Few worrying Factors bowling, fielding, fitness and other!!

[Andy]

One yorker on Tuesday night could have won a close game for India but none came. There were attempted yorkers that ended up as full tosses and the dew certainly didn't help but there weren't any potent slower deliveries. It's an old weakness, as MS Dhoni acknowledged after the game, one that has periodically hurt India. "Good yorkers and slower ones are always going to help you win the games but I am not too disappointed as it was tough to bowl yorkers here with the dew," Dhoni said. "But yes, we don't bowl too many yorkers even otherwise. It can't happen overnight. We have bowled yorkers well in patches and I would like to think we are improving but we have to keep practising. On wickets like these, and with all the dew, we have to rely a lot on variation of pace rather than line and length. Hopefully, the bowlers will get it right in the next games." When was the last time you remember an Indian bowler bowling yorkers at will? It's an inexplicable gap in India's otherwise well-stocked arsenal, one brought into sharper focus on Tuesday when Chanaka Welegedara sent down two screaming yorkers to knock out the stumps of Suresh Raina and Gautam Gambhir. In fact the two most memorable yorkers associated with Indian cricket history were not really yorkers. Kapil Dev's inswinging full delivery to Qasim Omar in the World Championship of Cricket in 1985 was one of the dramatic cricket images from the 1980s, yet it wasn't a yorker as it was well short of the blockhole. However, it became one in the retelling over the years. The second instance is Zaheer Khan's full delivery to remove Steve Waugh in Champions Trophy in 2000; again, it was not a yorker. Manoj Prabhakar had a good slower one and a yorker and Venkatesh Prasad too could bowl a deceptive slower one but they were more an exception than the norm. The lack of yorker and slower one led to the most famous image of the 1980s - Javed Miandad swatting a full toss from Chetan Sharma beyond the boundary to win a game off the last ball, in Sharjah in 1986. Back then, the conventional explanation for the lack of such a bowler was that India didn't produce really fast bowlers, yet that logic fell flat in the face of medium-pacers from other countries - Simon O' Donnell and even a young Steve Waugh - perfecting this delivery. Prabhakar's arrival was celebrated for his ability to fool the batsman with a slower one; finally, here was an Indian seamer bowling a yorker. That same ability stood Ajit Agarkar in good stead and prompted some overlooking of his occasional indiscipline with line and length at crucial moments - just as Javagal Srinath's talents would be held up against his inability to bowl a yorker or a slower one, though he later developed a slower one and even bowled a yorker or two. Today, a yorker is still a rare commodity in Indian cricket despite the unquestioned skills of Zaheer, the nous of Ashish Nehra and Sreesanth and the pace of Ishant Sharma. Instead, India's death bowling seems to be a mess. Zaheer overdoes the pace, Praveen Kumar overdoes the slow bouncer and Ishant can't seem to decide whether he has to bowl full or try to get more bounce from his natural short of length. Nehra looks better than the rest as he concentrates on bowling full and straight. Sreesanth is a much better bowler when he hits the deck and gets the ball to seam away, as he almost seems to float the white ball innocuously when he hurls it really full. No wonder, then, that for a while the best Indian bowler at the death was Anil Kumble. It was a welcome change, then, when Zaheer and Nehra bowled tight lengths in the end in Rajkot last month to win a very close game against Sri Lanka. There might even have been a couple of yorkers involved. http://www.cricinfo.com/tri-bdesh2010/content/current/story/442796.html

[Sachinism]

Trying to bowl yorkers with a wet ball is close to impossible

[msb1991]

Trying to bowl yorkers with a wet ball is close to impossible

Would agree with this. Of course, the article tackles more than that, but a yorker with a wet ball is extremely difficult.

[akshayxyz]

if a wet ball consistently fall "short" / "long" of a yorker length, then why not make appropriate adjustment - so that it falls on the spot more often than not. In other words - in any sport - if any known factor 'consistently' affects the 'outcome' / 'execution' in a given way - then an adjustment can be made to counter that effect, of course that requires thinking on the feet and a lot of discipline and control. This is expected of any player playing at international level. And if it is known that adjustment can not be made (no matter what), then do not attempt the yorker at all. It is not tough for a bowler to know his strengths. E.g. if Nehra / Zak knows that they have never delivered a yorker in dew conditions in last X # of matches.. then they should not attempt it at all , esp in critical match conditions. Also - what stops them practicing the 'right' or 'better' delivery in dew conditions, when they know there is 50/50 chance to play in such conditions? I mean, are they not committed enough to got out and experiment/practice in dew conditions, until they figure out the best possible delivery options in such conditions? For all their cricket brains, experience and resources at their disposal, they should be able to figure (practice) out best possible way to bowl in a given condition. Instead of resigning to pseudo-fact that bowling is 'impossible' in dew conditions.

