuckers. They had their strength or method which they were good at. It's all about utilising what you are best at in extremely efficient way. You couldn't ask Brett Lee to bowl like McGrath. Same way, you couldn't ask Dravid to bat like Sehwag. You couldn't ask Jaddu to bowl like Bedi.  Ashwin to bowl like Swann or Lyon. But they all are/were good at what they did and that made them very good to great.

Edited September 7, 2020 by rkt.india

[rkt.india]

12 minutes ago, coffee_rules said:

Very few batsmen in few occasions have been able to dominate him. He was accurate in line and length and would be patient to set up batsmen to make mistakes. He would sledge and intimidate batsmen as well, but mostly accuracy was his strngth. It works both ways when batsmen give too much respect because of his accuracy and would get set up.

 

 

McGrath was one of his kind. But after him, many bowlers idolized him and tried to bowler similarly but in the end it's not that easy.

Edited September 7, 2020 by rkt.india

[MechEng]

6 hours ago, Nikhil_cric said:

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 .

McGrath never needed reverse swing at 90 mph. His strength was his simplicity, all he did was testing a batsman's off stump awareness, but he was so good at it that even the most elite batsmen were unable to play him who would otherwise get runs against Steyn swinging it at 87 mph on a good day.

Edited September 7, 2020 by MechEng

[MechEng]

16 hours ago, don_corleone840 said:

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 

Wasim Akram was more exciting to watch with getting the ball to curve in the air, but McGrath was much harder to play.

[rkt.india]

14 hours ago, Nikhil_cric said:

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 .

In which post did I say a defensive bowler can't have low strike rate or low average. Defensive is a style, a method, a modus operandi. It has nothing to do with number of wickets, strike rate, average etc. Those things depend on how good you are in utilising your method, your style.  

 

[rkt.india]

7 hours ago, MechEng said:

Wasim Akram was more exciting to watch with getting the ball to curve in the air, but McGrath was much harder to play.

McGrath was much harder to play because of his accuracy in hitting the corridor. He wouldn't let you change the strike. Regarding Wasim, yes, he used to curve the ball, but swing depends a lot on conditions and not always he would find conditions to swing the ball.

Edited September 8, 2020 by rkt.india

[rkt.india]

9 hours ago, coffee_rules said:

Very few batsmen in few occasions have been able to dominate him. He was accurate in line and length and would be patient to set up batsmen to make mistakes. He would sledge and intimidate batsmen as well, but mostly accuracy was his strngth. It works both ways when batsmen give too much respect because of his accuracy and would get set up.

 

 

Screenshot from this video shows he kept hitting just back of length close to 7-8 yard area without giving anything to play and one ball from that area just bounced extra and nipped back in to take his glove to slips. 4 yard is full length, 6 yard is good length. This is an absolutely perfect example of defensive bowling. He hardly made a batsman play and still got a wicket but it needs some patience and temperament to keep bowling there, bit of stuff from the pitch and extra bounce due to his height and high arm action. McGrath was really good at doing this. 

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by rkt.india

[coffee_rules]

24 minutes ago, rkt.india said:

Screenshot from this video shows he kept hitting just back of length close to 7-8 yard area without giving anything to play and one ball from that area just bounced extra and nipped back in to take his glove to slips. 4 yard is full length, 6 yard is good length. This is an absolutely perfect example of defensive bowling. He hardly made a batsman play and still got a wicket but it needs some patience and temperament to keep bowling there, bit of stuff from the pitch and extra bounce due to his height and high arm action. McGrath was really good at doing this. 

 

If your argument is if McGrath is like Steyn or Marshall, he was not. He was between Walsh and Ambrose. I don’t know what is defensive bowling. He would not spray around like Ishant , but was aggressive to set up batsmen. IMO any bowler with a good SR of 52 SR is an aggressive bowler

[SK_IH]

Excerpt from an interview of GD McGrath :

"They used to call you the Metronome. How hard is it mentally to stick to control? You had decent pace. Didn't you ever feel like indulging yourself?
I look at those things as a compliment. Precision is something I look upon fondly. My goal was to bowl what I classed as the perfect game, where every ball I bowled went exactly where I wanted to bowl it. That is what I was striving for. That does not mean I have to bowl every ball on the same spot. You can still intimidate them with short-pitched bowling, with aggressive fields, set a person up for an inswinging yorker, but it is just about being able to land the ball where you want to land it. Being a fast bowler at the end of the day is an aggressive thing. It is just not being aggressive with sledging. It is about body language, attitude, field placements. It is about the way you bowl. You have got to be the whole package."

 

Source : https://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/773201/-i-couldn-t-bring-myself-to-set-a-batsman-up-by-giving-him-runs

 

I think we can close this nonsense topic now.