The column of uncertainty - Sreesanth

[Sidhoni]

:good: :hatsoff:

[vvvslaxman]

Great analysis..I guess its the lack of wrist power due to which Sree does not ball a "heavy" ball

wrist power, heavy ball ... :cantstop: I bet he is using his wrist for some other heavy ball

[CG]

In this series of threads, I hope to write articles quite often on the world of fast bowling in international and in some rare cases, domestic cricket. I take a look at the fast bowling action and note places of possible improvements and area where the bowler gains pace, accuracy or other ability. The first in this series is controversial medium fast bowler Sreesanth. Sreesanth, or Sree Santh or S Sreesanth or whatever you wish to call him has grabbed cricket headlines consistently ever since he announced himself on the international stage by dismissing Sachin Tendulkar in the 2005 Challenger Trophy and subsequently earning the Man of the Series award. The second Keralite to play for India since Tinu Yohannan, Sreesanth's bowling has taken a back seat as his childish antics - commencing with a booty dance after hitting Andre Nel for six, have grabbed newspaper back pages and website front pages all over the world. However, allow me for a moment to concentrate on the fiery youngster's bowling action for a moment. Sreesanth approaches the crease with a quick sprint. Gathering speed with every step and lengthening every stride with unnerving rhythm, Sreesanth's approach to the crease is reminiscent of a young Wes Hall and consequently generates him substantial pace in the early overs of an ODI or Twenty20. However, relying on a run up for your pace can, and does in Sreesanth's case, result in a drop in pace as the bowler tires throughout a spell or fatigues throughout a match, series or tournament. Sreesanth charging in With a large leap to the wicket, Sreesanth's arms flaw wildly, eventually gathering into a pleasantly side on action. Sreesanth loses pace with a poorly streamlined action, not only does this waste the momentum gathered in the run up, it also compromises his accuracy substantially. However, throughout all the chaos, Sreesanth gets his front leg very high, similar to Rodney Hogg or Imran Khan. This gives impact to his otherwise (as you will find out) unmomentum-ful (I just made that word up) action. Sreesanth getting his leg up Sreesanth releases the ball with a textbook seam position and consequently extracts substantial swing, both away and in to the right hander. However, his seemingly perfect release position indicates a larger problem. Sreesanth releases the ball with the fingers, rather than the wrist which can cause wild inconsistencies of accuracy. He also releases the ball fractionally early which causes the ball to 'float' out of his hand. This 'float' is the sole reason that his 145kph full deliveries are often treated as inconspicuous and driven away for four. Sreesanth loses further pace by not completing the bowling action with a full shoulder rotation. A full shoulder rotation evidently also aids late swing, as shown by the exponents of such: Dale Steyn, Jimmy Anderson, Brett Lee and Waqar Younis (below). Compare Waqar's full shoulder rotation(left) with the half rotation of Sreesanth(right). Sreesanth has potential for a powerful hip drive, as he keeps his back foot on the floor throughout the action. Sreesanth's promising hip drive However, his action fizzles out as he merely steps through the action with the back foot. Compare this with the explosive follow through of a young Shoaib Akhtar. Shoaib's explosive action Mental training may never be fruitful for the complex mind of Sreesanth. Whether he is attracting a slap from a 'mentor', dancing like an idiot or gritting his teeth, comically resembling a m*****, Sreesanth will never be a laid back, inconspicuous cricketer. However, hopefully, I have outlined for you that Sreesanth's bowling action has a lot of potential for improvement and he may be able to back up the words, gestures or actions which he so often entertains us with. Disclaimer: Please do not attack the contents of this thread. These are my opinions and I accept your right to dispute my deductions but please do so in a civil manner. I have no personal grudge against any of the bowlers in the thread nor do I refute that they are better bowlers than me and I do not have qualifications to back up my judgements.

Rubbish , this was content of article by manee on cricket web or planet cricket some years back,we had a arguement over that .its old why bring it now Some Joke's in the article- Sreesanth releases the ball with the fingers, rather than the wrist which can cause wild inconsistencies of accuracy:hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical: "with out using wrist" This 'float' is the sole reason that his 145kph full deliveries are often treated as inconspicuous and driven away for four-145 km/h ,mate speed is not everything145km/h halfvollleys will be driven by good batsman, also he is a swing bowler he has to look for swing anybody who has done some sort of bowling could not say that.