[Andy]

if a wet ball consistently fall "short" / "long" of a yorker length, then why not make appropriate adjustment - so that it falls on the spot more often than not. In other words - in any sport - if any known factor 'consistently' affects the 'outcome' / 'execution' in a given way - then an adjustment can be made to counter that effect, of course that requires thinking on the feet and a lot of discipline and control. This is expected of any player playing at international level. And if it is known that adjustment can not be made (no matter what), then do not attempt the yorker at all. It is not tough for a bowler to know his strengths. E.g. if Nehra / Zak knows that they have never delivered a yorker in dew conditions in last X # of matches.. then they should not attempt it at all , esp in critical match conditions. Also - what stops them practicing the 'right' or 'better' delivery in dew conditions, when they know there is 50/50 chance to play in such conditions? I mean, are they not committed enough to got out and experiment/practice in dew conditions, until they figure out the best possible delivery options in such conditions? For all their cricket brains, experience and resources at their disposal, they should be able to figure (practice) out best possible way to bowl in a given condition. Instead of resigning to pseudo-fact that bowling is 'impossible' in dew conditions.

I agree wid u. Ovrluking this limitation will bite us big time.

[champ]

oh boy .. tomo we may see lot of full tosses with pretext of bowling yorkers .. as if problems are not enough now :((

[Sachinism]

if a wet ball consistently fall "short" / "long" of a yorker length, then why not make appropriate adjustment - so that it falls on the spot more often than not. In other words - in any sport - if any known factor 'consistently' affects the 'outcome' / 'execution' in a given way - then an adjustment can be made to counter that effect, of course that requires thinking on the feet and a lot of discipline and control. This is expected of any player playing at international level. And if it is known that adjustment can not be made (no matter what), then do not attempt the yorker at all. It is not tough for a bowler to know his strengths. E.g. if Nehra / Zak knows that they have never delivered a yorker in dew conditions in last X # of matches.. then they should not attempt it at all , esp in critical match conditions. Also - what stops them practicing the 'right' or 'better' delivery in dew conditions, when they know there is 50/50 chance to play in such conditions? I mean, are they not committed enough to got out and experiment/practice in dew conditions, until they figure out the best possible delivery options in such conditions? For all their cricket brains, experience and resources at their disposal, they should be able to figure (practice) out best possible way to bowl in a given condition. Instead of resigning to pseudo-fact that bowling is 'impossible' in dew conditions.

So we work out which way the ball is going to slip out and then make the required adjustment?

[akshayxyz]

So we work out which way the ball is going to slip out and then make the required adjustment?

As I said - adjustment is possible if certain factor affects the outcome in a consistent way. e.g. if it slips 75% longer than short (or other ways).. then adjustment can be made. as for whether it slips long more often than short or other ways - you can only know if you have practiced it out. Whether "slippage" is completely random or not - you can only be confident if you have tried that in practice. Other stuff they can try figuring out is - whether its less costly to bowl "uncontrollable" yorkers than to bowl "uncontrollable" leg-spin ( just an example). The bottom line is - when there is a known limitation, with time and effort you can always find a better approach to take. and until you figure that out - do not attempt the yorker at all. and just play to the then-possible strengths.

[Sachinism]

I live in England, a lot of the times when we have matches we see rain and let me tell you its extremely hard to grip the ball, When you hear people says 'its like a bar of soap' that is no exaggeration, it really is that slippery

[akshayxyz]

in other words - when they know there is going to be time when they might have to bowl in dew - - is "attempted yorker", which is going to fail more often than not, the best possible option? - has anyone been practicing change in grip or some change that can give slight improvement in control in dew conditions? - put extra effort in batting when you are going to bowl in dew. - no need to play, just toss the coin and decide the winner. - walk off the field saying its dangerous to play if "dew" limitation has been proven to have no solution and "toss" is going to be more critical than team's skills, then knock at ICCs door and do not schedule matches in such conditions. (I think dew does not appear out of the blue) bottom line - they should stop whining about dew factor and take "some" action - that changes the situation from what it is now. Don't play in dew or play differently in dew

[akshayxyz]

I am not denying that it is tough to grip the ball, all I am saying is that there is lot of scope of change from current state as long as they are wiliing to use some grey-cells. As I said before - if its proven disadvantage, do not schedule a match in dew conditions.