[rkt.india]

Rubbish , this was content of article by manee on cricket web or planet cricket some years back,we had a arguement over that .its old why bring it now Some Joke's in the article- Sreesanth releases the ball with the fingers, rather than the wrist which can cause wild inconsistencies of accuracy:hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical: "with out using wrist" This 'float' is the sole reason that his 145kph full deliveries are often treated as inconspicuous and driven away for four-145 km/h ,mate speed is not everything145km/h halfvollleys will be driven by good batsman, also he is a swing bowler he has to look for swing anybody who has done some sort of bowling could not say that.

Actually Sreeshanth does not use his wrist much. He just keeps his writs locked and straight so that bowl leaves on good seam position and other thing with Sreeshanth is less use of shoulder drive. He does not put shoulder enough to generate pace. Most of his pace is generated through run up that is why he looses pace quickly as he cannot run hard all the time in his run up in comparison to bowlers like Roach, Johnson, even Varun Aaron who is a powerful bowler in terms of the power with which he hurls the ball with so simple run up.

[CG]

Actually Sreeshanth does not use his wrist much. He just keeps his writs locked and straight so that bowl leaves on good seam position and other thing with Sreeshanth is less use of shoulder drive. He does not put shoulder enough to generate pace. Most of his pace is generated through run up that is why he looses pace quickly as he cannot run hard all the time in his run up in comparison to bowlers like Roach' date=' Johnson, even Varun Aaron who is a powerful bowler in terms of the power with which he hurls the ball with so simple run up.[/quote'] He uses his wrist fine for swing bowling ,ishant sharma had loose wrists when he first came so had pronounce seam movement another bowler is asif he also got good seam movement due to wrists uncocking ,As for pace he generates is combination of runup and shoulder it is impossible to bowl with fingers as op said.

[rkt.india]

He uses his wrist fine for swing bowling ' date='ishant sharma had loose wrists when he first came so had pronounce seam movement another bowler is asif he also got good seam movement due to wrists uncocking ,As for pace he generates is combination of runup and shoulder it is impossible to bowl with fingers as op said.[/quote'] Asif does not lock the writs. Asif moves his wrists to get seam movement off the pitch unlike Sreeshanth who keeps his writs pretty much straight in one position. Asif's style is pretty similar to McGrath in terms of wrist use.

[vishalvirsingh]

Asif does not lock the writs. Asif moves his wrists to get seam movement off the pitch unlike Sreeshanth who keeps his writs pretty much straight in one position. Asif's style is pretty similar to McGrath in terms of wrist use.

i predict that sresanth Zak and Ishant will win us this series and even sreesanth will have a major role in this series Win. if you guys remember sreesanth bowled some unplayable balls in the african series ..and i feel India should definitely stick to sressanth as i feel sree ishant and zak r the combi which we shud go with. ishant is in deadly form and i wish english batsmen good luck to face him as i kinda consider him more dreaded as he is not just wicket taking , he can be dangerous to their batsmen as well. the thrill of hitting a batsmen is no less than getting him out, yes if the batsmen just shirks away after being hit and continues to bat, it kinda looks himiliating to the bowler. i kinda remember me batting with out a helmet and a bouncer hit me on my chest and the bowler coming to me and asking me whether i needed any help and i said well bowled but pls continue bowling and i kinda managed to face him better after he hit me bcos i realised that he was not that fast and even when he hit me and his ball hit me at a place which was not covered by chest guard, i realised he was not dangerous. some thing similiar happened when Munaf hit edwards on the ears below the helmet, after that edwards played better and got windies a draw. if these slow medium pacers ( like PK and Munaf) hit u , it only helps the batsmen as batsmen actually bcome totally fearless and a fearless and calm batsmen is like sehwag.. i mean he becomes dangerous. I feel munaf and PK are not the ideal bowlers for a test match as PK is only good with a new ball and Munaf needs lot of pitch help to look wicket taking. ZAk has the experience , ishant has the bouncers and sreesanth has the energy & Swing to Suceed. Sreesanth and Ishant are 135k to 145K bowlers which is definitely good pace though not superfast. i wud want to see the energy of varun and Umesh provided they can maintain there line n length as well. Sachin & VVS are just too good for tremlett, anderson and broad, I consider VVS no less than Sachin as far as test batting is considered as of today..VSS scored some real good runs in West Indies and won us a match. Either of these two will be the top scorer of the series.