[Fontaine]

Maybe if our worthless fielders actually held onto the catches and didn't misfield very five overs the bowlers would actually bowl with more confidence? India is averaging 3 drops a game plus 3/4 misfields. With that kind of trash any bowling attack is going to suffer. The bowling, especially with the new ball and at the death needs to improve but our bowling could improve three fold and it won't matter when they drop 3/4 catches a game.

[asterix]

I fear that everybody will be laughing at us today/tonight because of Lottery bowlers like Zak and Nehra and pathetic fieilding against Bangladesh..

[EnterTheVoid]

Indian bowlers and fielders, well done, you guys are a phucking embarassment.

[The Dark Horse]

Truth be told poyss were better in this area.

[Andy]

Few worrying Factors bowling, fielding, fitness and other!! What has happened to Veeru?? He plays a big innings once in a blue moon and then goes missing for the rest of series [scoring 30s/40s have been mentioned as goes missing here]!! We are dropping sitters now, when every bowlers are bowling poorly, Y not we select bowlers on the basis of decent fiielding?? Coz we all knw we have to chase 300 everytime we go out to bat!! And we must praise our batting line up, IMO its the best Batting line up in the world currently!! We are regularly scoring over 300 or more!! Chasing sucessfully more dan 300!! But the real concern is, if our batsmen have one Off day in an Imp match, can our bowlers win it for us?? NO IMO!!

[I_India]

Team fitness going south? Our players seem to be tucking in to too many paranthas and gulab jamuns. What is going on? Zaheer, Yuvraj, Turbanator all seem to look bloated. Don't we have a fitness coach that keeps then in line? Even baby Raina is starting to look chubby. When are they going to put the pro into being professional?

[ESPN]

Dhoni unimpressed despite win Dhoni unimpressed despite win India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni asked for massive improvements from his players after another woeful performance in the field. He has asked for improvement despite India's six-wicket victory over Bangladesh in the triangular series in Dhaka. Dhoni hundred sees India home Bangladesh, who made the surprising decision to bat first despite dew, amassed 296 for six, their highest ever total in a one-day international against a Test playing nation. But Dhoni hit an unbeaten 101 and was well supported by Virat Kohli (91) and Suresh Raina (51 not out) as he guided India to victory with 15 deliveries to spare. India were ragged in the field as catches were put down and easy runs given away through wides and no-balls. "If we want to be the number one team in the world, you need to perform consistently well with both bat and ball," Dhoni said. "At the moment, we are winning matches on the strength of our batting, but we need to do better with the new ball and with our bowling at the death. "Yuvraj Singh was our best bowler today and that's something you don't want to see although it's nice that Yuvraj is contributing. "You would want your best bowlers to deliver." "We need to improve by at least 50%" Dhoni indicated his players were a long way from being a decent fielding side. "It's not just a question of lifting our game by a few notches," he said. "I would say we need to improve by at least 50% and that's going to be tough for the players, but that's what international cricket is all about." Dhoni said he had been under pressure at the start of his innings, but with the others batting around him, his task was made easy. "When you bat at number five and if your team is chasing, more often than not you will be under some sort of pressure," he said. "More often than not Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh fire at the top of the order so usually there isn't much batting for the number five. "This was one of those games where they didn't click, but I was very well supported by Kohli and Raina and with a powerplay in hand we were never really under any pressure." Shakib justifies decision to bat first Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan said the decision to bat first was to avoid chasing a massive total. "We knew there would be dew, but we also knew we could not chase 350 or more than that which India would certainly have got," he said. "This is a very good batting track, so we had to bat first. We got runs throughout our innings which was a huge plus. "We thought we had a chance with those early wickets, but then they built good partnerships and took the game away from us. "Overall, I'm pleased with the effort and hopefully we can bowl better in the next games."