[vishalvirsingh]

DHONI i request you to support sreesanth as much as u support bhAJji and I Bet Sreesanth will get u better results and win u matches all on his own..give him the confidence ..same support as u give to PK and see results I am a MBA..so pls listen to my management skills as well( u r a great captain..be a great manager too)

[jairamesh]

DHONI i request you to support sreesanth as much as u support bhAJji and I Bet Sreesanth will get u better results and win u matches all on his own..give him the confidence ..same support as u give to PK and see results I am a MBA..so pls listen to my management skills as well( u r a great captain..be a great manager too)

off-topic, where did you do your MBA?

[fineleg]

AWESOME thread msb!! :two_thumbs_up: One of the best I have read of its kind. Your comparison with Wes Hall is quite correct. The first time I saw Sreesanth bowling what stuck out for me was his unusually long arms. Maybe he is thin or whatever but he does give the impression of carrying arms like Albatross. And I often wondered if ever there was a bowler with that kind of built. Wes Hall indeed was all long limbed and so you made a very unusual, and at the same time extremely astute observation. Great read!

msb - It was a nice re-read, this thread :thumbs_up: @msb and lurks: Haven't seen Wes Hall bowling, but I'd think comparisons with him will end with the limbs. The ball they bowl will prolly do different things, and with our disco dancer - (unlike the fiery threat of a W.Hall), a wide spray is always possible :)

[Fontaine]

i predict that sresanth Zak and Ishant will win us this series and even sreesanth will have a major role in this series Win. if you guys remember sreesanth bowled some unplayable balls in the african series ..and i feel India should definitely stick to sressanth as i feel sree ishant and zak r the combi which we shud go with. ishant is in deadly form and i wish english batsmen good luck to face him as i kinda consider him more dreaded as he is not just wicket taking , he can be dangerous to their batsmen as well. the thrill of hitting a batsmen is no less than getting him out, yes if the batsmen just shirks away after being hit and continues to bat, it kinda looks himiliating to the bowler. i kinda remember me batting with out a helmet and a bouncer hit me on my chest and the bowler coming to me and asking me whether i needed any help and i said well bowled but pls continue bowling and i kinda managed to face him better after he hit me bcos i realised that he was not that fast and even when he hit me and his ball hit me at a place which was not covered by chest guard, i realised he was not dangerous. some thing similiar happened when Munaf hit edwards on the ears below the helmet, after that edwards played better and got windies a draw. if these slow medium pacers ( like PK and Munaf) hit u , it only helps the batsmen as batsmen actually bcome totally fearless and a fearless and calm batsmen is like sehwag.. i mean he becomes dangerous. I feel munaf and PK are not the ideal bowlers for a test match as PK is only good with a new ball and Munaf needs lot of pitch help to look wicket taking. ZAk has the experience , ishant has the bouncers and sreesanth has the energy & Swing to Suceed. Sreesanth and Ishant are 135k to 145K bowlers which is definitely good pace though not superfast. i wud want to see the energy of varun and Umesh provided they can maintain there line n length as well. Sachin & VVS are just too good for tremlett, anderson and broad, I consider VVS no less than Sachin as far as test batting is considered as of today..VSS scored some real good runs in West Indies and won us a match. Either of these two will be the top scorer of the series.

This post is just so full of nonsense. 1. Sreesanth does not bowl 135 to 145 in a test match. When in the past few years did you see Sree bowl up to 90mph in a test match consistently? 2. Sree is a swing bowler, not a hit the deck type one but ofcourse he tries to be that at times because he doesn't know how to bowl and will try anything at times. 3. So on one hand you criticize Munaf for being just a medium pace where Sree is no faster and then criticize Munaf because his bouncers are harmless when Sree isn't a hit the deck bowler. Not to mention the fact that Munaf is far more economical and consistent than Sree. As a matter of fact on the same pitch in the warm up match Sree was getting abused like a club side bowler because if the pitch flattens then he can't rely on consistent good attacking line/length bowling because he sucks at it. Munaf can and did, clearly bowling a far more economically. I understand if someone prefers Sree because they buy into the hype etc etc but please don't just put up incorrect information and try to pass it off as fact. That's just stupid.